Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This is The Possibility Perspective.
The show where we peel back the layers on enhancing enterprise solutions with Workday magic and PeopleSoft innovation. We’ll sit with real-time customers who've participated in our tailored services.
Whether you're eyeing a smooth Workday transition or modernizing your PeopleSoft with the power of Amazon’s public cloud (AWS), we've got you covered. We’ll dive into topics from cloud migrations to fluid user experiences.
Tune in and empower yourself with the knowledge to optimize your enterprise solutions.
[00:00:00] Lauren Callaway: This release Workday enables you to get more insights into network and location information for job applications. Coming through your external career sites, you can now expect to have the option to restrict the ability for candidates to update their personal information after submitting them. The candidate Signal data field empower you to identify the source and nature of every application, but by combining these signals with existing intelligence and other data, you can quickly distinguish between high value talent and automated traffic.
[00:00:33] Jeff Miller: Hello, friends. I'm Jeff Miller from ERPA, and you're listening to The Possibility Perspective, the show where we talk to strategic minded Workday customers who partner with ERPA for a better Workday experience. Jeff Miller from ERPA. Thank you so much for joining ERPA's webinar today to review the top features, uh, for the Workday 2026 release one update than this fast approaching.
[00:00:57] Jeff Miller: Thank you and welcome to all of you. ERPA supports customers throughout their entire lifecycle on Workday. Our model benefits both existing and new Workday customers with deployment services, which includes Phase X, uh, deployments or implementations where new modules are added. We support application support, integrations, warranties, and a whole lot more.
[00:01:20] Jeff Miller: All with a team of named resources who are familiar with your tenant setup. But typically today is all about the upcoming release and that's why you're here. Um, on the next slide, you're gonna see the Safe Harbor statement or what is formerly known as a safe harbor. It's now called a product statement.
[00:01:37] Jeff Miller: Here are the functional cross application technical areas that we're gonna be reviewing today. We do have a world class team of Workday experts at ERPA. We have the best in the business. It's my privilege. Now to turn it over to Jon. He is gonna be our first of our team of experts presenting today. Hey Jon, welcome.
[00:01:56] Jon Milkovich: Hey, Jeff. All right, let's get into it. My name's Jon Milkovich. I lead our financials team here at ERPA, and I'm very excited to present some of the 2026R1 financials features. On the first slide here, we've got the top features we've identified in the contract to cash space, and we'll show these top features for each of the functional areas we go over today.
[00:02:30] Jon Milkovich: And on each of these top features slides, you'll see on the right hand side, we've got a marker that shows whether the feature's automatically available. Configuration is required if there's a change management impact or if there's a security impact. So please take note of those as we go through these.
[00:02:52] Jon Milkovich: Not gonna go through each one of these one by one, but we've identified a few features within each area we'll spend a little bit more time on. On the next slide, we've got our first feature copy canceled settlement runs, and we group this in the contract to cash area. But really this applies throughout all payment processing and Workday.
[00:03:18] Jon Milkovich: So they're giving us the ability now to copy canceled settlement runs. So this isn't a huge configuration change, but this is definitely something I think a lot of users are gonna find helpful. So you'll be able to copy a canceled settlement run if there are any open items in that that canceled settlement run.
[00:03:40] Jon Milkovich: When you copy it, those items will appear on your new settlement run. Super nifty feature. Anytime Workday allows you to copy transactions. I always try to highlight it here because I know a lot of users can save time from just the ability to copy like that. On the next slide, we've got Workday Docs for layouts in financials.
[00:04:05] Jon Milkovich: So starting a few releases ago, Workday gave the ability to create PDFs for financial transactions, for certain financial transactions using Workday docs. So before you had to use the BIRT tool. Now Workday is slowly giving us the ability to create those layouts using Workday docs instead of BIRT. And with this release, they're enabling.
[00:04:35] Jon Milkovich: Sponsor documents, consolidated customer invoices and netting statements. So you'll now be able to create those using Workday Docs rather than BIRT. I highly encourage you to take a look at these. BIRT is one of my least favorite tools to use in Workday. So, uh, anytime you can avoid using BIRT and having to download Workday Studio and trying to navigate how to create or edit a layout using BIRT, anytime you're able to use a tool that I think is much more simple, user friendly to use, I highly recommend you take a look at that.
[00:05:15] Jon Milkovich: On the next slide, customer invoices with multiple due dates. This is an interesting one, so now you're able to enable a new payment schedule tab on your customer invoices and create dates for that customer invoice, different payment dates for. For different payment milestones for when those payments are due for that particular invoice or invoice adjustment.
[00:05:44] Jon Milkovich: So a nice new feature there, if that is applicable to your organization. On the next slide, we've got some of the top features in the procure to pay space, so I'll give you a second to kind of look through those
[00:06:06] Jon Milkovich: and then we will talk about the top three on the slide there. So the first one is enhanced usability for purchase order line linking. So this is a new kind of user interface that Workday's introducing within the supplier invoice work area, which allows you to see side by side. Supplier invoice lines, select them and link them to purchase order lines.
[00:06:32] Jon Milkovich: So if you're using OCR functionality in particular, I think this will be very beneficial. So I'd highly encourage you to take a closer look at this feature. It's, it's a really nice feature, especially like I said, for those of you using the Workday, delivered OCR functionality. On the next slide, Workday is introducing a new option on business process configuration within that advanced configuration on a business process of that, that advanced routing and it's exclude latest reviser from approvals.
[00:07:12] Jon Milkovich: This is a, a interesting one. It'll be interesting to see how many customers take advantage of this, but it, it is another option to use on. Quite a few of the financials business processes to exclude that latest revis from the future approval steps on your business processes. There's some really good q and a on this post if you're kind of confused maybe about how this might work just by looking at the description.
[00:07:45] Jon Milkovich: So I definitely encourage you to take a look at the post and look through some of the q and a on that post because Workday product managers have provided a lot of good context and and answers to some questions on this. On the next slide, item substitution through change order. So now Workday enables you to search and select a different pro procurement item directly within the existing po.
[00:08:13] Jon Milkovich: So, um, this will. Allow you to basically not have to, uh, cancel and recreate a purchase order or create a change order when, when you have an item substitution. So this really can streamline your process and can, can save your team a lot of time. Next, the top features in the record to report space. We've identified a few features here and the first feature we'll talk about is account reconciliation.
