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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Concept: Business Processes and Organizations

Concept: Business Processes and Organizations

To define a custom business process, you must first associate it with a business object (typically an organization). The business process definition is then available within that organization and, if that organization has a hierarchy, all organizations beneath it. To determine which organization types you can associate with a business process, run the
Business Process Configuration Options
report.
If you're in a supervisory organization and its parent organization has a business process defined, you can use that business process. However, you can create your own version of that same business process in the child supervisory organization. When you do, the version associated with the parent organization is no longer available.
You can't have 2 versions of the same business process in the same organization. If you need a variation, either use conditions or create another organization for the second version of the business process.
The business process definition that Workday selects is based on the initiation date of the event, not the event effective date. Example: You update the
Change Job
business process definition for an organization, effective 2020-08-10. When you initiate a
Change Job
event before 2020-08-10, Workday uses the old version of the business process definition, regardless of the event effective date.
When you initiate a business process, Workday identifies which version of the business process to run by looking at the organizations associated with the object of the business process. Example: For business processes that act on employee job records, the target is a job or a position assigned to an organization.
An exception is a business process that handles a worker's person-related data, as this information isn't associated with a specific organization. In this case, Workday selects the business process definition for the organization related to the worker's primary job or international assignment, if they have one. This exception is important because workers with more than 1 job (a primary job and an additional job or jobs) might be assigned to more than 1 organization.
When you initiate a business process but you save it for later instead of submitting it, the business process definition that Workday uses is set at the time you click the
Save for Later
button. Also, Workday uses the information that's available upon saving the event. When there are fields tied to conditions that are on a rule-based business process definition and the fields don't contain data that satisfy any of the conditions when you save the event for later, Workday bypasses the rule-based business process definitions and uses the default business process definition.