by CData Software | December 08, 2023

Workday Integration: Benefits and Use Cases

As organizations evolve and grow, their human resources (HR) requirements naturally change. To tap into the full potential of your HR data, integrating Workday data into essential systems and tools becomes a necessity.

Workday integrations serve as a bridge between your HR data to your favorite data visualization tools. Integrating allows you to automate important processes, centralize data handling, and enhance the overall operational efficiency of your organization. In this article, we explore seven advantages of incorporating Workday integration into your workflows, outline Workday integration examples, and highlight how to get the most out of your Workday investment with data connectivity solutions.

What is Workday integration?

Workday is one of the most powerful cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms in the market today. Workday integration refers to connecting Workday data with other tools and applications for efficient distribution, interpretation, validation, and analysis.

Workday integration involves connecting Workday's comprehensive suite, which encompasses human capital management (HCM), enterprise resource management (ERM), recruitment management, and employee incident management, with other business systems to ensure cohesive and efficient operations.

In enterprise resource management, this integration allows for the streamlined flow of financial and HR data between Workday and reporting platforms like Tableau to enhance financial planning and provide data-driven insights into business growth. Integrating Workday with specialized recruitment management tools gives recruiters a full picture of candidates and provides both employers and potential employees with smooth and efficient hiring experiences. Integrating Workday with incident tracking and management systems ensures that employee-related incidents are recorded and managed effectively, contributing to a safer and more compliant workplace environment.

When organizations integrate Workday with their entire tech stack, data remains synchronized across different business functions, leading to more informed decision-making and streamlined operational processes.

Find out how to integrate your data with Workday in our how-to guides and tutorials. Read the Knowledge Base article.

7 benefits of Workday integration

Integrating Workday into your business processes reaps numerous benefits that can transform the way organizations manage and utilize their HR data. By bridging Workday data with other business systems, organizations can unlock new levels of efficiency and data coherence.

Below are seven benefits of Workday integration, highlighting how it can streamline operations, enhance data accuracy, and improve decision-making processes.

1. Synchronized data

Connecting data between Workday and disparate systems, such as CRM (customer relationship management), ERPs, or other operational systems, ensures that live data flows across different platforms. When information is changed or updated in one system, it is immediately reflected across all relevant areas. This ensures that all departments work with the latest data, reducing the risk of decision-making based on outdated information.

2. Automated workflows

Integrating Workday with workflow automation systems, like Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), and Business Process Management (BPM) tools, can help organizations create a cohesive automation strategy. Routine tasks, such as employee onboarding, performance reviews, training, payroll and benefits, employee data, and more, can be automated, reducing manual tasks and enabling more secure and dynamic processes.

3. Improved reporting and analytics

By integrating Workday with other data sources, organizations can generate more comprehensive reports and analytics, gaining deeper, more accurate insights into their operations. Enhanced analytics lead to deeper insights, as integrated data allows for more sophisticated analysis techniques, such as predictive analytics and trend analysis, to uncover hidden patterns, forecast future trends, and provide actionable insights that drive strategic decision-making.

4. Reinforced compliance and security

Ensuring data security is paramount to regulatory compliance. Using the right Workday integration tools can support the secure transfer of data in compliance with data protection regulations. Tools designed for Workday integration can bolster compliance by providing robust security features to protect sensitive data.

5. Enhanced employee experience

Leveraging Workday integration tools can improve employee experience by reducing the need for multiple logins to HR and Learning Management Systems (LMS), bringing Workday reports to employees in tools they’re familiar with, and more.

6. Reduced costs and improved efficiency

Workday integration streamlines business processes and enhances operational efficiency. Automating data transfer between Workday and other systems minimizes the need for manual data entry, reducing the likelihood of errors, which saves time and labor costs.

7. System scalability

As organizational needs change, systems and processes become more complex. Workday integrations can be scaled to accommodate growing needs and changing business environments by providing a flexible and adaptable framework that can easily adjust to changing business needs.

7 Workday integration use cases

Today’s business environment includes managing remote workers and teams scattered across the world. Below are seven use cases for Workday integration, which can help tame employee management tasks and improve employee experience and engagement.

1. Recruiting

No matter the size of your organization, managing job postings, evaluating applications, scheduling interviews, and making sure new hires have what they need can be time-consuming. Workday integration can centralize and automate key recruitment tasks by connecting with different recruitment and talent acquisition platforms, helping make the hiring process more efficient, responsive, and candidate-friendly.

