Managing Programs

Totara Program Management allows you to create learning paths for learners where you can define dependencies and control the order and flow of the competencies and courses your learners complete.

A program includes completion dates and time limits for your learners to complete each stage of the program. There is also the ability to set up customised messages and reminders that are sent to learners and managers as part of the program.

Program management allows you to enrol learners based on their organisation, position, management hierarchy, or audience, and set different completion criteria for each group if required. Learners can also be enrolled individually.

Program Management also handles the requirement for courses to reoccur on a set cycle, such as yearly. This is great for handling compliance training that staff may be required to complete every year.

Create a program

Click Courses from the Site administration menu.
Click Manage programs.
The Find Courses page opens on program view in edit mode. Click Add a new program to set up a new program.
Complete the Details section.
Click Save changes and the Program Overview tab displays. You have now created your program; the next step is to add the program content and program assignment.

Program details

Setting	Description	Notes
Category	This is the name of the course category the program sits under.	-
Visible	When visible is checked the program can be seen by the learners.	-
Full name/Short name	This is the name of your program. The short name must be unique.	-
ID	This allows you to give your program an ID number if required.	-
Availability	When set to Available to students learners are able to view and access the program details.	-
Available from/Available until	This allows you to set a date range for when the program is available to learners.	-
Description	The description text displays in the search program page and when the learner is viewing the details of the program.	-
Program end note	The program end note displays when the learner has completed the program.	-
Program icon	To add custom program icons: Click Courses in the Site administration menu. Click Custom icons. Select the graphic file you want to use for a course. Move this file to the Program icon file area. Select Save changes.	Graphic files will be resized to 35 X 35 pixels automatically.
Allow extension requests	When enabled users can submit extension requests for this program which can then be approved or denied by their manager.	Program extension requests need to be enabled on the Advanced features page to be able to allow or disallow program extension requests for a program.

Adding program content

Once you have set up a program you can add content to it. Program content can include any course or competency on your Totara site.

Content is added in sets. The sets represent the order in which learners complete the learning. A set can contain:

A competency and assigned course(s)
Course(s)

Time frames and conditions can be established for each set. To add content to your program (skip to step 4 if you already have your program open):

Click Courses from the Site administration menu.
Click Manage programs.
The Find Courses page opens on program view in edit mode. Click to open your program.
Click Edit program content on the Overview tab or click the Content tab.

Select what you would like to add from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add. Follow the instructions below for the content type you choose to add.

If

Then

Adding a course

1. Select Set of courses from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add.
2. Click through the course categories and click on each of the courses you wish to add. You need to select your courses in the order you wish them to appear in the set.
3. Selected course(s) appear in the current selection column, click the delete icon to remove the course from the program selection.
4. Click Ok to complete the course selection. See also, course set settings below.

Adding competencies

1. Select Competency from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add.
2. Select the competency framework from the dropdown list.
3. Select the competency you wish to add.
4. Click Ok to complete the course selection.

When you select a competency that has a linked course(s). The linked course(s) is/are automatically pulled through into the set.

Course settings

These are the available settings when adding a course set.

Setting	Description	Notes
Set name	The name you give to the course set.	-
Learner must complete	Choose either One course, All courses or some courses. If you select Some courses you will then be able to edit additional fields to set the completion criteria, these fields are the Minimum courses completed, Course score field, and the Minimum score. These fields are all locked when selecting All courses or One course as the completion of the selected courses is then the completion criteria.
Minimum courses completed	The minimum number of courses within this course set the assignees must complete for this course set to be considered complete.	-
Course score field	Specify a course custom field which is used to allocate a score to each course in the set. This is used in conjunction with Minimum score to determine the course set's completion criteria. The selected field should have numeric values e.g credit hours.	-
Minimum score	A minimum score that must be reached for the course set to be marked as complete. The score is calculated by summing the values from the Course score field for all the courses a user has completed.	For example, you might have a Credits custom field on your courses, so you could use this setting to mark a course set as complete when a certain number of credits have been achieved.
Minimum time required	This determines the minimum amount of time that users should be given if they are to have enough time to complete the course set. For example, if set to one week, then it is expected that the user should be granted at least one week to be able to complete the course set, and that it would not be possible to complete it in any time less than that.	This does not determine the maximum time allowed to complete the course set and setting this does not set a due date. It is used to generate exceptions when a completion date set in the Assignments tab is insufficient and is used to automatically set a sufficiently generous due date when resolving time allowance exceptions using the Set realistic time allowance action.
Courses	The courses you selected to be part of the set.	-

Competency settings

These are the available settings when adding a competency.

Setting	Description	Notes
Set name	You will need to give the competency set a name.	-
Competency name	The name of the competency or competencies you have selected.	-
Minimum time required	This determines the minimum amount of time that users should be given if they are to have enough time to complete the set.	-
Courses	This will show any courses associated to the selected competency.	-

Recurring course set

These are the available settings when adding a competency.

Setting	Description	Notes
Set name	You will need to give the competency set a name.	-
Course name	The name of the competency or competencies you have selected.	-
Minimum time required	This determines the minimum amount of time that users should be given if they are to have enough time to complete the set.	-
Recurrence	This is how often the course set should recur.	-
Course creation	Course creation defines when the course should be copied and recreated. It relies on the start and end date specified in the course settings.	-

Adding program assignment

Program assignment allows you to select the learners who need to complete the program. You can select users by organisation, position, audience, management hierarchy, or individually. Once you have assigned learners to the program, the system automatically takes care of course enrolment.

To add learners to your program (skip to step 4 if you already have your program open):

Click Courses from the Site administration menu.
Click Manage programs.
The Find Courses page opens on program view in edit mode. Click to open your program.
Click Edit program assignments on the Overview tab.
Select how you want to add learners to your program from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add.

