Welcome to Workday Pro Tips, a weekly series of tiny tips and tricks to make navigating Workday a little smoother.
If you ONLY manage student budget or temp budget within your department and have access to the Cost Center Manager dashboard, you can set a permanent filter to eliminate everything that is not student or temp. This means you will not see anything else in the department's budget related to operating costs unless you turn the filter off.
We don't recommend setting a permanent filter if you frequently need to jump between student, temp, and operating budgets.
Follow the help article to learn how to set up a permanent filter.
This pro tip is currently under review and may be corrected in the future.
Did you know that faculty can access the budgets for their own research, internal grants (called “associate accounts” in Workday), or start-up accounts?
Workday has a Cost Center Manager dashboard that displays detailed budget information, including what was given at the start of the fiscal year, what has been spent so far, and how much is remaining.
Faculty can access their research, start-up, and associate accounts on one tab (WC Designated) and view any endowed or restricted funding in another tab (Gifts). Current chairs will have a third tab with the operating budget for the department (Cost Center).
OIT, in collaboration with the Dean of Faculty's office, has created a step-by-step guide with photo illustrations for faculty to access their budgets. The guide is available through Workday.
There are over 450 different spend categories in Workday, and 278 related expense items. Luckily, memorization isn't required with our simple Expense Items and Spend Categories list. The list is updated three times a year in January, May, and September to add any newly created spend categories or expense items.
The list is sorted alphabetically by spend categories. You'll notice the correlating expense items don't always have the same name as their parent spend category.
On a Mac, use the keyboard combination "Cmd" + "F" to search the sheet. On a PC, use the keyboard combination "Ctrl" + "F".
Every help article in Workday comes with a permalink (a link that will remain the same even if we update the content). Copying and pasting the permalink in a new tab will allow you to keep the article open while you complete your task in another tab.
- Navigate to the Help Center (Menu >> Help) or search for a specific article in the search bar at the top of your screen.
- Select the article you want.
- After opening the help article, select the circle with three dots (...) at the top of the screen.
- Select "copy article link."
- Paste the article link into a new browser tab.
Now you can work on your task and move between the help article.
You can also bookmark or save these permalinks so you always have access to the help article you need. As always, we don't recommend printing help articles since the digital versions are always guaranteed to be the most updated version.
We've all been there: you create a new expense report (or reimbursement report), add all your p-card charges, and realize there's a typo in your expense report title, or you changed your mind and the charges you're working on aren't related to the header details at all.
You don't want to cancel the report and start over again, so what do you do?
You edit the header!
It's easy. When you are actively in and working on charges in the expense report (or reimbursement report), look towards the top left of your screen. There are three tabs listed from left to right: Header, Attachments, and Expense Lines. Most of us never leave the Expense Lines tab since that's where all of the reconciliation work happens!
Select the Header tab. Select the Edit button underneath the details. Update the Memo. Select the Save button. Select the Expense Items tab to return to your p-card charges.
If you have a P.O. set up in your budget, don't forget to include the P.O. number in invoice submissions. The P.O. number makes sure that the invoice amount is matched with the correct obligated funds.
Cost Center Managers, Reviewers, and Viewers can find P.O. numbers in the "Obligations" column of your Cost Center Manager dashboard.
If you do not have access to the Cost Center Manager dashboard but you submitted the original requisition, you can still access the P.O. number through the Requisitions Hub.
You can find who is responsible for reviewing or approving expenses for a Cost Center, WC Designated, or Gift.
Type-to-search for the name of the account in the search bar at the top of your Workday screen. Workday will begin to suggest results in the drop-down menu. Select the account with the label "Cost Center," "WC Designated," or "Gift."
Workday will bring you to a summary page for that account. Select the Roles tab.
You'll see a table with information about "Assignable Role" and "Assigned To." The Financial Analyst role will always be folks in IT, HR, and Finance.
Scroll down to the bottom of the table to access the View Only, Spend Reviewer, and Manager roles.
Old or outdated task lingering in your Workday My Tasks? You can delete it!
Please note that deleting an inbox task is permanent and cannot be undone by HR or Finance. Deleting a task does not notify anyone in the process that the task has been stopped.
