As part of Workday's twice-yearly update schedule, a bundle of software updates will be available to the Iowa State community after 9 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 12.
While Workday provides minor fixes and security updates on a weekly basis, these biannual releases are larger in scope and improve the function and/or user experience with the software. In preparation for the release, Iowa State WorkCyte teams have been previewing and testing features to ensure the upgrades perform as expected.
What's new?
Most are systemwide and improve function on both sides -- finance/planning and human capital management -- for Iowa State users. These include a more helpful search/prompt function in the search bar and a feature called "My Shortcuts," which lets the user create shortcuts to often-used tasks and reports. The process of exporting reports to Excel also has been improved, correcting some difficulties with large file downloads and providing a consistent process across various browsers.
On the HR side, the updates include a new option, "Frequently Used Related Actions," which displays up to five often-used tasks. And on the finance side, Workday reduced the time and effort it takes to create, edit and submit expense reports, and now provides a more consistent user experience across desktop, Android, iPad and iPhone devices.
The newest set of improvements is titled Workday 2020 Release 2 (2020R2 for short). Users can read more about each improvement in a new IT Services Knowledge Base article.
Service interruption on Saturday
Access to Workday will be interrupted for approximately eight hours (1-9 a.m. CDT on Sept. 12) while the upgrade is implemented. Managers and timekeepers should inform employees checking in or out for work this day of the change and make updates as needed when the system is available again. This will not affect workers using time clock devices.