[00:08:52] Jon Milkovich: So Workday's had account reconciliation functionality for a while. Now they're actually introducing some new functionality that uses the ac, a new hub called the Account Reconciliation Hub. And this new functionality, the, the big thing to note with this new functionality is. Workday is gonna continue to invest in this functionality, including introducing some AI features in the future.
[00:09:21] Jon Milkovich: I believe the AI features might even come out before the next release. It might be a mid cycle feature that they introduce, but they're not deprecating the existing account certification and account reconciliation functionality, but they're just not enhancing it and they're, they're really gonna start investing in this new account reconciliation functionality.
[00:09:43] Jon Milkovich: So if you don't utilize the existing functionality, I highly encourage you to take a look at this functionality because again, this is what Workday is going to invest in in the future. The next feature, custom depreciation conventions, pretty self-explanatory. You're able to create custom depreciation conventions.
[00:10:08] Jon Milkovich: And link those to your depreciation, depreciation types, so you'll be able to create those and begin using them with your assets. The last feature within record report is crypto. You're able to start recording transactions with cryptocurrencies, so there's a task maintained disabled currencies where you can enable or disable 30 new cryptocurrencies.
[00:10:39] Jon Milkovich: So if that is something your organization is interested in, take a look at that feature. Next we're gonna move on to adaptive planning, and there's some good stuff that's come out with adaptive. The first feature that I'll highlight is configurable workflows. So Workday introduces configurable workflows, a new framework that enables you to design, orchestrate, and execute planning cycles.
[00:11:08] Jon Milkovich: This is a really cool functionality. It's like a drag and drop type workflow functionality. It's really cool. You can access these new configurable workflows through hubs within adaptive planning, which leads to the next slide where Workday is bringing in hubs. So Workday is, you know, introducing hubs constantly with each of the past releases over the last few years, really, they've introduced a new hub or two, and now they're bringing that over onto the adaptive side.
[00:11:48] Jon Milkovich: So they're introducing hubs, a new personalized and central location, and adaptive planning, which allows administrators to create intuitive curated workspaces for users to organize, navigate, and interact with a collection of dashboards, sheets, reports, links, and. So there is some setup required with this.
[00:12:08] Jon Milkovich: But again, take a look at this. There's a really good feature post on this one as well. The last feature access rules on data entry columns and modeled sheets. So this enables you to use access rules to secure data entry columns within modeled sheets. The big impact with this is the improved ability to safeguard confidential, confidential information by enabling you to secure sensitive data within the same modeled sheet.
[00:12:40] Jon Milkovich: So that eliminates the need for separate duplicate sheets for different user groups. So this is a really cool feature that I'd encourage you just to look into as well. With that, I will pass it over to Kate to talk about some of the payroll features.
[00:13:00] Kate Nicholas: Afternoon everybody. My name's Kate Nicholas, and I am here as.
[00:13:05] Kate Nicholas: To speak on payroll, uh, senior consultant for the PATTS team, which is payroll, absence,
[00:13:10] Rishika Akiti: and time tracking.
[00:13:11] Kate Nicholas: Uh, so let's get started. We have a nice variety this season for this release. Wanted to note there are a few that would require security impact and there is a mixture of automatic available and configuration is required.
[00:13:27] Kate Nicholas: And then we'll get into the very first feature, state level exceptions for local resident taxes. The Workday is now gonna recognize a single state level exception and automatically apply it to all associated local resident taxes. This is coming no need set up, which is fantastic and it's gonna relieve a lot of issues.
[00:13:49] Kate Nicholas: You have a specifically around locals and state taxes for 401k. If you have existing exceptions in, because this wasn't auto available, you'd need to reference your maintain tax authority exceptions, pay component groups to make sure that you would peel that back and allow this to automatically flow. Uh, obviously this is gonna be a tax impact, but a wonderful feature that I'm grateful to see that it was rolled out.
[00:14:15] Kate Nicholas: So, uh, next feature is one that is near and dear in my heart. That is one I've been waiting for, for years. Withholding orders for employee self-service. Finally, Workday enables you to configure your workers to view their information, not only on their active with holding and garnishments, but on their historical through employee self service.
[00:14:35] Kate Nicholas: This is going to be for Canada and US, but it's also on desktop and mobile. There is some configuration required. However, we, you know, on this host here, we have step-by-step through Workday. I think it's going to be a valuable ad as it's going to save a lot of administrative burden from the payroll team where they're fielding questions and employees wanna see their documentation.
[00:15:00] Kate Nicholas: Now it's going to be out there in the employee self-service. The only space you'll need to pay attention to specifically would be in the edit tenant setup for payroll task. You'll need to go and check the withholding order box, but this will reduce a great amount of back and forth with employees, and it gives them a nice historical record.
[00:15:19] Kate Nicholas: It'll be right there with their pay stub or their tax forms. And then the final feature, which I always love, an extra layer of audit detection, so payroll payment discrepancy detection. Workday now verifies that the net amount to be paid to a worker matches the calc payroll amount before you can complete.
[00:15:40] Kate Nicholas: This is just an additional safety net of way to prevent an incorrect payroll. The amounts don't match. It's going to throw an error in your status on your calc, so it'll prevent you from completion. It'll prevent you from settlement. There is no required setup. This will come on the release. The message that you're going to receive for the error is the sum of payroll.
[00:16:01] Kate Nicholas: Payment does not equal net amount. Contact payroll for correction, especially if you're configured in a way that it's gonna throw an inbox item for a pay admin. They're gonna need to know what that means. The error status. It will obviously be something you'd need to resolve, but it is going to show an on and off cycle run.
[00:16:22] Kate Nicholas: So this will just be, like I said, another layer of ability to prevent yourselves from over and underpayment. No one in payroll wants to see an over underpayment. This is obviously gonna improve our accuracy when we're processing, when we're doing manual corrections and reversals. You're thinking, why was it there something that could have caught that prevented this?
[00:16:42] Kate Nicholas: This is that. And the process calc to catch discrepancies before they impact employees is always something wonderful to have. So I'm very excited about what is releasing this version and I appreciate the time. And I'm gonna pass this over to Ashley, my other team member in PATTS. Take it away. Thanks
[00:17:03] Ashley Davidson: so much, I appreciate it.
