New Features to Take Advantage of in Totara Version 18

In December, Totara officially rolled out Version 18 and more recently, Version 18.2, with new features, product enhancements, and important API changes. Totara’s major releases happen about every 12 months, and naturally, the new versions are packed with highly anticipated improvements.

What is Totara???

Totara?is a leading talent development system, combining skills and performance development to create lasting employee success. What sets Totara apart is its incredible flexibility, thanks to its open-source design. Synegen is a proud?Platinum Alliance Partner of Totara, and our team appreciates its openness, allowing us to easily?customize?the platform to meet the unique needs of any organization. The high level of configurability also enables us to?seamlessly integrate systems, workflows, and more. This makes it easy to assist our clients in smoothly integrating learning technology into their overall organizational ecosystem.

If you've crossed paths with Totara before, then the Totara Talent Experience Platform (TXP) might ring a bell. If not, let's quickly break it down for you. The Totara Talent Experience Platform consists of:

• Totara Learn: An enterprise learning management system that helps you design, launch, and measure your learning experiences at pace, tailoring delivery to each person’s needs.?
• Totara Engage: A dynamic learning experience platform that fosters sharing, learning, and growth through a personalized and collaborative approach.
• Totara Perform: A top-notch performance management system that ensures learning drives productivity, innovation, and skills growth across your whole organization.

Put them together and you've got a pretty comprehensive suite of products that create a powerful training and development platform. Perfect for organizations and the learners they care about.?

Features to Take Advantage of

Now let’s get into the good stuff – what’s new in Version 18. We'll start with an overview of improvements to the TXP platform as a whole, followed by a closer look at the new features and enhancements introduced within each individual platform.?

Totara Talent Experience Platform

SAML SSO authentication

To streamline the login process for users, you can now use Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication. This functionality allows users to log in to Totara using existing credentials, eliminating the need for multiple usernames and passwords. SAML SSO enhances the user experience, improves security, and reduces administrative overhead for Totara administrators.

Check API and system reports

The System status report, Site performance overview report and Security overview report have all been improved with the Check API. A new CLI script allows you to configure monitoring and alerts for these three reports.

Schedule user deletion

You can now schedule when suspended user accounts will be deleted, and therefore when their data will be purged from your system. This can help you to comply with data privacy laws, such as GDPR, with less manual work for your team.

Bulk action for removing force password change flag

A new bulk action allows you to remove the Force password change flag from multiple user accounts at once.

Tenant reporting

Tenant Domain Managers and Site Administrators can create reports that are specific to a tenant, allowing these users to only see relevant data for their tenant.

Tenant isolation mode

Tenant isolation mode is no longer an experimental setting. This setting allows you to keep your tenants and their data completely separate, meaning users cannot see or interact with content from other tenants.

Configure tenant-level notifications

If you are using multi tenancy, you can now configure centralized notifications for each tenant individually. If you make changes to the notifications for a tenant, those changes will be inherited to all lower contexts within that tenant.

Multi-factor authentication for Site Administrators

You can now configure multi-factor authentication for your Site Administrator accounts, helping to keep these accounts secure.

Modern login page

We have introduced a new login screen with a modern look and feel, which will be enabled by default. You can revert to the legacy login screen if you wish.

Numerical custom fields

There are two new custom field types available as of Totara 18.2: Decimal input and Integer input. These fields can be used to add and aggregate numeric information to user profiles, courses, positions, organizations, and more.

PDF improvements

As of Totara 18.2, PDF documents will now open in a new tab when clicked. Additionally, PDF documents can be embedded in Weka content areas as cards.

Improved look and feel

Totara 18 also features improved and modernized user interfaces for a range of features.

Totara Learn

Pathway course format

The Pathway format is a new course format that provides a streamlined, modern user experience in which Learners see a single activity or resource at a time. The left-hand sidebar shows an overview of the user's progress through the course, and allows the user to jump to other activities.

This format is best used for courses with multiple activities that aren't reliant on blocks.

Clone a program

You can now duplicate a program, copying its details, contents (i.e. course sets), and notifications. This allows you to use your existing programs as the basis for a new program, rather than creating every new program from scratch.

New program content UI

The program Content tab has been modernized, improving the process for adding and configuring course sets, making it easier to visualize a program's content and the relationship between course sets.

H5P course activity

The H5P plugin is an interactive content authoring and publishing tool that enables users to create rich and engaging learning experiences including interactive videos, quizzes, and games, without the need for advanced technical skills. You can now add H5P activities to your courses in Totara.

IntelliData learning analytics integration

IntelliData is a comprehensive learning analytics and reporting platform designed to provide actionable insights into the effectiveness of training and development programs. With its powerful data visualization tools, this integration allows organizations to leverage the data captured by Totara to make informed decisions about their training programs.

New activity completion report

There is a new report source which allows you to see activity completion data across your site.

Totara Perform

Performance overview page

The new Performance overview page allows you to see a summary of how you're progressing through your goals, competencies and performance activities at a glance. Donut graphs visually display the status of your performance items, and the various items are listed by status (e.g. Progressed, Not progressed, Not started). Managers can also view the Performance overview for their direct reports.

Totara goals

Totara 18 allows you to select from two different goal-setting systems: Totara goals and Legacy goals. Totara goals are designed to support performance review processes in combination with performance activities. These goals can be created, reviewed and updated from within the flow of performance activities.

Create a goal in a performance activity

A new performance activity element allows users to create new personal goals in the flow of their performance activities.

Response redisplay improvement

You can now configure the Response redisplay element in performance activities to display a response from an earlier section in the current activity instance, allowing users to see earlier responses without needing to toggle back and forth between different sections.

Multi-select filter for competency reports

The new Competency name (multichoice) filter in Totara 18.2 allows users to select multiple competencies for reports using the Competency assignments, Competency ratings, and Competency status report sources.

Totara Engage

Add courses to workspace libraries and playlists

If you are using Totara Learn with Totara Engage, you can add your site's courses to workspace libraries and playlists as of Totara 18.2, allowing you to make use of your existing learning materials and provide access to users who may be interested in them.

Take Advantage of Totara V18 with Synegen: Your Trusted Totara Partner

Synegen works in partnership with you to determine the best technology and learning solutions to support your distinct learner and business requirements. With over a decade of dedicated Totara expertise, our team is your go-to partner for unrivaled insights and support.

Why Synegen?

• Tailored Solutions: Our collaborative approach ensures a blend of the latest technology and learning management solutions designed to meet your unique needs. While we specialize in Totara, our roots are in software development. This means we can easily add any customization or tackle any integration challenge you have in mind. Our goal is to make the platform truly yours, adding value to both your learners and business.
• Decade of Totara Expertise: With a rich history of over 10 years as a Totara partner, our team boasts unparalleled expertise. We intimately understand the platform's intricacies and are well positioned to take your Totara experience to the next level.?
• Comprehensive Support: Synegen doesn't just provide support; we offer a holistic partnership. From the platform's fundamentals to advanced functionalities, our team remains a long-term technical resource for future hosting, integrations, application development, and more.

Experience the difference of working with a team that not only knows Totara inside and out but is committed to ensuring your success. Elevate the learning journey with Synegen—where innovation meets unparalleled expertise.

Ready to build your dream learning experience? Book a demo or contact us to explore the endless possibilities with Synegen.