Workday, a top company offering human capital management and financial management software on the Cloud, has presented its newest feature release known as 2024R1. The Workday releases update contains improvements and new features for Workday’s Human Capital Management (HCM) as well as Financials modules to give more efficiency, flexibility plus control to organizations in managing their workforce and financial procedures.

Human Capital Management Module Updates

In the Human Capital Management module, the 2024R1 release introduces several significant improvements. One key update is the ability to designate benefit billing status to employees who have insufficient funds to cover their benefit costs, ensuring transparency and timely resolution of financial matters. Additionally, Workday now allows for the direct creation of Benefit Program communication cards containing job details, streamlining internal communication processes.

The introduction of the “Compensation Element selection prompt” enhances task speed and performance by returning only the specified category of compensation elements, facilitating quicker decision-making. Users can now configure leave types and time offs that impact step progression, allowing for more personalized and adaptable workforce management strategies.

The release also includes an option to opt-in for a redesigned Hire Employee user interface, improving user experience and simplifying the hiring process. Furthermore, the configuration of pre-hire contact information fields ensures that essential information is collected from employees before their first day of work, enhancing the onboarding process.

Workday now enables the collection of consent preferences from resources for processing their personal data, fostering transparency and compliance with data protection regulations. Additionally, the introduction of Paradox AI chatbot for external career sites allows candidates to engage in conversations, receive job suggestions, and gain assistance in completing applications, enhancing the recruitment experience.

Workforce Management Updates

The 2024R1 release also brings significant updates to Workforce Management. Workday now allows for the configuration of working types for time offs, enabling more effective allocation of hours and resources. Customers can now change compensation by adding the “Request Compensation Change Process” step during collective agreement assignment or termination, ensuring smoother management of compensation adjustments.

The Hire Business Process interface has received cosmetic updates, including the repositioning of essential date fields to enhance user experience and usability. Additionally, the introduction of a calendar view for time entry enables workers to enter time for an entire pay period at once, reducing errors and enhancing efficiency.

Financials Module Enhancements

In the Financials module, the 2024R1 release allows users to configure one or multiple review steps in the Accounting Center Summarization Event Business Process, enabling approval or denial of Accounting Center summary journals before posting to the ledger. Enhancements to Revenue Driven Budget Rules functionality, including floor and ceiling definitions, provide greater control over budget spending authority.

Intelligent machine learning prompts have been introduced to streamline invoice and expense processing by providing recommendations for sales items, expense items, and tax attributes. The Remittance framework now has the ability to generate remittance advice for PDF third-party payroll payments and supplier invoice payments. This improvement boosts its power in handling transactions.

Adaptive Planning Updates

Workday’s 2024R1 release introduces ‘What If’ scenarios in Adaptive Planning, allowing users to test data changes without affecting the data in the main plan version. This feature facilitates scenario analysis and decision-making. The introduction of Predictive Forecaster, powered by machine learning, allows users to schedule live and snapshot matrix reports, eliminating the need for manual selection and sharing of recurring reports.

Enhanced reporting capabilities now enable report users to explore selected report cells in new worksheets, manipulate data, and generate new reports without disrupting existing ones, enhancing reporting flexibility and usability.

Final Thought

Workday’s 2024R1 release represents a substantial advancement in providing organizations with enhanced tools and functionalities to optimize their HR, financial, and planning operations. These updates offer increased efficiency, transparency, and adaptability in managing dynamic business environments. However, with the introduction of these new features, thorough testing becomes crucial to ensure seamless integration and functionality.

For businesses looking to streamline their Workday update testing, Opkey, an official partner of Workday, offers an exceptional solution. As an industry-leading test automation tool, Opkey provides no-code testing capabilities, making it accessible for business analysts, end users, manual testers, and stakeholders without technical coding skills. Its built-in intelligence analyzes test steps and generates automated scripts with a single click, simplifying the testing process.

Opkey also excels in change impact analysis by automatically generating reports that highlight the precise scope of what needs to be tested with each Workday update. This allows organizations to prioritize testing efforts on critical elements. The platform’s self-healing capabilities further enhance efficiency by automatically repairing damaged test scripts.

To accelerate testing processes, Opkey offers pre-built test accelerators for functional, regression, performance, and security testing. These accelerators significantly reduce the workload on subject matter experts, cutting test script design time and effort by over 70%.

Additionally, Opkey’s test discovery functionality mines specific Workday environments for previously executed tests, identifying gaps and providing optimal testing coverage. By leveraging Opkey for Workday testing, organizations can ensure comprehensive risk coverage and maintain the integrity of their Workday environment.