Why some fields are required when saving a document in the App even though they are not required in the Document Library column settings.

Question

When checking a document out from one of our document libraries, every once in a while it will not allow us to save the document indicating some fields have required properties, when in SharePoint the column settings for the Library have these columns set to not required or mandatory. This is causing an issue as we cannot save the document and when the customer tries to fix the issue they end up losing the changes they made because it ends up not saving the document.

We have a workaround in place to go into the document and set the values for these columns if needed and then save, but it does not always work.

This issue is hard to reproduce. I have only heard reports about it.

As explained by customer:

Issue: When checking out the document and opening the document "in app," a yellow bar pops up at the top that says that required server properties are missing and need to be corrected in order to save the document. All required fields are filled in as indicated by the red * items. In addition, this was crosschecked with the PolicyHub properties and the required fields are complete. When reviewing the Info, Advanced Properties, of the file in word, the following fields have red boxes around them, so it is indicating these fields have to have a value in them in order to save the document and check it back in: DocumentStatus, Approval Status, Approved By. Approval Status and Approved By should never be added manually. They should always be updated by a workflow. I tested one document and filled in the red boxes and it allowed me to save the document and check it back in, so for some reason it is making all the fields be required to save and check in, even if the fields are not required. I also reviewed the advanced library settings and ensured that those fields did not have required set to Yes, and confirmed they are set to No. We need to figure out why Microsoft Word is considering all blank fields to be required for save even when they are not required fields.

Answer 1

Dear cinhoff,

Good day! Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community. We are happy to help you

I've done testing with us as well, but we can't seem to reproduce this phenomenon, so this could be a server issue that happens with a specific tenant 

We kindly recommended you can raise a service request in Microsoft 365 admin center, which the support there has the related permission and resource to help you check from the backend

Thanks for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Tin | Microsoft Community Moderator

Answer 2

Hello,

Please see below response to questions:

• Does this occur in multiple documents? Or is it a specific document? Multiple Documents
• Is the same happening with other document libraries? Multiple libraries, but within one central library
• Have you created a workflow for this document library, and if so, can you let me know if it is a custom created workflow?/ ... There is a custom workflow related to the documents, but it should not trigger until the document is saved.

Answer 3

Dear cinhoff

Good day! Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community. We are happy to help you

I don't seem to have encountered anything similar in our tests here, so I'd like to confirm the following information:

• Does this occur in multiple documents? Or is it a specific document?
• Is the same happening with other document libraries?
• Have you created a workflow for this document library, and if so, can you let me know if it is a custom created workflow?/ ...

We look forward to your reply. Thanks for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Tin | Microsoft Community Moderator