Cannot join hub site, because Approval Token is needed

[mjonila]

Category

• Bug

Describe the bug

While using Ctx.Site.JoinHubSiteAsync(hubSite.Id) it spits the error :
This Hub Site requires approval to join. Please resubmit this request with an Approval Token from the Hub Site admin.

Certainly Hub site options have "Require approval for associated sites to join" enabled.

However I see no way to get Approval Token or enter it somehow into JoinHubSiteAsync method. There is PowerAutomate action for getting ApprovalToken, but I don't know how it works.

How to fix this problem ?

Steps to reproduce

In Hub site properties enable "Require approval for associated sites to join" and use JoinHubSiteAsync(hubSiteId) to join a site into a hub.

Expected behavior

Either allow join without token or provide a method to acquire ApprovalToken and feed it into JoinHubSiteAsync method

[jansenbe]

@mjonila : what permissions did you grant to your Azure AD application? Is the account running the code a site collection admin on the hub site? If not, are you using application permissions?

[mjonila]

We run code in Azure Function. The account running the code is AzureAD application with Application permissions of SharePoint --> Sites.FullControl.All.
We do a lot of other things with Site configuration and all others work just fine, except joining to hub site.

In the meantime when I do joining to hub site using same AzureAD app with Powershell - it all works!
This is how I connect using powershell and what I do :
Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://mytenant.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite" -ClientId 5fdb3165-5ea5-4161-a51c-507cde838e62 -CertificatePath 'C:\projects\Certificates\Certificate.pfx' -CertificatePassword $password -Tenant 'mytenant.onmicrosoft.com'

Add-PnPHubSiteAssociation -site "https://mytenant.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite" -HubSite "https://mytenant.sharepoint.com/sites/HubSite"

Maybe PnP Powershell is doing this using CSOM and PnP Core - using REST API and that's the difference ?
What would be ways to identify the root cause and overcome this error ?

[jansenbe]

@mjonila : thanks for the details @mjonila . PS uses a Tenant CSOM call (so you have to have full control or be SharePoint Global Tenant admin) whereas in Core we use the REST call like used via the UI. We need to solve this, I'll do some experimentation as there's an option to request the "approval token". Alternatively the CSOM approach can be used but then via a new method hosted in the Admin library

[mjonila]

Thank you for the answer @jansenbe . As I will wait for your testing of getting ApprovalToken using REST, could you please help me find how to join hub site using CSOM ? I cannot find such method in Admin lib, but maybe I'm not looking careful enough ..
Thanks again.

[jansenbe]

@mjonila : it's not yet wrapped in our Admin lib, but it's available in OOB CSOM. I plan to wrap the CSOM calls and make them available via our Admin library in the course of this week.

[jansenbe]

@mjonila : I've added a method to the Admin library that under the covers uses the Tenant hub join API. This one will work also in case joining the hub requires approval. This method however requires administrative privileges to work, but as your PS script works this should work as well.

Please test wit next nightly build (version 1.9.73 or higher) and let me know.

[mjonila]

Thanks @jansenbe! It is working now.