E-learning and LMS blog articles

Totara stands out as a top choice for enterprises thanks to its open-source flexibility, extensive customisation options, and features tailored for workplace learning, designed to help organisations deliver targeted learning experiences to their employees.

It's an LMS platform for managing formal training like compliance and onboarding as well as fostering informal collaborative learning and performance management.  And unlike many LMS platforms, Totara supports deep integrations, scalability, and adaptation to specific organisational needs — all within a unified system that manages learning, performance, and engagement.

So if you're tired of rigid LMS platforms that don't fit your business, you've found the solution. Hubken is a Totara Platinum Alliance Partner with a track record of turning learning headaches into competitive advantages. We've helped organisations slash training costs, boost completion rates by more than 60%, and create learning experiences that employees actually love.

Ready to see what's possible when your LMS works as hard as your team does?

Table of Contents

• What is Totara?
  

• What is Totara used for?
  

• What are the benefits of Totara?
  

• Who uses Totara?
  

• Good examples of Totara
  

• The HubkenCore Package

What is Totara? The Leading Corporate Learning Platform in 2025

Totara is the world's most customisable learning management system (LMS), trusted by over 1,500 organizations and 20 million users globally. Unlike rigid, one-size-fits-all platforms, Totara adapts to your unique business needs, helping organisations save up to 40% on training costs while boosting employee retention by 25% through strategic learning initiatives.

Why 75+ Global Partners Choose Totara for Enterprise Learning

Totara isn't just another LMS - it's a complete talent experience platform designed specifically for complex organisational needs. Here's what sets it apart:

• Proven ROI: Organisations typically see 3:1 return on investment within 12 months

• Enterprise Scale: Handles 100,000+ users without performance issues
• Industry Recognition: Named Core Leader in Fosway's 2025 9-Grid for Learning Systems
• Security Standards: FedRAMP-authourised for government and enterprise use

The Totara Suite comprises of two powerful platforms – Totara Learn, and Totara Perform. 

Totara Learn - Your Advanced LMS & LXP

✔️ Combines traditional learning management with modern experience platform features

✔️ Supports SCORM, xAPI, video content, and blended learning

✔️ AI-powered content recommendations and personalised learning paths

✔️ Seamless Microsoft Teams integration

Totara Perform - Strategic Performance Management

✔️ 360 degree feedback and competency tracking

✔️ Dynamic goal setting with automated reminders

✔️ Evidence portfolios for compliance and certifications

✔️ Real-time performance analytics

What Makes Totara Different in 2025?

Unmatched Flexibility

Create branded, multi-tenant environments from a single instance. Perfect for organisations with multiple brands, regions, or customer groups.

Open-Source Advantage

Built on open-core architecture, Totara offers enterprise features without vendor lock-in. Customise everything from workflows to user interfaces.

Advanced Analytics

Track not just completion rates, but engagement depth, skill progression, and business impact with comprehensive reporting tools.

Seamless Integration

Connect with your existing HR systems, CRMs, and business tools through robust APIs and pre-built connectors.

Whatever your learning needs are, Totara is able to meet them.

Who Trusts Totara for Mission-Critical Learning?

✔️ Healthcare organisations for mandatory compliance and continuing education

✔️ Financial services for regulatory training and professional development

✔️ Manufacturing for safety protocols and skills certification and and automated recertifications

✔️ Government agencies for standardised training across departments

Ready to see how Totara compares to your current LMS? Get a personalised demo or calculate your potential ROI.

What is Totara Used for? 8 Game-changing Applications in 2025

Totara's versatility makes it the go-to solution for organizations facing complex learning challenges. From Fortune 500 compliance training to government skill development, here's how leading organisations use Totara to transform their L&D outcomes.

Totara Learn: Your Complete Learning Ecosystem

Transform how your organisation delivers, tracks, and scales learning with the world's most flexible LMS.

Whether for compliance training, employee induction and onboarding, or CPD, Totara Learn has all aspects of organisation learning covered.