[00:17:05] Ashley Davidson: Hi everyone. Good afternoon. My name's Ashley Davidson and I'm a, a member of the PATTS team here at ERPA. And I'll be taking you through both absence and time traffic releases. But let's start with absence. At the high level, we do have a number of updates that are, um, required for configuration and a few that, well, one, um, that will be automatically available.
[00:17:27] Ashley Davidson: There will also be a number of updates to your change management and security. So we'll pause here for a moment just so this way we can take a look at the high level items.
[00:17:41] Ashley Davidson: And with that, let's take a look at the first item. The first item here you can see is support For US federal reporting requirements on time off and leave types. Workday delivers new report fields and calculations that will help you to report better on whether or not your employees are being paid or unpaid for leave.
[00:18:00] Ashley Davidson: While these are automatically available, there is a bit of setup that you'll have to do in order to, you know, indicate whether or not those leaves are paid or unpaid. But once you do that, those fields are already in your tenant. You'll just have to set up your reports. This way you can indicate whether or not employees are being paid, right?
[00:18:18] Ashley Davidson: So overall, making sure that we can see the downstream impacts when we're placing these employees out on leave. One other thing to note here about this update is that when you do indicate the non-pay statuses, you'll also have to do additional updates in. Your payrolls areas to make sure that we are mapping that to your earnings codes as well.
[00:18:40] Ashley Davidson: But overall, this will be an upgrade to what we already have in leave of absence, where you can indicate the impacts to payroll when you're going to place employees out on leave. For this second item that we will be indicating, it's the hide time off plan balances when the plan is at an absence table option.
[00:18:58] Ashley Davidson: Previously, Workday did duplicate balances when an time off plan was in an absence table, so it did cause some confusion for workers when they went to review their absence balances. On that manage absence table, you will have to set this one up. It's a pretty straightforward setup, but will, it will have a large impact for workers who might see duplicate balances when they're reviewing their balances.
[00:19:22] Ashley Davidson: So with this change, you'll no longer see two time off balances on the request absence and manage absence tabs. The last key enhancement for absence is the ability to make some changes to your absence, balance, visibility, and request absence, calendar visibility options. So for those following along from last year, you might remember that Workday did release a new absence calendar experience.
[00:19:46] Ashley Davidson: So we received two new tasks, request absence and manage absence. The first update here is that you can now configure your absence calendar to hide the balances tab on the manage absence calendar. So on the right hand side, when you go to manage absence, you can see the balances that you might have for your different plans.
[00:20:06] Ashley Davidson: But for some organizations, they might not track balances, right? You might have unlimited PTO. Workday now allows you to hide the section where employees will see their absence balances. They also allow you to hide that balance view on the request absence tab. So if you're going to request absence, it's usually a balance section that says view absence balances.
[00:20:26] Ashley Davidson: We can now hide that. For specific workers. The second piece of this update is an update to the request absence calendar visibility. So for some organization, um, we had a few requests put in to hide the calendar view for making those requests. This way, employees can just enter in their start and end dates for their absences.
[00:20:48] Ashley Davidson: Workday now allows you to hide your calendar. So if you come into the case where you might not want some employees to see the calendar view and just enter in those start and end dates, you can now configure your absence calendar to make these changes. This update is optional so you don't have to adopt these if, if not, right, so we still have our new absence calendar experience from the last update.
[00:21:10] Ashley Davidson: Nothing changes if you do not adopt these updates. Alright, so that brings to our last absence feature. And we're gonna shift over to time tracking for the next three slides. Alright, at a high level, we do have a number of items that we will be reviewing today, but at a high level, you can see that there is a number of items that will require configuration.
[00:21:32] Ashley Davidson: So make sure that you reach out to ERPA if you look like any assistance in adopting these updates. Well, let's take a look at this first update. As you can see here, we do now have segment security for time entry codes to prevent, edit, and delete. This of course, is, is probably the most long awaited time tracking update there is.
[00:21:51] Ashley Davidson: Workers can now be prevented from editing a time entry code that they're eligible for. And an example of this would be if you have any overrides that an admin can put in on behalf of their worker, you might not want them to make any adjustments to that override. So now Workday allows you to create different security groups to prevent employees from being able to edit those time entry codes.
[00:22:12] Ashley Davidson: This will require some setups, so you'll have to create those security groups. Create those security segments. You'll also need to indicate that these changes will be happening to your employees at the organization overall. This will help to strengthen your payroll and audit controls and reduce any unauthorized manipulation of time.
[00:22:33] Ashley Davidson: One thing to note here is that this does have an impact to your integrations as well, so you'll wanna make sure that when you're making these updates that your integrations are aligned with, you know, who can enter which time, entry codes. Alright, so that's the first feature. Uh, moving on to our second feature for time tracking.
[00:22:48] Ashley Davidson: Um, in a similar vein for those time entry codes, uh, we do have those security set delivered as well. At a tenant level, we will have to enable segmented security for time tracking, and we'll have to align those new security groups that we talked about to the different segments. Workday also delivers reporting, so this way you can report on who is eligible for the different time entry code.
[00:23:13] Ashley Davidson: In addition to who can enter them, right? So that's that new piece for the segmented security updates. It also delivers the ability to, you know, who can edit and delete those time entry codes. So while workers won't be able to enter in new time entry codes, if they're not eligible to, they can still view the time on their timecards.
[00:23:30] Ashley Davidson: This does require set up, so you will wanna make sure that you're doing your full configuration and testing of these new segmented securities for those time entry codes. But be sure to reach out to ERPA if you need any help with this update. And then the last update that we have here for time tracking is our time entry validation support for multiple positions.
[00:23:50] Ashley Davidson: So this is a really exciting update that you can adopt where Workday will now, um, enable you to have position based time entry validation groups. So previously Workday evaluated the different time entry validations on the worker level. So if one position had a. Time entry, validation alert or warning.
[00:24:10] Ashley Davidson: That would show up across all of their time for the week, but now we can specify which positions those specific time entry validations, um, should apply to. This improves our accuracy for our multiple, multiple position of workers, but we will have to set this up so this is not going to be automatically available.
[00:24:28] Ashley Davidson: There's a number of configuration items here for this item and of course, testing required. One thing to note here is that this will also impact the approval process, so when your different managers go to approved time, they'll only see the different validations for their specific positions that they manage.
