Concept: Effective Dates

The effective date for a business process definition is the date a proposed change in the business process becomes available. If you set an effective date in the future, the change doesn't take effect until that date. Effective dates apply to items such as business processes, consolidated approvals, step conditions, and so on. You can use an item after its effective date until it's superseded by a version with a new effective date.

Workday asks you to specify an effective date and, optionally, a time zone, whenever you create or edit one of these elements. When you open an item, use the present date to see the current version and a future date if you know that there’s a version not yet in effect.

Workday evaluates user permission when taking action on a business process event as of the current date in order to process the event. This action doesn't affect the effective date of the business process definition or its related elements.

When actually running a business process, the effective date is the date when the event will take effect. Example: For a business process that gives a pay raise, the effective date is when the raise begins. For hiring a new employee, the effective date is the first work day.

You can also select a time zone for the effective date. Select the

Business Process Configuration Time Zone

option on the

Edit Tenant Setup - System

task. The default time zone is the current time zone.

If you enter the current date in the specified time zone, the changes take effect immediately. Users in other time zones see the changes immediately.
If you enter a future date in the specified time zone, the changes take effect at midnight on the specified date in the specified time zone. Users in other time zones see the changes at the corresponding date and time in their time zones.
If you enter a past date in the specified time zone, the changes take effect at 23:59:59 on the specified date in the specified time zone. Users in other time zones see the changes at the corresponding date and time in their time zones.

The

Due Date Is Based on Effective Date

column for a business process step doesn't refer to the effective date for the business process definition. It refers to the date that the process initiator specified when starting the business process.

Subprocesses of a business process use the effective date of the parent business process by default. You can use the

Maintain Business Process Definition Selection

report to change the effective date of a subprocess to the date the parent business process initiates it. This report enables you to fix errors in subprocesses after you initiate a business process without stopping and restarting the business process.