Available blocks
  • 05 Jul 2023
  • 10 minutes to read

Available blocks


Article summary

There are a number of blocks available in Totara, some of which are standalone (such as the HTML or Featured links blocks) and some that work with other Totara content (such as the Quiz results or Current Learning blocks).

Block
Description
Notes

Activities

The Activities block lists and allows navigation between the different activities available in a course.

This is helpful for learners wishing to view all instances of a particular activity type, such as forums or assignments.

Activity results

This block displays results from graded or rated activities in a course. You can then choose to display a number of highest or lowest scores, and whether to display individuals or groups.

Please see Activity results block for more information.

Admin bookmarks

This block allows an administrator to bookmark site admin pages for easy access. These include the Notifications and Add/Edit courses pages. The administrator will then see the pages as a list of links.

Only site admin pages can be bookmarked i.e. pages accessed via the quick-access menu.

Administration

The Administration block provides context-sensitive links to settings pages.

What appears in the Administration block depends upon the context (area being shown and user's permissions). For example, a Site Administrator on the front page will have front page settings, while an Editing Trainer in a course will have more options in course administration than a Learner.

Administration sub-navigation

Displays related administration functions when viewing an administration page.

Only visible to users with Site Administrator permissions.

Alerts

Displays a list of all system alerts related to the logged-in user.

Read alerts are dismissed automatically from the Alerts block after 30 days.

Blog menu

The blog menu block provides links to:

  • View all my entries
  • Add a new entry
  • Context-sensitive links for adding an entry about the course or a particular activity (where permitted)

The blog functionality must be enabled at the site level.

Blog tags

A Blog tags block displays a list of blogs where font size visually indicates each blog's use. The more frequently used blogs appear in a larger font size and least used in smaller fonts. This format is sometimes called a 'tag cloud'.

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Calendar

The Calendar block displays the following events:

  • Site (event visible in all courses, created by admin users)
  • Course (event visible only to course members, created by Trainers)
  • Groups (event visible only by members of a group, created by Trainers)
  • User (personal event a user can create, visible only by the user)

Please see the calendar documentation for more information.

Comments

The Comments block can be added to any page to allow users to add comments.

Comments must be enabled at the site level under Configure features.

Course completion status

The Course completion status block shows what has been done towards completing the course. The Learner and Trainer will both see this block.

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Course overview

The Course overview block is visible on a user's dashboard and shows a list of all courses in which a user is enrolled/has an assigned role.

By default this block appears in the central content block on the dashboard, but can be moved to the left or right column.

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Course progress report

This block will generate a personalised list of courses a learner is enrolled in. Available as the My Current Courses block.

The block_course_progress_report plugin was removed in Totara 13.

Course search

A search block for course titles and summaries.

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Course/site summary

The Course/site summary block provides a summary and/or description for a course as contained in the summary text of the course settings.

The site summary is set via the Front page settings.

Courses

The Courses block lists and allows navigation between all of the courses in which the logged-in user is enrolled. The block title shows as 'My courses' and allows one-click access to a course's home page.

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Courses and categories

A block with configurable display options to list courses, categories or a combination list.

Please see Front page settings for more information on this block.

The block_frontpage_combolist plugin has been removed in Totara 13.

Current Learning

Displays a link to courses and the progress for the user's courses they are currently enrolled in and haven't completed. Warning and alert periods are able to be defined to flag when each course reaches the defined period before the course due date.

Please see the Current learning block documentation for more information.

Dashboards

Provides a way to navigate between dashboards.

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Featured Links

A graphical navigation and display tool.

Please see the Featured links block documentation for more information.

Feedback

The Feedback block may be added to courses to provide a quick link to feedback activities.

A feedback activity on the site's front page will be displayed in Feedback blocks site-wide, or feedback can be mapped to specific courses.

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Flickr

The Flickr block settings allow the images that are displayed in the block to be changed based on Relevance (default), Date Posted and Date Taken.

The Flickr block can only be added to a Tags page.

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Global search

A search field which searches across all available content (at the user level).

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Google Apps

Links to Google Apps services for your domain.

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HTML

An HTML block is a standard block used to add text, multimedia, widgets, etc. to a site front page or course page.

The HTML block is a very flexible block which allows administrators and page editors the ability to create custom navigation, HTML-based APIs and graphic-based information.

Last course accessed

Displays a link to the last course the user accessed alongside the course progress bar.

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Latest announcements

Recent posts made in the Site Announcements forum are displayed in the Latest announcements block, along with a link to older archived news.

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Latest badges

The Latest badges block can be added to the site front page, a user's home page or a course page, and will display badges earned.

Please see the badges documentation for more information.

Learning plan

Allows users to add the current course to one of their learning plans.

Please see the learning plans documentation for more information.

Logged in user

The Logged in user block displays certain information about the user who is currently logged into a course.

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Login

The Login block provides logged-out users an in-site area to enter their username and password and login, create a new account, or retrieve/reset their password.

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Main menu

The Main menu block can be used to add resources and activities to the front page.

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Mentees

The Mentees block is a front page block that provides mentors with quick access to their mentees' profile page(s).

Mentees include all the users you have a direct assignment to, meaning that managers will see their direct reports.

