Coaches play an important role in keeping their team's data accurate on Swimcloud. When a timing error occurs, coaches may be able to invalidate a time for a swimmer on their own team so it no longer appears in rankings, Top Times lists, or swimmer profiles — while the original meet result stays fully intact.
What Invalidating a Time Does
Invalidating a time:
- Removes it from swimmer profiles, Top Times lists, and rankings
- Does not delete the time from the meet results, modify the original meet file, or affect event or team scoring
- Is fully reversible at any point by revalidating the time
- Triggers an automatic re-rank of affected lists during Swimcloud's next scheduled rankings update
When to Invalidate — and When Not To
Invalidate a time when the displayed result is clearly wrong and the correct time is unknown — for example, a touchpad or timing system malfunction, an obvious timing error, or a bad relay split (including lead-off splits).
⚠️ If you do know the correct time, don't invalidate it. Coaches can remove a time, but only a meet administrator can correct one. Contact the meet administrator and ask them to correct and resubmit the result — for a Swimcloud-run meet, they can edit it directly in Meet Manager within the appropriate timeframe; for other systems, they'll need to upload a corrected results file.
Who Can Do This
This depends on your Swimcloud subscription:
- Swimcloud PRO coaches can invalidate and revalidate times directly, including relay split invalidations.
- Swimcloud FREE coaches can't invalidate times directly — instead, request it through Swimcloud Support (steps below).
How to Invalidate an Individual Time (Pro Subscribers
You can invalidate a time from anywhere it appears on Swimcloud — meet results, Top Times lists, or a swimmer's profile.
Locate the incorrect time.
Click the time to open the meet result details page.
Click the time again on that page.
Click Invalidate, then confirm.
If the invalidation was done in error, return to this screen and click Validate to restore the time.
Invalidating Relay Splits
Navigate to the relay event results.
Click Show names to display individual relay legs.
Click on the individual split time for your swimmer.
Click Invalidate.
Visual Indicators After Invalidating
After a time is invalidated, you may notice:
The action button will change from Invalidate to Validate
A warning icon (
) next to the time indicating it has been invalidated
🔄 Note: You may need to refresh the page to see the warning indicator appear.
Important Notes & Limitations for Coaches
Coaches can only invalidate times for swimmers on their own team
-
Times for other teams can only be handled by:
The meet administrator
A Regional Administrator
Swimcloud support staff
If a time is invalidated after rankings have been published, Swimcloud will automatically re-rank results during the next rankings update
If an invalid time was already used for meet entry qualification, invalidating it will not retroactively change entries
Invalidating a time is always reversible
Requesting a Time Invalidation
If you are using a Swimcloud FREE account, you can request a time invalidation by sending the result link to Swimcloud Support.
- Locate the incorrect time and click it to open the result details page.
- Copy the URL from your browser's address bar.
- Email the link to support@swimcloud.com with a short explanation, including the swimmer's name, the meet name, the event, and why the result is incorrect.
Swimcloud staff or your Regional Administrator will review the request and take action if appropriate.
💡 Upgrading to Swimcloud PRO gives coaches direct access to time invalidation and revalidation, without waiting on a support request.