Allow participants to edit their bookings in the registration for participation

We have planned our conference very diligently, but somehow we forgot to add an important item to the participant registration form. We would like to give already registered participants the chance to edit their registration and also would like the participants to be able to choose this newly available option themselves.

(A German version of this article is available.)

You can always add events / items to the participant registration form, but by default these items will only be available for new registrations.

We can change the configuration of your ConfTool installation* so that you will be able to offer your participants the possibility to update their bookings in their registration for participation.

We make the necessary changes for your installation upon request only.

In most cases we advise against this option as it makes the whole process more complicated: Participants must log in to their account a second time to update their registration and organizers may have to process several invoices and/or payments for each participant.

Please note that the way registration updates are handled, and invoices are generated depends on the mode in which ConfTool is installed. ConfTool can be installed in two different invoicing modes called mode A and mode B. For detailed information please consult our documentation about the different invoicing modes of ConfTool Pro.   

• Mode A: If your installation has been set up in mode A, an update of the registration usually also changes the content of the invoice and the total amount due. If the invoice is changed, the old invoice of the participant will be overwritten in the database and a new invoice with the same invoice number but possibly different items and amounts will be saved instead. This could lead to accounting problems on your side. You can still access the old registration details in the user log of ConfTool Pro, but not the old invoice any more.
  
  Alternative: Changes in the registration for participation can be done by admins and organizers (assistants) at any time. They can also print out or save the current invoice, make the necessary changes and then generate a new invoice with a new invoice number.
  Remember: The old invoice will always be overwritten in the database!
• Mode B: In mode B, for each update of the registration or cancelling of a booking, an additional invoice will be created (if a new item is added) or the old invoice is cancelled with a corrective invoice and a new invoice is issued (if an item was removed). In consequence, there may be several invoices per participant.

If you want to add an item to the participant registration that is free of charge and thus there is no change in the amounts due, then letting participants change their registration is uncomplicated in both modes.

To enable already registered participants to add events / items, please go to:
Overview => Settings => Main Settings for Participant Registration
… and update "Condition for editing the participation details" to "Participants can always edit their registration details during the corresponding phase", and also enable the corresponding phase (see image 1).

Once this feature is enabled, edit the settings for each event / item group:
Overview => Settings => Manage Event/Item Groups => Edit Event/Item Group

During editing mode, the items of each group on the registration form can be displayed to the participants in four different ways (see image 2):

• Edit: Users may edit the bookings of items of this group as they like (also cancel the selection).
• Add: Users may only add items / events to their booking.
  This could be useful if you want to avoid that participants cancel any events or items booked earlier. You may also create a new group to use this feature for added items / events.
• Show: The items of this group are only shown, without any option to edit the original selection.
• Hide: The items of this group are not shown in edit mode. The items will not be displayed and thus no changes can be made.

Remember to test your settings after your modifications.

We recommend hiding the prices of events / items free of charge on the invoice when you want to allow editing such events / items so that they won't appear on the invoice.
This setting can also be changed for each group individually (see image 2).

* To enable these features, the configuration file has to be altered. It is not accessible via the web interface, therefore you have to contact us.