Here are some top tips that can help both the functional business owners and IT admins and leaders avoid the most common pitfalls of Workday feature releases.
When you move to Workday, one of the biggest benefits is that you get to take advantage of more and more functionality with each semi-annual feature release. However, in order to get the most out of these updates, it takes a bit of preparation by your IT, HR and finance teams. Let Alight show you how to hit the ground running.
1. Capacity
Every spring and fall, Workday Release Features are delivered, allowing you the opportunity to take advantage of many new features and functionality. It’s a good idea to develop a project plan, establish timelines and start securing additional resources that may be needed to support the feature releases. This is essential if the updates occur during business critical periods such as annual enrollment, performance or merit cycles. Don’t get caught underestimating the time to review release notes, properly test, execute a change management and communication program and overall project management and coordination.
It can take a lot of preparation, we know. So at the very least, focus your new release testing on:
- Running and reviewing output from critical integrations
- Validating existing system data
- Testing critical business processes and critical custom reports
It’s also a good idea to conduct a payroll run (if you’re using Workday Payroll) to make sure you’re getting the expected results.