Updating approval status of a item | On Save | Event System

Question

So when we save a Component, by default a major version is created with the "undefined" approval status. And with this approval status this Component can be published to any Publication Target irrespective of you set a minimum approval status for the Publication Target.

We want to stop this behavior, and assign a custom approval status when a Component is saved using Event System. We can update the approval status to "Unapproved" (out of the box) status using the below code on the Save Event of a Component, but not to a Custom Approval Status defined in Tridion.

 private void OnSave(VersionedItem subject, SaveEventArgs e, EventPhases phase)
    { 
 IWorkflowItem item = null;
 if (subject is Component)
            {

                item = subject as Component;
            }
    if (item.ApprovalStatus != null && !item.ApprovalStatus.Title.Equals("undefined", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
                    {

                        e.ApprovalStatusResetOverride = ApprovalStatusType.Unapproved;

                    }
    }

Question: Is there a way to assign a custom (Tridion defined) approval status, while saving a Component using Event System? (I don't want to start a workflow to update the approval status from Event System)

Answer 1

Approval status is currently a read only property in the API and the only way it can be changed is via a workflow process (other than what you've currently done with your event system, which is limited to the built-in types of Undefined or Unapproved).

For one customer with a requirement similar to yours, I have implemented a simple, automated workflow which just assigns items a draft status and ends. It's not ideal (IMHO) and I'm not sure I'd recommend it to other customers but it does work.

I actually prefer your Event System, which does not require a workflow process to run and I would consider it as an enhancement for the customer I mention above, as an Unapproved status would work for them. Is there a reason that you really need a custom status?