Skip to main content
Documentation
Documentation
Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-09-19
Create Learning Programs

Create Learning Programs

  • Create any courses and stand-alone lessons that you want to include as content items.
  • Create any skills that you want to tag to a program.
  • To add additional data that is specific to your organization, you can create custom fields for learning programs. You can only use these custom fields in calculated fields for your learning content.
  • Configure any external content that you want to include as content items.
  • Security: These domains in the Learning Core functional area:
    • Manage: Learning Content
    • Set Up: Learning Catalog
Workday Learning programs enable you to:
  • Group courses and lessons.
  • Create learning campaigns using a single program content item that includes multiple courses and lessons.
Programs make it easier for:
  • You to create required learning campaigns that cover an entire curriculum.
  • Users to enroll in required learning.
When learners click
Begin
 on the
View Learning Program
report, Workday effectively enrolls them on the program as part of a background process.
Workday enrolls learners in programs, but doesn't initiate a business process, so learners don't need approval to enroll. Workday initiates the
Enroll in Content
 business process for each course that the learner enrolls in within a program.
  1. Access the
    Create Program
     task.
  2. As you complete the task, consider:
    Option Description
    Skills
    (Optional) You can tag skills to your program using 1 of these prompt options:
    • By Category
      : To access pre-existing tenanted skills.
    • Recommended Skills
      : To access recommended skills, if you've opted into Skills Cloud and signed the Innovation Services Agreement. Machine learning produces a set of recommended skills based on the title and description of your content.
    • Create Maintained Skills
      : Enables you to create a new tenant-specific skill.
      Security:
      Set Up: Skills and Experience
       domain in the Worker Profile and Skills functional area.
    Language
    (Optional) You can tag 1 or more languages to your program, enabling learners to find it when they browse the learning catalog by a specific language.
    Requires Enrollment
    • If selected learners view an
      Enroll
       button on the program, which ensures that their manager approves their enrollment before they can start consuming the content.
    • If not selected learners view a
      Start Program
       button. They can start consuming the content immediately and Workday creates an automatic enrollment for them in the background.
    Security Categories
    Select or create a security category to restrict access to the program by security segment.
    Exclude from Recommendations
    Workday populates these content container worklets on the Learning dashboard with recommendations for relevant learning content:
    • Based on Your Interests
    • Most Popular
    • Popular in Your Role
    • Recently Added
    • Recommended for You
    Workday also includes learning recommendations on these reports:
    • Opportunity Graph
       (in the
      Popular for This Role
       section).
    • View Competency
      .
    Select this check box to exclude the program from the results.
    Exclude from Search and Browse
    Select this option to exclude programs from appearing in the
    Browse Learning Content
     report and global search results.
    Administrators, assessors, and instructors for excluded programs can still view it using global search.
    If you've customized the
    Browse Learning Content
     report for your company, Workday recommends that you manually update the
    Exclude from Search and Browse
     filter on pre-existing reports.
    Version
    (Optional) Enter an alphanumeric version label.
    Version Notes
    (Optional) Enter rich text notes about the
    Version
    .
  3. (Optional) In the
    Cost
     grid, add sales items that relate to the program.
  4. (Optional) In the
    Competencies
     grid, add competencies that relate to the program. Workday tags the program with the competencies that you add.
  5. (Optional) Configure program expiration rules.
    In the Expiration Rules section, configure expiry periods for:
    • Default Expiration Rule.
    • Advanced Learning Expiration Rules for Workers.
    • Advanced Learning Expiration Rules for Extended Enterprise Learners.
  6. Click
    Add Content
     to add learning content from the learning catalog in your tenant.
    You can add:
    • Blended courses.
    • Digital courses (both internal and external third-party content).
    • Lessons (both internal stand-alone lessons and external content).
    As you add content items, consider:
    Option Description
    Enforce Content Order
    Select this check box to apply the order number sequence defined in the content order. When selected, learners can't complete mandatory content items until they successfully complete the previous required content items.
    • When a course or course offering requires enrollment, learners can enroll but won’t be able to start the course until they complete the previous required content items.
    • When the program contains any blended courses with offerings with virtual or in-person instructor-led training, subsequent required content is not available until grading and attendance is completed.
    To enforce the lesson order you need to have, at least, 2 mandatory content items in the program.
    Order sequencing doesn’t apply when:
    • Learners access the course outside of the program. Example: using the global search, using reports, or sliders.
    • Learners have successfully completed the content outside of the program prior to enrollment and
      Recognize Previous Completion
       is enabled.
    Skip Enrollment Approval
    Indicates whether you want to enable learners to skip enrollment approval for content within a program.
    Requires Successful Completion
    Indicates whether the course or lesson is mandatory. You need to complete mandatory content items to complete the program successfully.
    Recognize Course Expiration Dates
    Indicates whether Workday recognizes expiration periods on learning content for courses in the context of the program.
    If you select this check box and the
    Recognize Previous Completion
     check box, we recognize previous completions up until the point of expiry. If a learning content is in an expired state, the program won't move to completed until the expired content is completed.
    If you don't select this check box, but select
    Recognize Previous Completion
    , we ignore the expiry and the program moves to completed.
    Recognize Previous Completions
    Indicates whether the program recognizes previous completions for the content item in the learning transcript of the learner. When you select this check box, you must select one of these options to specify whether to recognize:
    • All Previous Completions
      .
    • Completions that occur on or after the
      As-of Date
      .
    • Completions that occur
      Within Date Range
      .
    When learners complete the content item on the same day that they enroll in a program, the program recognizes the completion even if you:
    • Don't select
      Recognize Previous Completions
      .
    • Set a
      Within Date Range
       value and the completion date is outside the date range.
    When you select this check box but not
    Recognize Course Expiration Dates
    , learning content for the course won't expire in the context of the program.
Workday routes the program for review or approval, depending on your
Manage Program
 business process and generates a unique reference ID for the program. You can also overwrite the reference IDs with legacy reference IDs using the
Manage Learning Program
 web service.
To search for the program, run the
Manage Learning Content
 report.