Expense - The DELEGATESUBMIT system message appears only after reopening the expense details

[applause-bot]

If you haven’t already, check out our contributing guidelines for onboarding. To join our Slack channel, fill out this form.

---

Version Number: v9.4.54-1
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #96766
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): n/a
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Pull Request QA execution
Device used: Mac 26.5.1 Safari, iPhone 13 iOS 26.5
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Go to https://staging.new.expensify.com
2. As an admin, invite Approver A and a Submitter to the workspace
3. Set up a workflow where Report Approver A has a Vacation Delegate B who is not a member of the report's policy.
4. As a Submitter, open the expense details
5. Submit an expense to the workspace chat

Expected Result:

The DELEGATESUBMIT system message should appear in the expense details conversation history after submitting an expense

Actual Result:

The DELEGATESUBMIT system message appears only after reopening the expense details page

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7234014_1786755249741.Recording__2720.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Applause Internal Information
Exported by: Julia Ponikarchuk
Bug ID: 7234014

Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~022088503320298759125
• Upwork Job ID: 2088503320298759125
• Last Price Increase: 2026-08-15

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @stitesExpensify

[applause-bot]

While Applause doesn't embed attachments for this bug, here are the links for quick view:
https://platform.applause.com/services/links/v1/external/15d612baebe1f5ffc2aa03fc50b98c16bada0dfc55184b2ac0a572a63c318971

[MelvinBot]

Issue Analysis

Root Cause: The DELEGATESUBMIT system message is generated server-side, and it is not returned to the submitting client in the submit response (nor pushed live). It only reaches the client on the next OpenReport — which is exactly what happens when you close and reopen the expense details. This is a backend/internal issue, not an App bug.

Confidence: High (frontend traced end-to-end; the missing piece is confirmed by the App having no way to produce this action itself).

Where the fix belongs: Outside the Expensify/App repo. The command that processes the submit and creates the DELEGATESUBMIT action needs to return that report action in its response (or broadcast it to the submitting client) so it appears immediately — the same way the optimistic SUBMITTED message already does. This requires changes in an internal repository, so it should be escalated to an internal engineer with access. No App-side change is recommended.

Investigation details (App-side evidence)

The App side is working as designed — the delay is purely a data-arrival problem:

1. The App never builds DELEGATESUBMIT optimistically. Submitting an expense only builds an optimistic SUBMITTED action (buildOptimisticSubmittedReportAction in ReportWorkflow.ts:1335, request sent at ReportWorkflow.ts:1589). A grep of src/libs/actions/ for ACTION_DELEGATE_SUBMIT returns nothing — the action type is referenced only in render/read code.

2. The action's data is server-only. Its originalManager / delegate / isOnPolicy fields (OriginalMessage.ts:1653) have no client-side source; getDelegateSubmitMessage (ReportActionsUtils.ts:4582) only reads them.

3. The report list is reactive — proven by the optimistic SUBMITTED message appearing instantly. If the DELEGATESUBMIT action were in Onyx, it would render live too. So this is not an App reactivity/render bug.

4. Reopening re-fetches actions. Mounting the report calls openReport (ReportFetchHandler.tsx:202), which pulls the full/fresh set of report actions from the server — which by then include the DELEGATESUBMIT action. This is the "only after reopening" behavior.

Note: PR #96766 (merged 2026-08-13) only fixed the rendering/styling of this action as a muted system message — it never touched when the action arrives, consistent with the root cause above.

To confirm on the backend: for a submit where the approver has an off-policy vacation delegate, verify the submit command's response onyxData does not contain the DELEGATESUBMIT report action, while the subsequent OpenReport response does.

Possibly related: #98045 and #96454 also involve vacation-delegate system messages, though they describe wording/styling rather than this appearance-timing issue.

---

Next Steps for Contributor+ team: This is a backend/internal issue — the fix is outside the App repo, so it needs an internal engineer to update the submit command to return (or broadcast) the DELEGATESUBMIT action so it appears immediately. Reply with @MelvinBot <your feedback> to refine this analysis.

[melvin-bot]

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

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~022088503320298759125

[marufsharifi]

reproduced, reviewing the proposal

[marufsharifi]

Reviewed and reproduced. The DELEGATESUBMIT system message is generated server-side and is not included in the submit command's response — it only reaches the client on the next OpenReport, which is why it appears only after reopening. Confirmed on the App side: there's no optimistic builder for this action (grep ACTION_DELEGATE_SUBMIT src/libs/actions/ is empty), the required fields (originalManager/delegate/isOnPolicy) have no client-side source, and the action type is in supportedActionTypes — so if it were returned in the response it would render live like the optimistic SUBMITTED message does. This needs a backend change so the submit command returns the DELEGATESUBMIT action; no App-side fix is appropriate.

repro.mp4

[marufsharifi]

Based on my investigation above, it looks like we need some help from the backend team.

🎀 👀 🎀 C+ reviewed

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @stitesExpensify, see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/7972 for more details.