1. What is the issue? Please be detailed.
Entity lists have an option that requires submissions to be approved before new entities are written. However, when a single submission both:
creates a new entity (to a list with “require approval” enabled), and
updates an existing entity (in the same or a different list),
the update happens immediately (expected), but the creation never happens after the submission is approved.
There is no error shown on the submission details page.
If I turn off the approval requirement and submit the same form creation and updating function as expected.
2. What steps can we take to reproduce this issue?
ODK versions:
020d5a7ce018148beb8e968d50eec3a81d1bd98c (v2026.1.1-1-g020d5a7)
96b8937f314af34affcaead068bac83dfa1e4bdf client (v2026.1.0)
142c1c85501d90d225116862ba79dd914c5fcfc1 server (v2026.1.1)
Scenario 1: Two different entity lists
Entity list A: “require approval before writing” enabled
Entity list B: no approval requirement
Submission:
creates a new entity in list A
updates an existing entity in list B
Observed behaviour
The update to list B happens immediately (expected)
After approving the submission, the new entity in list A is never created
Scenario 2: Same entity list
I also tested creating and updating entities in the same entity list within the same submission (using a repeat):
Entity list has approval required for creation
Submission updates an existing entity and attempts to create a new one
Observed behaviour
The existing entity is updated
The new entity is never created after approval
Expected behaviour
Once the submission is approved, the new entity creation should occur, regardless of whether other entity updates occurred in the same submission.
3. What have you tried to fix the issue?
created a fresh ODK central install.
4. Upload any forms or screenshots you can share publicly below.
single_entity_create_update.xlsx (12.5 KB)
multi_entity_create_update.xlsx (12.6 KB)