What is the catalogue?

Users can access the catalogue by clicking Explore in the main menu (/totara/catalog/index.php). The catalogue allows users to browse, search and filter for courses, programs, certifications, resources, playlists and workspaces available within the system.

Each item in the catalogue is represented by a tile. By default each tile contains the full name of the item and an image. 

Course, program, certification, resource and workspace images can be uploaded within their respective general settings page. If an image has not been set for a particular item, the default course, program, certification, resource, playlist or workspace image will be used based on the theme you are using. To view more information on an item, click on the image or title.

Only those items visible to an individual will be displayed within the catalogue. You can limit the visibility of learning items to certain individuals with audiences and roles.

Catalogue display options

The catalogue can be displayed differently to users depending on your selection:

• Explore (default)

• Grid

• Report (legacy, previously known as the Enhanced catalogue)

• Category (legacy)

To change the display for your catalogue, go to Quick-access menu > Configure features (/totara/catalog/config.php) and select the desired option from the Catalogue default view setting. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Totara, you will need to select the Explore catalogue manually.

Using the Explore catalogue

The Explore catalogue is the default catalogue for Totara 19 onwards. This catalogue provides a simple, modern user interface, with powerful search and filtering functionality, along with the ability to curate suggested learning items using blocks. The configurable settings are the same as the Grid catalogue option, allowing you to easily switch to the Explore catalogue.

Featured learning is highlighted with a star icon ().

Search, filters and sorting

The Explore catalogue displays the search bar and available filters in a unified panel. Users can search the catalogue using the search bar, select a specific category, and apply various filters.

You can add additional filters to the Filters panel by configuring the catalogue.

After entering a search query or filtering the catalogue, you can share the results with another user by clicking the link button (). This allows you to copy the link to the catalogue as you're currently viewing it, with your filters and search queries applied. However, note that other users who you share this URL with may not see the same catalogue items as you due to differences in visibility and permissions.

The Explore catalogue can also be sorted and displayed in variety of ways:

• By Relevance to the entered search terms

• By the most recently added items (Latest)

• With Featured learning items listed first (where Featured learning has been enabled)

• In Alphabetical order (only available if using one language)

Top and bottom block areas

You can add more catalogue blocks to curate the learning that will appear to users before they enter a search term. When the user applies filters or adds a search term, the blocks in the bottom block area will be hidden. If the default block is removed (and no other blocks have been added), the catalogue will instead show all catalogue items.

Using the Grid catalogue

The Grid catalogue is enabled by default within all new installations of Totara 12 to 18.

Browse menu

Users can browse the catalogue by scrolling down the page and using Load More to display additional content items.

By default, users can also browse items belonging to a specific Category or subcategory. Other browsing options are available within the catalogue, and can be set by a Site Administrator via Quick-access menu > Courses and categories > Configure catalogue (/totara/catalog/config.php) or via the Configure catalogue button.

When multitenancy and tenant isolation are enabled users will only be able to see catalogue content from their own tenant.

Sort by

The catalogue can also be sorted and displayed in variety of ways:

• In Alphabetical order (only available if using one language)

• By the most recently added items (Latest)

• With Featured Learning items listed first (where Featured Learning has been enabled)

• By Relevance (available after a text search term has been entered)

Display options

By default, the catalogue can be shown in Tile view or List view. Display options can be defined by a Site Administrator via the quick-access menu under Courses > Configure catalogue > General (/totara/catalog/config.php?tab=general).

Search

Users can also search for items using the Search bar. Only those items available to the user will be displayed. 

The search functionality will return matching results from any course, program, certification and resource text field that is visible to all users such as item name, summary and text-based custom fields.

You can also search for just part of a word using the partial search functionality. This enables you to search for multiple similar search terms. To do this, replace the end of a search term with an asterisk. For example, if a user were to search for 'organis*', the search results would include terms such as 'organisation', 'organised', 'organisational' and more.

Catalogue search and recommendation features

Several enhancements have been introduced to improve the catalogue’s search capabilities, accuracy of results, and personalised recommendations.

Smarter partial word matching

The catalogue search now handles partial word matching more intelligently. Users will no longer see No available learning matches your search simply because they entered part of a word.

FTS fallback search option

The FTS fallback search setting provides greater control over how partial matches are handled. The setting configures whether a fallback query should be run against the index for partial word matching.

Note: This may have a performance impact on large sites, but may support in finding more results.

To access the FTS fallback search setting:

1. Navigate to the Explore catalogue.

2. Select the three dots () and select Configure catalogue.

3. Click on the General tab, then select your option from the FTS fallback search setting dropdown menu:

   • Never: Only exact word matches are returned.

   • Always: Partial word matching is always applied. (May impact performance on very large catalogues.)

   • Only when no results found: The system retries the search using partial matching if no exact matches are found.

Enhanced wildcard search

Wildcard search behaviour (adding a Asterix) has been expanded, allowing wildcards anywhere within a word. Previously, wildcards could only be used at the end (e.g. train*→ training, trainer). Now, searches like the following are supported:

Note: Wildcard search within words requires FTS fallback search to be set to Always.

Spell check suggestions

Spell check functionality has been added to help improve search accuracy.

This setting lets you select which suggester to use (only configured plugins are available).

Note: Totara can use the PSpell PHP extension to provide spelling suggestions in search.

This extension is not included by default in most PHP installations, so it may need to be manually installed by a technical server administrator. This is typically a quick process using standard package management commands.