The block_mentees plugin has now been deprecated as of Totara 13.

My learning

Provides a link to all courses a user is enrolled in.

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Navigation

The Navigation block appears on every page of the site. It contains an expanding tree menu which includes dashboard, site pages, and courses. What appears in the navigation block depends on the role of the user, where they are in the site, and any settings that have been applied globally.

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Network servers

The Network servers block allows users to roam to other Totara, Moodle, or Mahara servers. Works in conjunction with the Can roam to remote application via MNet permission which allows a user to roam to another site which is connected via MNet. The MNet feature allows an administrator to establish a link with another MNet-enabled site, and to share some resources with the users of that other site.

A number of plugins related to MNet functionality have been deprecated in Totara 13, including MNET authentication, MNET remote enrolments, MNET Networking, and Mahara ePortfolio.

Online users

The Online users block shows a list of users who have been logged in to the current course. The list is updated on a regular basis (the default is every five minutes but this may be changed).

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People

The People block contains a link to the list of participants associated with a course area in various roles.

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Private files

The Private files block enables access to a user's private files area.

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Program completions

The Program completions block lists one or more selected programs and the user's completion status for each.

Please see the Programs completions block page for more information.

Quick links

Provides quick links to Totara home, reports, and courses.

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Random glossary entry

The Random glossary entry block can be used to display random entries from a glossary, which usually take the form of dictionary-style definitions.

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Recent activity

The Recent activity block lists course activity, such as updated resources and activities, forum posts and assignment submissions, since the user last accessed the course.

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Recent blog entries

This block can be configured to display the last N blog entries, filtered by context. For example, if you are viewing an assignment activity, this block would display the last N blog entries that are associated with that assignment.

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Recent learning

Provides a link to a recent course the user has been working on.

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Recently viewed

The Recently viewed block shows the user's recently viewed and visited content, such as courses, programs, certifications, resources, surveys, playlists and workspaces.

Find out more about the recommendations engine and using these blocks in the recommendations documentation.

Recommended for you

The Recommended for you block displays a range of Totara Learn and Totara Engage content (such as courses, resources and playlists) using the recommendations engine. The block can show four types of recommendations:

  • Trending: The most viewed resources, surveys, playlists or workspaces over a specified period (the last 24 hours by default)
  • Micro-learning: Resources with a time to read of less than five minutes
  • Courses: Courses recommended to the user
  • Workspaces: Workspaces recommended to the user

Please see the Recommended for you block page for more information.

Find out more about the recommendations engine and using these blocks in the recommendations documentation.

Remote RSS feeds

The RSS feeds block enables RSS feeds from external websites to be displayed within Totara. As the information on the other site (for example, news headlines or recently added documents) is changed the block will update to show the latest information.

RSS feeds must be enabled via Configure features.

Report graph

This block can be added to pages to display the graph from a report. It can be used to build graphical dashboards.

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Report manager

Provides access to a list of reports to which a user has access.

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Report table

This block can be added to pages to display the tabular data from a report.

Please see the Report table block page for more information.

Search forums

The Search forums block allows you to search the course forums for a word or phrase. Type the word or phrase you want to find in the text field space.

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Section links

The Section links block helps the Learner or Trainer to quickly navigate to a particular topic/week section of the course (depending on whether the course uses either the Topics or Weekly format). The numbered links displayed within the block are the numbers assigned to the course topic/week sections.

Please see Section links block for more information.

Self completion

The Self completion block provides a link for Learners to declare that they have completed the course. This may be part of the course completion requirements.

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Social activities

This block enables additional activities to be added to a course using the social format. Note that it is not available for other course formats.

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Statistics

Provides statistics and information on what the user's staff have been doing in Totara.

Please see Statistics block for more information.

Tags

A very effective way of viewing all tags is in a Tags block, or 'tag cloud'.

Tags allow Learners and Trainers to describe their interests in a way that is easy for people with similar interests to find them. The user's profile has a place to enter interests, which will create or add the user to an existing tag. Tag pages can be viewed and blog posts can be tagged.

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Tasks

Provides a list of system tasks that require action.

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Team

Displays a link to the My team report and the number of staff that the user manages.

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Totara Community

This block appears by default for Site Administrators on all new installations of Totara. It links you through to the Totara Community where you can access help and support.

The Community block can be removed if no longer wanted.


Upcoming certifications

Displays any upcoming certification work a learner has been assigned.

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Upcoming events

The Upcoming events block displays future events in a summarised list. Events are generated directly from the calendar and/or activity deadlines, providing a link to full details or directly to the activity.

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User profile

You can add this block to the Default profile page to display important information from the user's profile.

Please see the User profile documentation for more information on configuring this block.

YouTube

The YouTube block can only be added to a Tags page. This block will pull YouTube videos with the same tag words related to the current Tags page.

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Can't find what you're looking for? Contact us at documentation@totara.com. Alternatively, book a call to have a chat about your Totara platform with a dedicated Customer Success Manager.

© Copyright 2024 Totara Learning Solutions. All rights reserved. Some content originally obtained via GPLv3 license and continues to be available under GPLv3. All other content is the sole copyright of Totara Learning Solutions. 

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