Typing in participants one at a time works for a handful of people, but most schools and organisations register dozens or hundreds at once. eTalenter gives you three different ways to bring a whole list in together, plus the pages to keep candidates and teams organised once they’re in.
This guide covers Candidates, Bulk Participants, Excel Import, AI Participant Import, Teams and Assign Teams. Every screenshot comes from a public demo event, read-only, that you can open and click along with yourself: v2.etalenter.com/v2/Public/LiveDemo → Kalotsavam → Open demo as Coordinator.
Step 1: The candidate roster (Candidates)
Menu: Participants Management → Candidates
This is the plain roster of individual candidates — add, edit, delete and fix mistakes, without touching competitions here. Only Name is required to add someone with Add Candidate. To bring in many at once, click Import Excel and paste spreadsheet rows in the order shown on the page — it only needs Name, and also accepts Identity Number, Registration Id, Group, DOB, Title, unit levels, Phone, Mobile, Email and photo.
If someone ends up in the wrong age group, click Fix Age Groups. It compares each candidate’s class (if mapped) or date of birth against your event’s own age rules, lists anyone that doesn’t match, and moves the ones you tick after you untick any of their competitions that block the move. Candidates it can’t work out on its own are listed under Needs attention. Remember: adding a candidate here doesn’t assign any competitions — that happens on Bulk Participants next.
Step 2: Add participants and tick their competitions in one grid (Bulk Participants)
Menu: Participants Management → Bulk Participants
This is the main working page for most coordinators — one dense grid per age group and participant type (Individual or Team), where you add people and tick which competitions they’re in without leaving the page.
Click Add Participant, then either search by Registration Id to reuse someone already registered, or fill in their name and details, choose their unit levels (House, Class, and so on) if asked, tick their competitions, and save. For someone already in the grid, just tick or untick a competition’s checkbox and confirm — no need to reopen the form. Other tools here: the photo icon uploads a row’s picture, the tag icon opens a searchable list of that participant’s competitions, and the icon with a number opens a team’s member list. A participant with any ticked competition can’t be deleted until every tick is removed first, and once a competition is no longer “Not Started,” its participant list locks.
Step 3: Import a whole spreadsheet at once (Excel Import)
Menu: Participants Management → Excel Import
Paste or upload a CSV or Excel file and eTalenter checks every row against your event’s real groups and competitions before saving anything.
Pick a Participant Type and a Group (or leave All Groups), click Upload CSV/Excel File, and check the review table for rows flagged with an error before clicking Import to List. Add one column per competition — any value in it assigns that participant — and one column per organisation level, like ClassName or DivisionName, to place them correctly as you import. Columns can be pasted in any order; they’re automatically matched to the right fields, and uploaded data is kept for 24 hours if you need to come back to it. If a row won’t save, the most common causes are a name under 3 letters, a phone or mobile under 5 digits, an invalid email, or a badly formatted date of birth. Rows that share the same name, DOB and level values as another are blocked as duplicates.
Step 4: Import from a photo or scanned list (AI Participant Import)
Menu: Participants Management → AI Participant Import
When your list isn’t a spreadsheet at all — a handwritten sheet, a printed list, a PDF — this page lets AI read it for you instead of typing everything by hand.
Upload one or more photos or a PDF, optionally add a note under AI Prompt such as “This sheet only has the Senior group,” then click Get Results. AI fills an editable table below, and tries to match each row to an existing participant to avoid creating duplicates — fix anything wrong before importing. A ditto mark (“) or the word “same” under Membership, Group or Competitions copies the value from the row above, which speeds up long lists where most rows repeat the same group. Tick the rows you want and use Bulk Edit to set Type, Group or Gender, or add a competition, across every ticked row at once, then click Import Selected Participants. Saving is blocked until every checked row has a Name, a Group, and a Membership if your event uses one — and if your Competition Structure isn’t finished yet, this page shows a guidance message instead of the import tool until it is.
Step 5: Keep a directory of your teams (Teams)
Menu: Participants Management → Teams
For team-type competitions, this page is just the directory: a team’s name, identity number and unit — not its members or competitions, which live elsewhere.
Click Add Team, enter the Team Name and its unit if asked, and save. A duplicate team name in the same unit is rejected before it saves. To add members or competitions in one step instead of two separate pages, use Bulk Participants’ Team tab — or click a team’s name here to jump straight to Assign Teams filtered to just that team.
Step 6: Build each team’s roster (Assign Teams)
Menu: Participants Management → Assign Teams
This page links existing candidates to existing teams, with a role for each one.
Click Add, choose the Designation (Leader or Member), the Candidate and the Team, set an Order if you want one, and save. You need teams and candidates created first — the page tells you which one is missing if either doesn’t exist yet. The same candidate can’t be added twice to the same team; saving again is rejected. There’s no single bulk-remove action here, so removing several members sends one request per row.
A note on Candidate Profile
You’ll see a Profile link on Candidates, Bulk Participants, Teams and Review Candidates — clicking it opens a read-only Candidate Profile with tabs for Registration Info, Guardian Info, Competitions, Team Participations, Judge Scores, Results and Activity. Nothing on it can be edited; it’s reached only through those links, not from its own menu item, and it’s the fastest way to see everything recorded about one person in a single place.
Common questions
I added a candidate but they’re not in any competitions.
That’s expected. Candidates only creates the roster entry — assign their competitions from Bulk Participants.
My Excel import row won’t save.
Check the name is 3+ letters, phone/mobile has 5+ digits, the email is valid, and the date of birth uses / or -. GroupName and level columns must also match a real group or level name in your event exactly.
AI Participant Import won’t let me import.
Every checked row needs a Name, a Group, and a Membership if your event uses one. If your Competition Structure isn’t finished, finish that first — this page blocks importing until it is.
I can’t delete a participant.
Untick every competition they’re assigned to first; a participant with any ticked competition can’t be deleted.
I can’t move a candidate to the right age group.
Untick any of their competitions that belong to the wrong group first — Fix Age Groups can’t move someone while they’re still entered in a competition there.
Where do I add a team’s members?
Not on Teams itself — that page only creates the team’s name and unit. Add members on Assign Teams, or use Bulk Participants’ Team tab to do both a member and their competitions together.
What’s next
With your participants and teams in place, the next guides in this series cover preparing chest numbers, ID cards and printouts, and inviting judges and other team members to help run the event.
Open the demo event and click through every page in this guide yourself: v2.etalenter.com/v2/Public/LiveDemo.
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