I have some SharePoint experience pretty much self taught so experience is somewhat beginner to intermediate and have done some custom workflows, presently using SharePoint 20210. I currently have a task to create a workflow that as people put a leave request in the calendar it goes through an approval process but the catch is the boss doesn’t want it visible/entered in the calendar until its approved. (I have one built to where it appears as “Pending” than changes to approved when done.) I’ve tried doing custom and tried using the built-in workflows but not sure how to make that happen, can’t figure how to not show until approved. Is this something that it should it be doing out of the box with the built-in workflows and I’m just missing something or does that need to be scripted or customized?
I don’t believe this is possible. You may be thinking about the publishing process that is available in a Document Library.
One idea would be to possibly use another calendar and then duplicate the items on the main calendar once they are approved.
Please note that the assumption here is that you aren’t writing custom code. With custom code, I would probably setup an event receiver that immediately locks down the permissions of the new calendar item to the current user and supervisors. Then, once the approver indicates their approval, you could reset the permissions for the item back to standard list permissions.
