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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Create Custom Business Processes

Create Custom Business Processes

Security: These domains in the System functional area:
  • Business Process Administration
  • Manage: Business Process Definitions
Define a custom business process definition when you need a workflow that's different from the default business process definition. You can base custom business processes on a configurable condition rule or for a specific organization.
To customize business process definitions, you can either:
  • Change the default definition.
  • Copy and change the default definition.
  • Create a rule-based definition.
Workday recommends that you copy and change the default business process definitions to meet your business needs. If a business process doesn't have a default definition, you can use the
Create Business Process Definition (Default Definition)
 task to create and configure the default definition.
For audit reporting, you can tag instances of business processes. This enables you to track and report on business process configuration changes in your tenant such as when you create a new business process definition.
  1. Select
    Business Process
    Create, Copy, or Link Definition
     from the related actions menu of the organization.
    When you copy or link to a business process definition, you can't set an effective date that's before the original business process creation date.
  2. As you complete the task, consider:
    Option Description
    Time Zone
    You can enter a time zone if you select
    Business Process Configuration Time Zone
     on the
    Edit Tenant Setup - System
     task. When you select:
    • The current date, the changes take effect immediately. Users in other time zones see the changes immediately.
    • A future date, the changes take effect at midnight on the specified date. Users in other time zones see the changes at the corresponding date and time in their time zones.
    • A past date, the changes take effect at 23:59:59 on the specified date. Users in other time zones see the changes at the corresponding date and time in their time zones.
    Copy existing Definition
    Select to create an identical copy of the default definition or another custom definition for use as the basis for your custom business process. Workday adds the
    for <organization name>
     suffix, and you can't change it.
    Example: If you copy the
    Hire (Default Definition)
     business process for the Shipping organization, the custom business process is called
    Hire for Shipping
    .
    When you copy a business process definition to create a new one and apply an audit tag to it, an audit trail entry for the new business process definition displays in the
    Audit Trail Report
    . However, there won't be an audit trail entry in the report for the original business process definition.
    When you tag the original business process definition only and run the
    Audit Trail Report
     for that tag, you won’t see an entry for the copied (new) business process definition.
    However, if you run the
    Audit Trail Report
     and select both the original business process definition and the copied business process definition audit tags, you'll see audit trail entries for:
    • The original business process definition.
    • The copied (new) business process definition, including entries associated with the copying of the business process definition. You will also see changes you might have made to the new business process definition after it was created.
    Link existing Definition
    Select to link to the business process definition in another organization of the same type. Changes you make to the linked business process definition affect the source organization.
    Workday recommends that you limit the number of linked business processes because their names don't reflect the organizations that are using them.
    Example: You work in Purchasing and you link to the
    Hire for Shipping (Default Definition)
    . Workday creates the linked
    Hire for Shipping (Default Definition)+1
    , which doesn't reflect the department that is using the linked definition.
    None of the above
    Select to create a custom business process definition with the same name as the default business process. The definition contains only the
    Initiation
     step.
Workday recommends that Implementers run the
Business Process Exception Audit
 report after loading factory default definitions to identify integration steps requiring additional configuration.
Workday includes changes you make to default business process definitions in any custom business processes you create using that definition. If you change a default definition without creating a custom business process, the default definition might be overwritten during a product update.
Business process definitions are associated with a business process type. Some configuration changes to the business process type can impact associated business process definitions. The
Audit Trail Report
 will display entries for changes tied to the business process type that affected business process definitions. Also, the report displays all updates in the specified date range even if a newly created business process definition isn’t active yet.