Every organization is unique, with specific needs and workflows that might go beyond the core functionality of even the most robust systems. This is where Workday Extend comes in, offering a powerful solution to tailor Workday to your precise requirements and unlock even greater value from your investment.

Workday Extend is a low-code platform that empowers organizations to build, deploy, and manage custom applications that run natively within their existing Workday environment. Think of it as opening up the Workday platform, allowing you to create new pages, tasks, and business processes that look and feel just like the rest of Workday, all while leveraging the same underlying data and security model.

The potential use cases for Workday Extend across HCM and Financials are vast and can be categorized by their scale and impact.

Smaller Workday Extend Use Cases: Enhancing User Experience and Automating Processes

Even seemingly small customizations can significantly improve user experience and streamline everyday tasks. In HCM, for instance, Workday Extend can be used to build simple apps for:

  • Streamlined Charitable Giving: An app that allows employees to easily donate to approved charities directly within Workday, automating the deduction process and reporting.
  • Employee Recognition Programs: Creating a custom workflow for peer-to-peer recognition or nominating colleagues for internal awards, making the process more visible and integrated.
  • Desk Booking or Return-to-Office Attestations: As workplace dynamics evolve, simple apps can manage hot-desking reservations or facilitate health and safety check-ins.

In Financials, smaller Extend apps could address needs like:

  • Project Close Automation: Automating specific steps or notifications within the project close process that are unique to your organization.
  • Customer Contract Indexation: Building a tool to easily index and search specific clauses or details within customer contracts linked to financial records.
  • Simplified Collections Management: Creating a dashboard or workflow to manage follow-ups on outstanding invoices based on custom criteria.

These smaller applications, while not replacing entire systems, significantly enhance the efficiency and user adoption of Workday by addressing specific pain points and automating manual, often tedious, processes that previously might have involved spreadsheets or external forms.

Larger Workday Extend Use Cases: Replacing Third-Party Applications

Beyond minor enhancements, Workday Extend has the capability to handle more complex requirements, potentially allowing you to retire standalone third-party applications and consolidate functionality within Workday. This can lead to significant cost savings, reduced IT complexity, and a more unified data landscape.

Examples of larger Extend use cases include:

  • Managing Unique Compensation Plans: For organizations with highly specialized or complex compensation structures that aren’t fully met by core Workday compensation, Extend can build custom modules to manage these plans.
  • Specific Industry or Regulatory Compliance Workflows: Businesses in highly regulated industries might have unique reporting or workflow requirements. Extend can build apps to ensure compliance is managed within Workday.
  • Comprehensive Employee Onboarding or Offboarding Extensions: While Workday has robust onboarding, some organizations may have very specific tasks, integrations, or documentation requirements that can be built out as an Extend app.
  • Supplier Self-Service Portals with Unique Features: While Workday offers supplier portals, an organization might need highly customized features for specific supplier interactions or data submission.

By building these solutions on Workday Extend, you avoid the need for separate systems, data synchronization challenges, and the maintenance overhead associated with managing multiple applications.

The Power of the Workday Extend Platform

Building applications with Workday Extend offers distinct advantages rooted in the Workday platform itself:

  • Embedded Security: Extend apps inherit Workday’s robust security model. This means your custom applications automatically adhere to the same access controls and data privacy standards as your core Workday data, significantly reducing security risks and simplifying compliance.
  • Leveraging the Business Process Framework: Workday’s powerful business process framework is available within Extend. You can build custom workflows with conditional logic, approvals, and notifications that seamlessly integrate with existing Workday processes.
  • Data Model Extension: Workday Extend allows you to extend the Workday data model by creating custom objects to store information specific to your unique applications. This keeps your data within the Workday ecosystem, providing a single source of truth and enabling unified reporting.

Discovering Existing Solutions

Before embarking on building a custom Extend app, it’s always a good idea to see if a solution already exists. The Workday Marketplace is a valuable resource where Workday partners and other customers publish pre-built Workday Extend applications. You can browse the marketplace to find apps that might meet your needs, potentially accelerating your time to value.

Identifying Opportunities with Your AMS Partner

Determining which processes are good candidates for Workday Extend can be challenging. This is where your Workday Application Management Services (AMS) partner can be invaluable. An experienced AMS partner understands your Workday configuration, your business processes, and the capabilities of Workday Extend. They can help you:

  • Analyze existing manual processes or third-party applications that could be replaced or enhanced.
  • Identify pain points in user experience that could be addressed with a simple Extend app.
  • Assess the complexity and feasibility of building a custom solution versus using existing Workday functionality or a marketplace app.
  • Guide you through the design, development, and deployment process.

In conclusion, Workday Extend is a powerful extension of the core Workday platform, offering organizations the ability to tailor their HCM and Financials solutions to their precise needs. Whether addressing small user experience enhancements or replacing complex third-party systems, Extend leverages Workday’s embedded security, business process framework, and data model to deliver secure, integrated, and efficient custom applications. By exploring the Workday Marketplace and collaborating with your AMS partner, you can identify the opportunities to unlock the full potential of Workday Extend for your organization.