Viewing an Approval Request is Auto-Declining that Request

I have a fairly straightforward Approval Request workflow that sends me an approval request notification after a customer completes a form. Whenever I click the Open Request button from the email notification and click Approve, I see an error message that the link has already been used. When I check the sheet associated with this form, the column set up for displaying the Submitted/Approved/Declined status shows Declined. I have the Modified Time and Modified By columns active, and it seems to show that automation@smartsheet.com is making this change, even though the only auto-decline workflow I have is when the customer selects an embargoed or comprehensively sanctioned country (e.g., North Korea). There are no other auto-decline workflows that don't require me to manually select Decline.

There was a similar question asked here a couple of years ago, and an answer or solution was never posted. I would appreciate any help or guidance that can be offered.

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Accepted answers

MJWalling

This is a portion of the response I received from Smartsheet Customer Support:

I would like to mention that we have receive reports of similar behaviors before and the evidence found regarding the emails send is that a mail security service trigger the links in the message to test if they are safe. Hence causing the denied response.
The recommendation after these reports is to have the IT team to set a rule for emails received from Smartsheet.

It seems they are punting this back to my org's IT team, which seems about right to me. As I said before, the emergence of this problem coincides with the February Google Workspace update, so I'm sure there is something there that our IT needs to investigate. I'm not knowledgeable enough about these technical issues to move this forward myself. If there's anything new, I'll update here.

All comments

Paul Newcome

Is the approval request being sent to more than one person?

MJWalling

No, I'm the only one receiving the approval request.

Paul Newcome

You may want to reach out to Support.

MJWalling

I submitted a ticket yesterday, and hopefully they'll figure something out soon.

Guilherme Jaquer

@MJWalling

Hi, any update on the ticket? I believe I'm experiencing the same issue.

MJWalling

I've learned quite a bit about the problem since posting this.

The auto-declining problem began at the start February, which coincides with my organization's February Google Workspace update.
The auto-decline action occurs only within my organization's Google Workspace Gmail environment. When I send the approval request to my personal Gmail account and click "Open Request" from there, the Smartsheet workflows operate as intended.
From within the Google Workspace environment, if I copy the "Open Request" URL and paste it in a new tab, the workflows operate as intended (this is my current band-aid workaround).
Several other departments and offices within my organization use Smartsheet (Business), and they are all experiencing the same problem. Multiple Help Desk tickets have been submitted internally and with Smartsheet Customer Support, and are being coalesced.
Therefore, in my opinion, the physical action of clicking the "Open Request" link from the Approval Request email is interacting with something in the Google Workspace environment in some bizarre, unexpected way that leads to Smartsheet receiving data that triggers the "decline" pathway (which doesn't necessarily absolve Smartsheet, not until the exact nature of the problem is discovered).
By the way, the problem occurs whether or not we're connected to the organization's VPN.

rgarcia

I'm having same issue, hopefully you get a solution from Smartsheet

MJWalling

This is a portion of the response I received from Smartsheet Customer Support:

I would like to mention that we have receive reports of similar behaviors before and the evidence found regarding the emails send is that a mail security service trigger the links in the message to test if they are safe. Hence causing the denied response.
The recommendation after these reports is to have the IT team to set a rule for emails received from Smartsheet.

rgarcia

This is a nightmare to my organization, I'm stuck with this issue.

Thank you MJWalling for your updates.

MJWalling

My org's IT department was able to fix the issue. I can't provide further details because I don't know them, but I can confirm that the issue appears to be resolved (for now).

Michael Merwitz

i have a similar issue: approval emails are being received correctly, and the recipient can approve or decline; however: if they open the request link, but choose neither (i.e., navigate off the sheet or close the browser tab etc.) the system defaults to 'declined' and the request link expires so they cannot open it again

any clues / ideas?

MJWalling

Our IT department left fairly vague on how they fixed this behavior.

Reverting one of the email security setting changes from January fixed the auto declining issue.

We use Google Workspace / Gmail, and this behavior cropped up at the start of February. So it seems whatever security updates that were applied at the end of January were responsible.

cheprenj

We are a G-Suite organization and have been battling this for 6+ weeks. We already whitelist the smartsheet.com domain. Can anyone who has resolved this issue provide greater detail what had to be changed/set in the G-admin console to stop this auto-denying behavior? Thank you.

cheprenj

Here is what worked for us. If you copy the link in the email and paste it into your browser, it worked fine. So we focused on testing GMail security settings. (We are a GSuite for Education institution, so all Chrome browsers are managed. Your IT department manages the settings in their admin console.)

In the admin console, go to apps, google workspace, gmail, spam/phishing/malware and turn OFF "Enhanced malware & phishing protection". Done.

HTH -John

Guilherme Jaquer

We also use GSuite (Google Workspace), and I had already disabled the "Enhanced malware & phishing protection" setting under Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail > Spam/phishing/malware. Unfortunately, the issue is still happening — Smartsheet automations are still being responded to automatically.

If anyone has other suggestions or something else that worked, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks,

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