The Totara integration keeps your Totara learning platform in step with Sense. When people are added or updated in Sense, their Totara user accounts and job assignments are created and kept up to date automatically so the records in Totara always reflect your live workforce.
The sync runs in the background. There's nothing your team needs to do day-to-day, but you can also start a sync manually whenever you need to.
What does this integration do?
The integration sends people data from Sense to Totara. It will:
Create a Totara user account when a new employee is added in Sense.
Update a Totara user account when key profile details change in Sense.
Create and maintain each person's job assignment in Totara, including their manager where possible.
Set a leaving date in Totara when an employee is marked as a leaver.
Each Sense record is linked to its matching Totara account behind the scenes, so every update is always applied to the right person.
When does it sync?
The integration runs automatically in response to these events:
A new person is added in Sense.
A profile is updated - specifically when changes are saved to the Personal details, Job details, or Contact details screens.
An employee is marked as a leaver - their end date is set in Totara.
You can also run a sync manually at any time using the Totara Sync action from a person's record (available from both the People area and the mobile app).
Setting up Totara
Before the integration can run, an administrator on your Totara site needs to create an API client and send us its credentials. This is what lets Sense sign in to Totara securely to create and update your people. You only need to do this once, when the integration is first set up.
The external API also needs to be turned on for your site, which you can check under Site administration > API > Settings.
To create the API client:
Choose the user the integration will run as. The API client connects to Totara as a specific user and can only do what that user is allowed to do. We recommend creating a dedicated account for this (for example, "Sense Integration") rather than using a personal login.
Give that user permission to use the API. Assign the user a role that includes the Use the external API capability. The simplest way is to create a role for this purpose and assign it to the user at system level.
Add the API client. Go to Site administration > API > API clients and select Add API client. Give it a recognisable name (for example, "Sense") and set its service account to the user from step 1.
Copy the credentials. When the client is created, Totara generates a Client ID and a Client secret. Together these act as the API key for the integration. The secret is only shown once, so copy it somewhere safe straight away.
Send the details to us. Send your Sense contact the Totara site address, the Client ID, and the Client secret. Please share these securely rather than in a plain email wherever possible.
Once we have those details, we'll finish connecting the integration at our end.
Keep the Client secret private - treat it like a password. If it's ever lost or exposed, an administrator can generate a new one in Totara and send us the updated value.
What information is sent to Totara?
When creating or updating a user, Sense sends:
Username (the person's first and last name)
First name and last name
Email address
Employee ID
Town / city
Department
Work phone number
Address
Organisation name
Country (GB), timezone (Europe/Dublin) and language (English)
Sign-in method (SSO or manual, depending on your settings)
For job assignments, Sense sends:
Job title
Start date
End date (last day of employment)
The person's manager (where the manager also exists in Totara)
When an employee is marked as a leaver, Sense sends:
Their last day of employment, applied as the end date on their job assignment.
How people are matched to Totara
The first time someone is synced, Sense looks for an existing Totara account with the same email address:
If a match is found, the Sense record and the Totara account are linked together.
If no match is found, a brand-new Totara account is created.
Once linked, that connection is remembered against the person in Sense, so all future changes are sent to the correct Totara account no duplicate accounts are created.
A person's manager is linked in Totara only when that manager has also been synced to Totara. If the manager isn't in Totara yet, the job assignment is still created or updated, just without the manager attached.
Account creation settings
A few settings control how new accounts are set up. These only apply when an account is created for the first time:
Sign-in method - choose SSO (single sign-on) or manual sign-in.
Generate password - whether Totara automatically generates a password for new manual accounts.
Force password change - whether new users are asked to set a new password the first time they sign in.
Good to know
A person needs an email address to be synced. If there's no email address on the record, the person is skipped and no Totara account is created.
Profile updates only update people who are already linked to Totara. If someone doesn't yet have a Totara account, simply editing their profile won't create one - add them or run a manual sync instead.
Existing accounts are never duplicated. Matching by email and the saved link make sure updates always land on the right account.