Object Transporter 2.0 - What you need to know.

Workday Cross Functional
Written By Stormloop Technologies

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So, what is Object Transporter 2.0 and what do I need to do about it? 

Have you seen that red bar start to come across every time you use Object Transporter to migrate an instance?

Workday is rolling out (no, you have no choice) a new migration tool on March 12 called OX 2.0.  This tool will replace OX 1.0 and requires a Customer Central tenant and some configuration.  We recommend following the below steps to avoid any delays in your migrations following the 2023R1 release.

There are still a ton of questions that will likely be answered before release, so please keep checking back on the links above. Migrating directly from your tenant (like Instance > Migrate) may not be completely gone! It’s looking like single-instance migration will still be a thing - we can relax a bit (....but no - it isn’t in Preview right now). I’m not sure what it will look like, but I have faith!

Alright - it’s time to get started. Don’t worry - we’ll walk through this one together.

Extremely useful information:

I would strongly suggest reviewing the Workday-delivered documentation for this and the on-demand webinar session above to gain greater understanding. Not to mention, the community reference will continue to be updated as time goes on.

Creating a user in Customer Central

FIRST: If you are unsure of your Customer Central credentials (or if you and your colleagues have never heard of it and can’t log in) – I would suggest opening a Workday ticket. Customer Central is a very useful tenant, and it is widely underutilized! I know that we all hate opening tickets, but it’s not that bad. You can bookmark this page and come back later - no big deal.

For the customers that have been on Workday for ages, you may need to submit a ticket just to have your Customer Central account set up - and you should. It has a ton of relevant information and it’s FREE!

Log into your Customer Central tenant and click on the menu button in the top-right to open your dashboards.

  1. Select “Central Administration,” and then “Create Customer Central User”

2. Enter the user’s basic name information and Workday username.

IMPORTANT: This username must match the username in your Workday environments. The customer central username must be the same username that you have in production. If you are unsure of your username or use SSO to login, you can run the “All Workday Accounts” report.

I’m serious! Make sure they match! Sandbox, Preview, Prod, IMPL1/2/3/4 – all of them!

3. In the “Contact Information” tab, enter at least one form of contact (like work email), then click OK.

4. After the user has been created (and you ensured that the usernames match, right? RIGHT?!), navigate to the “Manage Tenant Access” task.

This is where you allow access to tenants to migrate.

Yes – I know… that’s kind of a lot. Next part is easier though, so there’s that! You’re halfway home...ish!

Now, onto the Workday that you know and love.

Enabling OX 2.0

If it is not already existing, create a “Migration Administrator” user-based security group in your non-Customer Central tenants.

Members of this security group will be able to migrate between tenants. An example can be seen below:

For all tenants in which you’d like to enable OX 2.0, you will need to go to “Edit Tenant Setup - System” and Enable Customer Central Access.

You are now ready to migrate objects using OX 2.0.

Migrating with OX 2.0

To get started, we’ll need to create a configuration package.

Navigate to the Create Configuration Package (or Create Security Configuration Package) task.

  1. Add the package name, version, and type of object to migrate and click OK.

2. Click “Add Instances” to find the object that you’d like to migrate.

3. Select Migrate. You will receive a message that will link or redirect you to Customer Central.

4. Click “Launch Object Transporter 2.0 in Customer Central”

Do you remember your Customer Central login information? I hope so because I didn’t – a few times! Don’t be like me.

After (finally?) logging in, you will be presented with a Migrate Configuration Package task.

5. Select your source (migrating from) and target (migrating to) tenants along with the configuration package that you’d like to move – click OK.

*If you select “View Migration Report,” you will be able to view the pre-migration validations and any differences. Clicking “View Diff” will take you into migration. 

Within the Diff Summary, you will be able to see any dependencies (like nested Calculated Fields) and proceed with Migration.

6. Proceed if you are ready to migrate, then confirm.

7. Clicking the magnifying glass image under the Migration ID column will take you to the section where you can view the full Migration Report.

8. The post Migration Summary will give you a completion status and will notify you of any errors.

Whew! That’s a migration with OX 2.0.  We recommend reviewing the target tenant after migrating to confirm stability following the OX 2.0 migration.

So, yeah…it’s not just Instance 🡪 Migrate anymore. We’ll adapt though – there’s always something new! With that being said, I believe there will be a replacement for it in the near future - maybe even on release day.

There’s some interesting content in this next release:

  • Time entry accumulators - weird OT rules and oddly-specific time-based reporting requests may be a bit easier?

  • Flexible Work Arrangements BP can now be added as a sub-process on hire/contract

  • Introduction to Additional Coverage Amount Field for your insurance plans - those wonky plan designs may not be such a beatdown after all!

    • Multiples of Dependent Coverage as well

  • Autocomplete Service Dates Change - get rid of those to-do’s when you need to change a service date.

  • There are also several updates for certain enterable fields within the “Configure Optional Fields” task - get rid of those redundant fields while you’re at it.

Heads-up: Look into those compensation statement updates. New domains are being added around there - they may be useful if you have a difficult time with visibility/backdated salary changes.

There’s a lot to do, but one thing's for certain. You will need to get into Customer Central and set yourself (and team) up for OX 2.0.

Reach out to Victor at victor.edmonds@stormlooptech.com or any members of the Stormloop team for additional detail or instruction related to Workday’s 2023R1.

Stormloop Technologies
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