Totara learning plans allow your staff quick and targeted access to relevant learning; including face-to-face events and elearning. Learning plans enable staff to see at a glance their progress against specific learning events as well as their overall learning plan.
Learning plans are based on site-wide templates. The templates available are configured by a Site Administrator. There are a wide range of implementation and configuration options to enable the different ways organisations use learning plans to support staff development.
You can configure different models of learning plans:
- Competency centric (switch off Objective, Programs and Course assignment)
- Program centric (switch off Objectives, Courses and Competencies assignment)
- Competency/Objective model (switch off Course and Program assignment)
- Hybrid model allows mixture of Competencies, Courses, Programs and Objectives
Manage templates
The learning plans your staff create are based on a template created by the Site Administrator. You can have multiple templates set up in Totara Learn. Each of these templates can be in any state (draft, active, or disabled) at any given point, however only active plans can be assigned to learners. One of your learning plans can be marked as the Default template, meaning it is listed first in the dropdown list of available templates when a user is creating a new plan or a new plan is being created for them.
(This video is taken from the Learning plans course on the Totara Academy, where you can access more resources and learning materials - including other videos).
Create a learning plan template
- Select Learning Plans > Manage templates from the Site administration menu under the New Template section.
- Enter the Name of your template.
- Enter the End date of your template. The end date can be used to automatically complete the learning plans created from this template.
- Click Save changes. Your new plan is now created, the next step is to set the components and workflow you want the learning plan template use.
Edit a learning plan template
- Select Learning Plans > Manage templates from the Site administration menu.
- Click the Edit icon next to the learning plan template you wish to edit.
The changes you make to the learning plan template are applied to all existing and future learning plans created using the learning plan template.
Components
By default a learning plan has four components:
- Courses: The courses the learner is scheduled to complete under the learning plan
- Competencies: The competencies the learner is scheduled to complete under the learning plan
- Objectives: Objectives are a free text field that allow the manager or learner to enter objectives they would like to work on, which are perhaps not covered by competencies
- Programs: The programs the learner is scheduled to complete under the learning plan
Components can be hidden and the order of the components changed to suit the requirements of your organisation.
- Click Hide to remove a component from the learning plan template.
- Click Show to add a hidden component to the learning template.
- Click the up and down arrows to change the order of the components.
Click Save changes to save your changes on the components tab before leaving the tab.
Workflow
A learner and their manager will typically have access to a learner's learning plan. Workflow settings allow you to control who is able to perform the different tasks related to setting a learning plan up, including:
- Adding courses, competencies, objectives and programs
- Approving a plan
- Completing a plan
Workflow settings
There are three preset workflow settings, and a custom option:
- Basic workflow: This is a simple manager driven workflow. Options such as due date and priority on courses, competencies, and programs, are turned off.
- User driven workflow: In this workflow the learner has control of the learning plan. The manager is able to view the plan, but is not able to make any changes.
- Manager driven workflow: In this workflow the manager assigns content to their staff’s learning plan. The learner can request that content is added, but everything requires manager approval.
- Custom workflow: Allows you to customise all the learning plan workflow settings to meet your requirements. See Advanced workflow settings to learn more about custom workflow settings.
Advanced workflow settings
Using the advanced workflow settings you can define what permissions a learner and a manager have when accessing a learning plan.
(This video is taken from the Learning plans course on the Totara Academy, where you can access more resources and learning materials - including other videos).
Plan settings
Plan settings allow you to set how the learning plans are marked as complete. There are three available options:
- Manually, by a user with ‘complete’ permission: Either the learner or the manager is able to manually mark the plan complete. This permission is set in Plan permissions. The manager has this permission by default.
- Automatically, when all items have completed: The plan automatically completes when all items in the plan have a complete status. A learning plan can be reactivated by an administrator or a learner or manager with 'Complete/reactivate' status.
- Automatically, when the plan completion date has passed: The plan automatically completes when the end date set on the learning plan has passed. A learning plan can be reactivated by an administrator, learner, or manager, with 'Complete/reactivate' status.
Plan permissions
The plan permissions allow you to set the global learning plan permissions. Permissions for an individual learning plan will be inherited from the permission settings for the template that plan is based off. Changing the permissions for the learning plan template will affect all plans created from that template.
There are four permission levels available:
- Allow: Allows the user to perform the action
- Deny: Prevents the user from performing the action
- Request: Allows the user to request that this action is performed
- Approve: Allows the user to approve an action
Permissions are further refined for each component.
There are two additional actions available here. Using Approve you can give users the ability to approve a learning plan. You can use Complete/reactivate to give users the ability to mark a learning plan as complete or reactivate a learning plan.
Remember to click Save changes before moving on to set the component permissions.
A manager may be denied access to a learner's access plan, however they will still receive notifications of updates via their Alerts.
Course settings
Course settings allow you to customise the settings available for courses.
- Select the Due dates setting:
- None: No due date field appears on the learning plan.
- Optional: The due date field is optional.
- Required: The due date must be completed.
