For this, I would recommend using the "limit signups to roster" feature, rather than the prepopulate option, since the prepopulate does, as you noticed, automatically approve them. It's important to note that the only users who are able to approve or deny calendar signups are admins of the site.
I realize that doesn't exactly answer your question, but it does provide a reasonable workaround given the tools.
May I ask why you wish to have a pile of users automatically signed up to "Pending Approval"? For practical purposes that's no different than having no users signed up at all, except that now only admins can really sign up users?
We have a small group of people who would prefer to let us know when then can't attend an event, rather than have to sign up for every event. The majority, however, would rather sign up for events whenever they are available.
To accomplish this I created a roster called "Opt-in" and added these individuals. I planned to just automatically populate the event with this roster when I created the events. That way the individuals could simply remove the sign-up if they couldn't come and not worry about remembering to sign up.
However, the people on the "opt-in" roster do not have priority for being approved and it raises concern when they're names show up approved weeks in advance. (We usually don't do approvals until day of).
I have suggested these individuals use the mass event sign up but several said this still isn't what they want. Currently I am manually signing these few individuals for each event and would love an easier solution for their laziness.
In case I haven't already, the answer your question why we wish to have a group of users signed up to "Pending Approval"? Is that we would like to provide a group of users that are always available the convenience of not having to remember to sign up, while users that have lesser availability can still sign up of their own accord. We want to have approvals done as normal on the day of the event and not give the impression anyone has priority over anyone else.
I hope this makes sense - and it's really not an urgent problem. I was just wondering how easy a change it would be to add some convenience. My thought had been to have an additional drop down menu when you select a roster to automatically populate with the ability to choose one of the already available statuses if there wasn't already an alternative solution I was unaware of.
Thanks for taking the time to listen to suggestions and answer questions. It is appreciated!
