Totara LMS version 1.1 has been released. The software includes the following major enhancements:
- Program Management feature for managing a sequence of courses and competencies with the ability to assign people in specified positions, organisations and cohorts to the next set of courses when they have completed the required set of courses;
- Automatic enrolments in a set of courses that are defined in a Program when a set of courses is completed;
- Programs can be added to a learning plan and visible through a required learning tab;
- Cohorts can be setup based on position, organisation or user details – cohorts can have programs assigned to them;
- Hierarchies have been made more flexible through the definition of custom fields for ‘types’ to replace hierarchy depths. Types can be assigned to more than one hierarchy level unlike hierarchy depths;
- The management of hierarchies has become easier with an interface to easily reclassify hierarchy levels and perform bulk actions on hierarchy levels;
- Categories management is easier with an interface created to manage this showing the category levels and what programs or courses are assigned to it;
- Hierarchy data can be exported into different formats to allow better reporting and exchange of data with external HR systems;
- Learning plans are able to be automatically completed – this can be by a specified date or when all the components in the learning plan have been completed;
- Learning plans are able to have comments added with notifications sent when a comment is added and comment history displayed;
- The report builder performance has been enhanced through not having to reload page after every action;
- For administrators cron jobs (programs that run at a set interval) have safeguards to ensure that only one cron job is run at a time;
- Competencies can be defined as mandatory and can be linked to positions or organisations for automatically adding to a new learning plan;
- Course can be defined as mandatory and can only be added to a competency as evidence. A mandatory course can be automatically added when that competency is added.
Here’s the changelog for Totara 1.1:
New features/Improvements:
Program Management:
– Ability to group courses and manage the order they are available
– Automatic handling of enrolments
– Ability to create recurring courses
– Ability to manage program/course enrolment
– Ability to bulk assign users to a program
– Ability to handle extension requests
– Required learning tab in ‘My Learning’
New Hierarchies:
– ‘Depths’ replaced with ‘Types’
– Now possible to have different types within the same level
– Now possible to move an item between depth levels
– Bulk hierarchy actions (add, move, delete, reclassify type)
User Interface changes:
– New Course/Program browse and search interface
– Simplified interface for managing hierarchies
– Slight changes to handling of pop-up dialogs
Automatic completion of plans:
– Complete learning plans automatically when end date passes
– Complete learning plans automatically when all items in plan are complete
– The ability to reopen completed plans
Other improvements to Learning Plans:
– Comment on plans and individual items within the plan
– New ‘Programs’ tab and Record of Learning report
– New permissions for managing mandatory courses and competencies
– Users can update learning plan data without reloading page
– Ability to set competency status from the competency index page
– New “Add to Plan” block for course pages
– Ability to automatically assign the default status to new competencies
Report Builder:
– Added all hierarchy custom fields to report builder reports
– Admins can manipulate report columns/filters without reloading page
– Improvements to multi-language support of report builder column headings
Administration / Back-end improvements:
– Improved cron management (including admin page and email reporting)
– Better error logging and reporting
– Better tracking of linked courses / competencies
Learn more about how to effectively manage your organisation’s learning programs with Totara. Contact us to discuss your requirement, view a demonstration or request a quote.