It is possible for a Site Administrator to create, edit, view, manage, and/or delete user accounts within the Totara Learn system.

(This video is taken from the Creating users in Totara Learn course in the Totara Academy, where you can access more resources and learning materials - including other videos). 

Create a user

  1. Click Users > Accounts from the Site administration menu.
  2. Click Add a new user

  3. Complete the compulsory fields (marked with an asterisk). 

  4. Click Expand all from the top-right hand side of the page to view all available fields for the user profile.
  5. Click Create user to save the new user's profile.

You can also add new users via HR Import or 3rd party integrations.

Note that enabling the Generate password and notify user setting when creating user accounts will cause an email to be sent to the users.

View user accounts

A Site Administrator or role with the appropriate permissions can view user accounts.

  1. Click Users > Accounts from the Site administration menu.
  2. Click Browse list of users.

View a user's profile

A Site Administrator or role with the appropriate permissions can view a user's profile.

  1. Click Users > Accounts from the Site administration block.
  2. Click Browse list of users.
  3. Search for and find the user.
  4. Click the user's name to view their profile.

Delete a user account

A site administrator or role with the appropriate permissions can delete a user's account.

  1. Click Users > Accounts from the Site administration block.
  2. Click Browse list of users.
  3. Search for and find the user.
  4. Click the delete icon next to the user's name to open their account.

  5. You will be prompted to confirm deletion of the user account.

  6. Click Delete to confirm user deletion or Cancel if you change your mind.


All associated data, including but not limited to the following, will be deleted and is not recoverable:

  • Appraisals where the user is in the learner role
  • Grades
  • Tags
  • Roles
  • Preferences
  • User custom fields
  • Private keys
  • Customised pages
  • Seminar signups
  • 360 feedback assignments and responses
  • Position assignments
  • Programs & certifications
  • Goals
  • Will be unenrolled from courses
  • Will be unassigned from manager, appraiser and temporary manager positions
  • Will be removed from audiences
  • Will be removed from groups
  • Messages will be marked as read

If you wish to retain any data you may wish to consider suspending the user instead.

Suspend/unsuspend a user account

A Site Administrator or role with the appropriate permissions can suspend/unsuspend a user's account.

To suspend/unsuspend a user's account:

  1. Click Users > Accounts from the Site administration block.
  2. Click Browse list of users.
  3. Search for and find the user.
  4. Click the suspend icon () or unspend icon () next to the user's name to change their suspension status.

Edit a user's profile

A Site Administrator or role with the appropriate permissions can edit a user's profile.

To edit a user's profile:

  1. Click Users > Accounts from the Site administration block.
  2. Click Browse list of users.
  3. Search for and find the user.
  4. Click the edit icon next to the user's name to open their profile.
  5. The fields here are self evident; the most frequent reason to access this page is to re-set a user’s password.
  6. Click Update profile to save changes.

Log in as a user

A Site Administrator or an individual with an appropriate role and associated permissions can Log in as another (non-administrative) user.  Logging in as a user will allow the administrator to view the site as this individual and complete various actions across the site.  The Login in as functionality is primarily designed for troubleshooting access and technical issues, but may also be used for testing purposes or to assist a user who is having difficulty with a specific task or action within the site.

To Log in as another user:

  1. Go to Users > Accounts from the Site administration menu.
  2. Click Browse list of users.
  3. Search for and find the user.
  4. Select the user's name to open their profile
  5. Under the Administration section, select Log in as.
  6. Complete the required actions and select Log out from the User Menu to end the session

For security reasons, you will be required to log back as yourself, following a Log in as session. 

Please be aware that using the Log in as functionality may not always provide an accurate representation of what a user can see. To reliably test how a user in a given role will see your site and its content we recommend creating a test account with the relevant roles and permissions.

Actions carried out while logged in as another user will be recorded against the individual's activity and not identified as an administrator logged in as session.

Bulk user actions

The bulk user actions feature in Administration > Site administration > Users > Accounts > Bulk user actions enables users to be selected using a detailed filter and then perform one of the following actions on the selected users:

  • Confirm user accounts created through Email-based self-registration
  • Send a message (requires Messaging to be enabled)
  • Delete user accounts
  • Display a list of users on a page
  • Download user data in text, ODS or Excel file format
  • Force users to change their passwords
  • Add users to an audience
  • Toggle the HR Import field to enable/disable the user profile to be changed using HR Import

To perform a bulk user action follow these steps:

  1. If you know them, choose your users from the available list or else click Show Advanced to create a filter.
  2. Users can be filtered according to full name, surname, first name, email address, city/town, country, confirmed, course or system role, first access, last access, last login, username, authentication method, HR Import  
  3. If you have set a custom profile field, this will be added to the Profile dropdown box.
  4. Select users from the list.
  5. Choose an action from the dropdown menu.
  6. Click the Add filter button.
  7. Select in the box on the left those users you require and select Add to selection.
  8. From the dropdown box With selected users, choose the action you wish to perform and then click Go.

Upload user pictures

It is possible to bulk upload user profile pictures in a ZIP file.

Before uploading, you will need to ensure that the image files are named so that they correspond to one of the following user attributes: username, idnumber, id.

For example, if you wanted to use the username attribute then the file for a user with the username user1234  would be named user1234.jpg (with .jpg being the file extension, although you can use other file types). 

To bulk upload user profile pictures, just follow these steps:

  1. From the Administration block go to Site administration > Users > Accounts > Upload user pictures.
  2. Upload your zip folder using the File Picker. 
  3. Select the attribute you wish to use to match the files to the users. 
  4. Decide if you want to override existing user pictures or not. 
  5. Click the Upload user pictures button. 

Once successfully uploaded you will get a confirmation message on the screen. 

Active users

This is normally considered to be a user that has logged into the site over the period of the Totara subscription (usually a year).

To display the number of active users for the last twelve months:

  1. From Administration menu go to Site Administration > Notifications.
  2. In the Notification panel there will be a message saying X users have logged in to this site in the last year, where X is the number of users.

To display the number of active users for a specified period:

  1. From the Administration block go to Site Administration > Users > Accounts > Browser a list of users.
  2. Click Show more under New filter.
  3. Select the date in is after in the Last access field.
  4. Select Add filter.


 Learn more and try it for yourself in the Creating users course on the Totara Academy. 


The Totara Academy has a whole course dedicated to Creating users in Totara Learn. Here you can learn more on how to create users, see best practice, and give it a go yourself.