When a candidate applies through an integrated recruitment portal, their information is automatically synced with Workday. This enables HR teams to efficiently track and manage candidate progress through the hiring pipeline. This, in turn, facilitates better communication between hiring managers and HR, ensures consistent tracking of applicants, and allows for quicker, data-driven decision-making.

2. Employee onboarding and offboarding optimization

Workday integration can automate workflows triggered by hiring and termination events. Asset provisioning or revocation of access cards, laptops, and other equipment can be consolidated into a single workflow.

For new hires, Workday integration facilitates a seamless transition by automating tasks such as creating email accounts, IT asset provisioning, and enrolling in benefits and training programs, all triggered by their entry into the Workday system.

Automation ensures a smooth and compliant offboarding process, immediately notifying relevant departments to revoke access, process final payments, and manage exit interviews. This process not only makes the transition smoother but also ensures adherence to compliance standards, reduces the workload on administration staff, and maintains data security and accuracy throughout the employee lifecycle.

3. Learning management

Workday integration with LMS platforms enhances the employee learning experience by synchronizing employee data, training needs, and performance metrics.

Automating training assignments based on roles, goals, and skill gaps identified in Workday facilitates real-time tracking and reporting of training progress and provides a more tailored employee experience with personalized learning to focus on each employee's career path and development plans.

Workday integration also streamlines administrative tasks like scheduling, enrollment management, and resource access, reducing manual workloads. Overall, this approach aligns employee development with organizational objectives and fosters a culture of continuous learning, thereby improving both efficiency and training effectiveness.

4. Payroll and benefits

Consolidating employee data, time tracking, and compensation information in one place helps streamline the calculation of pay and benefits. Workday integration automatically updates payroll based on changes in employee status, hours worked, and benefits elections, reducing errors. It helps ensure compliance with disparate payroll tax laws and benefits regulations and can be customized according to regional requirements.

Workday integration can also allow employees to directly access their payroll and benefits information, allowing them to manage their own data and submit their own time-off requests, which reduces the administrative burden on HR departments. This not only increases efficiency and accuracy in payroll and benefits management but also enhances the overall employee experience.

5. Employee feedback

Integrating Workday with various feedback and survey tools can allow HR to automatically gather and respond to employee feedback. Organizations can automatically trigger surveys or feedback requests at key moments, such as after training sessions, performance reviews, or completion of significant projects, aligning them with relevant employee data in Workday. This ensures that feedback is timely, relevant, and linked to specific activities or milestones.

The collected feedback can be directly fed into Workday, allowing HR and management teams to analyze it in conjunction with other employee data, like performance metrics and training history, for a comprehensive understanding. This process not only simplifies gathering feedback but also provides actionable insights, aligning with organizational goals and employee development.

6. Performance evaluations

Integrating Workday data with other HR data sources significantly enhances performance evaluations by consolidating various performance metrics and feedback in one platform. It enables managers to access comprehensive employee data, including goals, competencies, training records, and past evaluations, providing a holistic view of each employee's performance. This provides agility to the performance evaluation process, facilitating regular feedback and goal tracking for more dynamic and ongoing performance assessments.

Automating the collection and aggregation of performance data also greatly reduces manual errors and helps to identify biases, leading to more objective and accurate evaluations. This streamlined approach not only makes the evaluation process more efficient but also more meaningful for employees.

7. Data security

Real-time Workday integration platforms like CData Connect Cloud allows organizations to leverage data virtualization to centralize access to employee information within a unified platform without replicating or storing it in a database or data warehouse. This reduces the risks associated with data being scattered across multiple systems because the data stays within its source system. IT teams can rest assured that sensitive, private Workday data will stay just that – private.

Real-time Workday integration tools also ensure that data transfers occur within secure channels, employing encryption and other advanced security measures. It also enables the implementation of role-based access controls, ensuring that sensitive data is accessible only to the people who need to see it, minimizing the potential for data breaches.

By automating data management processes, Workday data integration also reduces the likelihood of human error, a common source of data security vulnerabilities. This comprehensive approach to data security not only protects against external threats but also fortifies internal data management practices, ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of employee data.

CData helps your Workday work better

This is just a short list of the benefits and use cases of Workday integration. CData’s Workday integration solutions allow you to connect your Workday data with the business intelligence, reporting, and analytics applications you normally use every day.

Want to give other CData solutions a test drive? Enjoy a free 30-day trial.