1. Hybrid Learning that Actually Works

• Seamless blended experiences: Combine virtual classrooms, e-learning, and in-person sessions in one platform
• Anytime, anywhere access: Cloud-based learning that works on any device
• Microsoft Teams integration: Learning notifications and content appear directly in Teams
• Result: Significantly higher completion rates compared to traditional single-mode training

2. Smart Course Creation and Management

• Drag-and-drop course builder: Create engaging content without technical expertise
• SCORM compliance: Import existing content from any provider
• Automated learning paths: Automatically assign training based on roles, departments, or skills gaps
• AI-powered recommendations: Personalised content suggestions for each learner

3. Advanced Assessment and Progress Tracking

• Real-time dashboards: Instant visibility into individual and team progress
• Flexible assessment options: From formal tests to interactive quizzes
• Competency tracking: Monitor skill development against business objectives
• Certification management: Automated renewal reminders and compliance tracking

4. Enterprise-Grade Reporting and Analytics

• Custom report builder: Create exactly the reports your stakeholders need
• Learning ROI metrics: Track business impact, not just completion rates
• Engagement analytics: Identify top performers and at-risk learners
• Compliance dashboards: Audit-ready reporting for regulatory requirements

5. Social Learning That Drives Engagement

Collaborative workspaces transform isolated learning into team-based knowledge sharing:

• Department-specific learning communities
• Peer-to-peer feedback and recognition systems
• User-generated content libraries
• Expert identification and knowledge capture

Totara Perform: Strategic Performance Management

Go beyond basic performance reviews with a system designed for continuous development.

6. Comprehensive Employee Development Tracking

• Digital evidence portfolios: Centralised storage for certifications, meeting notes, and achievements
• Skills gap analysis: Automated identification of development opportunities
• Career progression mapping: Clear pathways from current role to future goals

7. Dynamic Goal Setting and Management 

• Continuous goal updates: Replace annual reviews with ongoing objective setting
• Automated reminders: Never miss a deadline or check-in
• Competency frameworks: Align individual goals with organisational standards

8. 360-Degree Feedback Made Simple

• Multi-source feedback collection: Gather insights from managers, peers, and direct reports
• Visual performance dashboards: Easy-to-understand strength and development area mapping
• Trend analysis: Track improvement over time with longitudinal reporting
• Integration ready: Connects seamlessly with HR systems and payroll

9. Succession Planning and Career Development

Totara's Talent Experience Platform (TXP), which includes the Learning Management System (Totara Learn) and the Performance Management System (Totara Perform), provides a comprehensive and integrated approach to succession planning and career development.

• Totara helps organisations define key roles and the competencies required for those roles
• Enables personalised learning pathways and development programmes to be automatically assigned to individuals to develop and build the skills needed for future roles
• Totara Learn helps foster knowledge sharing and collaboration, facilitating mentoring opportunities
• Robust reporting and analytics tools track the progress of successors
• Totara Learn supports continuous development by providing access to relevant learning resources and activities

Totara's integrated learning and performance management platform provides a comprehensive and customisable LMS solution that empowers organisations to strategically plan for future leadership, nurture internal talent and guide employees along fulfilling career paths.

Why These Applications Matter: Real Business Impact

Compliance Training: Reduce audit preparation time by 80% with automated tracking and reporting

Employee Onboarding: Cut new hire time-to-productivity from 12 weeks to 6 weeks

Skills Development: Organisations see average 25% improvement in job-relevant competencies

Performance Management: Users report more meaningful development conversations

What Are the Key Benefits of Totara in 2025?

Totara is a leader in the e-learning market with good reason. In addition to its incredible range of features and functions, Totara delivers an unparalleled e-learning experience with simplicity at its core. There are many benefits of Totara, including:

Open Core architecture = Future-Proof Investment

Why this matters...Unlike proprietary systems that lock you in, Totara's open-source foundation means:

• No vendor lock-in: Your data and processes remain fully portable
• Unlimited customisation: Modify any aspect to fit your exact needs
• Cost-effective scaling: Transparent, user-based pricing with no hidden fees
• Community innovation: Benefit from global developer contributions and updates

And with a Totara LMS from Hubken, you get unlimited Admin support at no extra or hidden costs. 

You also gain from free automatic updates and security patches. Again, no extra or hidden costs.

Cloud-Native Accessibility

Access from anywhere: Your team can learn and manage performance whether they're in the office, remote, or on mobile devices. And with a Data Centre optimised for eLearning, we guarantee 99.9% uptime.

With a mobile app and single-sign on capability, Totara brings multi-device e-learning to users around the world. 

UX That Users Actually Love

Designed for adoption: Intuitive interfaces mean faster rollouts and higher engagement.

Totara offers:

• A modern, responsive design that works beautifully on any screen size.
• Personalised dashboards showing exactly what each user needs
• Contextual help and guidance built into every workflow
• Accessibility compliant (WCAG 2.1 AA standards)

Multi-Tenancy for Complex Organisations

Totara’s multi-tenancy is perfect for:

• Multi-brand companies needing separate learning environments
• Organisations with contractors, partners, or external users
• Global companies requiring localised content and branding
• Companies managing multiple customer training programs

Result: One platform, unlimited possibilities for any organisational structure.

