Skip to main content
Documentation
Documentation
Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-09-19
Setup Considerations: Create Projects

Setup Considerations: Create Projects

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration of how users create and edit projects. It explains:
  • Why to set them up.
  • How they fit into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

Project creation enables you to plan and track the project work for your organization. You can create these types of projects:
  • Basic projects
     function solely as worktags on financial transactions and payroll entries.
  • Billable projects
     have customer contracts, invoices, and billing.
  • Capital projects
     have cost transactions for managing project costs as long-term assets.
  • Nonbillable projects
     are internal projects that don’t invoice customers.
  • Opportunity projects
     are sales opportunities that you can later convert into a project.

Business Benefits

Workday reduces data entry by enabling you to:
  • Copy data from an existing project.
  • Use templates to populate common project information.
  • Copy data from an idea.
Workday also streamlines project maintenance by enabling project managers to:
  • Update existing projects.
  • Approve new and updated projects.
  • Generate draft customer contracts.

Use Cases

  • Create templates for similar projects to reduce effort, maintain consistency, and avoid errors.
  • Set Workday to generate a draft customer contract from a template after a manager approves a billable project.
  • Create new projects.
  • Create new projects from approved ideas.
  • Copy existing projects.
  • Update existing projects.
  • Approve changes to projects.
  • Convert basic projects into fully defined projects.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
Do you need projects that only function as worktags?
You can create basic projects to use as worktags on financial transactions and payroll entries.
How do you want to configure templates for your projects?
You can create templates for similar types of projects to populate common information that most users need to enter.
Within the project template, you can further simplify project creation by associating these additional templates:
  • Project plans.
  • Resource plans.
  • Task resources.
  • Customer contracts.
Do you want to use a specific format for the project ID?
You can set a custom format for project IDs on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task.
How do you want to maintain consistency between projects?
To maintain consistency, you can define common values for the project fields. Users can then select these predefined values when they create or update a project.
How do you want to create new projects?
You can simplify the process of creating a new project by enabling users to copy existing projects. Users can copy most of the transferable project information. Example: worktags, project plans, and resource plans.
You can also enable users to create new projects from an approved idea. This type of project creation includes information you define in the idea.
To enable these features, configure the
Copy Project
 and
Create Project from Idea
 initiating actions in the security policy for the
Create Project
 business process.
How do you want to create your customer contracts?
You can simplify the process of creating customer contracts by configuring Workday to generate a draft customer contract after project approval.
To enable this feature, add the
Create Customer Contract
 service step to the
Create Project
 business process after the business process completes.
What external links should users add to their projects?
You can enable users to add external links to their projects by configuring URIs that:
  • Enable the
    External Link
     option on projects.
  • Prevent users from adding unauthorized links.
Before you begin, determine which external links your organization approves for project use.

Recommendations

Create templates to populate fields with information common to all your projects. You can also associate your project templates with these templates:
  • Project plans.
  • Resource plans.
  • Task resources.
  • Customer contracts.
Configure the
Create Project
 business process to copy projects.
Configure the
Create Project
 business process to generate a draft customer contract from a template for billable projects.

Requirements

Create project hierarchies for your organization before you enable users to create projects.

Limitations

You can only:
  • Add customer contract templates to billable projects.
  • Generate draft customer contracts for billable projects you associate with customer contract templates.

Tenant Setup

To create custom formats for your project IDs, you can configure the
ID Generator for Projects
 option in the
Projects
 section on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task.

Security

Domains
Considerations
Set Up: Tenant Setup - Security
 in the System functional area
Users can enable external links on projects and specify the URIs.
Business Process Administration
 in the System functional area
Users can edit the
Create Project
 and
Edit Project
 business processes.
Manage: Business Process Definitions
 in the System functional area
Users can manage the
Create Project
 and
Edit Project
 business processes.
Manage: Initiatives
 in the Projects functional area
Users can create and manage importance ratings.
Manage: Project Details
 in the Project Tracking functional area
Users can:
  • Create and modify importance ratings.
  • Run the
    Find Projects
     report.
  • View projects.
Set Up: Basic Project Worktag
 in the Common Financial Management and Worktags functional areas
Users can create basic projects to use as worktags.
Set Up: Project
 in the Projects functional area
Users can create and manage project templates.
Set Up: Project Details
 in the Project Tracking functional area
Users can create and manage:
  • Project statuses.
  • Importance ratings.
Set Up: Project Tracking
 in the Project tracking functional area
Users can:
  • Create and manage success ratings.
  • Use the
    Get Projects
     web service.
Set Up: Risk and Priorities
 in the Project Tracking functional area
Users can create and manage:
  • Risk levels.
  • Work priorities.
Ensure proper access to these security roles:
Domain Security Roles
Considerations
Project Administrator
  • Configures tenant setup information.
  • Edits the
    Create Project
     and
    Edit Project
     business processes.
  • Specifies the URIs for external project links.
  • Creates projects and templates.
  • Uses web services.
Project Manager
  • Creates and updates projects.
  • Manages and views project information.
  • Approves changes to projects routed by the
    Create Project
     and
    Edit Project
     business processes.

Business Processes

Business Processes
Considerations
Create Project
 in the Project Tracking functional area
Enables project administrators to:
  • Create new projects.
  • Copy existing projects.
  • Use the
    Submit Project
     web service.
Enables project managers to:
  • Create new projects.
  • Create new projects from approved ideas.
  • Copy existing projects.
  • Review and approve new projects.
  • Generate a draft customer contract for billable projects.
Edit Project
 in the Project Tracking functional area
Enables project managers to:
  • Edit existing projects.
  • Review and approve changes to existing projects.

Reporting

Project managers can view the
Find Projects
 report to search for existing projects.

Integrations

Web Services
Considerations
Get Projects
Retrieves projects with your specific criteria.
You can request project criteria for a single transaction based on the Reference value, or retrieve all transactions when you don't specify any criteria.
Submit Project
Creates a project and submits it through the
Create Project
 business process for approval.

Connections and Touchpoints

Features
Considerations
Customer Contracts
When you define project templates for your customer contracts, project managers can select them when they create billable projects. You can enable the
Create Project
 business process to generate a draft contract after project approval.
Services CPQ
You can configure Services CPQ to automate the creation of a project from a quote. You can configure the
Quote Event
 business processes to create an opportunity project from an approved primary quote, and configure the
Opportunity Event
 business process to convert it into a project.
Time Tracking
You can configure the start and end dates of the project. This date range sets the initial date range for project workers to log time against the project or project tasks.
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.