This guide is for course providers when a booked participant (a delegate, learner or student) cannot attend and someone else, such as a colleague, will take their place. This is also called substituting or swapping the attendee. Replace Participant keeps the course, date and price, and changes only who attends.
A registration is one person’s place on a course. An order records the purchase (the booking) and can contain several courses and participants.
To put the same person on another date or course instead, see Move or Transfer a Participant to Another Date or Course. If nobody will take the place, see Cancel a Booking or Part of an Order.
Transfer a Place to a Colleague When a Delegate Cannot Attend (Replace Participant)
Use Replace Participant when the course and date stay the same and somebody else will take the place. In the Admin Dashboard this is a System Admin action on the order. The price stays the same and the replacement does not issue a new invoice or other financial document.
Check the contact before continuing: selecting a new contact and pressing Continue creates that contact before the final replacement confirmation. Cancelling the later confirmation does not undo that contact creation. Use an existing contact when the person already has one.
Select Orders in the Admin Dashboard and open the order. Under Details, find the correct course and the person who is leaving.
Open the ⋯ menu on that person’s row and select Replace Participant…. The Replace Participant window asks who takes over their space and confirms that nothing changes on the bill.
In Search or create contact, search for and select the replacement’s existing contact. If the person has no contact, select Create new contact..., enter their details and check them carefully. Provide an email address or both first and last names before continuing.
Select Continue. A second confirmation names the person being replaced and the replacement. Check both names, then select Replace.
After Participant replaced, reopen the order and check the participant under the correct course. Open the replacement’s registration and check the person, course, date and access information. Check that the outgoing person’s registration for that course is Cancelled. If either result is missing, contact Cademy Support before repeating the replacement.
If a place on the order has no name yet (an unnamed space), you do not need to replace anyone: use Assign… to add the delegate’s details. See Change an Existing Order.
What Happens to Each Person’s Registration When You Replace Someone
Replacing someone cancels the outgoing person’s registration for that course and creates a new registration for the replacement, with the same status as the order (Active or Pending). The person leaving keeps any places on other courses in the same order. The order’s prices, invoices and payments do not change. Do not treat the outgoing person’s attendance, lesson progress or certificate as belonging to their replacement: the new registration starts without them.
If the replacement is the order’s existing primary contact (the Order Contact), Cademy puts that person back on the course’s participant list and can reactivate their earlier registration instead. It does not create a second place for someone already attending the course. Resolve an already-participating warning before continuing.
Change the Contact Person on a Booking Made for Someone Else (Change Primary Contact)
Replace Participant changes who attends. It does not change the order’s primary contact, the person shown as Order Contact who owns the booking. If the booking should belong to someone else too, use the separate Change Primary Contact action on the primary participant’s row or in the menu on the Order Contact card. Check that action’s consequences before confirming it: replacing the attendee and changing the order contact are different tasks.
Change the Name of the Person Attending When It Is the Same Person
If it is the same person and only their details are wrong, such as a misspelt name or an old email address, update their contact instead of replacing them. Select View Contact in the participant’s menu to open it.
Tell the Old and New Attendee About a Replacement
The Replace Participant windows in the Admin Dashboard have no email option. If the person leaving or the person joining needs to know about the change, tell them yourself, for example with Send an Email to Course Participants or Contacts. To see what was sent to either person, check Find Sent Emails and Check Delivery Status.
Let the Person Who Booked Replace a Participant From Their Account
The order owner (normally the person who placed the order) can replace or remove a guest from their own Cademy account. They can also transfer their own place to someone else while Allow Transferring a Place to Someone Else is on; see Set Cancellation and Rescheduling Policies. Their steps are in Manage the People on a Course You Booked.
Replacement, removal and transfer check the selected booked date. They are unavailable when attendance or lesson progress locks that person’s place on that date. Editing a guest’s shared details checks every date of the same course in that order, so an earlier date can lock that edit while an unmarked later place can still be changed. For a whole-block booking, the booked item can be the block. A future date is not unlocked automatically if course progress is recorded. When an action is locked, the customer asks you, and a System Admin uses Replace Participant as described above.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will replacing someone charge the customer again?
No. Replace Participant keeps the price unchanged and does not issue a new financial document through the replacement confirmation. Check the order afterwards before taking any payment action.
Which option changes the course, and which changes the person?
Move Registration changes one person’s course or date. Change Course or Date changes one whole course on the order. Replace Participant changes who takes the existing place.
Does the replacement get the first person’s attendance, progress or certificate?
No. The replacement gets a separate registration. The outgoing person’s registration is cancelled, and its records are not copied to the replacement.
Can a Course Owner or Facilitator replace a participant?
Not in the Admin Dashboard. Replace Participant is on the order, which needs a System Admin.