[$250] WS settings - Enabling People must categorize expenses in OD disables Categories in ND

[vincdargento]

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Version Number: 9.1.89-1
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail: https://test-management.browserstack.com/projects/2219752/test-runs/TR-77/folder/13176928/41237641/822775146
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): biruknew45+11vvbbg0@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Device used: Web, mweb, android
App Component: Workspace Settings

Action Performed:

1. Go to https://staging.new.expensify.com
2. Create a Workspace
3. Go to Categories > More > disable "Members must categorize all expenses"
4. Go to More Features then disable Categories
5. Go to OD (https://staging.expensify.com/) then reload the page
6. Go to Workspace > Categories then enable all categories
7. Go back to ND, verify that Categories feature is enabled
8. Go to OD, enable People must categorize expenses
9. Go back to ND

Expected Result:

After enabling "People must categorize expenses" in OD, the Categories feature in ND should remain enabled.

Actual Result:

After enabling "People must categorize expenses" in OD, the Categories feature in ND becomes disabled.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

• Android: App
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: App
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• iOS: mWeb Chrome
• Windows: Chrome
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

bug.mp4

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Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021953484130624407223
• Upwork Job ID: 1953484130624407223
• Last Price Increase: 2025-09-18

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @c3024

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @abekkala (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.

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021953484130624407223

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @c3024 (External)

[mukhrr]

🚨 Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2025-08-07 23:03:18 UTC.

Proposal

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

In ND, the Categories feature appears disabled after enabling “People must categorize expenses” in OD.

What is the root cause of that problem?

Root cause is OD is not async as ND. Let me explain the flow you performed:

• You disable Categories from More features page which makes areCategoriesEnabled disabled for ND in backend
• You navigate to OD, and refresh the page with areCategoriesEnabled: false
• You enable all categories from checkbox which makes areCategoriesEnabled: true on BACKEND (thus, ND front is updated thanks to socket). But post request to update "People must categorize..." is NOT UPDATED, i.e, areCategoriesEnabled leaves false
• You disable "People must categorize..." and it gives the the false areCategoriesEnabled in return which makes Categories on ND disabled.

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

So I guess, backend fix will be more straightforward, but we can fix the issue on front itself by taking into enabled categories account in src/pages/workspace/WorkspaceMoreFeaturesPage.tsx.

L109

 const hasEnabledCategories = hasEnabledOptions(policyCategories ?? {});

L129

 isActive: (policy?.areCategoriesEnabled ?? false) || hasEnabledCategories,

And we need to make sure to update all instances where areCategoriesEnabled comes

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

N/A

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

Backend sets areCategoriesEnabled = true when requiresCategory = true.

[melvin-bot]

@c3024 Eep! 4 days overdue now. Issues have feelings too...