There’s no question that Workday is an incredibly powerful tool for Financials, HCM, and more. What you do need to ask yourself, however, is whether you’re getting the most out of it, especially when it comes to reporting. You may have read our 5-Minute Guide to Workday Reporting (and if you haven’t, you really should), but now it’s time to kick things up a notch by briefing you on the power of Workday calculated fields. They really are key to getting the most out of Workday’s reports and integrations. Here’s what you need to know about them.
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What are Calculated Fields?
Calculated fields, also known as “Calc fields” or “CF,” are how Workday refers to programming variables/database record buffers, and they’re useful in reports and integrations. Here’s a closer look at a few different types of calculated fields.
Calculated fields can be Workday-delivered, such as “Today” or “True” (which would be similar to the Excel functions TODAY and TRUE).
Calculated fields can be constants, like the string “EXEMPT” and “NON-EXEMPT,” where the database value is actually a Boolean true/false field but the report specs call for the words representing something (such as a job’s exempt status) to be spelled out. Another example would be constants like “Sunday”, “Monday”, and so forth, which would be derived from an original value of the day of the week, (i.e. a number from 1 to 7), instead of a Boolean true/false variable. Calculated fields are a way to let the report developer turn a “7” into the string “Saturday”, or (in multiple steps) turn the today’s date into a string that reads “Mon. July 20, 2018”.
Calculated fields can be arithmetic expressions like “2 x <Base Salary>”. This would be useful in a situation where someone needed to answer the question, “If this employee died today, how much would their estate be owed from the insurance carrier?” The calculated field “2 x <Base Salary>” would first find the employee’s annualized compensation and then multiply that base salary by two to find the basic insurance “covered amount” as an answer.
Calculated fields can be dates or date calculations. If, for example, there is a new hire probationary period of 30 days (or 60, or 90…), then the calculated field would be “Hire Date Plus <n>”, where <n> is itself a calculated field representing the number appropriate number (30, 60, etc.). This would allow us to see when the new hire’s probationary period ends.
Oftentimes, calculated fields are built up of other calculated fields. For instance, in our date calculation example, the solution involved daisy-chaining two CFs together to get an answer, and it’s not uncommon for a solution to string together four or more CFs.
All in all, Workday offers nearly two dozen built-in functions that can be used to do numeric (math), date, and text (string) manipulation; Boolean logic; or CASE statements. If you think there might be a way to improve your report with a calculated field, you’re probably right.
Calculated Fields and Instances
Some calculated fields are buffers of database records (and Workday calls these “instances” of an object). One common use of an instance CF is to get the same data but for a different date.
Where are they not so convenient?
Like much of WD, the functionality is very flexible. If you don't have your business processes in order to support this flexibility, you're in for some issues...
In our implementation (being lead by a mainstream consulting partner, but supported by multiple offshore consulting firms), the main parter says that best practice is to implement WD by 'an iterative approach'. Basically, we keep putting data in, seeing how it looks, then tweaking here and there what we're doing.
When the topic of calculated fields came up, our traditional approach was to try to standardise and lock down the functionality. (We have 150k + employees and a large part of our business is manufacturing, so we live by documented processes, otherwise it's a free for all mess.) Our consulting partner directed us that 'best practice' is to not standardize, as that would cause a bottleneck, and instead, each developer should be creating any/all fields needed. Not quite sure that was the best way, in retrospect.
We have 200+ integrations that are being built (many offshore) as well as local development of reports that are also generating calculated fields. As there is no clearinghouse or rules, people just make a new calc field rather than hunting for an existing one. The Data Governance and Controls team is now quickly working to implement standards and structures as the count of calc fields has soared to above 1000
An example
To put it into a practical perspective, I've been working on some reports recently, to support our HR colleagues who are looking at the data. I was seeking 'Business Unit Descr' so I searched for 'Business Unit'. The top field is the WD delivered one (is it descr? code? who knows). The ones after are all our calc fields. This is not all of them, as others created them as 'bus unit' and all sorts of shorter versions such as 'BU':
You can see where the standards of the Data Governance team are starting to come into effect, such as using 'CF' as a prefix for calc fields or 'INT' when an integration is involved. If you have only a handful of folks using this functionality or creating reports, it might not be such a big deal. However, we will ultimately have hundreds of HR folks in the system using (if not creating) reports, so this willy nilly lack of standards will be confusing for them, even if they are only running reports and seeing disparate field names.
Looking online at the Workday Community site, other companies are grappling with these very same issues. (Sidenote: I'm a little surprised that WD itself does not issue more guidance). There is a 'solutions' section in the community where other WD customers can post their top tips and documents, to share with other companies. The group at Brown University put together some really great documentation, but just to give you an idea of how extensive this calc field naming can get, here is a snippet of their rules:
In addition, another customer (who has been live for a while) has developed a series of reports for more what I'd call the 'structural' aspects of the system--so basically audits to keep things tidy and more efficient. He also includes calc field review in his list of 30 reports, such as keeping up with the following:
For example, let’s say you wanted a report that would tell you what the salary of each employee was on the last day of last year. This might lead to the question, “How have salary changes in the past year affected the company’s total obligation for life insurance premiums?”
