Workday Essentials
This page is for those with Finance, Grants, or HCM security roles who initiate or approve Workday tasks and need to understand the following key Workday concepts:
- Security in Workday
- Reporting in Workday
- Where to find reference guides
- Ways to navigate and search within Workday
- How Workday connects systems, information, and people
- Delegations
- Manage the My Tasks inbox
- Plan for common, repeating events
- Find the next steps in a business process transaction
- Understand supervisory organizations and cost centers
Essentials for Workday
The following resources provide guidance for important Workday concepts, such as…
The following resources help you submit tickets, understand the Workday Service Desk, and review any known issues and resolutions:
- Go to the Service Desk to submit a ticket or search the knowledge base
- Learn how how to use the Workday Service Desk
- View resolved and active known issues
The following resources share how to find reference guides and stay informed with Workday updates and news:
- Review the three ways you can find reference guides
- Discover three ways to stay informed with the latest Workday news and updates
- Learn about Quick Tips in Workday and which processes have the in-process help
- Visit the Training news feed for the latest training related news and updates
Additional Links
- Search all the reference guides at the Workday Service Desk
- Choose the right workstream from the Training & Resources page for curated lists of important guides
- Review a categorized list of all the reference guides in the Workday Materials guide
The following reference guides share how to navigate and search within Workday:
- Understand how to navigate within Workday
- Review tips and tricks for using the Workday Search
- Save time with shortcuts in the Workday Menu
- Watch an in-depth video on how to navigate Workday like a pro
The following resources provide detailed information on Security in Workday:
- Learn about Workday’s Security concepts, what to do as a Security Partner, and how to submit a Security Request
- Understand how employees can request changes to their Workday security
- Review the departmental and central Workday security roles
- Watch and listen to this detailed dive into Understanding Workday Security
Helpful Tip
When requesting a security role, make sure to assign the correct organization.
- HCM Security Roles use supervisory organizations (SP00xxxx)
- Finance Security Roles use cost centers (CCxxxx) as the organization
The following resources provide detailed information on Reporting in Workday:
- Learn about Reporting in Workday and how to find, run, save, and schedule reports
- Watch and listen to this detailed dive into WSU Workday’s reporting evolution, past and future
The following resources and definitions help you understand the difference between supervisory organizations and cost centers, and how to request new organizations:
- Learn how Workday security concepts relates to supervisory orgs and cost centers
- Helpful tips for reorganizations in Workday
- Learn when to assign a new supervisor to an existing Sup Org versus request a new supervisory org
- Review how to request FDM elements
Submit a service desk ticket for the following actions:
Definitions
Supervisory Organizations: illustrate the university’s supervisor and subordinate reporting relationships. The HR business process workflow is driven by the supervisory organization structure. Supervisory Organizations join with Cost Centers to connect HR and Financial data.
Cost Center: a structural unit related to financial activity greater than a gift, grant, program or project. Cost Centers group like activity for purposes of reporting or operational oversight. A Cost Center is the primary organization for departmental finance role assignments and should be created with security and hierarchical inheritance in mind.
For more definitions, visit the Workday Glossary
Workday TouchPoints highlight the ways Workday connects systems, information, and people across WSU:
- How to clean up empty and unused HCM or Finance data sets and the benefits of doing so
- Visit the TouchPoints news feed to discover more touch points between Finance, Grants, and HCM
Managing Key Events in Workday
The following links help staff manage key Workday events…
Learn best practices and tips and tricks to make the events that repeat every paylock, semester, or fiscal year efficient and accurate.
- Important calendar based events to be aware of in Workday, why it’s important to review them, and how and when to action them.
- Review a list of fiscal year end reports and related reference guides
- Understand the different finance dates used in Workday
- Learn about the HR dates used in Workday
- The paylock checklist shares the tasks to be completed before, during, and after paylock
The following resources help you submit a Delegation request and how to fill out the form:
- Submit a ticket to request a delegation when the faculty or staff member is unable to do so themselves
- Learn how delegations work in the Workday system.
- Watch and listen to this detailed dive into delegations in Workday
Delegate or Reassign?
Delegation: When you delegate, you are still responsible for the task, and the other person is acting on your behalf. Delegation of a Workday inbox is not constrained by security roles and requires supervisor approval.
Reassign: When reassigning a task, the person receiving the task becomes responsible for the task. A task can only be reassigned to someone with the same security role.
The following resources share how to access your My Tasks inbox and keep it tidy:
- Learn how to access your My Tasks inbox and take action on the tasks in the inbox
- Tips & Tricks to help you keep your My Tasks (Inbox) clean
The following resources help you view where a business process routes and who the next approver is of an in-progress event in Workday:
- Find the next steps in an in-progress business process transaction.
To find the next steps for a specific process refer to its reference guide.
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