Configure insights

Totara Skills insights use configurable thresholds to highlight important trends and gaps in workforce capability based on the positions and skills important to the organisation. These thresholds determine when specific insights, such as low coverage or critical skills gaps, are highlighted in reports.

Site Administrators can adjust these thresholds to fine-tune when and how insights appear, allowing the organisation to align insight sensitivity with its own performance and readiness standards.

Configure position and skills insights

To configure the position and skills insights settings, follow these steps:

Navigate to Quick-access menu > Plugins (/admin/plugins.php).
Under Local plugins, select Totara Skills, then open the Totara Skills Insights section.
Configure the position and skill insight settings as required.
Click Save changes.

Position insight settings

The following settings can be configured for position insights.

Setting	Description	Notes
Position lowest-performing users	Defines what percentage of users are considered the lowest-performing when generating the Position time to readiness insight. The system uses this group to calculate the insight and displays the shortest time to readiness within it.	Default: 25
Position candidates assigned skills threshold	Defines the minimum percentage of skills assigned to a position that must also be assigned to a user for that user to be recommended as a candidate.	Default: 25
Position low coverage threshold	Defines the percentage threshold below which the Low coverage insight is displayed, based on the percentage of users fully proficient in all skills assigned to a position.	Default: 20
Position high coverage threshold	Defines the percentage threshold above which the High coverage insight is displayed, based on the percentage of users fully proficient in all skills assigned to a position.	Default: 90
Position critical skills coverage threshold	Defines the threshold below which the Critical skills coverage insight is displayed, based on the number of users fully proficient in all critical skills assigned to a position.	Default: 2
Position critical skills gap threshold	Defines the threshold above which the Critical skills gap insight is displayed, based on the number of critical skills with no proficient users.	Default: 0

Skill insight settings

The following settings can be configured for skills insights.

Setting	Description	Notes
Skill lowest-performing users	Defines what percentage of users are considered the lowest-performing when generating the Skill time to readiness insight. The system uses this group to calculate the insight and displays the shortest time to readiness within it.	Default: 25
Skill low coverage threshold	Defines the percentage threshold below which the Low coverage insight is displayed, based on the percentage of users proficient in the skill.	Default: 20
Skill high coverage threshold	Defines the percentage threshold above which the High coverage insight is displayed, based on the percentage of users proficient in the skill.	Default: 90
Skill single point of failure threshold	Defines the threshold below which the Single point of failure insight is displayed, based on the number of users proficient in a skill.	Default: 2

Configure insights cron

The insights cron controls how the scheduled background tasks that calculate position and skill insights are processed. These settings determine batch sizes, runtime limits, and diagnostic thresholds used when the system generates insight data.

To configure the cron settings for both position and skill insights, follow these steps:

Navigate to Quick-access menu > Plugins (/admin/plugins.php).
Under Local plugins, select Totara Skills, then open the Totara Skills Insights Cron section.
Configure the position and skill cron settings as required.
Click Save changes.

These settings affect the performance and processing time of the insights cron tasks rather than the content of the insights themselves.

Position cron settings

The following position insights cron settings can be configured.

Setting	Description	Notes
Position time limit	Defines the maximum runtime, in seconds, for position insight cron tasks. Use 0 for no time limit.	Default: 600
Position batch size	Defines the number of positions processed in one batch by position insight cron tasks.	Default: 500
Slow position threshold (seconds)	Defines the threshold, in seconds, used to log slow position processing diagnostics.	Default: 30
Position insert batch size	Defines the number of position insight rows inserted per write batch.	Default: 10
Position skills insert batch size	Defines the number of position-skill insight rows inserted per write batch.	Default: 100
Position distribution insert batch size	Defines the number of position distribution insight rows inserted per write batch.	Default: 100
Position users insert batch size	Defines the number of position-user insight rows inserted per write batch.	Default: 100

Skill cron settings

The following skills insights cron settings can be configured.

Setting	Description	Notes
Skill time limit	Defines the maximum runtime, in seconds, for skill insight cron tasks. Use 0 for no time limit.	Default: 600
Skill batch size	Defines the number of skills processed in one batch by skill insight cron tasks.	Default: 500
Slow skill threshold (seconds)	Defines the threshold, in seconds, used to log slow skill processing diagnostics.	Default: 30
Skill distribution insert batch size	Defines the number of skill distribution insight rows inserted per write batch.	Default: 100
Skill employees insert batch size	Defines the number of skill-employee insight rows inserted per write batch.	Default: 100
Skill positions insert batch size	Defines the number of skill-position insight rows inserted per write batch.	Default: 100

Join the Totara Community for more resources to help you get the most out of Totara.