Integration Ecosystem That Just Works

Totara connects seamlessly with your existing technology stack:

• HR Systems: Workday, BambooHR, SAP SuccessFactors
• CRM Platforms: Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics
• Content Libraries: LinkedIn Learning, Mint, and more
• Communication Tools: Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom

Hubken's Totara integration specialists ensure your Totara implementation enhances rather than disrupts your current workflows!

A key benefit of any Totara solution is its value and ROI potential. Learn more about the cost saving benefits of Totara by heading to our Totara pricing blog. 

 Ready to see Totara in action? Book a personalised demo 

Who uses Totara?

As a fully scalable, fully customisable Talent Experience Platform embracing LMS, LXP, and Performance Management System technologies, it’s no surprise that every year more and more organisations around the world use Totara to meet their L&D requirements.

Regardless of size or sector, all companies can benefit from the virtual solutions Totara technology provides. Sectors that utilise Totara’s platforms include:

• Information Technology:  Managing continuous learning and upskilling in a rapidly evolving technological landscape
• Healthcare:  Managing mandatory training, certifications, and compliance for a large, geographically diverse workforce of nurses and clinicians
• Government/Public Sector:  Training, engagement, and development of large federal agencies and public sector employees, ensuring efficiency, engagement, and compliance
• Retail:  Addressing challenges like employee turnover, skill gaps, and customer service needs, including onboarding for seasonal and full-time employees, compliance tracking, and extended enterprise training for vendors
• Financial Services:  Meeting evolving regulations, combating cyber threats, addressing skill gaps in new technologies, and managing extended enterprise training
• Education:  Handling diverse learner needs, course complexity, blended and hybrid delivery models, CPD, and formal assessments, including universities
• Professional Training: Delivering tailored learning for professional development, managing extended enterprise training for clients and partners, and fostering a culture of continuous development

In essence, Totara's features, including multi-tenancy, customisability, robust reporting, mobile accessibility, integrations, and collaborative learning tools, are especially beneficial for organisations requiring adaptable and scalable solutions to manage diverse learning audiences and complex training demands.

For more insights into the sectors we work with, visit our sectors page and discover how our years of experience make Hubken your best choice LMS provider.

Good examples of Totara

As a Totara Platinum Alliance Partner, Hubken helps organisations achieve transformative L&D outcomes every day. Our case studies page outlines multiple instances of how we implemented Totara effectively to save organisations money, achieve high volume employee engagement, reduce new-starter time-to-competency and much more.

When Totara is used to its full potential, the results are undeniable: 

Increased levels of employee engagement

With empowered employees taking more time to invest in their own progression, skill gaps can be filled quickly, and staff turnover reduced.

Increased levels of workforce productivity

By encouraging collaborative learning amongst peers and periodically measuring learner comprehension, appropriately trained employees can more effectively apply their learning in the workplace and deliver better results.

An improved workplace culture

Introducing more meaningful interactions between managers and employees, setting clear, tangible goals with regularly reviewed targets, and making peer-to-peer knowledge sharing the norm, Totara can elevate workplace environments and help improve staff satisfaction levels.

Consolidated processes

A streamlined tool spanning the entire L&D journey, the Totara Talent Experience Platform can save countless hours in administrative tasks by unifying learning and performance in one easy-to-use, entirely digital platform.

View our good examples of Totara blog for specific case studies of how organisations have worked with Hubken to make their most of their Totara Learn LMS. 

Implementing Totara with Confidence

Totara LMS Implementation: A Proven Process
Implementing a powerful platform like Totara doesn’t have to be complex. At Hubken, we’ve perfected a streamlined Totara LMS implementation process that gets you up and running in weeks – not months. From stakeholder planning to data migration and training, our expert team handles the heavy lifting, ensuring a smooth transition and early wins for your L&D team.

The HubkenCore Package

Choosing a Totara LMS, LXP, or performance management solution with Hubken has distinct benefits unique to our service. In addition to secure and reliable cloud hosting and unlimited technical support, HubkenCore clients receive:

• Implementation and training: We'll not only manage the implementation process, but we'll also make sure you have the tools and knowledge to continue optimising your Totara platform to suit your organisational requirements. 
• Integrating your systems and data: CRM, HCM, membership portals - if you have existing software, platforms, or data you need to integrate with your Totara platform, we can help you. 
• Instant e-learning content: Totara's versatility means there are plenty of off-the-shelf online courses available to purchase and use immediately. Create your own content? Then with our Totara ecommerce integration, you could even make money by selling your courses in the marketplace. 

Ready to See Totara in Action?

Get a personalised walkthrough of the platform tailored to your industry needs. Book a Totara LMS demo with one of our expert consultants and discover how Hubken’s implementation approach makes all the difference.