Workday Releases

Twice a year, in September and March, Workday – UW’s cloud-based HR and payroll operations system – releases major feature upgrades designed to increase functionality and enhance the user experience.

New Features and Enhancements in Workday 2022 Release 2 (2022R2)

Workday’s Fall release came out the weekend of September 10-11, 2022, and introduced a number of noticeable changes, including new navigation and a redesigned homepage.

Workday Homepage and Navigation Changes

The apps have moved! Rather than taking up the bulk of the space on the homepage, the apps (sometimes called “worklets”) you regularly use are now in the new “Global Navigation Menu.”

The new “Global Navigation Menu” allows you to quickly find all your Workday apps from anywhere in Workday: The new menu  allows you to access your Workday apps from anywhere in Workday (rather than having to return to the Workday homepage). You can personalize your menu by adding and reordering apps to your preference.

A new “Shortcuts” tab allows you to quickly access your favorite and most used tasks and reports in your Global Navigation Menu, providing even further personalization.

A new “Timely Suggestions” section of the homepage provides you with time-sensitive notices such as when you have a new payslip or a reminder to review your personal contact information.

You can also take a video tour of the redesigned Workday homepage, below.

(Select an image to enlarge it)

Other New and Notable Changes

In addition to the new look for the homepage and navigation updates, you’ll also notice:

• References to “Time Off” have been renamed to “Absence” on the employee’s Profile Page to better align with absence terminology across apps/worklets (e.g., the “Absence” app), tasks and reports and provide consistency across the Workday platform.

And department administrators who use Workday on a regular basis might be interested in a few other improvements, including:

• Enhanced “Workday Search” functionality: The newly redesigned search results page now allows you to save and personalize your most commonly used search categories (such as “People” and “Tasks and Reports”) to help filter search results and more quickly find what you’re looking for. Additionally, you can now find “Search Tips” – such as how to use prefixes – with helpful suggestions for narrowing down search results and locating the most relevant information.
• New “Table View” for Workday reports and tables: Continuing to improve the accessibility and usability of Workday reports and tables, especially for those who use assistive technologies, Workday now automatically defaults to the “Table View” option (originally introduced in the March 2021 release), which spreads report and table results over several easier-to-navigate pages rather than on one result-heavy (scroll-intensive) screen; users will also be able to expand or collapse rows to better control how information is displayed in reports and tables, as well as highlight a row for easier review of data. You can always select “All” in the “Items per page” field at the bottom of a report or table to view all the data on one screen.
• New “Working Time” section for Hire, Edit Position, Add Additional Job and Contract Contingent Worker business processes allows unit HR administrators to more quickly and efficiently add an employee’s Scheduled Weekly Hours, FTE and Work Shift (previously these fields were found by opening the “Additional Information” section).