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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-02-20
Setup Considerations: Ad Hoc Worker Communications

Setup Considerations: Ad Hoc Worker Communications

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of Ad Hoc Worker Communications. It explains:
  • Why to set it up.
  • How it fits 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

Ad Hoc Worker Communications enables you to communicate time-sensitive messages to workers using email, mobile push notifications, and SMS.

Business Benefits

  • Provides access to worker populations not easily reached through email alone, improving responsiveness.
  • Enables you to communicate with workers using multiple channels simultaneously, driving efficiency in your communications.
  • Reduces the need to use third-party vendors for messaging, enhancing convenience.
  • Empowers you to apply email branding from notification and email templates, connecting your messages with the custom colors, graphics, and links that convey your company culture.
  • Enables you to use message templates containing precomposed text, saving you time and helping you maintain consistency in your written communications.

Use Cases

  • Create and send messages to workers by email, mobile push notifications, or SMS, or a combination of these channels.
  • Issue time-sensitive communications to workers who may not have frequent access to email.
  • Communicate company-wide announcements and critical reminders to up to 20,000 workers.
  • Select an audience based on worker data. Examples: Job profile, location, supervisory organization.
  • Select specific groups of workers for targeted messages from HR administrators.

Questions to Consider

Question
Consideration
Which channels do you want to use to communicate with workers?
All Workday HCM customers can send worker communications using email and mobile push notifications. To send messages by SMS, you must also be a customer of the Workday Messaging SKU.
How can you incorporate the branding for your organization onto the
Send Worker Communications
 task?
You can apply your existing tenant branding by:
  • Configuring a branding rule.
  • Using the
    Configure Tenant Branding
     task to associate a banner with the rule.
What templates do you want to use to add email branding to worker messages?
When you access the
Email Branding
 prompt on the
Send Worker Communications
 task, you can select templates to add existing visual branding to your message. You can select:
  • Email templates.
  • Notification templates.
To create and use notification templates, you must configure Notification Designer.
How do you want to add text to your worker messages?
You can:
  • Write an ad hoc message, adding text directly into the fields for your selected contact methods on the
    Send Worker Communications
     task.
  • Select a message template, which will load precomposed text from the template into the draft message for each contact method.
How can I send SMS messages to a worker's personal mobile phone?
By default, Workday delivers worker messages to work mobile phone numbers, but you can send messages to a worker's personal mobile phone if the worker:
  • Sets either their home or work phone as a
    Mobile
     device type and adds their personal mobile phone number.
  • Opts in to receive SMS notifications for this number.
If a worker lists both a home and work mobile phone number, they can only select 1 for SMS notifications.
How can I use AI to help craft my Ad Hoc Worker Communications?
The Ad Hoc Worker Communications AI Text Editor provides two AI capability options:
  1. Make Shorter - this can be applied to Push Notifications and SMS.
  2. 2. Make Longer - this can be applied to expand email content.
Both options are marked with a purple sparkle icon to indicate they use AI.
Ensure best practices of reviewing, editing, and approving message content are established before communications are sent to worker populations. This approach aligns with keeping a “human in the loop” of any AI generated content, while simultaneously empowering communications creators to refine messages for various scenarios.

Recommendations

  • Configure and test Ad Hoc Worker Communications in a non-production tenant before using the feature in your production tenant.
  • The
    Send Worker Communications
     task enables you to send messages to up to 5,000 workers. To reach a maximum 20,000 recipients, select an existing saved search created on the
    Find Workers
     report.
    Ensure you're using the Workday-delivered
    Find Workers
     standard report; otherwise, the
    Send Message
     option won't be available.
  • When creating the notification routing rule for your selected channels, select a default frequency of
    Immediately
    . Not doing so could affect the frequency of notifications for this channel across all your custom business processes.
  • Assign role-based security groups to security policies to give the ability for users like managers or HR Partners to send communications.

Requirements

Limitations

  • The SMS functionality in Ad Hoc Worker Communications is only available for mobile phone numbers in some countries. See Setup Considerations: Workday Messaging.
  • You can only use the
    Send Worker Communications
     task to send messages to work email addresses.

Tenant Setup

Access the
Edit Tenant Setup - Notifications
 task to:
  • Create a routing rule for
    Ad Hoc Worker Messaging
     by overriding the HCM parent notification type settings.
  • Select 1 or more of these notification channels:
    • Email.
    • Mobile push notification.
    • SMS.

Security

Domains
Considerations
Ad Hoc Worker Messages
 in the Staffing functional area
Enables users in unconstrained security groups to access the
Send Worker Communications
 task. You must secure access to this domain to access the
Send Worker Communications
 task from the
Find Workers
 report.
In the System functional area:
  • Drive
  • Notification Designer
Enable you to use Workday Drive and Notification Designer to create and select notification templates in Ad Hoc Worker Communications.
Manage SMS
 in the System functional area
Enables users in unconstrained security groups to access these reports:
  • All Outbound SMS Notifications
  • SMS Notification Event Rows Detail
Set Up: Message Templates
 in the System functional area
Enables you to use message templates in the
Send Worker Communications
 task.

Business Processes

No impact.

Reporting

Report
Consideration
All Outbound SMS Notifications
View all outbound SMS notifications within a specified date range. Details include the:
  • Sender.
  • Recipient.
  • Phone number.
  • Message text.
  • Business process type.
Business Process and Integration Notifications Indexed
View details for all completed notifications for the specified date range, including:
  • Recipient Email.
  • Notification Template.
  • Message Template.
  • Email, Push Notification, and SMS Messages.
  • Channels.
  • Notification Subject.
SMS Notification Event Rows Detail
View all SMS notifications for the specified period. Details for each notification include the:
  • Time
  • Subject
  • Message
  • Recipient

Integrations

No impact.

Connections and Touchpoints

Features
Considerations
Drive
Drive enables you to create, share, and manage notification templates, which you can select when messaging workers.
Notification Designer
You can use Notification Designer to manage the layout, design, and content of notification templates.
Workday Messaging
Enables you to message workers by SMS.
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.