When you access the General tab in the Configure catalogue settings in Totara, the system checks if the PSpell extension is available on the server. If it is, you’ll see an option to select it as a suggester. If it’s not installed, the option won’t appear.

You can review the Public Developer documentation for more information on configuring the suggester.

To access the Suggested search plugin setting when the PHP extension is installed:

1. Navigate the Explore catalogue.

2. Select the three dots () and select Configure catalogue.

3. Click on the General tab, here you will find the Suggested search plugin setting, use the dropdown menu to select the suggester to use i.e. PSpell

How it works:

• The system detects possible spelling errors when a search is submitted.

• If an error is found, a correction appears below the search bar, for example:

  • User types: mangement

    Suggestion: Did you mean "management"?

  • User types: communecation

    Suggestion: Did you mean "communication"?

  • User types: certifacation

    Suggestion: Did you mean "certification"?

• Users can click the suggestion to re-run the search with the corrected term.

• The original search still runs even when a suggestion is displayed.

Additional notes:

• Suggestions are based on spelling similarity.

• Suggestions are not displayed in the mobile front-end but are supported in the mobile API.

AI-powered recommendations in the catalogue

The catalogue now integrates directly with Totara’s AI-powered recommendation engine to deliver more personalised learning suggestions via the Recommended learning block. The Recommended for you block now includes programs and certifications available for self-enrolment (requires the Recommendation engine to be configured.)

Within content block, smart, curated learning offers personalised recommendations—highlighting popular, related, and recently viewed items—based on your interaction history, making it easier to discover relevant learning content.

Share link

Users can share their current view of the catalogue using the Share button. A unique link is generated and may be sent to other users of the site.

People who you share this URL with may not see the same catalogue items as you due to differences in visibility and permissions.

Top and bottom block areas

When using the Grid-based catalogue you can add blocks to the top and bottom block areas. These appear above and below the catalogue respectively. If you are using the Grid-based catalogue as your site's home page you can use these areas to display important information or useful links.

Explore content marketplace

When viewing the catalogue as a Site Administrator or Course Creator, and where a content marketplace has been enabled, a link to Explore Content Marketplace is provided.

Creating items

When viewing the catalogue as a Site Administrator or a user with the capability to create new catalogue items, a Create new option is available to add new courses, programs, certifications, resources, playlists and workspaces (depending on the user's capabilities and the products installed) to the site.

To create a new item in the catalogue, follow these steps:

1. Select Explore from the main menu.

2. Click Create new in the top-right corner.

3. Select the type of content you wish to create.

4. Follow the steps for creating that content type:

   • Create a course

   • Create a resource

   • Create a certification

   • Create a playlist

   • Create a program

   • Create a workspace

How is the catalogue populated?

Totara Learn

Catalogue entries for courses, programs, certifications, resources and playlists are kept up to date automatically by Totara Learn. When a user changes data relating to learning items, catalogue data is either updated immediately, or else marked as needing to be updated as soon as possible by scheduling a new ad hoc task. Ad hoc tasks are created by Totara Learn as needed and run as soon as possible on the next cron run. Whether the update is immediate, or scheduled as an ad hoc task, usually depends on whether the change affects just one learning item or multiple. For example, changing the full name of a course will cause the catalogue data to immediately be updated, while changing the default value of a course custom field will cause an ad hoc task to be scheduled which will update the catalogue data of all affected courses.

In addition to this, there is a scheduled task that runs once a day by default, refreshing the data in the catalogue to ensure that it is up to date. This scheduled task is a backup process that is designed to catch any changes to data that did not lead to an immediate or ad hoc update. All standard functionality within Totara Learn is designed to make the catalogue up to date as soon as possible. It is possible that some customisations or third-party plugins may need to be updated before they also do this, and the daily scheduled task ensures that the catalogue will be updated at least once per day in this case.

Changing the catalogue type

When the Catalogue type setting is changed from Report or Category to Grid or Explore, an ad hoc task is scheduled which will populate the catalogue data when cron is next run. Until the task has run, the catalogue will be empty.

Other actions affecting catalogue data

There are several other actions within Totara which can affect catalogue data, which include, but are not limited to:

• When the catalogue is set to Report or Category, all learning items are removed immediately

• When a feature is turned on (such as programs in Advanced settings), an ad hoc task is scheduled to populate the catalogue with related learning items

• When a feature is turned off, related learning items are removed immediately

• When a learning type is enabled in the catalogue (in the Contents tab in catalogue configuration), an ad hoc task is scheduled to populate the catalogue with related learning items

• When a learning type is disabled in the catalogue, related learning items are removed immediately

• When tags are turned off or on (in Advanced settings), an ad hoc task is scheduled to refresh the catalogue data of all learning items

• When tags are turned off or on for a learning type (under Appearance > Manage tags), an ad hoc task is scheduled to refresh the catalogue data of the related learning items

Sorting when multiple languages are enabled

When multiple languages are installed, the sorting dropdown in the catalogue is removed. Instead, sorting is automatically managed, depending on the status of the catalogue. In order of precedence (highest first):

• If the text search is active then sorting is by relevance

• If Featured learning is configured then featured items will be sorted first, and the secondary sorting is by latest first (the latest featured item will appear first in the results, and the latest non-featured item will appear just after all the featured items)

• Otherwise, sorting is by latest first

The dropdown/alphabetical sorting box can be re-enabled by setting the catalog_enable_alpha_sorting_with_multiple_languages config variable - see config-dist.php for details.