Cancelling an event keeps the record but marks it as withdrawn. That’s almost always preferable to deleting — it gives staff, parents and students visibility that something was meant to happen and isn’t going ahead.
When to cancel vs. delete
- Cancel — the event was approved and visible to others. Use this so the calendar shows what’s been called off.
- Delete — the event was a Draft that never went to approval, or a duplicate created by mistake. There’s nothing to communicate.
Only deletes are available before approval; once an event has gone Pending or further, cancellation is the right option.
Cancelling a whole event
For a one-off event, or for all occurrences of a recurring event:
- Open the event.
- Choose Cancel event.
- Optionally add a note explaining why.
- Save.
The status changes to Cancelled. The event still appears on the calendar with cancelled styling so people can see it was meant to run. Catering, ICT and maintenance contacts are notified that their requirements no longer apply.
Cancelling a single occurrence
For a recurring event, you can cancel one occurrence without affecting the rest:
- Open the calendar and click the occurrence.
- Choose Cancel this occurrence.
- Optionally add a note.
- Save.
The occurrence shows as cancelled on the calendar; the parent event and other occurrences are untouched.
If your school has the Show cancelled occurrences setting turned off, cancelled occurrences are hidden from the calendar entirely. Speak to your portal admin if you want this changed.
Cancelling future occurrences only
If you want to stop a recurring event from this point forward but keep the past occurrences:
- Open the event itself (not a specific occurrence).
- Change the End recurring period on the Recurrence tab to today’s date.
- Save.
This changes the rule on an approved event, which sends it back to Draft. Resubmit to confirm the change — see Editing, rescheduling and resending for approval.
Reinstating a cancelled event
Open the cancelled event and edit it. Change the status back to Draft, then resubmit for approval. The cancellation is recorded in the history.
What happens to permission slips
If parents have already signed permission slips for the event and it’s cancelled, the slips remain in the record but are marked as no longer required. The school can decide whether to refund any associated fees outside the calendar workflow.
What happens to notifications
Cancelling sends an email to:
- The event owner and co-owner.
- All additional staff on the event.
- The catering, ICT, maintenance and admin email routes if those requirements were set.
- Approvers, so the request is closed off in their queues.
It does not automatically email parents or students. If you need to tell parents the event has been called off, send a separate notice via the Notices or Newsroom module.