How to Fix SharePoint Approval Status Changing to Not Submitted After Approval

When managing document workflows, watching an item get approved only to see its status immediately revert is incredibly frustrating. If you are working to fix SharePoint approval status changing to Not Submitted after approval, you are encountering a common conflict between SharePoint's native versioning controls and automated workflow actions. This guide breaks down exactly why this metadata reversion happens and provides explicit steps to correct your Power Automate flows and SharePoint library settings.

Understanding the Metadata Conflict

In SharePoint, when a document library has Require content approval for submitted items enabled, any modification to the file creates a new draft. The most common reason your status drops back to "Not Submitted" or "Pending" is because your Power Automate flow updates the document's properties—such as appending an approval date, reviewer name, or a custom comment—after the approval action has already been completed. SharePoint sees this property update as a brand-new edit by the system or user running the flow, which automatically triggers the library to strip the "Approved" status and require a new review.

Adjusting Power Automate to Prevent Status Reversions

To resolve fixing SharePoint Approval Status Changing to Not Submitted After Approval, you must sequence your Power Automate actions so that the official approval status is applied as the absolute final step in the workflow.

• Step 1: Open your Microsoft Power Automate environment and click My flows on the left navigation pane. Select the workflow responsible for your document approvals and click Edit.
• Step 2: Locate the Start and wait for an approval action. Look at the steps immediately following it. If you have an Update file properties or Update item action placed after the approval step, this is the root cause of the reversion.
• Step 3: Keep the Update file properties action where it is, but ensure it captures the required outcome of the approval (e.g., writing "Approved" to a custom status column or logging the current timestamp).
• Step 4: Click New step at the very bottom of your flow sequence, ensuring no other file modifications happen after this point. Search for the SharePoint connector and select the Set content approval status action.
• Step 5: Configure this action by selecting your Site Address and Library Name from the dropdown menus. Map the Id field to the dynamic content ID of your original file. Set the Action field to Approve. Add a dynamic condition if necessary to ensure this only runs if the previous approval was successful.

Save and test your flow. By forcing the Set content approval status action to execute last, SharePoint registers the property updates first, and then explicitly marks that final state as Approved, preventing the system from pushing it back to Not Submitted.

Configuring SharePoint Document Library Settings

Sometimes the issue originates directly from how draft item security and versioning are configured in the library itself. If your flow relies on system accounts or specific permission tiers to process approvals, misconfigured versioning will override the flow logic.

• Step 1: Navigate to your SharePoint Document Library. Click the Settings gear icon in the top right corner and select Library settings. Next, click More library settings.
• Step 2: Under the General Settings column, click Versioning settings.
• Step 3: Verify that Require content approval for submitted items? is set to Yes.
• Step 4: Scroll down to the Draft Item Security section. Ensure that Who should see draft items in this document library? is set to Only users who can approve items (and the author of the item). If this is set to allow anyone who can read items to see drafts, intermediate workflow saves might not register correctly as drafts awaiting structured approval.
• Step 5: Click OK to save your changes. Upload a test document into the library to verify the approval status holds steady before re-enabling your automated flow across the organization.

Preparing and Securing Approved Documents with WPS Office

Because content approval statuses are strictly controlled by Microsoft's backend server policies and Power Automate workflow configurations, third-party software like WPS Office cannot directly alter SharePoint's internal approval mechanisms. However, people working on fixing SharePoint Approval Status Changing to Not Submitted After Approval often struggle with document integrity before and after the workflow runs. Once your SharePoint flow is functioning correctly, you can use WPS Office to handle the actual document preparation and secure the final outputs.

WPS Office provides lightweight tools for managing files before they enter the SharePoint environment, and for securing them post-approval:

• Pre-Approval Formatting: Before uploading to a strict SharePoint library, use WPS Writer to clean up document metadata and ensure styling is finalized. This ensures no hidden properties or layout shifts require last-minute edits that would trigger unwanted status updates once the workflow begins.
• Post-Approval PDF Conversion: Once a document is officially marked as "Approved" in SharePoint, you can download the final version and use the built-in PDF tools in WPS Office to convert the Word or Excel file into a secure PDF. Click the Export to PDF button in the main WPS toolbar to lock the visual content.
• Adding Security: In WPS PDF, navigate to the Protect tab to apply a visible watermark (such as "Approved - Final") or set a document modification password. This prevents subsequent unauthorized edits locally that would otherwise force the file back into a "Not Submitted" state if re-uploaded to the cloud library.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my SharePoint document show as "Pending" after I already clicked approve?

This occurs when the SharePoint library requires content approval and an automated flow modifies the document's metadata (like logging an approval date or capturing reviewer comments) after the approval action takes place. SharePoint treats any metadata update as a brand-new edit, which automatically resets the document's status to "Pending" or "Not Submitted" to ensure those new changes are reviewed.

Can I update a file property in Power Automate without triggering a new version?

Native Power Automate actions like "Update file properties" will always trigger a new version and reset the approval status in libraries with content approval enabled. To bypass this entirely, you must use the Send an HTTP request to SharePoint action to perform a "SystemUpdate". A SystemUpdate modifies list item fields without incrementing the version number or changing the current approval status.

Does disabling versioning stop the approval status from changing?

If you disable versioning entirely by setting "Create a version each time you edit a file in this document library" to "No Versioning", you will lose the ability to track document history, but it does not automatically disable the content approval requirement if that specific setting is still toggled on. To stop the approval cycle entirely, you must set "Require content approval for submitted items?" to "No".

Why do some users see the approved document while others only see the "Not Submitted" version?

This visibility issue is caused by the Draft Item Security settings in your SharePoint library. If a document reverts to a draft or "Not Submitted" state due to a workflow order error, SharePoint will only display the last major published version to standard readers. Only the author and users with explicit approval permissions can see the current draft state. Fixing your Power Automate flow to finalize the status as "Approved" will publish the document as a major version visible to all readers.