Assigning audiences (assessors) as raters

Site Administrators can assign one or more audiences as raters within a manual rating achievement path for a skill. This allows broader participation in assessing learner skills, beyond traditional roles such as managers or appraisers.

Any member of the selected audience will be able to rate assigned users' skills via the Rate skills dashboard.

• Multiple audiences can be assigned as raters for a single skill.

• Only system-level audiences can be selected. Audiences limited to specific contexts (e.g., category or tenant) cannot be used.

Assigning assessors to a manual rating

To assign assessors (audiences) to an achievement path:

1. Navigate to Quick-access menu > Skills (totara/competency/assignments/index.php).

2. Click the name of the skill framework containing the skill for which you wish to set an achievement path.

3. When the framework loads, click the name of the skill for which you want to set the path.

4. Click the pencil icon ( ) next to the Achievement paths section.

5. From the Add achievement path dropdown menu, select Manual rating.

6. Click Apply changes.

Once you have added a Manual rating achievement path, you can add assessors as raters.

1. From the Manual rating section, click Add raters.

2. From the Select raters popup, choose Assessors, then click Save changes.

3. Within the Manual rating section, under Assessors, click Add audience.

4. Select the audience(s) from the Select audiences popup and click Save changes.

You can remove a selected audience from the assessors by clicking the bin icon ( ) next to the audience.

If you select Apply changes and no audience has been added to the Assessors, a ‘No audience added’ warning is displayed under Assessors.

If an audience selected as an assessor no longer exists on the system (e.g. because it has been deleted), an ‘Audience no longer exists’ warning message will be displayed in the Manual rating section.

Role selection and visibility

If a user holds multiple roles (e.g., both manager and assessor), they will be prompted to choose which role they are using when accessing the Assess skills page.

A learner may not appear in the list if the user is viewing from the incorrect role. When both manager and assessor roles are part of the same manual rating path, the system treats the ratings as equivalent. The assessor can rate under either role with no change to the outcome.

Additional behaviour

Assessors and self-rating

• If manual self-rating is enabled for a skill, assessors can rate themselves via their own skill profile page

• Assessors will only be able to rate themselves under the Self role (not as an audience-based assessor)

Assessors assigned the same skill

• If an assessor is also assigned the skill (e.g. through a learning plan or job assignment), they will not see themselves listed in the Rate users page

Assessors rating assessors

• There are no restrictions preventing assessors from rating other assessors

Note that when using dynamic audiences as assessor groups, membership updates may not be immediate. When a user no longer meets the dynamic audience ruleset, it can take up to an hour for their removal to be processed. This delay is caused by scheduled cron jobs and is not specific to skill features.