If	Then
Adding by organisation	1. Select Organisation from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add. 2. The organisation options appear. Click Add organisations to program. 3. Select the organisation framework you want to use from the dropdown box. 4. Select the organisation items you wish to assign to the program. The selected items appear in the current selection column. Click the delete icon to remove. 5. Click Ok to complete the organisation selection. Select All below to include all users in the hierarchy structure below the selected organisation.
Adding by position	1. Select Positions from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add. 2. The position options appear. Click Add position to program. 3. Select the position framework from the drop down box. 4. Select the position items you wish to assign to the program. The selected items appear in the current selection column. Click the delete icon to remove. 5. Click Ok to complete the position selection. Select All below to include all users in the hierarchy structure below the selected position.
Adding by audience	1. Select Audiences from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add. 2. The audience options appear. Click Add audiences to program. 3. Select the audience groups you wish to assign to the program. The selected audiences appear in the current selection column. Click the delete icon to remove. 4. Click Ok to complete the audience selection. To learn more about creating audiences, see Audiences.
Adding by management hierarchy	1. Select Management hierarchy from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add. 2. The management hierarchy options appear. Click Add managers to program. 3. Select the managers you wish to add to the program. The selected items appear in the current selection column. Click the delete icon to remove. 4. Click Ok to complete the manager selection. When you select managers you can also see the staff that report to the managers by clicking to expand the folder icon. Select direct team to add just the manager’s direct reports or all below to add their direct reports and their staff’s direct reports.
Adding individuals	1. Select Individuals from the Add a new drop down menu and click Add. 2. The individual options appear. Click Add individuals to program. 3. Select the names you wish to assign to the program. The selected individuals appear in the current selection column. Click the delete icon to remove. 4. Click Ok to complete the position selection.

Set the completion criteria for each group/individual you have assigned to the program. When setting the completion criteria you have two options:

Complete by: allows you to set a fixed completion date.
Complete within: allows you to set a completion date relative to an event, the events include:
1. date the learner first logged in.
2. position start date recorded on the learners position tab.
3. the date the learner completed another program.
4. the date a learner completed another course.
5. the date record in a profile field.

Click Set fixed completion date or Set time relative to event to save your completion criteria.

Click Save changes.

Click Save all changes in the confirmation box or Edit assignments if you want to make additional changes. Once the save is complete, a confirmation message appears at the top of the screen. Your program assignments are now set.

Users are assigned to the program when the program user assignment scheduled task is run.

For assigned users that have been given a time exception the program due date is not updated.

If a learner has been previously marked as having completed the program and subsequently new courses are added or the path is changed to "Then", a learner will not need to go back and do these additional courses because they've already been marked complete for this program.

Program messages

Messages allow you to set up automated emails related to your Program. The messages can be customised for the program you are setting up or editing.

To customise your program messages (skip to step 4 if you already have your program open):

Click Courses from the Site administration menu.
Click Manage programs.
The Find Courses page opens on program view in edit mode. Click to open your program.
Click Edit program messages on the Overview tab or click the Messages tab.
By default there is an enrolment message and an exception report message for each program. To add a new message select the message type from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add.
- Enrolment message is sent to the learner when they are assigned to a program. Select Send notice to manager to send a notification to the learner’s manager.
- Exceptions report message is sent to Site Administrators when there are new exceptions on the program. An exception occurs when the system is not able to process an action related to the program, e.g. the completion date is set for 30 days from the position start date, but this field is empty for a user assigned to the program.
- Un-enrolment message is sent when a learner is unenrolled from a program. Select Send notice to manager to send a notification to the learner’s manager.
- Program due message is sent to the learner a set number of days, weeks or months before the learner is due to complete the program. Use Trigger to set when the message is sent. Select Send notice to manager to send a notification to the learner’s manager.
- Program overdue message is sent to the learner when the program completion date for the learner has passed. Use Trigger to set when the message is sent. Select Send notice to manager to send a notification to the learner’s manager.
- Program completed message is sent when the learner completes the program. Select Send notice to manager to send a notification to the learner’s manager.
- Learner follow-up message is sent to a learner a set period of time after they have completed the program. Use Trigger to set when the message is sent.

In program messages, certain variables can be inserted into the subject and/or body of a message so that they will be replaced with real values when the message is sent. The variables should be inserted into the text exactly as they are shown below. The following variables can be used:

%userfullname%: This will be replaced by the recipient's full name.
%username%: This will be replaced by the user's username.
%programfullname%: This is replaced with the full name of the program.
%completioncriteria%: This will be replaced by the completion criteria set in the assignment tab.
%duedate%: This will be replaced by the date assigned to the user to complete the program.
%managername%: This will be replaced by the manager's name.
%manageremail%: This will be replaced by the manager's email.
%setlabel%: This is replaced with the course set label, when the message relates to course sets.

Click Save changes.

Click Save all changes in the confirmation box or Edit assignments if you need to make additional changes. Once the save is complete a confirmation message appears at the top of the screen. Your program messages are now complete.

Capabilities that can edit

It is possible to assign a variety of editing permissions within the program functionality. Anyone with one or more of the following capabilities will see an Edit program details button whenever they view a program. By clicking on this they will then see the Overview tab, followed by additional tabs based on the capabilities they have assigned to them as follows:

totara/program:configuredetails: For the Edit tab.
totara/program:configurecontent: For the Content tab.
totara/program:configuremessages: For the Messages tab.
totara/program:configureassignments: For the Assignments tab.
totara/program:handleexceptions: For the Exceptions tab (this applies even if there are no exceptions currently).
totara/program:editcompletion: For the Completion tab (the completion editor must be enabled in site cofig).

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