[Due for payment 2025-04-25] [$250] Require Categories by default for all new workspaces

[garrettmknight]

Version Number: N/A
Reproducible in staging?: N/A
Reproducible in production?: N/A
If this was caught on HybridApp, is this reproducible on New Expensify Standalone?: Yes.
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail: N/A
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): N/A
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Expensify/Expensify Issue URL: N/A
Issue reported by: @garrettmknight
Slack conversation (hyperlinked to channel name): #convert

Action Performed:

1. Create a new workspace
2. Creat an expense on the workspace

Expected Result:

Since expense categorization is a core flow, I'd expect we require them by default, but I can submit expenses without categories to start.

Actual Result:

Categories aren't required. I can submit and approve expenses without being notified about it.

Workaround:

None

Platforms:

All

Screenshots/Videos

Add any screenshot/video evidence

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• nyomanjyotisa | Contributor | 106665545

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @bfitzexpensify

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @bfitzexpensify (NewFeature), see https://stackoverflowteams.com/c/expensify/questions/14418#:~:text=BugZero%20process%20steps%20for%20feature%20requests for more details. Please add this Feature request to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

[melvin-bot]

⚠️ It looks like this issue is labelled as a New Feature but not tied to any GitHub Project. Keep in mind that all new features should be tied to GitHub Projects in order to properly track external CAP software time ⚠️

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Design team member for new feature review - @dannymcclain (NewFeature)

[samranahm]

🚨 Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2025-03-13 15:08:36 UTC.

Proposal

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

Require Categories by default for all new workspaces

What is the root cause of that problem?

Currently we let the admin to toggle Members must categorize all expenses

When they enable it we set the requiresCategory here

App/src/libs/actions/Policy/Category.ts

Lines 885 to 894 in c3aa5d6

	function setWorkspaceRequiresCategory(policyID: string, requiresCategory: boolean) {
	const onyxData: OnyxData = {
	optimisticData: [
	{
	onyxMethod: Onyx.METHOD.MERGE,
	key: `${ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.POLICY}${policyID}`,
	value: {
	requiresCategory,
	errors: {
	requiresCategory: null,

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

In
When creating the workspace
we should explicitly add

      requiresCategory: true,

and make sure areCategoriesEnabled: true

Update

App/src/libs/actions/Policy/Policy.ts

Line 1712 in c3aa5d6

function createDraftInitialWorkspace(policyOwnerEmail = '', policyName = '', policyID = generatePolicyID(), makeMeAdmin = false, currency = '', file?: File) {

App/src/libs/actions/Policy/Policy.ts

Line 1778 in c3aa5d6

function buildPolicyData(

App/src/libs/actions/Policy/Policy.ts

Line 2133 in c3aa5d6

function createDraftWorkspace(policyOwnerEmail = '', makeMeAdmin = false, policyName = '', policyID = generatePolicyID(), currency = '', file?: File): CreateWorkspaceParams {

App/src/libs/actions/Policy/Policy.ts

Line 2422 in c3aa5d6

function createWorkspaceFromIOUPayment(iouReport: OnyxEntry<Report>): WorkspaceFromIOUCreationData | undefined {

to Add

      requiresCategory: true,

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

Modify policyTest.ts to check requiresCategory is true when creating workspace

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

Reminder: Please use plain English, be brief and avoid jargon. Feel free to use images, charts or pseudo-code if necessary. Do not post large multi-line diffs or write walls of text. Do not create PRs unless you have been hired for this job.

[nyomanjyotisa]

🚨 Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2025-03-13 15:27:30 UTC.

Proposal

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

Require Categories by default for all new workspaces

What is the root cause of that problem?

New feature

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

First we need to update BE to make requiresCategory default to true on workspace creation. Or we can update the BE to accept requiresCategory param on workspace creation and pass true here and here

Then we need to update the optimistic data on both createWorkspace and createDraftWorkspace

add requiresCategory: true, here, here , here, and here

Here is the API endpoint that needs to be updated

• CreateWorkspaceFromIOUPayment
• CreateWorkspace

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

Modify test for createWorkspace here to assert that the requiresCategory is true, and might need to create test for createDraftWorkspace, createWorkspaceFromIOUPayment, and createDraftInitialWorkspace to assert that the requiresCategory is true

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)