Add an external tool to a course

The external tool activity in Totara lets you incorporate content from external LTI tool providers. LTI stands for Learning Tools Interoperability, which is a standard for developing and integrating external learning applications with a learning platform such as Totara. Using LTI, external learning applications can receive data from and send data to your Totara site. Course Creators can add an external tool directly to a course. Alternatively, a Site Administrator can add one at the system level, so that Course Creators can reuse it throughout the site, which is useful for shared applications.

Totara supports LTI 1.0, LTI 1.1, LTI 1.3, LTI 2.0 and the LTI Advantage extensions, the latter of which adds:

• Names and Role Provisioning Services: Securely sends details for course participants and groups
• Deep Linking: A better way of adding links and content from an external tool
• Assignment and Grade Services: Transmits grades and comments left by a Trainer between Totara and the external tool

Enable Publish as LTI tool

As a Site Administrator you must first enable the Publish as LTI tool feature at the site level:

1. Navigate to Quick-access menu > Plugins > Authentication > Manage authentication and enable LTI (Experimental) by clicking the icon of a crossed-out eye ().
2. Navigate to Quick-access menu > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins and enable Publish as LTI tool by clicking the icon of a crossed-out eye ().

Add an external tool to a course

To add an external tool to a course page, follow these steps:

1. Click Turn editing on.
2. Click Add an activity or resource.
3. Select External tool, then click Add.
4. Enter the activity name.
5. Customise the available settings.
6. Click Save and display (or Save and return to course).

Link via content selection (deep linking)

Trainers can select published courses and activities from the tool site (where the content is published) by following these steps:

1. Log in to the tool site and the Totara platform site in different browser tabs.
2. On the platform site, navigate to the course to which you want to add content from the tool site.
3. Click Turn editing on.
4. Click Add an activity or resource.
5. Select External tool, then click Add.
6. Click Select content.
7. When prompted, link your account.
8. Select from a list of activities and courses to which you have access (optionally choosing to add line items to the platform gradebook).
9. Click Add content.
10. Click Save and display.

Manual link creation

Users without accounts on the tool site (where the content is published) will need to manually configure the activity link in the Totara platform via the following process:

1. In Totara, navigate to the course to which you want to add content from the tool site.
2. Click Turn editing on.
3. Click Add an activity or resource.
4. Select External tool, then click Add.
5. In the General section, click Show more.
6. Enter the published course or activity's Launch URL into the Tool URL field.
7. Enter the published course or activity's Custom properties into the Custom parameters field.
8. Click Save and display.

Next steps

• Add an external tool at site level
• Manage external tools
• External tool activity settings