[00:24:47] Ashley Davidson: Overall, this update will help to provide greater control for those multi position workers and managers, but there's no impact unless you enable this feature. That brings us to a close for time tracking. And next we have Khatherine that we will be taking us through our next area. Thanks everyone.
[00:25:04] Khatherine Gaines: Thank you, Ashley.
[00:25:06] Khatherine Gaines: Hi everyone. My name is Khatherine Gaines and I lead our Workday HCM Data Conversion and Reporting team here at ERPA. If you have been a loyal release webinar subscriber, then you'd be used to me covering quite a few sections, but I'm happy to report that I've enlisted some fantastic presenters to help me deliver the rest of the HCM updates to you.
[00:25:27] Khatherine Gaines: To start, I will be presenting our top benefit features for 2026R1. Please note our top benefit features here, and this is going to be our top features that we want you to take a look at before we move over to our top three. Moving over to our first one, coverage Waive Date Rules. When configuring your enrollment event rules, you are now able to specify these coverage wave date rules.
[00:25:57] Khatherine Gaines: This functionality will have Workday. Calculate coverage dates differently when a worker waives of plan compared to when they elect or switch plans. Reducing the need for manual corrections. Workday adds the new coverage wave date column in the start or wave coverage tab of the following tasks, create, edit, or view enrollment event rule.
[00:26:19] Khatherine Gaines: When a worker waves a coverage type completely during a life change event, Workday calculates the date the coverage is waived. Based on the rule you select in the coverage waive date column. Workday ignores the coverage waive date rule and uses the configured coverage begin date rule. If a worker either Alexa, plan for the first time.
[00:26:41] Khatherine Gaines: Re-elect plan in a coverage type that they previously waived. Changes plans within a coverage type, changes coverage tiers in an elected healthcare plan, or reduces or increases coverage in an elected insurance plan. Moving over to a feature number two, Workday now enables workers to edit the effective date of when they added or edited a dependent if the date they initially selected is incorrect.
[00:27:09] Khatherine Gaines: Hooray to not having to need the administrator all the time. This update helps eliminate the need to cancel the entire dependent event and start a new one just to correct the effective date. The new effective date prompt is available as an initiating element when you access either the add, edit, or View Dependent Task, or the add or edit My Dependent task, the effective date PROMPT assigns an effective date to these areas of dependent information allowed for tax deduction, annual income, contact information address, disabled, full-time student healthcare coverage available elsewhere, legal name lives with worker, occupation, relationship, and tobacco use.
[00:27:51] Khatherine Gaines: You can also now add dependences of any specified effective date for dependents effective in the future. We add the new feature dependence grid to the My dependence tab of the benefits page in a worker's profile. Note that existing dependents are effective as of the effective date specified in the original dependent creation event.
[00:28:13] Khatherine Gaines: You can view this date in worker history and any future dated dependents created. Outside of enrollment events can't be added to events where they're not yet effective. So for example, an event with an event date prior to the dependence feature effective date. Our last top benefit feature here, new enrollment event coverage, begin date option.
[00:28:37] Khatherine Gaines: This functionality will give you more control and flexibility when managing benefit credits remaining from enrollment. Workday has a new contributions from Credits Grid on the Benefit credits tab. When editing benefit groups and the View Benefit Groups Task New Grid enables you to select retirement plans that your workers can contribute remaining benefit credits to during the enrollment process.
[00:29:02] Khatherine Gaines: Workday also delivers a new distribute credits page that displays during the enrollment process if a worker has remaining benefit credits to distribute. After making benefit selections on the new page, workers can apply their remaining credits to retirement saving plans, view their plans projected total monthly cost and credits required, as well as view the remaining credits after contributions.
[00:29:26] Khatherine Gaines: If you choose to do nothing, your workers cannot apply remaining benefit credits to retirement saving plans. Now we're gonna dance over to talent. Please note our top talent features here before we go into our top three.
[00:29:46] Khatherine Gaines: Starting now with feature numbeR1, anonymous by default feedback. With this update, you are now able to have the anonymous by default option available in the maintain feedback setup task. This can be configured to be default for anonymous for give feedback, get feedback on self, and get feedback on worker requests.
[00:30:09] Khatherine Gaines: If this option is selected, the show my name checkbox, will not be selected by default. This only applies to future feedback submissions and does not expose existing anonymous feedback with this update. Workday is hoping that it'll increase feedback volume by removing the manual step of selecting the anonymous feedback option.
[00:30:32] Khatherine Gaines: Maximizing feedback candor by ensuring the feedback provider's identity is protected by default, and they're more likely to offer unfiltered, specific and actionable feedback. And it encourages a culture of honesty. The configuration is signaling that an organization can potentially want to value that truth.
[00:30:52] Khatherine Gaines: Talent feature number two, skills, cloud skill descriptions. This update will provide a clearer understanding of what each skill represents. It standardizes your skill data with consistent high quality descriptions and eliminating any ambiguity across your workforce. This feature utilizes a Gemini large language model, otherwise known as LLM, and a structured prompt engineering process designed to help the LLM interpret the skill name within the context of the Workday skills cloud.
[00:31:25] Khatherine Gaines: Workday instructs the LLM to describe terms as they relate to professional skills. Rather than providing general dictionary definitions as a deployment consideration, the Workday delivered descriptions for skills. Cloud skills are already available in Workday. Extend however Workday does not display description overrides from Workday.
[00:31:44] Khatherine Gaines: Extend for customized skills, cloud skill descriptions, top talent feature number three, succession planning. Some exciting updates now, skills, insights, and compare candidates. With this update, it will help you drive talent decision by leveraging the skills integration and candidate insights to ensure succession nominations are based on objective data rather than subjective perception.
[00:32:11] Khatherine Gaines: It retains critical strategic context and qualitative rationale for succession choices. Through the introduction of dedicated persistent note-taking capabilities for the succession plan. This update applies to these succession planning tasks. Add employ to succession plan, copy candidates from succession plan, copy succession plan candidates ban, move, review, or revise succession plan, and move succession plan from position.
[00:32:39] Khatherine Gaines: Workday expands the skills insight in succession planning by introducing the skills match column in the succession plan candidate grid. The skills match column provides a high level overview of how well the succession plan candidate skills overlap with the skills associated with the succession plan position.
