has anyone had problems referencing the old record values using a workflow? I'm trying to check against the prior status of the record and compare it with the new status but it never works. When I check another field the workflow runs.

It works for me in conditions, e.g. checking if a custom record has been reassigned

Yeah it works for other fields I noticed but not when I check if old record status is pending approval

You can set the context of your action to only trigger in the approve context

@MGBC by approve context, does that mean that it should use the native Approve button? Or when the native status field changes to Approved regardless of what triggered the change?

I think it’s just the native approve button but I could be wrong. I can try to do a test

Yeah I used that context action with the regular field and it didn't work so it's probably just the button that triggers that event