Another example would be the question, “What are the benefit elections in effect now so I can compare them to the elections that will be effective in the future on January 1st when Open Enrollment Elections kick in?” which leads to “How many employees will be moving from PPO to a High Deductible/HSA on that day?” These would all be situations in which using instances would be beneficial.
Get the best knowledge on Workday with live experts at Workday Online Training
What are Calculated Fields?
Calculated fields, also known as “Calc fields” or “CF,” are how Workday refers to programming variables/database record buffers, and they’re useful in reports and integrations. Here’s a closer look at a few different types of calculated fields.
Calculated fields can be Workday-delivered, such as “Today” or “True” (which would be similar to the Excel functions TODAY and TRUE).
Calculated fields can be constants, like the string “EXEMPT” and “NON-EXEMPT,” where the database value is actually a Boolean true/false field but the report specs call for the words representing something (such as a job’s exempt status) to be spelled out. Another example would be constants like “Sunday”, “Monday”, and so forth, which would be derived from an original value of the day of the week, (i.e. a number from 1 to 7), instead of a Boolean true/false variable. Calculated fields are a way to let the report developer turn a “7” into the string “Saturday”, or (in multiple steps) turn the today’s date into a string that reads “Mon. July 20, 2018”.
Calculated fields can be arithmetic expressions like “2 x <Base Salary>”. This would be useful in a situation where someone needed to answer the question, “If this employee died today, how much would their estate be owed from the insurance carrier?” The calculated field “2 x <Base Salary>” would first find the employee’s annualized compensation and then multiply that base salary by two to find the basic insurance “covered amount” as an answer.
Calculated fields can be dates or date calculations. If, for example, there is a new hire probationary period of 30 days (or 60, or 90…), then the calculated field would be “Hire Date Plus <n>”, where <n> is itself a calculated field representing the number appropriate number (30, 60, etc.). This would allow us to see when the new hire’s probationary period ends.
Oftentimes, calculated fields are built up of other calculated fields. For instance, in our date calculation example, the solution involved daisy-chaining two CFs together to get an answer, and it’s not uncommon for a solution to string together four or more CFs.
All in all, Workday offers nearly two dozen built-in functions that can be used to do numeric (math), date, and text (string) manipulation; Boolean logic; or CASE statements. If you think there might be a way to improve your report with a calculated field, you’re probably right.
Calculated Fields and Instances
Some calculated fields are buffers of database records (and Workday calls these “instances” of an object). One common use of an instance CF is to get the same data but for a different date.
Where are they not so convenient?
Like much of WD, the functionality is very flexible. If you don't have your business processes in order to support this flexibility, you're in for some issues...
In our implementation (being lead by a mainstream consulting partner, but supported by multiple offshore consulting firms), the main parter says that best practice is to implement WD by 'an iterative approach'. Basically, we keep putting data in, seeing how it looks, then tweaking here and there what we're doing.
When the topic of calculated fields came up, our traditional approach was to try to standardise and lock down the functionality. (We have 150k + employees and a large part of our business is manufacturing, so we live by documented processes, otherwise it's a free for all mess.) Our consulting partner directed us that 'best practice' is to not standardize, as that would cause a bottleneck, and instead, each developer should be creating any/all fields needed. Not quite sure that was the best way, in retrospect.
We have 200+ integrations that are being built (many offshore) as well as local development of reports that are also generating calculated fields. As there is no clearinghouse or rules, people just make a new calc field rather than hunting for an existing one. The Data Governance and Controls team is now quickly working to implement standards and structures as the count of calc fields has soared to above 1000
An example
To put it into a practical perspective, I've been working on some reports recently, to support our HR colleagues who are looking at the data. I was seeking 'Business Unit Descr' so I searched for 'Business Unit'. The top field is the WD delivered one (is it descr? code? who knows). The ones after are all our calc fields. This is not all of them, as others created them as 'bus unit' and all sorts of shorter versions such as 'BU':
You can see where the standards of the Data Governance team are starting to come into effect, such as using 'CF' as a prefix for calc fields or 'INT' when an integration is involved. If you have only a handful of folks using this functionality or creating reports, it might not be such a big deal. However, we will ultimately have hundreds of HR folks in the system using (if not creating) reports, so this willy nilly lack of standards will be confusing for them, even if they are only running reports and seeing disparate field names.
Looking online at the Workday Community site, other companies are grappling with these very same issues. (Sidenote: I'm a little surprised that WD itself does not issue more guidance). There is a 'solutions' section in the community where other WD customers can post their top tips and documents, to share with other companies. The group at Brown University put together some really great documentation, but just to give you an idea of how extensive this calc field naming can get, here is a snippet of their rules:
In addition, another customer (who has been live for a while) has developed a series of reports for more what I'd call the 'structural' aspects of the system--so basically audits to keep things tidy and more efficient. He also includes calc field review in his list of 30 reports, such as keeping up with the following:
For example, let’s say you wanted a report that would tell you what the salary of each employee was on the last day of last year. This might lead to the question, “How have salary changes in the past year affected the company’s total obligation for life insurance premiums?”
Another example would be the question, “What are the benefit elections in effect now so I can compare them to the elections that will be effective in the future on January 1st when Open Enrollment Elections kick in?” which leads to “How many employees will be moving from PPO to a High Deductible/HSA on that day?” These would all be situations in which using instances would be beneficial.
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