[00:32:57] Khatherine Gaines: Workday displays the following labels if the candidate skills fit the requirements of the succession plan position. Fair match, good match and strong match. Note, you can't take a look at the match analysis columns in the succession plan candidate grid or the compare candidate reports. If the job profile and position restrictions associated with the succession plan position don't include skills for skills match matching skills or skill gaps.
[00:33:25] Khatherine Gaines: This is a great time for you to take a look at your job architecture and see if it is supporting the future talent processes that you wanna have in Workday. And with that, I will pass us over to Padmini.
[00:33:39] Padmini Aysola: Hi everyone. My name is Padmini Aysola. I'm a principal consultant here on on the HCM team at ERPA.
[00:33:47] Padmini Aysola: And together we will cover HCM Core Compensation and Advanced Compensation. So to start, on the next slide, you'll see the top HCM features for this release. Note our top ACM features here, and today we will be focusing on the top three. Starting on the next slide. Our first feature here focuses on data retention and compliance.
[00:34:09] Padmini Aysola: So with this feature, Workday is introducing new Pable data types or PDTs on the worker business object. These will allow you to permanently remove worker documents, attachments, and comments for both active and terminated workers. In every implementation, almost every implementation and organization that I've worked with, data retention becomes a major conversation, especially for global organizations.
[00:34:35] Padmini Aysola: Over time, the system accumulates event comments, supporting documents, onboarding files, and we don't need all that data to actually live in Workday forever. So with these new PDTs, it provides a structured way to better align Workday with your formal retention policies and privacy requirements. It will help support global privacy requirements and also broader audit and risk reduction initiatives that your organizations may have.
[00:35:04] Padmini Aysola: There are a couple of important guardrails to understand. So Workday has built in validations to warn or block you if your purge that you're doing would impact a dependent process. And it is also important to note that purging is permanent and irreversible, so there is no recovery. And in several cases you are purging entire categories of data rather than selecting individual documents or comments.
[00:35:32] Padmini Aysola: So this functionality will be particularly relevant for, uh, organizations that are within regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare pub, the public sector, and also those with high turnover like retail or manufacturing. When it comes to managing privacy and compliance require. For many of you, this will likely be a welcome change and address a longstanding need.
[00:35:58] Padmini Aysola: On the next slide, we will see the second ATM feature that we want to highlight. So this feature will really give you control over which job profiles users can see during staffing transactions. Workday now enables you to restrict job profiles by supervisory organization, company, country, or any combination of these three.
[00:36:21] Padmini Aysola: So during hires, transfers, or job changes, users will actually only be able to see job profiles that are valid based on the restrictions that you configure. Currently, without any restrictions, users can select any job profile, and sometimes they're selecting job profiles that are not appropriate for that worker's country or organization.
[00:36:47] Padmini Aysola: This often leads to a lot of downstream corrections. That is something I've also consistently seen across the board as a challenge with many organizations. So with this feature, job profile visibility aligns directly to your organizational and geographic structure, and users are only presented with options that make sense for that specific transaction.
[00:37:09] Padmini Aysola: This should result in a reduction of compensation, adjustments, reporting issues, security changes, and even integration fixes down the line. So for organizations that are managing either multiple job catalogs or really complex job catalogs, this will provide a really practical way to improve data accuracy and reduce rework.
[00:37:33] Padmini Aysola: We can, uh, move on to our next feature, which is really focused on how you communicate with your workforce directly from Workday. So Workday is introducing a new worker communications engagement. Within the ENG Engagement Builder, it will allow HR teams to send branded ad hoc messages to workers using data from Workday.
[00:37:57] Padmini Aysola: And these can be sent through email, mobile push notifications, or even SMS. So this is how it'll work. Instead of exporting lists into another system, you're able to define your audience directly in Workday using the audience builder. You can target workers based on job location, organization, or any other data points.
[00:38:21] Padmini Aysola: And then you can send the communication directly from a centralized dashboard. So common use cases for this one will be open enrollment reminders, policy updates, any urgent operational notices, or if you will need to reach frontline employees quickly. So I think we're. Organizations in retail, healthcare and manufacturing will often see the most value With this one, where there are large populations of the workers are mobile, so there are set up requirements to keep in mind.
[00:38:55] Padmini Aysola: Security must be configured. Notification templates need to be enabled, and SMS requires subscription through Workday messaging. And if that setup is not completed, the worker communications engagement type will not be available. So overall with this update, it will give organizations a more integrated way to manage workforce communications directly in Workday and using data that is already maintained.
[00:39:23] Padmini Aysola: So let's move on to core compensation features next. And on the next slide, you will see our top core compensation features, and we will focus our time here on the top two. I did want to highlight here that there are two features that are being retired, total compensation statements, usage metrics. So Workday is not planning to deliver a replacement because this usage metrics supports functionality that is being retired as well.
[00:39:52] Padmini Aysola: And then the other feature that is retiring is the compensation and benefits dashboard. So as this is being retired, reporting and manager facing activities can be supported instead through the Manager Insights Hub, global search and configurable dashboards. So let's move on to the top two features on the next slide.
[00:40:15] Padmini Aysola: And the first one really focuses on supporting large equity or stock programs at scale. So this will be particularly relevant for organizations that are managing high volume stock plans, especially with more than 1000 stock plan profile. So if you've worked with large equity programs, you know that as the number of profiles grows, the system performance and usability, it can feel a lot slower.
[00:40:43] Padmini Aysola: So this match release is really intended to improve that experience. So Workday has replaced the embedded grant split grid with a button that opens a separate window where you can actually view and edit grant details. Also, the edit stock plan task has been updated with a high volume grid view to support large data sets and improve the overall responsiveness.
[00:41:11] Padmini Aysola: So I think organizations in technology and publicly traded companies pretty much where, anywhere where equity is a significant part of compensation will likely notice the biggest impact. With this update, with this feature, there is no setup required. It is automatically available and at the end of the day.
[00:41:32] Padmini Aysola: It will help large doc plans easier to manage in Workday as they scale. So the next feature on the next slide specifically applies to US federal organizations. So with this update, Workday now allows certain compensation payments, including recruitment, relocation, retention incentives, and student loan repayments to be linked directly to Nature of Action or NOA codes.
