Workday Platform Admin key terms

An organization type that groups workers under a manager and defines reporting lines, headcount, and approval routing. It is the primary structure used for staffing and worker management in Workday.

A configuration that determines whether a supervisory organization uses position management or job management. It controls how headcount, requisitions, and hires are tracked.

A staffing approach where each position is a separate record with its own job, headcount, and organization. Positions can be filled, frozen, or eliminated independently.

A definition of a worker's role that includes job family, compensation grade, exemption status, and required qualifications. It is used on positions, requisitions, and worker records.

A person with a record in Workday, including employees, contingent workers, and pre-hires. Worker records hold personal, job, compensation, and organization data.

The date on which a change takes effect in Workday, which can be past, current, or future. It determines when updated data appears in worker records and reports.

A collection of users that grants access to tasks, data, and reports. Membership can be based on roles, jobs, users, or intersections of other groups.

A security group whose members are determined by a role assigned to a worker, such as manager or HR partner. Membership updates automatically when the role changes.

A security group that includes only users who belong to all of two or more other security groups. It narrows access to people meeting every membership condition.

A securable area of Workday data or functionality, such as worker data, reports, or integration settings. Security groups receive view or modify access to domains through policies.

A rule that specifies which security groups can view or modify a domain. It is the main way data access is granted in Workday.

A specific action a user is allowed to perform, such as view, modify, approve, or cancel. Permissions are granted through security groups and domain policies.

A control that prevents one person from completing conflicting steps, such as initiating and approving the same transaction. It reduces fraud and error risk.

A configurable workflow that governs how a transaction is initiated, approved, and completed. It includes steps, routings, conditions, and security policies.

The definition of a specific process, such as Hire or Change Job. It determines the available steps, routings, and rules for that transaction.

The path a business process step follows to identify approvers or assignees. Routing can target managers, roles, security groups, or specific workers.

The ordered sequence of approvers a transaction must pass through before it completes. Each approver can approve, deny, or send back the transaction.

Logic that decides whether a business process step or routing runs, based on data such as amount, organization, or worker type. It makes processes flexible.

A task assigned to a user during a business process that requires action but is not an approval. Completing it allows the process to continue.

Temporarily transferring your approvals or tasks to another user for a set period. The delegate can act on your behalf while you are unavailable.

A reusable field that derives a value from other fields using arithmetic, lookups, or true/false logic. It can be used in reports, security, and business processes.

The primary business object and related objects that supply data to a report. It determines which fields and filters are available.

The main object a report is built on, such as Worker or Job Requisition. It defines the report's core data and relationships.

A report created in Workday with a chosen data source, fields, filters, prompts, and layout. It can be saved, shared, and scheduled.

A report that combines multiple reports or subreports into one output. It is useful when data must come from different sources or groupings.

An input that lets a user filter a report when it runs, such as a date range, organization, or worker. Prompts make a single report reusable.

A configured identity that represents an external system in Workday. It holds credentials and security settings used to run integrations.

A non-human Workday account used by integrations to authenticate and perform actions. It should have only the security needed for its tasks.

A Workday tool for building simple inbound and outbound integrations with templates, mapping, and scheduling, usually without custom code.

A prebuilt integration template for common data exchanges, such as worker or payroll data. It can be configured and extended with transformations.

The process of importing bulk data into Workday using templates, EIBs, or web services. Loads often require sequencing and validation.

A saved custom report exposed as a web service endpoint so integrations can retrieve its data in a structured format.

An isolated Workday environment that contains a company's configuration, security, and data. Organizations may have production, sandbox, and other tenants.

A non-production tenant used to test configuration, security, and integrations before changes reach production. It can be refreshed from production.

A tenant that receives a new Workday release before production, allowing customers to test features and identify impacts early.

A periodic Workday update that adds features and changes existing functionality. Tenants are upgraded on a scheduled release cycle.

A record of changes to data or configuration that shows who made the change, what changed, and when. It supports compliance and troubleshooting.