Expense - Hold banner not dismissed for employee after admin acknowledges

[vincdargento]

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Version Number: V9.1.11-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught on HybridApp, is this reproducible on New Expensify Standalone?: Yes, reproducible on both
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail: N
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): [email protected]
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Device used: Redminote 10s android 13
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Launch app in mweb
2. Create a workspace - invite a member
3. Login in android app as member
4. Open workspace chat, create an expense
5. In mweb, as admin opening the expense
6. Open the expense details page , tap header -hold
7. After a reason entered - note a hold banner is shown
8. Now in android, open expense details page
9. Note hold banner is shown
10. In mweb , tap got it in hold banner
11. Note for employee banner is still displayed

Expected Result:

If the hold banner is supposed to be shown for the employee when the admin places the expense on hold, then after the admin taps "Got it" in MWeb, the banner should be dismissed for the employee in Android as well.

Actual Result:

1. When the admin places the expense on hold, the hold banner is shown for the employee.

2. After the admin taps "Got it" on the hold banner in MWeb, the banner remains displayed for the employee in Android.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

• Android: Standalone
• Android: HybridApp
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: Standalone
• iOS: HybridApp
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

bug.mp4

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[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @VictoriaExpensify (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details. Please add this bug to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

[FitseTLT]

🚨 Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2025-03-11 19:47:54 UTC.

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

Expense - Hold banner not dismissed for employee after admin acknowledges

What is the root cause of that problem?

We have no implementation to dismiss the modal when dismissedHoldUseExplanation value changes in ProcessMoneyRequestHoldPage

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

We can add an effect that dismisses the modal when dismissedHoldUseExplanation becomes true

    const [dismissedHoldUseExplanation] = useOnyx(ONYXKEYS.NVP_DISMISSED_HOLD_USE_EXPLANATION, {initialValue: false});

    useEffect(() => {
        if (!dismissedHoldUseExplanation) {
            return;
        }
        Navigation.goBack();
    }, [dismissedHoldUseExplanation]);

We can also optionally give the route's backTo as fallbackt to the goBack function.

We call the dismissHoldUseExplanation via onClose here beforeRemove on navigating away but we don't need to dismissHoldUseExplanation in this case as it is already dismissed so we can avoid it by setting some ref before navigation on our new effect and avoid dismissing in onClose callback when the ref is set.

What specific scenarios should we cover in automated tests to prevent reintroducing this issue in the future?

If needed we can render ProcessMoneyRequestHoldPage and assert we navigate back if dismissedHoldUseExplanation changes to true

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

[thelullabyy]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

• When the admin places the expense on hold, the hold banner is shown for the employee.

• After the admin taps "Got it" on the hold banner in MWeb, the banner remains displayed for the employee in Android.

What is the root cause of that problem?

• When user A (employee) requests money from user B (admin), and B places the request on hold, the hold banner appears for both users due to this logic:
  

  App/src/components/MoneyReportHeader.tsx

  Lines 362 to 368 in 69df56b

  	useEffect(() => {
  	// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/prefer-nullish-coalescing
  	if (isLoadingHoldUseExplained || dismissedHoldUseExplanation || !isOnHold) {
  	return;
  	}
  	Navigation.navigate(ROUTES.PROCESS_MONEY_REQUEST_HOLD.getRoute(Navigation.getReportRHPActiveRoute()));
  	}, [dismissedHoldUseExplanation, isLoadingHoldUseExplained, isOnHold]);

(This assumes both users have nvp_dismissedHoldUseExplanation set to false.)

• If user B clicks "Got it," the nvp_dismissedHoldUseExplanation is only updated to true on B’s side — user A’s value remains false.

• As a result, the hold banner continues to display for user A, which matches the behavior described in this issue.

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

• The hold banner modal is meant to educate users about the hold state. So, even if user B clicks the "Got it" button, it shouldn’t dismiss the banner for user A.

• Additionally, even if we wanted to dismiss the hold banner for user A, we couldn’t — the nvp_dismissedHoldUseExplanation value is unique to each account and only updates on the user who interacts with the button.

• There’s one area that could be improved: when the hold banner appears for both users and user B releases the hold, the banner still shows on user A’s side, incorrectly stating, "This request is on hold." In reality, the request is no longer on hold — it was held previously but isn’t anymore.

To fix this, we could consider one of these options:

1. Update the banner text — Change the title from "This request is on hold" to something more general that educates users about the hold status without implying the request is still on hold.

2. Auto-dismiss the banner — Introduce logic to automatically dismiss the hold banner when the status changes from "hold" to "unhold."

What specific scenarios should we cover in automated tests to prevent reintroducing this issue in the future?

• UI improvement, don't need the test here.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

[thelullabyy]

@Expensify/design

In the expected result in this issue is after the admin taps "Got it" in MWeb, the banner should be dismissed for the employee in Android as well.

But, I think the hold banner modal is meant to educate users about the hold state. So, even if user B clicks the "Got it" button, it shouldn’t dismiss the banner for user A. What do you think about this point?

[VictoriaExpensify]

But, I think the hold banner modal is meant to educate users about the hold state. So, even if user B clicks the "Got it" button, it shouldn’t dismiss the banner for user A. What do you think about this point?

Oh yeah, I agree with you @thelullabyy - the banner should inform both parties so I don't think the admin tapping "Got It" should remove the message for the submitter.

In saying that, I don't this is the most ideal message for the submitter to see:

The explanation around what "Hold" means is very much from an Admin perspective. If would be good if the submitter saw something more tailored to them.

Let's wait and see what the design team think, though

[VictoriaExpensify]

Taken it to Slack for discussion - https://expensify.slack.com/archives/C01SKUP7QR0/p1742272889490259

[VictoriaExpensify]

Ok we've had a bit of a discussion around this and agreed that the expected behaviour is for the banner to remain visible to each party until they submit it, so this is working as expected.

But we did agree the language could do with some tweaking to make it less focussed on the approver. @jamesdeanexpensify is taking care of that here - thanks James!

[VictoriaExpensify]

And thanks for flagging that this was likely expected behaviour @thelullabyy !