Subscribing Users

Before you can assess a learner, they need to be subscribed to your course. Chamilo offers four ways to get someone in, depending on who is doing the subscribing and whether the person already has a platform account.

Method	Who does it	Needs an existing account?
Administrator Enrollment	Platform administrator	Yes
Self-Enrollment via the Course Catalog	The learner, themselves	Yes
Manual Enrollment via the Users Tool	Teacher (or course admin)	Yes
Inviting Users by Email	Teacher (or course admin)	No

Administrator Enrollment

A platform administrator can subscribe any existing user to any course directly from the administration panel — useful for bulk onboarding (e.g. importing a class list) or when a teacher doesn't have the rights to manage enrollment themselves. See the Courses section of the Administration Guide.

Self-Enrollment via the Course Catalog

If your course's visibility allows it, learners with a platform account can subscribe themselves by finding your course in Explore more courses and clicking to join — no action needed from you. Whether this is available, and whether it requires a password, is controlled by the Enrollment Settings in Course Settings.

Manual Enrollment via the Users Tool

To subscribe someone who already has a platform account but hasn't joined on their own, open your course's Users tool and click the Add users icon.

1. Search for the person by name, username, e-mail, or official code

2. Click Register on their row, or select several with the checkboxes and use the Action menu to register them all at once

Search results in the Enroll users to course screen, showing a matching learner and a Register button

Only users who aren't already subscribed to the course appear in the results.

This icon is available to teachers by default. A platform administrator can restrict it to administrators only via the Allow User Course Subscription By Course Administrator setting (allow_user_course_subscription_by_course_admin) — if you don't see the Add users icon, ask your administrator.

Inviting Users by Email

The three methods above all assume the person already has a platform account. Course invitations cover the case where they don't: you send an invitation to an email address, and Chamilo emails that person a one-time link. Opening the link lets them create an account, and as soon as they finish registering they are automatically subscribed to your course — no separate enrollment step needed.

Accessing the Tool

Open your course's Users tool, then click the Invite by email icon in the toolbar, next to Add users:

The Users tool toolbar, showing the Add users icon and the Invite by email icon

This opens the Course invitations page.

Who Can Send Invitations

• Platform administrators, always.

• In a plain course (not opened in a session): teachers and other users with edit rights on the course.

• In a session: the session's general coach, or a session administrator — not the broader set of course coaches, since sending an invitation here subscribes to the entire session, not just this one course.

Sending an Invitation

1. Enter the recipient's e-mail address in the Invite by email form

2. Click Send invitation

The Course invitations page: the invite-by-email form and a table of sent invitations with their status

Every invitation you've sent for this course appears below the form, with its status:

Status	Meaning
Pending	Sent, not yet used. Still within its validity period.
Accepted	The recipient registered and was subscribed.
Revoked	You cancelled it before it was used.

For a still-pending invitation, the Actions column offers:

• Copy — copies the invitation link, in case you'd rather share it yourself (chat, in person) instead of relying on the email.

• Revoke — cancels the invitation immediately; the link stops working. An already-accepted invitation cannot be revoked.

The invited email address must not already have an account on this platform. If it does, sending the invitation fails with a message asking you to enroll that existing user directly instead — through Manual Enrollment via the Users Tool above.

Invitations in a Session

If you open the Users tool from a course that is running inside a session, the page shows a reminder that the invitation applies to the whole session, not just this course:

This course is opened in a session. Sending an invitation here will subscribe the recipient to the entire session, not just this course.

This mirrors how enrollment works elsewhere in Chamilo: you subscribe someone to a session as a whole, or to a standalone course, but never to "this one course inside this session" as a separate action.

What the Invited Person Sees

The email contains a link to the registration page. Opening it:

• Pre-fills and locks the e-mail field to the address you invited — they can't register under a different address with that link.

• Lets them complete registration even if self-registration is currently disabled platform-wide — provided your administrator has turned on the Allow registration via course invitation links setting (see below). Without it, an invitation link only helps once self-registration is otherwise open.

• Immediately subscribes them to your course (or the session) once they submit the form, and signs them in.

The link is one-time use and expires after 7 days. If it expires or its target invitation is revoked, opening it behaves as if the link never existed.

The platform-wide Allow registration via course invitation links setting (registration.allow_invitation_registration) governs whether your invitation link can open registration when general self-registration is turned off. Ask your administrator if invitations don't seem to work on an otherwise closed platform.

Tips

• Match the method to the situation — administrator or self-enrollment for people already using the platform, manual enrollment for a known existing user, invitations for external guests, reviewers, or anyone who doesn't have an account yet.

• Revoke invitations you no longer need — an old pending invitation is still a valid, unused link; revoke it if the intended recipient no longer needs access, or if you're unsure whether it reached them.

• Check with your administrator if a method seems unavailable — several of these flows (manual enrollment, invitations, self-enrollment) can be restricted or disabled platform-wide.