- Select the Priorities setting:
- None: No priority is set for courses in a learning plan using this template.
- Optional: A priority can be set if required on courses in a learning plan using this template.
- Required: A priority must be set on courses in a learning plan using this template.
- Select a Priority scale.
When priorities is set to None a priority scale is not required.
Course permissions
Course permissions allow you to define the level of actions that can be performed by the learner and manager in the learning plan.
There are four permission levels available:
- Allow: Allows the user to perform the action
- Deny: Prevents the user from performing the action
- Request: Allows the user to request that this action is performed
- Approve: Allows the user to approve an action
In this section there are also two additional permissions. Set Completion Status lets you allow users to set the course completion status, and Delete Mandatory allows users to delete mandatory components of the course.
Click Save changes before leaving this page.
Competency settings
Competency settings allow you to customise the settings available for competencies.
- Select the Due dates setting:
- None: No due date field appears on the learning plan.
- Optional: The due date field is optional.
- Required: The due date must be completed.
- Select the Priorities setting:
- None: No priority is set for competencies in a learning plan using this template.
- Optional: A priority can be set if required on competencies in a learning plan using this template.
- Required: A priority must be set on competencies in a learning plan using this template.
Select a Priority scale.
When priorities is set to None a priority scale is not required.
Set the Automatic assignment. Automatic assignment allows the learning plan to automatically pull through competencies assigned to the learner's position and organisation, with any courses linked to the competencies.
The linked courses that will be added are only those that are visible to the person who creates the learning plan, at the time they create it.
There are four options you can use to set automatic assignment:
This powerful functionality allows your organisation to automate a significant amount of the training workflow. Using the options below, you can automatically assign learners with competencies and associated courses based on their position or organisation.
Automatically assign by position: When this option is checked the learning plan automatically pulls competencies assigned to the learner’s position into their learning plan.
Automatically assign by organisation: When this option is checked the learning plan automatically pulls competencies assigned to the learner’s organisation into their learning plan.
Include completed competencies: When this option is checked all competencies assigned to the learner's position and/or organisation appear in the learning plan, even if the learner has completed the competency.
Include linked courses: When this option is checked courses which have been linked to competencies are automatically pulled through into the learning plan.
Learning plans are not tied to a specific job assignment. You can assign learning plans to audiences, and audiences can be created using job assignments as a criteria in their rule set.
Also, courses/competencies are only pulled through the moment that the learning plan is created. There is an option to enable subsequent additions of courses to have their associated competencies appear in the learning plan under the Competencies tab.
If you make the course optional then the user can delete the course from their learning plan, so they will only need to complete the courses that are on their learning plan to get the linked competency updated to completed.
Set the Default status. By default when a competency is pulled into a learning plan the status field shows as blank. When you check Assign newly approved competencies their default status the default status from the competency scale displays in the learning plan when the competencies is assigned.
Competency permissions
Competency permissions allow you to define the level of actions that can be performed by the learner and manager in the learning plan.
There are four permission levels available:
- Allow: Allows the user to perform the action
- Deny: Prevents the user from performing the action
- Request: Allows the user to request that this action is performed
- Approve: Allows the user to approve an action
Click Save changes before leaving this page.
Objective settings
Objective settings allow you customise the settings available for objectives.
- Select the Due dates setting:
- None: No due date field appears on the learning plan.
- Optional: The due date field is optional.
- Required: The due date must be completed.
- Select the Priorities setting:
- None: No priority is set for objectives in a learning plan using this template.
- Optional: A priority can be set if required on objectives in a learning plan using this template.
- Required: A priority must be set on objectives in a learning plan using this template.
Select a Priority scale.
When priorities is set to None a priority scale is not required.
Select an Objective scale. An objective scale is used to measure a learner's progress towards their objectives. See Objective scales to learn more.
Objective permissions
Objective permissions allow you to define the level of actions that can be performed by the learner and manager in the learning plan.
There are four permission levels available:
- Allow: Allows the user to perform the action
- Deny: Prevents the user from performing the action
- Request: Allows the user to request that this action is performed
- Approve: Allows the user to approve an action
Click Save changes before leaving this page.
Program settings
- Select the Due dates setting:
- None: No due date field appears on the learning plan.
- Optional: The due date field is optional.
- Required: The due date must be completed.
- Select the Priorities setting:
- None: No priority is set for programs in a learning plan using this template.
- Optional: A priority can be set if required on programs in a learning plan using this template.
- Required: A priority must be set on programs in a learning plan using this template.
- Select a Priority scale.
When priorities is set to None a priority scale is not required.
Program permissions
Program permissions allow you to define the level of actions that can be performed by the learner and manager in the learning plan.
There are four permission levels available:
- Allow: Allows the user to perform the action
- Deny: Prevents the user from performing the action
- Request: Allows the user to request that this action is performed
- Approve: Allows the user to approve an action
Click Save changes before leaving this page.
The Totara Academy has a whole course dedicated to using Learning plans in Totara Learn. Here you can learn more on how to use learning plans, see best practice, and give it a go yourself.
