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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-02-06
Steps: Set Up Labor Demand Forecasting

Steps: Set Up Labor Demand Forecasting

You might need to take additional steps to enable this feature based on your organization's subscription service agreement. Your organization is either on the Main Service Agreement (MSA) or the Universal Main Service Agreement (UMSA). To determine your organization's subscription service agreement:
  1. Select your profile avatar on Workday Community.
  2. Select
    Profile
    .
  3. On your profile page, select your organization's name, which is beneath your name and next to your job title.
  4. View your
    Subscription Service Agreement
     value.
If the value is:
  • UMSA
    , the feature is automatically available. You can skip the
    Enable Innovation Services Feature and AI Data Contributions for MSA Customers
     step. For more information on Machine Learning data contributions, see Concept: Workday AI for Universal Main Subscription Agreement Customers.
  • MSA
    , you must enable this feature through Innovation Services using the
    Enable Innovation Services Feature and AI Data Contributions for MSA Customers
    step.
Note: UMSA customers don't have Innovation Services tasks and reports in their tenants as these are for MSA customers only. UMSA customers can ignore all information regarding Innovation Services.
Workday Labor Demand Forecasting gives you the ability to forecast business drivers based on external data like:
  • Sales history.
  • Foot traffic history.
  • Number of transactions.
Workday then uses machine learning combined with configurable rules to forecast labor demand. Labor demand then becomes the input to Workday Scheduling’s Optimization Engine to create optimized schedules that match forecasted labor demand.
    1. On the
      Innovation Services Opt In
       tab, select
      Scheduling and Labor Optimization
      . Click
      Next
      .
    2. On the
      Scheduling and Labor Optimization: Labor Optimization
      tab, select:
      Labor Forecasting Data
      ,
      Labor Forecasting Configuration
      ,
      Scheduling Events
      ,
      Generate Metric Forecast Job
      .
    You might need to take additional steps to enable this feature depending on your organization's subscription service agreement. For more information, see this Community article.
  2. Configure the types of metrics that Workday uses to calculate labor demand.
  3. Set the default operating hours for each scheduling organization and create overrides for planned changes or closures.
  4. Configure rules that map business drivers to labor demand.
  5. Create templates to group and manage labor mapping rules.
  6. You can use this integration to:
    • Import historical data that Workday uses to create forecasts.
    • Import your organization’s predicted data from an external system or model, rather than relying on Workday's internal forecasting model.
  7. Set up scheduling events so that the machine learning model accounts for holidays and events in the labor demand forecasts.
  8. Schedule when Workday generates forecasts so that it best aligns with the timing of your business.
  9. Administrators or managers can forecast labor demand and make manual changes if needed.
  10. Select whether you want to manage forecast adjustments in mass or individually for a high-level scheduling organization.
    1. Access the
      Edit Scheduling Settings
       task.
    2. On the
      Forecast
       tab, select either
      Mass Forecast Adjustment
       or
      Single Forecast Adjustment
      .
  11. Audit your forecasts.
    You can use Workday-delivered reports to compare predictions to actuals and audit your forecasts.
Access the
Innovation Services Summary
 report (secured to the
Manage: Innovation Services
 and
View: Innovation Services
 domains) to view service opt-in status and last-modified information, and to access the service descriptions on Workday Community.
Customers can stop providing Innovation Services (IS) Data to Scheduling and Labor Optimization Machine Learning Services at any time by opting out through IS enablement and all IS Data previously provided to Scheduling and Labor Optimization Machine Learning Services for Early Access will be deleted in accordance with the IS Terms.
Opting out through IS enablement (as described above) will cause any provided data (Example: actuals) to be deleted. However in order to delete any ML generated data (Example: forecasts), submit a Support Case and Workday will contact you with next steps to delete forecasts.