[00:42:00] Padmini Aysola: So for federal agencies, we know that the SF 50 and the SF 52 forms are considered core documentation that are used to record employee changes. So this enhancement improves how incentive payments are actually reflected on those forms. What it means is that when a compensation oR1-time payment event occurs, Workday can actually now automatically align the appropriate incentive amounts with the required federal reporting fields.
[00:42:31] Padmini Aysola: So this will really reduce any manual adjustments that are required and will help ensure consistency between compensation transactions that are happening in Workday. And federal documentation setup is required to configure NOA mappings and related compensation and reporting configuration should be reviewed.
[00:42:52] Padmini Aysola: So overall, this update should improve the accuracy and consistency in managing employee documentation for federal organizations. I will move on to advanced compensation, and on the next slide note are three top advanced compensation features and we will actually be discussing all three. So the first one really improves how promotion decisions are captured during compensation review.
[00:43:23] Padmini Aysola: Workday now allows users to select a promotion reason for each specific employee during a compensation reviews from a selection of multiple available compensation categories. I think this is a very welcome change because previously promotion reasons were limited to a single category, which made it hard to fully capture why a promotion occurred.
[00:43:49] Padmini Aysola: So with this enhancement, it really allows you to reflect whether a promotion happened for performance reasons, retention, structural strangers, or evolving business needs, or any other reason more accurately during planning. Configuration is required before launching a review cycle and promotion categories.
[00:44:09] Padmini Aysola: The ones that you want in the dropdown must be defined in the compensation review options in advance. If they're added after a cycle begins, they will only apply to future cycles. I think the real benefit here will show up after the compensation review cycle closes. Because with this new flexibility, you'll be able to have clearer, clearer reporting, more meaningful analytics on promotion trends, and that can really support workforce planning and lead to more informed decision making.
[00:44:43] Padmini Aysola: On the next slide, we will see our second advanced compensation feature, which is calculated award pools. So this feature supports more flexible compensation budgeting. Workday now allows non-funded award pools to be calculated dynamically during compensation review processes based on defined business rules.
[00:45:05] Padmini Aysola: So instead of assigning a fixed budget in advance for things like promotions, lump sums, and additional adjustments, these can actually now be calculated dynamically within Workday. The calculations can be based on criteria like region, business unit, or other defined factors. This will be especially useful for global organizations where the allocation of budget varies across different parts of the business.
[00:45:34] Padmini Aysola: So rather than relying on an external spreadsheet to determine the budget or pool amounts, and then putting that in Workday. Now with this update, the calculations can happen directly within the system. Configuration is required with this one within the compensation review options to define or assign the appropriate calculations to the non-funded award pools.
[00:45:57] Padmini Aysola: And in some cases, you will need separate calculations for hourly and salaried populations. So the overall impact of this one is increased consistency and scalability during planning, and hopefully few manual, fewer manual adjustments and less reliance on external spreadsheets. So the last advanced compensation feature on the next slide focuses on bringing market data directly into compensation decisions.
[00:46:26] Padmini Aysola: So compa is an external benchmarking tool where you're able to see data to support compensation decisions. With this update, Workday actually now integrates compa benchmarking data directly into compensation actions. So that means that you can see real time market salary benchmarks directly in Workday during the time that you're doing transactions like hiring, promotion, or pay changes.
[00:46:54] Padmini Aysola: So instead of switching between systems or referencing separate reports, managers and compensation partners can actually see current market data. At the point of decision, this will be particularly valuable in labor markets that are competitive. So organizations that operate in technology, healthcare, or professional services.
[00:47:16] Padmini Aysola: Where market alignment plays a really important role with this update setup is required. So organizations must have an active Compass subscription. They have to enable the integration and then configure the correct security access to control who can view the market data. And you can also configure which benchmark fields are displayed.
[00:47:39] Padmini Aysola: So that wraps it up for advanced compensation. I'll now pass it on to Lauren, who will take us through all the amazing learning features.
[00:47:47] Lauren Callaway: Alright. Hello everyone. Thanks Padmini. My name is Lauren Callaway. I'm a senior principal consultant here at ERPA. I will be covering the release updates for the functional areas of learning, recruiting people, experience, as well as reporting and analytics.
[00:48:04] Lauren Callaway: So with that being said, I'm gonna go off camera and uh, let's move on to the next side and start talking about our learning features. So as you can see. This is our list of new learning features expected at this time with the 2026R1 release. Lots of good stuff coming for learning. So let's jump into details around our top three enhancements for the next slides.
[00:48:26] Lauren Callaway: Next, please. So first up, we've got enrollments, rest, API. This update will enable real time synchronization between external systems and Workday Learning. Workday is planning to add the enrollments rest API to the Learning V one rests web service, which will enable applications to update enrollment details on the summary level for offerings, including instructor in, instructor led in-person, and virtual such sessions, as well as in training activities.
[00:48:58] Lauren Callaway: The enrollments rest API is going to be secured to the new manage learning records security domain. So do know that there is a new domain coming to learning. With this, uh, release, Workday is also adding a new patch operation and a new prompt group to the, the enrollments rest. API. The patch will enable you to update the overall attendance status, the attendance duration, and timing units for your learners, as well as track overall scores and grades.
[00:49:27] Lauren Callaway: While the new prompt group enables applications to retrieve valid prompt values for attendance, status, duration, unit, and learning grades, you will need to make some configuration changes to utilize this new feature. As I said, there is a new, uh, managed learning records security domain in the learning core functional area.
[00:49:48] Lauren Callaway: Alright, let's move on to our next, uh, learning feature. So next up we've got observational checklist consumption. This feature is going to enhance Workday learning by introducing the ability to consume observational checklists as a part of on the job training. This builds upon your ability as an admin to create checklists, and now add these checklists to specific training activity lessons within a course or a course offering.
[00:50:15] Lauren Callaway: After a checklist is added to a training activity lesson, you can assign assessors to a learner for that activity. The assigned assessors can then evaluate the learner's performance on the job by completing the checklist. The entire workflow is supported on both desktop and mobile devices, which allows for flexible on-the-go assessments.
[00:50:36] Lauren Callaway: So some of the business benefits of this enhancement include the ability to capture the on the on the job training assessments, and it works to reduce third party reliance as well as enhancing flexible assessment capabilities. Please note that setup will be required domain configuration, as well as configuration of the checklist themselves, as well as updating any BP Z would like the checklists to be persisting on.
