---
title: "What are recommendations?"
slug: "what-are-recommendations"
tags: ["Explainer", "Totara Engage", "Site Administrator"]
updated: 2025-07-22T10:52:18Z
published: 2025-07-22T11:18:53Z
canonical: "totara.help/what-are-recommendations"
---

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

# What are recommendations?

Totara's recommendations engine allows users to find both formal learning content (e.g. courses) and informal content (e.g. resources or playlists).

The recommendations shown to users will be limited in a number of important ways to ensure that they are relevant:

- Users will be shown recommendations for content in languages they speak
- Content that users have already seen or courses they are enrolled on will be ranked lower than undiscovered content
- Workspaces a user has already joined will be excluded

Find out more about how the recommendation engine's text processing works in the [technical documentation](https://help.totaralearning.com/display/DEV/Recommendations+text+processing).In Totara 15 onwards, recommendations run in the [Machine Learning Service](https://help.totaralearning.com/display/DEV/Machine+Learning+Service). If you were using the recommendations engine in Totara 14 or earlier you will need to upgrade from the [legacy recommender](https://help.totaralearning.com/display/DEV/Recommender+installation+and+configuration). Please note that the legacy **ml_recommender** service is now deprecated as of Totara 17.

## Related content

When viewing user-generated content or workspaces, users will be able to access a side information panel showing additional details about the content.

Within this panel, users can click the **Related** tab to see a list of similar content. The following content will be displayed in this tab for each type of content:

- **Resources:** The **Related** tab displays similar resources with the resource image, title, time to read, and number of likes
- **Playlists:** The **Related** tab displays similar playlists with the playlist image, title, playlist creator, and rating

## Recommendations blocks

There are two [blocks](/19/docs/what-are-blocks) which can be used to display recommendations, both of which can be added to various [dashboards](/19/docs/what-is-a-dashboard) or the [user profile](/19/docs/user-profile).

You can add the [**Recommended for you** block](/19/docs/add-the-recommended-for-you-block) and the [**Recently viewed** block](/19/docs/add-the-recently-viewed-block).

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

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