Totara 14: new features in the latest Totara release

The Totara 14 release date is upon us. So, what’s changed? Let’s look at some of the Totara 14 new features.

Totara 14 is here, bringing with it an array of new features to help you get more from your learning management system. There are a total of 254 new features and improvements included in the new version, so we’re not going to go through them all. But we will pick out some of the best Totara 14 new features for you.

Improved multi-tenancy

Among the most important of the Totara 14 new features are improvements to multi-tenancy across Totara Learn, Totara Engage and Totara Perform. Tenant administrators can now create their own audiences and set their own default images for resources and courses at tenant level. Totara 14 also introduces the option to create tenant-specific settings within custom themes.

Zoom and Microsoft Teams integration with Totara

Given the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic it is perhaps no surprise that one of Totara 14’s top new features sees the integration of two of the most widely used video conferencing apps. Zoom and Microsoft Teams can both now be connected to seminar events. Creating a seminar event in Totara 14 will result in a corresponding event being created in Zoom or Teams. Attendees will see a ‘Join Now’ button within your LMS when the seminar is underway, and the link will take them directly to the Zoom or Teams call.

Declare interest seminar direct enrolment

Totara 14 brings improvements to the ‘declare interest’ functionality when using the seminar direct enrolment plugin. The change allows users to declare their interest in a seminar without being enrolled on the course.

No blank reports

Improvements to scheduled reports within Totara 14 means that blank reports will no longer be sent. If a report contains no data, it will no longer be sent so recipients will no longer get blank attachments.

Smarter notifications

Notifications can now be triggered by ‘notifiable events’, so that events such as course enrolments or completions automatically send the relevant notifications. The new approach to notifications also brings multilingual content and email branding.

Improved assignment and course membership information

It’s easier to keep track of your learners’ progress in Totara 14. The assignment report source has a new column containing a link to the relevant assignment submission, which speeds up the review or grading process. The course membership report also has a new column, which details current enrolment status.

Better Totara Engage recommendations

The Totara Engage recommendation engine is improved for Totara 14, with enhanced text processing and the recommendations engine now taking user profile information (such as country, language and other information) into account when making a recommendation.

New Totara Perform features

Upgrading to Totara 14 will give you access to the three new content items within Totara Perform. The review item allows you to display, comment on and rate competencies within each performance activity. Response redisplay means you can show questions and response from the current performance activity or another performance activity. Response aggregation allows you to collate responses within a performance activity in order to apply them to numeric scales.

Enhanced Totara Perform competencies

You can now set the competency proficiency level differently for direct assignments and self-assignment, so an admin can set a different proficiency level than the one required for proficiency under self-assignment. There is also a new competencies report (which is based on a competencies export) and a new competency ratings report (which includes manual ratings based on users’ assigned competencies).

Want a chat about the Totara 14 new features?

There are lots more new features in the new version of Totara, but those are some of the main ones. If you’d like to discuss other features or have a look at Totara 14 in action, just fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch soon.

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