| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Application | A compact report displayed as an icon on your Home page, providing easy access to tasks and information you use on a regular basis. Example: Applications include Pay, Personal Information, Benefits, and Expenses. |
| Apps | A combination of dashboards and worklets. You can take actions and view analytics and custom reports all within configured and preconfigured applications. |
| Approve (business process) | Designated participants in a business process with a defined responsibility in this type of event to indicate that they approve the proposed action. (The business process can proceed to the next step.) |
| Business Object | A set of related fields, similar to how a table or spreadsheet is composed of a set of related columns. Instances of a business object in Workday are like rows in a table or spreadsheet, with each instance representing a unique occurrence of that type of object, such as an organization or worker. A business object can have no instances, one instance, or many instances. Workday automatically links related business objects together. Example: Purchase order lines are linked to a purchase order header; the purchase order header is linked to a supplier; the supplier is linked to a company, and so on." |
| Business Process | The set of tasks that need to be completed for an event to occur, the order in which they must be done, and who must do them. Workday includes a number of pre-defined business processes for different purposes. You can edit the default definitions for your organization. You can also create different versions of the same business process for different organizations. |
| Business Process Instance | A business process that the initiator has started. Example: The Hire Employee for Organization X business process definition becomes an instance when the initiator uses it to hire a particular pre-hire. |
| Cancel (business process) | An action you can take on a business process. This stops the workflow in progress and reverses any changes made to Workday data. It is also a securable action in a business process security policy. You may need further approvals to cancel a business process. |
| Contextual Custom Report | A custom report created to simplify the selection of data and fields by limiting choices to those related to the context of the object. You can create a custom report by selecting Reporting > Create Custom Report from Here from a Workday object's Related Actions. |
| Correct (business process) | An action you can take on a business process. Correcting a business process changes a specification or data in the workflow while in progress. It is also a securable action in a business process security policy. |
| Cost Center | A unit within an organization where costs are tracked and managed. It typically represents a department or a functional area (e.g., Marketing, HR, IT) that incurs expenses. Cost centers allow an organization to allocate and control expenses, helping with budgeting and financial reporting. |
| Dashboard | Pre-configured worklets that are specific to a functional area, like Talent Management or Workforce Planning. Since these worklets are built with the Report Writer and report-specific calculated fields, you can copy and modify them if you have unique requirements. You can add additional custom worklets to these dashboards using the Report Writer. Alternatively dashboards are combined with worklets called "apps." |
| Data Source | A particular set of business object instances for reporting purposes. A data source is similar to a database view, except it is more flexible in two key areas. First, a database view always returns a flattened out tabular data structure, whereas a data source can return hierarchical data structures. Second, a database view requires that technical staff manually join related tables together, while a data source automatically allows reportable access to all business objects related to those in the data source. |
| Delegation (business process) | An action you can take in a business process if you have been assigned a task. You can request the task be delegated. Requesting a delegation change is a business process that may require approvals and may or may not be included in your organization's configuration. |
| Deny (business process) | An action you can take on a step within a business process. If denied, the business process can no longer proceed to the next step. In some cases, the entire business process may be terminated, and all Workday data restored to its state before the business process started. The ability to deny a business process may depend on your system permissions. |
| Drill-down | A feature to view more data in a matrix report. When you click on a drillable element (such as a drillable field in the table view or a column, line, or pie segment in the chart view), a context menu appears that enables you to select a new View By field. If the Enable Downhill to Detail Data checkbox is selected on the Advanced tab of the report definition, you can also select details associated with the selected report element. |
| Event | A transaction that occurs within your organization, such as hiring or terminating a worker. |
| Field (reporting) | A specific area for storing a particular type of data, such as a name, date, or number. |
| Filter | A clickable icon used to narrow down data. Clicking this icon will create a row on your report where you filter data to display from one or more columns. |
| Functional Area | Grouping of tasks, reports, and objects. Example: The HCM solution includes functional areas such as Benefits, Talent & Performance, Absence and Manager or Employee self-service. Each of the Workday solutions (like Workday HCM and Workday Financial Management) is grouped into distinct functional areas. |
| Fund | A financial resource that is set aside for a specific purpose. It is used to manage and track money allocated to particular activities or programs, often with restrictions on its use. In Workday, funds are typically associated with various types of financial accounts or projects to ensure money is spent in accordance with organizational policies or grants. |
