Cancelling and releasing guests from requests

If invited guests are not able to attend an event, there are two guest statuses to understand, which have different behaviours: cancelled and released. This article covers the various scenarios.

How are guests cancelled?

There are three ways that a guest can be cancelled:

1. Guest cancels - if a guest has completed their registration (status = registered), they are able to cancel their place via a link on their secure event page (usually accessed by a link in their registration email via the ${guestportallink} tag).
2. Admin cancels - an administrator can cancel an invited or registered guest in the Guest Management module.
3. User (host) cancels - the user who owns the ticket request can cancel invited guests.

What do the statuses mean?

There are subtle differences between the statuses that it is important to understand:

• Cancelled - the guest has been cancelled (by the guest or an admin) and the ticket remains with the user (host) to make a decision whether to invite another guest or to release the ticket back to the allocation.
• Released - the guest has been released from the request. Their place will be released back to the allocation if the admin actions the release. If the user (host) has action a cancellation, the guest will be released but the user will have the option to keep the ticket or release their place.

This table summarises what happens in each scenario:

Action on guest place	Guest status change	Resulting change to request
Guest cancels / Admin cancels	Cancelled	Place remains on request. User can choose in My Requests whether they want a replacement guest. If yes, place remains on request. If not, place is returned to original allocation.
Admin releases	Released	Request quantity reduced by one. Place returned to original allocation. (This would usually be done only after consultation with the user / request owner)
User (host) cancels	Released	User can choose via My Requests whether they want to add a replacement guest. If yes, place remains on request. If not, place is returned to original allocation and quantity is reduced by one. If ticket is released this action cannot be undone.

How users add replacement guests to requests

If a place is cancelled by the guest or an administrator cancels a guest, in the request details screen (accessed via My Requests and clicking into the request), the user who owns the request is presented with a prompt:

If there are multiple cancelled guests, the user will be asked to process each guest one at a time until all decisions are made.

The user action options are as follows:

• I don't need their ticket now - reduces the total request quantity by one and adds the place back to the original allocation
• I will suggest another guest - releases the guest from the request (rather than delete, so they are retained for reporting purposes) but retains the place for the user and does not reduce the quantity.