---
title: "Site customisation quick-start guide"
slug: "getting-started-with-site-customisation"
updated: 2025-07-22T10:52:18Z
published: 2025-07-22T11:18:01Z
canonical: "totara.help/getting-started-with-site-customisation"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://totara.help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Site customisation quick-start guide

## Localising your site

If you have users across the world, or even just users who speak languages other than your site's default language, you may want to localise your site.

You can set a default location (including timezone) for your site and enable multiple languages via language packs.

By exploring these settings, you can give your users the flexibility to use your site in their native language, significantly improving the user experience.

### Useful pages

- [Check locale compatibility](/19/docs/check-locale-compatibility)
- [Location settings](/19/docs/location-settings)
- [Check user timezones](/19/docs/check-user-timezones)
- [Install a language pack](/19/docs/install-a-language-pack)
- [Language settings](/19/docs/language-settings)
- [Change a word or phrase](/19/docs/change-a-word-or-phrase)
- [Language filter strings](/19/docs/language-filter-strings)
- [Using multiple languages](/19/docs/using-multiple-languages)

## Customising your personal experience

Everyone with an account, regardless of their roles, can configure their personal user preferences and set-up their user profile to improve their experience on the site.

Users can change things such as their preferred language, how they receive notifications and messages, as well as some basic security settings such as passwords and security keys.

### Useful pages

- [User preferences](/19/docs/user-preferences)
- [User profile](/19/docs/user-profile)

## Customising your site's appearance

You can customise your site's appearance to reflect the needs of your organisation by editing the theme, adding blocks, and customising the [front page](/19/docs/what-is-a-front-page).

This section also looks at how you can utilise dashboards to create custom experience for different groups of users (such as dashboard for all first aiders).

### Useful links

- [Themes](/19/docs/themes)
- [What are blocks?](/19/docs/what-are-blocks)
- [What is a front page?](/19/docs/what-is-a-front-page)
- [What is a dashboard?](/19/docs/what-is-a-dashboard)

## Site navigation

This section gives an overview of the different navigation tools you can configure and use in Totara, including the [quick-access menu](/19/docs/what-is-the-quick-access-menu) and [main menu](/19/docs/what-is-the-main-menu).

You can also [create user tours](/19/docs/add-a-user-tour) to guide others through your site, which is especially useful for first time visitors.

See more on [site navigation](/19/docs/site-navigation) page.

## Extending your site

Totara contains a lot of powerful functionality as standard, but you may want to extend your site by adding additional features, such as [plugins](/19/docs/what-are-plugins).

There are also a number of [configurable features](/19/docs/configure-features) and [experimental features](/19/docs/experimental-features) built into Totara, which can be turned on and off by Site Administrators.

Additionally, you can now make your site accessible and optimised on smartphones using the [Totara Mobile](/19/docs/what-is-totara-mobile) app.

## Totara Community

Join the conversation about [Personalisation](https://totara.community/container/type/workspace/workspace.php?id=537) on the Totara Community.

Our website has even more information about the [customisable experience of Totara](https://www.totaralearning.com/totara-feature/personalization).

Join the [Totara Community](https://totara.community/) for more resources to help you get the most out of Totara.

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