Christmas in August: Workday 29 Update!

 

Christmas present: how to unwrap the goodies

Step 1:

Visit the Workday 29 Release Preparation Center. Here you 'll find a collection of all the feature release information and videos on what is coming.

Step 2:

Run the What 's New Report in your tenant. This lists new features by functional area and links to any relevant videos and articles. Depending on your Workday inventory, it 's best to have cross-functional collaboration to determine your feature uptake decision making and roadmap. These resources can be a little dry, so I also recommend you listen to our webinar on Getting Prepared for Workday Update 29. During this session, our Kainos WorkSmart professional services team will walk you through what they are most excited about in this update, and describe how each feature can impact and improve your day to day experience in Workday. As an implementation partner in the Workday ecosystem, Kainos WorkSmart product leads and consultants receive update details in advance of general release. This allows us to review and critique new functionality, and provide recommendations on how adoption might be most beneficial for our customers.

Step 3:

Planning adoption of new features Great, now that you know what you want to adopt, how and when are you going to implement it? Have you had a look at Workday 's Adoption Planning Dashboard? This feature was added in WD28 and gives a place in Workday that you can target and prioritize enhancements against your internal Workday enhancement timeline. If that doesn 't work for you, take some inspiration and ensure your organization has a similar timeline of effort that includes input from your business users on impact and urgency. The WD29 update materials and videos are certainly not just for the admins and senior HR team give a voice to a wider HR and payroll population so that they can give input on how Workday could be leveraged to improve HR processes in more specialised areas. If you are unsure of how much effort it might take to adopt functionality, Kainos WorkSmart consultants can help you evaluate this based on your own configuration.

Testing: it 's not just about 'what 's new '

The other aspect of the update is how changes affect your existing implementation. While most are positive enhancements, some might have surprising effects. A tweak to a calculated field may have ripple down effects in business process condition rules, for example. Regression testing each update against your security, reports and integrations configuration is a smart way to avoid unexpected issues. My colleague Matthew Palmer has released his 6 tips on testing the Workday 29 update. Our recommendation is that regression testing is incorporated into your pre- and post- Workday update plans. Consider improving your operational efficiency by adding Kainos Smart automated testing software to your Workday suite of tools.

Christmas past: review previous updates

With updates coming quick and fast, some excellent functionality may have slipped by you. Whether these updates were lost amongst more urgent changes, or simply lacked key features for your business at the time of introduction, now is a good time to review WD27 and WD28 in the context of the WD29 enhancements.

In my own core functional areas, there are three features that have been introduced, expanded and enhanced over the year and are now ripe for adoption:

1. Add Questionnaires to your leave processes (and many other places).
2. Implement the Absence Team Calendar to allow teams and wider groups to intelligently review and request their own absences.
3. Uptake Unified absence to give a single view of Leave and Time Off that addresses a common usability/understanding issue in many countries.

Christmas future: leverage the Workday strategic roadmap

Implementing new functionality has an element of risk associated, one of which is that the functionality will be extended in the future in such a way that your early adoption might not result in the best fit for your organization. Be aware of the Workday strategic road map so that you can make the most informed decision on when to add a new feature.

How Kainos WorkSmart can help you make the most of your Workday 29 Update

For more detailed information on the features, functionality and enhancements delivered in Workday 29, please be sure to join our Kainos WorkSmart professional services team and listen to our webinar. We will be unwrapping the key areas in your configuration the latest update may affect and the benefits and new functionality you should be taking advantage of. Listen to our webinar here Getting Prepared for Workday Update 29.