Troubleshooting the inability to re-approve an item where content approval is enabled on a sharepoint 2019 on premise list

Question

My approvers with FULL PERMISSIONS are unable to RE-APPROVE items on a sharepoint 2019 list (on premise version) with content approval enabled. Although they are able to initially approve/reject (in either modern or classic view), they are UNABLE to RE-APPROVE the items when changes are made. In addition, the statuses do not change when items are modified; statuses do not change to PENDING with each change. e.g.,

• IF originally APPROVED and a change is made, it remains/is grouped/categorized as APPROVED (and not pending)
• IF originally REJECTED and a change is made, it remains/is grouped/categorized as REJECTED (and not pending)

I have site collection admin (SCA) permissions and am able to re-approve items and see items go from approved/rejected to PENDING with each changes. However, the approvers are unable to RE-APPROVE or see the items status changes. They originally had designer permissions and when this issue occurred, I elevated their permissions to FULL and they are still having this issue.

This ability to RE-APPROVE works on Sharepoint 2010 and Sharepoint 2016. It is not working in Sharepoint 2019. Is anyone else having this issue? Is this a known issue for Sharepoint 2019 on-premise? Is there a fix for this - if yes?

If this is not the right forum to post this question, please direct me to the right forum. Thank you.

Answer 1

@isabellamai ，

I could not reproducce your issue per my test.

Users who have full control permission are able to re-approve items and see pending status of modified items.

Usually, when an item is in Pending status, the item originator and the people who have permissions to manage lists and libraries can see it.

Please remove affected user permissions at _layouts/15/user.aspx page, then remove them from the UserInfo list at /_layouts/15/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0 page, clear browser cache, after that, grant permissions again to compare the result.

More information:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/require-approval-of-items-in-a-list-or-library-cd0761c4-8c3f-4ea2-9435-13c28aa23d08

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Answer 2

Thank you for the recommendation.

I made some progress but realized where the issue may lie. My list has an attachment field. When an item is modified on the attachment field (e.g., a second file is added, or deleted, or replaced via the item menu DETAILS view) the item does not revert back to PENDING. It stays in that current status.

However, when I edit the list item via EDIT item view in the NINTEX form itself, the status change is reflected.

The underlying issue is that our users are having issues viewing this NINTEX form in a WOPI view - unsure if I am using that terminology correctly. Our approvers with elevated design permissions have no issues viewing/editing the item in NINTEX format; however, the submitter/created with general contributing permissions can only edit their item by going through the DETAILS VIEW. The list does not recognize this as a "change" when editing the attachments via the DETAILS view.

So - this has been slightly resolved now that I understand the underlying issue.

Next question for you - is there a way to display a SAVE and SUBMIT button on the item menu - DETAILS view?