The seminar activity module enables a Site Administrator or Editing Trainer to set up a booking system for one or many in-person/classroom based events.
Each event within a seminar activity can have customised settings around training room, start time, finish time, cost, capacity, etc. These can be set to run over multiple days or allow for unscheduled and wait listed events. An activity may be set to require manager approval and trainers can configure automated notifications and event reminders for attendees.
Learners can view and sign-up for events with their attendance tracked and recorded within the grades area.
(The video above is taken from the Seminar management course on the Totara Academy).
Add a new seminar activity
Creating a seminar event is a two-part process. First you must add a seminar Activity then you can add event occurrences within the activity.
- Log in as a Site Administrator or Editing Trainer, navigate to (or create) the required course.
- Ensure editing is turned on.
- Where the Activity chooser is on, select Add an activity or resource within the relevant section and select Seminar from the popup menu and click Add.
- Where the Activity chooser is off, within the relevant section, select Seminar from the Add an activity dropdown menu.
- Complete the required sections and click Save and return to course to return to the course homepage, click Save and display to create the Event or Cancel to discard your changes.
Edit an existing seminar activity
- Log in as a Site Administrator or Editing Trainer
- Navigate to the required course.
- Click on the name of the seminar activity.
- Select Edit settings from the Seminar Administration block.
OR
- Log in as a Site Administrator or Editing Trainer.
- Navigate to the required course.
- Ensure editing is turned on.
- Select the corresponding Edit menu and choose Edit settings.
Seminar activity settings
General
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Enter a name for the activity e.g. First Aid Training. | - |
| Description | Enter a description for the activity so learners know the general subject and agenda of their selected event. | - |
| Third-party email address(es) | Third-party email address(es) is an optional field used to specify the email address(es) of a third-party (such as an external instructor) who will then receive all active notification messages for a session, including confirmation messages when a user signs up for a session. When entering multiple email addresses, separate each address with a comma. | For example: [email protected], [email protected]example.com. The third party addresses will receive the same message as the manager. |
| Notify third-party about wait-listed events | Enabling this option will send third-party email address(es) a notification when a learner signs up for a Wait-listed event. When this option is not enabled, the third-party will only be notified when a user signs up or cancels for a scheduled event. | Please see Wait-listed events for more information. |
Events displayed on course page | This is the number of sessions for each seminar Activity that will be shown on the main course page. | - |
| Default 'allow cancellations' setting for all events | Set the default cancellation settings for this seminar and allow users to cancel their bookings 'At any time', 'Never', or 'Until cut-off reached' (x amount of time before the event starts). | Please see Cancel a Session for more information. |
| Select job assignment on signup | When requesting seminar event attendance, learners can specify their job assignment relating to the training event. For seminar events that require manager approval, learners reporting to multiple managers can choose to select which manager should receive the booking approval request. | Please see Job assignments for more information. |
| Prevent signup if no job assignment is selected or can be found | Limit registrations for the event to those individuals who have their job assignment(s) specified. | - |
Sign-up Workflow
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| How many times the user can sign-up | Select from the dropdown how many times a learner may sign-up within a seminar activity. Choose from 1 to 10 or Unlimited. A value of 1 disables multiple sign-ups. | This setting does not take cancelled sign-ups or declined requests into consideration. |
| Restrict subsequent sign-ups to | Restrict subsequent sign-ups based on the state of previous signups. Choose from:
Enabling any of these state restrictions will limit users to a single concurrent sign-up within the seminar, as they will not be able to sign-up to another event until their current sign-up has its attendance set to one of the selected states. If none of these restrictions are enabled users can have as many concurrent sign-ups within the seminar as the maximum limitation allows. | Cancelled sign-ups are not taken into consideration. |
| Clear expired waitlist | The waitlist for events get cleared when when they start, allowing user to signup to new event. The Waitlisted sign-up expired notification can be used to inform users about this happening. | - |
| Users can declare Interest | Displays a option within the seminar activity to allow a user to flag their interest and write a message without signing up. Information about those who have declared an interest can be reported on from within the activity. Choose from:
| Please see Declare and withdraw interest and Declared interest report for more information. |
| Require approval by | Available options are defined by the approval options setting on the seminar administration settings page. They include:
| When you select No Approval the Add approver button will not be able to be selected. If an approval option is disabled in global settings that is already being used within a seminar it will still be honoured within the seminar it has already been selected in. If the disabled option is changed within a seminar it will then disappear from that seminar's settings until it is re-enabled in the global settings. |
Manager reservations
(Please see Reserving and allocating spaces for more information)
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Allow manager reservations | If Yes, Managers are able to make reservations or bookings on behalf of their team members. | - |
| Maximum reservations | Set the number of reservations or bookings a Manager can make for members of their team. | - |
| Automatically cancel reservations | If enabled, reservations will be automatically cancelled based on the number specified in Reservation cancellation days. | - |
| Reservation cancellation days | Set the number of days in advance of the session that reservations will be automatically cancelled if not confirmed. | Automatically cancel reservations must be set to Yes to be able to edit the number of reservation cancellation days. |
| Reservation deadline | The number of days before a session starts after which no more reservations are allowed. This must be greater than the number of reservation cancellation days. | - |
Calendar options
(Please see View sessions for more information.)
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar display settings | There are a number of options to choose from:
| - |
| Show entry on user’s calendar | When active, this setting adds a User event entry to the calendar of an attendee of a seminar event. When turned off, this prevents a duplicate event appearing in a event attendee's calendar, where you have calendar display settings set to Course or Site. | - |
Short name | The description of the event that appears on the training calendar when Show on the calendar is enabled. | - |
Common module settings
Please see Common module settings to learn more.
Restrict access
Please see Restrict access to learn more.
Activity completion
Please see Activity completion to learn more.
Duplicating a seminar activity
If you wish to duplicate a seminar activity you can do this using the duplicate function from the edit dropdown alongside the seminar activity. Duplicating a seminar activity will mean that all of the settings, including any seminar events and their settings, will be copied into a new duplicated seminar activity.
Where you have prevented room booking conflicts this duplication will not include the room.
The Totara Academy has a whole course dedicated to using Seminar Management in Totara Learn. Here you can learn more on how to use seminars, see best practice, and give it a go yourself.