[00:51:01] Lauren Callaway: Alrighty. Let's move on to our third learning feature, enhanced user experience for learning. So with this feature, Workday is going to monetize the learning interface to provide a more flexible, accessible, and responsive experience. This update will introduce enhanced learning sliders, which will offer administrators greater control over content visualization.
[00:51:23] Lauren Callaway: You'll now have the ability to configure sliders to display in vertical or horizontal layouts and choose whether to include course descriptions on any cards. While this feature will be automatically available, some setup will be required to optimize the enhanced enhancement using the maintain learner experience task.
[00:51:42] Lauren Callaway: You'll be able to find a new column for these orientations for the sliders by not configuring the new column. Your learner experience will remain as it looks to date. So if you do not make any configuration updates, you will not see any, any. Changes made to your learner experience. That's what we've got for learning.
[00:52:04] Lauren Callaway: So let's move on to our recruiting functional area. So here's our top list of recruiting features and in typical fashion, let's carry on to our top three. So the first and most exciting in my opinion is our new recruiter hubs going to be Recru replacing the recruiting hub, but we'll be performing in the same way.
[00:52:24] Lauren Callaway: So with this release, Workday is going to migrate the recruiter hub to the hub's framework, continuing to provide recruiters with a single point of access to their job requisitions candidates task and reports across all stages of the hiring pipeline. Administrators will now be able to configure which cards display in the recruiter hub for all users.
[00:52:46] Lauren Callaway: Another update you can expect to see from this enhancement is that, uh, the, the name of the My Inbox tasks will change to my candidate pipeline tax to better
[00:52:58] Padmini Aysola: reflect its purpose.
[00:53:00] Lauren Callaway: So what you'll need to do to utilize this feature, um, if you've already got the existing recruiter hub configured, no additional action is required.
[00:53:10] Lauren Callaway: However, Workday does recommend that an admin go in and review and update the pipeline card configuration after the release is made. Do you note that if your organization is either using a customized, customized view or has announcements configured, you will need to recreate these in the new hub once the release occurs.
[00:53:33] Lauren Callaway: There's already a known difference between how the, the images are displayed. So, uh, again, if you've got announcements or are using the, the customized view, learner experience, recruiting experience view, you'll wanna go in and just make sure that those things are still persistent afterwards. Alright, next step for recruiting.
[00:53:56] Lauren Callaway: We've got fraudulent job application settings. So with this release, Workday enables you to get more insights into network and location information. For job applications coming through your external career sites, you can now expect to have the option to restrict the ability for candidates to update their personal information after submitting them.
[00:54:16] Lauren Callaway: The candidate signal data field empower you to identify the source and nature of every application, but by combining these signals with existing intelligence and other data, you can quickly distinguish between high value talent and automated traffic. Restricting personal information edit after application submission provides an additional layer of security that provides candidates, prevents candidates from switching identities and reducing the risk of fraudulent activity.
[00:54:47] Lauren Callaway: Please do note that this feature does only apply to Workday delivered career sites and is not available if you're using a third party to host your job application flow. Some setup will be required within tenant settings, and if you do nothing Workday recruiting will continue to work as it did before the release.
[00:55:05] Lauren Callaway: Next up for recruiting and our final recruiting feature. Effective updated legal names for candidates. So this is a small but mighty enhancement. Workday will plan to deliver effective dating versions to reporting fields for candidates legal names, so that you can choose dates to see what a candidate's name was at a certain point in time.
[00:55:26] Lauren Callaway: Workday delivers these report fields on the job applications, prospects and referrals. Business object, JAPR. If you know the lingo to using custom reports and create calculated fields for specific naming components. There's no real configuration considerations for this enhancement. However, Workday does recommend consideration of any integrations you may already have existing.
[00:55:50] Lauren Callaway: You may wanna update those integrations to include these new fields. So this wraps up our recruiting release updates. Let us move on to our people experience, also known as tech. So here's our list of the top features and let's dive into our first top feature. So for this article, approval workflow Workday, uh, going to provide an approval workflow process for knowledge management articles.
[00:56:17] Lauren Callaway: Authors will now be able to select approvers and request sign off before publishing. This feature will allow administrators to enhance content quality and article management, as well as providing a clear audit trail. Admins will also be able to add messages for the approvers when submitting the article for approval.
[00:56:36] Lauren Callaway: This enhancement will also update the help article workspace to include these new categories shared with me and approvals. So in order to, to utilize this feature once it releases. The new article version sharing security group will need to be added to the da, the domain manage article sharing versions.
[00:56:56] Lauren Callaway: Alternatively, if you do not update the domain, your current configuration will remain unchanged. Next step, we've got our article Lifecycle Management. So with this release, Workday's enabling you to set a publication date and an optional expiration date for knowledge management articles. This will enhance content governance by enabling you to publish articles when needed and retire them when they become outdated.
[00:57:23] Lauren Callaway: You'll now be able to set global rules for notifications and auto archiving upon expiration, which in turn will reduce the risks that you present viewers with outdated information and effort required to publish and retire time sensitive content such as articles related to specific fiscal years or compliance periods.
[00:57:42] Lauren Callaway: So this feature will be automatically. Available. However, you will notice that when you go to the Task create Knowledge article or the task edit knowledge article, you will now be able to enter dates in the new start date and end date fields. Our final PEX feature is the new Workday experience. So this update addresses the critical need for efficient, scalable, and a cleaner interface.
[00:58:09] Lauren Callaway: Your users will be able to work faster and more efficiently with reduced clicks in content switching across various workflows such as HR and finance. This feature is going to be automatically available and you will have the option to opt out. And that wraps it up for our people experience. Our final category before we move on to integrations is analytic and reporting.
[00:58:35] Lauren Callaway: So here are the top features and uh, just like with the others, we will cover the, the top three. So here's our first one. Um, static values in composite report calculation expressions. So this updates streamlines financial and HCM reporting calculations and reduces manual workarounds. These updates will allow your report administrators to enhance your composite reporting capabilities using the expression builder to include static positive and negative constraint values with up to 24 digits before the decimal, and 12 digits After this feature will allow you to support the functions of difference, divide, multiply some, as well as nested calculations.
