What's new?
  • 29 Jan 2025
  • 5 minutes to read

What's new?


Article summary

There are a number of improvements and new features for Totara 19.


Totara Learn

Totara Engage features added to Totara Learn

Totara Learn has been enhanced with all of the functionality that was previously available in Totara Engage, such as workspaces, libraries, user-generated content, recommendations, and more.

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Inspire theme

We have introduced a new theme called Inspire. This theme has a lot of similarities with the Ventura theme, but modernises Totara's user interface, with the main menu displayed down the left-hand side of the screen. Users can collapse the menu so that only the icons will be displayed.

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Course enrolment approval workflows

Totara 19 introduces a new type of approval workflow, which allows users to request to be enrolled on courses, and other users to approve or reject the request. As with other approval workflows, you can configure multiple stages with different approvers based on your internal processes.

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Improved catalogue view

Totara 19 introduces the Explore catalogue, which offers a sleek, modern user interface. Search and filtering functionality is unified in one place, and you can now curate different types of learning using catalogue blocks.

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Catalogue block

The new catalogue block allows you to display a prefiltered view of the catalogue on other pages or dashboards, and curate content in the catalogue itself. Users can scroll through up to 20 catalogue items, or clicking the block name will take them to the catalogue with the same filters applied.

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Workspaces in the Totara catalogue

You can now configure the Totara catalogue to include workspaces, which means users can find them alongside learning content when searching for a topic. Additionally you can now add tags when setting up a public or private workspace, helping users to discover them in the catalogue.

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Clone certifications

You can now duplicate a certification, copying its details, contents (i.e. the certification and recertification paths and course sets), and notifications. This allows you to use your existing certifications as the basis for a new certification, rather than creating every new certification from scratch. You can also set up one certification to use as a template, making it easier and faster to set up new certifications.

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Improved program and certification UI

The learner view of programs and certifications has been improved and modernised, including a new header and course cards.

AI course tag recommendations

When editing a course, you can now add tags using the AI tag recommender. This will suggest relevant tags from the available tags on your site based on the course content.

This feature is intended to serve as an example for how to develop other useful interactions using Totara's AI plugin.

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Multiple Workspace Owners

You can now add multiple users to a workspace as Workspace Owners, allowing users to share the administrative responsibilities of running a workspace. This also reduces the chance that workspaces are left without an owner.

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Calculated quiz question capability

There is a new capability which determines a user's ability to add calculated quiz questions. You can use this capability to limit Calculated, Calculated simple and Calculated multiple choice quiz questions to administrative users if required.

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Improved fixed expiry dates for certifications

The Use fixed expiry date setting in the recertification settings has been improved so that admins will no longer be required to manually update assignment due dates.

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Diagnostic tool

This new diagnostic tool can be used to create a file containing important, non-sensitive information about your site. This information can be used by the Totara Support team when investigating issues.

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Section 508 accessibility improvements

We have made a number of changes to improve Totara's compliance with the Section 508 accessibility standard.

Totara Mobile improvements

The Your learning page (the app's homepage) now displays both current learning and completed learning. Learners can access their completed learning to review the details and content.

Additionally, the URL field on the login page can now be prepopulated with the last used URL, making the authentication process more streamlined.

Users can also easily download and manage SCORM activities from the Activities tab.

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Totara Perform

Totara goal tasks and linked courses

You can now add tasks to Totara goals, breaking down each goal into simple, achievable steps. Each task can also have a course linked to it, which helps to embed learning in the goal-setting process. Users and their managers can tick off the task list as they make progress towards their goal.

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Comments on Totara goals

A new Comments tab allows users and their managers to comment on their goals in order to keep track of their progress and provide context when they update the goal. Goal comments also make use of Totara's centralised notifications functionality.

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Totara goals transition mode

We have added a new Totara goals transition mode option for the Enable goals setting in Configure features. This allows you to start using Totara goals while maintaining access to your legacy goals.

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Goal reporting

A new report source has been added to allow users to report on Totara goals and their related tasks and linked courses. This report source can be used to provide Site Administrators and managers with the data required to identify impactful learning resources and monitor goal adherence. The report includes metrics such as goal completion rates and course utilisation. 

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Manager view of team's goals

Managers can now view the goals page for each of their team members, enabling them to support their team in setting goals and monitoring their progress.

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Totara goal UI improvements

We have also made a number of improvements to the Totara goals page. This includes improved sorting and filtering, and goal cards now display the number of comments and the goal progress. Additionally the goal UI now makes it clearer when a goal task has been completed.

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Performance activity UI improvements

A new header has been added to display and configure the a performance activity's title, activity type and description. The general tab has been removed, and the other settings have been moved to other tabs. Additionally, the Content tab has been improved to make it easier to see the content in each activity section.

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Improved performance activity assignment and closure settings

There are new and improved settings controlling performance activity assignment and section and activity closure. Some settings have also been renamed for clarity. As part of these changes, it's now possible to enable manual closure of performance activities.

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New performance activity participation and response reporting capabilities

Two new capabilities have been added for participation and response reporting on performance activities: mod/perform:report_on_staff_responses and mod/perform:manage_staff_participation. These can be used if you experience performance issues with performance activity reporting.

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Join the Totara Community for more resources to help you get the most out of Totara. You can also book a call to have a chat about your Totara platform with a dedicated Customer Success Manager.


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