| Goods | Physical, tangible items or products that an organization purchases, stores, uses internally, or resells to customers |
| Home | Your default page containing applications, search, notifications, Inbox, and your profile icon main menu. |
| Initiator | The user that initiates the business process instance. |
| Initiation Step | The first step of a business process. |
| Instance | One unique occurrence of a business object. Example: Your executive management organization, or John Doe, the worker. |
| Matrix Report | A custom report forming the foundation for custom analytics. It summarizes data by one or two fields that contain repeating values. The resulting matrix is displayed as either a table or chart that users can drill through to see the associated details. You control the specific detail data users should see when they drill down by selecting the desired fields when defining the report. Matrix reports also provide features such as filtering, run time prompts, worklets, and report sharing. |
| Modify (permission) | The permission to view and gain direct access to securable items through the Workday user interface. It includes view permission. |
| Organization | A broader structure in Workday within which financial activities are managed, such as a company, division, or department. It defines the boundaries for financial reporting and enables financial transactions to be attributed to the correct entity for accurate tracking, budgeting, and reporting. |
| Period | A specific time frame during which financial transactions or activities are recorded, such as a fiscal month, quarter, or year. Periods help organizations track and report financial performance over time, aligning with accounting cycles and helping with month-end or year-end closing activities. |
| Program | A structured set of activities, projects, or initiatives that align with an organization's strategic goals. It can be used in Workday Financials to track costs, revenue, and financial performance for specific projects or objectives, such as a new product launch, research initiative, or other organizational endeavors. |
| Purchasing |
In Workday, "purchasing" is the end-to-end process of acquiring goods and services, managed through the Workday Procurement module. It starts with employees creating purchase requisitions and ends with the payment of invoices, streamlining the "procure-to-pay" cycle from a single system. Key aspects include managing requisitions (both from catalogs and non-catalog items), processing purchase orders, and providing visibility into spending.
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| Reassign Task (business process) | An action you can take on a business process where you can request for a task to be reassigned. This may require further approvals. |
| Related Business Object | A set of objects related to the primary business object defined in a report. These related objects might have their own set of fields that can be included in the report as well. Example: You create a report using employee as your business object. To find the total default annual compensation defined for an employee's position, you need to access a related business object off of employee, which would be position. |
| Rescind (business process) | An action you can take on a business process to completely reverse all changes made to Workday data in a completed business process. A task must be successfully completed to perform this action. |
| Revenue or Spend Category | An attribute in customer contracts and billing used to search for and report on goods and services you sell. Spend category is used to to organize, track, and report on business assets as well as derive the correct ledger account to be used for the accounting journal. |
| Roles | A group of people with specific responsibilities and permissions. When a business process runs, the role for each step includes all of the workers in that role in the business process target organization. |
| Security Group | A collection of users, or a collection of objects that are related to users. Allowing a security group access to a securable item in a security policy grants access to the users associated with the security group. |
| Services | Services are non-physical activities, benefits, or expertise that one party provides to another. Examples include consulting services, maintenance, or legal advice. When a service is purchased, the buyer is paying for the time, skill, or effort, but does not gain ownership of the service itself. The service provider retains ownership of their process or expertise. In Workday, services procurement often involves tracking time or activity and managing supplier contracts based on deliverables or time-frames rather than physical stock. |
| Target | The object on which a business process operates. Example: For business processes that involve a worker record, the target is the worker. For business processes that involve a financial object, such as an accounting journal, the accounting journal is the target. Since the target determines the organization, it controls which business process custom definition Workday will use. |
| Task | An action you must take in a business process, unless you reassign or delegate the task. Example: Notifications or Inbox alerts are triggered by steps in a business process. |
| To-Dos | Reminders to do something outside of the Workday system. They can be part of business processes, and have to be marked complete before the workflow will go to the next step. |
| View (business process) | A feature within a business process, enabling you to see its status and report on it. This is a securable item in a business process security policy. |
| Worktag | Keywords assigned to transactions and supporting data to make their business purposes' clear and establish common relationships through classification. Can be used to find information more easily, filter searches down to focused results, and analyze information in aggregated and summarized reporting by business dimension. |