Open the task in your Inbox, select the gear wheel icon at the top of the task, then click "Cancel" or "Delete." Then, select “Submit."
Are you new to Williams and need some Workday instruction? Are you trying a Workday task you haven’t had to think about in months? Book some time with Daelyn, our resident Workday trainer. In a no-judgement, low-stress environment, Daelyn can help you work through HR and Finance tasks. She’ll also make sure you have whatever resources you need to tackle your next Workday experience.
Appointments are available weekly through the Google Calendar link below. The meetings default to in-person, but Daelyn can also meet over Zoom if you reach out and ask to switch to virtual.
https://calendar.app.google/p2Cfp7mkPoDANUNo6
Don’t see a slot that works for you? Email [email protected] and Daelyn can work with you to find a time.
Managers will get an alert before they finish up their employees' performance evaluations.
The first time you click "submit," the evaluation will turn yellow and you get an alert:
Alert
Page Alert
Please ensure you have met with the employee prior to submitting this step. You may print out the review template using the print icon in the left-hand corner to obtain a paper copy or PDF of the review. You will not be able to make changes to the evaluation post-submission. (Manager Performance Evaluation)
This is intentional to make sure you have met with your employee before finalizing their evaluation.
When you hit submit again, the task will disappear and reload in your inbox. The new task called Acknowledge Employee Review Meeting will ask for a "signature." When you submit, it goes to the employee for their signature as well to complete the process.
If you use the gear icon in the top right corner of a budget report to change the filter settings, you’re using the permanent filter. Anything you change will remain reflected in the report until you change the filter or restore the default settings.
To reset the permanent filter to default settings, select the gear icon in the top right corner of the table (not the gear icon in the purple header) and then select Restore Default Settings > OK > Done.
If you use the View More option at the very bottom of a budget report, you’re using a temporary filter.Any parameters you enter will reset as soon as you exit the report or refresh the page.
If your budget ever starts to look strange or inaccurate, make sure the permanent filter has been rest to default before contacting OIT or Finance.
Using the search bar is a great way to find help articles, but did you know you can find all of the help articles in one place?
If you go to your Menu and open the Help application, you'll arrive at the Help Center. The Help Center organizes all the articles into categories. The number of articles in each category is listed to the right of the category.
If there are more than 4 help articles in a category, select "View More" at the bottom of your screen to open the full category offering. Once you're in a full category, you can choose to sort the results alphabetically or by the most recently updated article.
Once your tax documents are made available in Workday, you can access them yourself at any time.
Help article: Access Your W-2
If you submit a reimbursement request through the Expenses Hub or through the Create Expense Report task, you can track the payment status. Follow the steps in our help article to learn about different statuses and how to find payment dates.
Help article: Track Reimbursement Payment Status
You can have multiple Workday windows/tabs open at the same time and work simultaneously across those tabs without issue.
To duplicate your tab, open your preferred browser (we recommend Chrome or Firefox) and log in to Workday. Once you are on the Workday home page, right-click the browser tab and then select the "duplicate" option from the drop-down menu. Now you will have two tabs of your Workday homepage. You can do tasks and run reports independently of whatever is happening in other tabs.
The most common advantage to this is being able to open a help article in one tab and then do the task in the other tab.
Another common use is to have multiple budget reports open at the same time.
Worried about accidentally submitting the same task twice? Don't be. Workday constantly updates itself about what tasks have been completed and when. If it registers a double attempt, it will simply give you an error rather than let you submit a task twice.
Customize your search so certain categories display first.
Search for any term in Workday to access the simplified search. Select "all categories" and then select "Edit Category preferences." Drag-and-drop categories to match your search style.
For example, if you want help articles to appear first when you search for things in Workday, drag the Articles category to the top of the Pinned Categories list.
Remember to save your changes.
Need to track down a task from before the winter break? My Tasks has an archive that holds information for 90 days.
Select your My Tasks icon in the top right corner of your screen, then select "Archive" on the left sidebar. You can search tasks (for example, by type or by individual’s name) and select a task to see details of what happened in the process.
If you need to see an older process, search for the "View More Processes" report in your Workday search bar.