[00:59:26] Lauren Callaway: This feature won't require any setup and it will be automatically available. You'll just want to enhance any report, any existing report that you may have to use these now that you, now that they're available. So we've got our funnel chart in Report Writer as our next reporting and analytics feature. So with this enhancement Workday, introducing funnel charts to matrix and trending reports, which will give you more data visualization options in your report.
[00:59:55] Lauren Callaway: Writing funnel charts improve visual analysis and help you to analyze linear processes by making it easier and faster. To identify where significant data drops occur, users can now select a funnel chart type. When the output type is set to chart or chart room table, funnel chart allow you to represent processes with distinct stages.
[01:00:19] Lauren Callaway: That data moves through sequentially, such as sales pipelines or recruitment life cycles. The chart automatically renders with a legend, a legend to identify dimensional values for each funnel stage, Workday provides an interactive tool tip at runtime that displays the metric value and conversion rights.
[01:00:38] Lauren Callaway: Our final feature for reporting and analytics before we move on to integrations is going to be creating workbooks from composite reports. This is a big one. Workday will enable you to instantly create worksheet workbooks with live refreshable data. By clicking a new button on composite reports, you'll now see a create workbook button within a composite report if that report is enabled for worksheets.
[01:01:05] Lauren Callaway: So in order to, to access this, uh, you'll want to go to create workbook from a report. The report will have to be a composite report. You will need to have access to the worksheet's domain, and the report definition will need to be enabled for worksheets. This will be automatically available, but if you do nothing, you can continue to insert data from Workday reports just by clicking add like data from within a workbook using the data with.
[01:01:36] Lauren Callaway: This concludes our analytics and reporting features for this release of Workday. I will now pass it to Rishika to cover release updates surrounding integrations.
[01:01:46] Rishika Akiti: Thanks, Lauren. Hi everyone. I'm Rishika. I'm an integration consultant here at ERPA. I have been working in the Workday ecosystem for about a year and a half now.
[01:01:56] Rishika Akiti: Today I'll be working you through some of the highlights. So before we dive into individual features, let's take a quick look on the table for 2026. R1, you'll notice is a mix of features. Some are automatically available the moment you upgrade while others require configuration. A few things worth calling out right away is security impact, which is flagged on several of these, particularly around banking and payments.
[01:02:22] Rishika Akiti: As always, make sure the right people have access, that sensitive data is being handled appropriately. Today I'll be focusing on the three features that will have the most day-to-day impact. On the next slide. The first feature we'll be discussing today is about fast inbound. SFTP file transfers for EIBs and integrations.
[01:02:42] Rishika Akiti: In simple terms, this is a performance announcement for in inbound integrations that use SFTP, it makes files transfer into Workday faster during processing. The best part is there's nothing you need to set up. The Workday has already enabled this by default for all existing EIP PS and document ritual services, so you automatically get the benefit, I think about the large organizations pulling in big payroll or benefit files overnight.
[01:03:09] Rishika Akiti: Faster files means faster integrations finished sooner, so down chain systems stay on schedule. The key takeaway is this is a zero effort performance boost. No design, no extra configuration, just faster in one processing out of the box. The integration template for VIVA direct debit processing. They now supports the custom customer direct debit format and provides a new integration template to generate these files.
[01:03:37] Rishika Akiti: This one does require set up. Your team will need to configure and use a new VA template. Why this matters is that ISO 20022 is becoming a global standard for bank payment messaging. Many banks for now require this newer V8 format, so if your organization processes direct debit payments, this update allows you to stay compliant and send a card file format directly from Workday without needing a custom solution.
[01:04:06] Rishika Akiti: The main takeaway is similar. This keeps your organization aligned with evolving banking standards and ensures smooth compliant payment process. On the next slide. We have an announcement to positive pay integrations. This feature allows you to schedule positive pay files to automatically send issued check data to your bank within a selected date range.
[01:04:29] Rishika Akiti: You can also filter by financial institution or bank account if needed. Just as a quick reminder, positive pays of fraud prevention service where you send your bank a list of issued checks and a bank only clears a check. It is a key control for preventing check fraud.
[01:04:45] Rishika Akiti: This feature does require setup and is available for customers using the Workday Bank Connectivity.
[01:04:51] Rishika Akiti: SKU. From a configuration perspective, you define a start and end date. With the end date within six months. You can choose either a date range or a specific positive pay file. Not both, and the user's can say scheduling is it needs access to the related payment printing runs. In a real world scenario, imagine a company sharing checks throughout the week.
[01:05:12] Rishika Akiti: Previously, someone had to manually send a positive file after each run. If that step was missed, it could create risk with the scheduling capability. You set it once, for example, to run daily, and it sounds automatically the key takeaway, this is manual F four lowers fraud, fraud risk, and use finance teams for more consistency on control.
[01:05:34] Rishika Akiti: So to wrap up the 2026R1 indication release, which is practical, you have got a performance upgrade that requests your effort, a payment template that keeps you compliant with global banking standards and fraud prevention feature that brings real automation to your process that used to rely on someone remembering to take a matter.
[01:05:53] Rishika Akiti: Thank you all so much for your time. With that, I'll now hand it back to Jeff.
[01:05:57] Jeff Miller: All right, Rishika. Thank you. Great job and fantastic work. Really helpful information. This deck was worked on by a small, small army of folks at ERPA who, uh, work behind the scenes as well as our, uh, world class presenters and.
[01:06:12] Jeff Miller: Khatherine, we had an amazing amount of questions and engagement in the chat, and I think we were able to get to every single one of them. So great job to the team. On the next slide, you'll see that we, uh, are not only a Workday partner, we're also an AWS partner. Just helpful for you guys to know that. Um, if your organization wishes, you can use AWS marketplace to streamline your experience.
[01:06:33] Jeff Miller: Transacting services with ERPA. Just an option. It's not your only option for ERPA, but use it if it makes purchasing or procurement more convenient for your organization. On the closing side, you'll see, uh, a way to get in touch with us a whole lot of ways. You can get in touch with us, follow us on LinkedIn, uh, email us.
[01:06:51] Jeff Miller: We would love to hear from you. Thanks to our experts and their teams for the work you put into this material. Thanks again for joining our webinar to review these top features. We'll see you next time, and until then, we hope that you have a great rest of your day. Bye-bye everybody. Thanks for listening to The Possibility Perspective.
[01:07:07] Jeff Miller: If you'd like to talk to ERPA about what's next in your Workday journey, be sure to visit erpa.com.