Optimus Prime your Workday Release
What is release optimization, is it just a big fancy marketing word?
It’s that time of year! By now, you likely have seen many posts and documents circulating the Workday ecosystem regarding the upcoming release. Different teams will have different recommendations on the ideal playbook for ensuring the new functionality does not impact your tenant stability, but what does release optimization really mean?
What is the best way to handle a Workday release?
Stay Informed - Keep track of Workday's release schedule and the features included in each release. Workday and partners provide a preview of upcoming features in advance, and teams like Stormloop are available to review these features in the context of your tenant.
Assessment - Review each feature to understand how they will affect your organization's existing configurations and processes. Identify potential areas of improvement and assess the relevance of new features to your organization's needs.
Test in Sandbox Preview Environment - Workday offers a sandbox environment that mirrors your production environment. A forced refresh occurs one month prior to the release to allow for ample regression testing time. Utilize this environment to test your Workday system and ensure no ill impacts across your day-to-day before reviewing opportunities for enhancement across your organization.
Engage Key Stakeholders - Involve key stakeholders, including HR, finance, IT, and end-users, in the optimization process. Feedback and insights from these stakeholders are important to help understand the priorities of the organization and align with business objectives.
Update Documentation - Documentation is generally the last thing anyone thinks about updating, but it is an important part of your organization's communication. Updated documentation helps with standard operating procedures and provides training material for future team members. Additionally, many features are “opt-in,” meaning they require activation or additional action to use. You may test this before the release but not enable for some time.
Prioritize Relevant Features - Not all new features may be relevant to your organization, nor maybe important to implement immediately. We recommend an initial review of all features before consolidating your list to the features applicable to your team.
System Functionality - Before updating to a new release, ensure that your process and current configuration is functional. Are things in error? Are there instances of bad data or errors across integrations and reports? Applying updates to a problematic system may lead to future issues and require an expensive fix. Make sure your system is stable ASAP before thinking about upgrades .
Workday releases are filled with tens, if not hundreds, of enhancements that range in scope from small, behind-the-scenes, items to significant updates to the User Interface. While the sheer volume of updates and Workday’s willingness to continue to evolve their product are exciting, the process can leave Workday Admins wondering if they may have missed something.
Below are two lists to ease the Workday Release process. One list highlights current release items that excite our team from the 2023R2 list. The second list highlights Release items from previous updates that we frequently present to clients looking to improve their platform.
Items from Recent Releases worth researching:
| Funtional Area | Feature Name | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Expenses | Distance Calculations for Expenses | Link |
| Assets | Redesign of Business Asset Reporting | Link |
| Settlement | Payment Return Web Service | Link |
| HCM | Core Staffing | Link |
| HCM | Benefits and Pay Hub | Link |
| Reporting & Analytics | Discovery Boards as Worklets | Link |
| Reporting & Analytics | Enhanced Colors on Discover Boards | Link |
Below is a list of items in the upcoming release that are currently available for testing in your Sandbox Preview tenant.
Items in 2023R2 Worth Researching:
| Funtional Area | Feature Name | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Assets | Custom Depreciation Rate Schedules | Link |
| Assets | Ability to Schedule Recurring Depreciation Runs | Link |
| Assets | Undo Project Asset Capitalization | Link |
| Expenses | Email Receipts to Workday Expenses | Link |
| Expenses | Expenses Hub - Now Automatically Available | Link |
| HCM | Field Level Configuration for Change Job Templates | Link |
| Benefits | Bulk Dependent Verification | Link |
| Compensation | Document Generation as part of a Compensation Business Process | Link |
| Payroll | Payment Elections on Mobile | Link |
| Absence | Ability for Employees to Sell Time Off | Link |
| Reporting & Analytics | Freeze First Column on Composite Reports | Link |
| Reporting & Analytics | New Composite Report User Interface | Link |
These two lists are nowhere near complete lists of Workday Release updates. We recommend you remain familiar with the full Workday Product Roadmap and those components relevant to your team.
It is important to remember that Workday optimization/release management is an ongoing process. Did you know Workday actually rolls out minor updates weekly? (insert that report name/link)
Regularly review and fine-tune your configurations and processes to ensure your organization is leveraging the full potential of the Workday platform. If you encounter any issues during the optimization process, engage with Stormloop or whoever you may use to support your platform internally or externally. Reach out to any Stormloop team members to discuss our playbook for a stable Workday Release!
Contact us at info@stormlooptech.com to learn more.
Follow Stormloop here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stormloop-technologies-llc
Written by: Luke Donaldson
Follow Tommy here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-donaldson-b8418327/
