https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/education-assessed/read-report.html
I am a member of some facebook groups for express entry as well, in the past 4 months, I can recall 3 different cases where applications were rejected on eligibility grounds (points reduction from two or more degree to that of only bachelor degree) where the applicant had an equivalency of 1 year graduate study and another with 1 year college certificate equivalency.
One year post graduate certificate is fine but one year certificate/graduate studies lie in grey areas and will be open to the judgement by the case officer.
Your friend had been really lucky to get passed through, the people who got rejected were not that lucky though.
By the way, WES customer care is not the right department to seek immigration advice. Also, most of the "professional" consultants are a sham. I consulted three "professional" consultants, and none of them knew what Optometry is and how many points it fetched under CRS. And two of them even said that I cannot use self-employment as work experience for EE. And these "professional" consultants were one of the most sought after consultancies in New Delhi.