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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-03-13
Concept: Business Process Management

Concept: Business Process Management

Cancel, Rescind, Correct and Deny

For multiple business processes, Workday enables you to:
  • Cancel processes that are in progress.
  • Rescind changes that are past the completion step.
  • Correct details of a business process event.
  • Deny a business process at a step such as
    Approval
     or
    Review.
You can also configure Workday to automatically launch an orchestration when you cancel, rescind, correct, or deny a business process.
You can cancel some business processes initiated as subprocesses without canceling the parent business process. To determine if you can cancel a particular business process, access the
Business Process Configuration Options
 report.
When you cancel:
  • The overall business process, Workday skips the subprocesses regardless of their status and cancels any completed subprocesses.
  • A subprocess by itself, Workday skips the subprocess without canceling the parent business process.
  • A required subprocess after the parent business process has completed, Workday still completes the business process.
When you rescind a business process that includes subprocesses, Workday rescinds all actions in the business process configuration. Example: When you rescind a termination that includes a one-time payment, Workday rescinds both the termination and the payment.
You can rescind some subprocesses individually without rescinding the parent business process.
On a single business process, you can access the related actions menu of the:
  • In-progress business process to cancel it.
  • Completed business process to rescind it.
  • Existing event to correct it.
You can also cancel or rescind business processes in bulk by accessing these tasks:
  • Mass Cancel Business Processes
    : When a business process includes subprocesses, you can cancel the subprocesses individually or cancel the parent business process.
  • Mass Rescind Business Processes
    : The
    Business Processes Loaded by EIB
     prompt on this task displays integration events loaded by an EIB where you can rescind at least 1 of the business process events. Workday recommends that you limit the date range when you select
    In Date Range, By Integration System
     or
    In Date Range, All Integration Systems
     prompt option.
You can stop notifications for each business process you cancel or rescind. When you cancel or rescind business processes, you can't undo the action.
Workday creates an audit trail documenting the cancel, rescind, correct and deny actions. You can configure custom notifications, alert notifications, and orchestration to trigger when you:
  • Cancel a business process.
  • Rescind a business process.
  • Correct a business process.
  • Deny a business process.
Example: Logan McNeil initiates a
Hire
 business process that includes these subprocesses:
  • Propose Compensation
  • Request One-Time Payment
The business process administrator configures the
Hire
 business process to require both subprocesses, and the
Request One-Time Payment
 subprocess is the
Completion
 step for the hire.
When the
Propose Compensation
 step is in progress, and Logan cancels the
Request One-Time Payment
 step only, Workday:
  • Changes the status of the
    Request One-Time Payment
     step to
    Manually Skipped
    .
  • Completes the
    Hire
     business process.

Mass-Cancel Review Documents Step

You can use the
Mass Cancel Review Document Step
 task to cancel
Review Documents
 steps as a mass action. You can cancel
Review Documents
 steps on business processes that have a status of:
  • In Progress
  • Successfully Completed
Example: You want to cancel outstanding
Review Document
 steps assigned to workers during the
Onboarding
 business process. When the
Onboarding
 business process successfully completes, the only way to cancel remaining
Review Documents
 steps is to use the
Mass Cancel Review Document Step
 task.
The maximum number of
Review Document
 steps you can cancel at one time is 2,000.

Manually Advance

You can manually advance a business process to the next step, or to the end, to prevent delaying the business process. Example: A task is awaiting an approver that's unavailable. To prevent a delay in the business process, you manually advance the business process to the next step.
You must be in a security group with access to the
Manual Advance
 action in the
Who Can Do Actions on Entire Business Process
 section of the business process security policy. Users with this access can initiate the
Mass Advance Business Process
 task, but they can only process transactions that match the business process types allowed for their security group. To determine if you can manually advance a business process, access the
Business Process Configuration Options
 report.
You can use the
Mass Advance Business Process
 task to advance business processes en masse. When you use the task to advance more than 10 business process events, Workday runs the task in the background. If you apply a filter on the
Mass Advance Business Process
 task and click
Select All
, the selection includes all items, and not the filtered list only. For high-volume transactions on business processes that require detailed filtering, Workday recommends that you use the
Mass Operation Management
 (MOM) task instead of the
Mass Advance Business Process
 task to avoid filtering issues.
You can edit the business process definition to disable system notifications when a business process is manually advanced.
When you enable the
Enable Advancing Unassigned Tasks
 check box on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Business Processes
 task, you can advance an unassigned step within a business process through the:
  • Advance Business Process
     Mass Operation Management type.
  • Advance Manually
     related action. (Select
    Business Process
    Advance Manually
     from the related actions menu of the business process event.)
  • Mass Advance Business Process
     task.
You can advance:
  • From an unassigned step that's pending reassignment.
  • Through an unassigned step and multiple subsequent unassigned steps.
  • A business process to completion through an unassigned step that generates a reassignment during processing of the advancement.
When an event is sent back to an unassigned step, the step becomes unassigned. During send back, the
To
 prompt displays
Unassigned
 as the prefix to the step name. Example:
Unassigned - Complete Questionnaire
. When Workday advances through unassigned steps, the
Process History
 tab on the
Full Process Record
 displays the status of:
  • Manually Advanced
     for the unassigned step.
  • Canceled
     for the reassigned event.
Workday sends a notification to the:
  • Business process step assignee when you advance 1 or all events to completion (except for steps that are delayed or unassigned).
  • Assignee for the manually advanced step when manual advance occurs.
Workday doesn't send notifications when a reassigned event is canceled.
You cannot manually advance a step that is marked as
Do Not Advance
 in the business process definition. This functionality is only available for steps that you can assign to a security group. Steps that you can't assign to a security group, with the exception of a
Report
 step, can't be marked as
Do Not Advance
. To determine if a step is marked as
Do Not Advance
, refer to the
Do Not Advance
 check box in the business process definition.

Manually Send Back

Send back is a business process action. Performing a send back action usually means a user receives an item in their Workday My Tasks and the user wants to send the item back to the person who previously completed the step. Example: Mike fills out and submits a
Complete Questionnaire
 step. The item is then routed to Mike's manager, Betty, to review and approve. Betty receives the item in her My Tasks to approve. Instead of approving the item, she sends it back to Mike to make a correction.
You can send back a business process manually at any time, even when the step isn’t assigned to you.
You can't send back all business processes. To determine whether you can manually send back a business process, access the
Business Process Configuration Options
 report.
You must be in a security group with access to the
Manual Send Back
 action in the
Who Can Do Actions on Entire Business Process
 section of the business process security policy.
To manually send back a large number of action events at one time, you can run the
Send Back Business Process
 Enterprise Interface Builder (EIB). You must have permission to run EIBs and permission on the business process security policy to perform this action on the event for the business process type. For each event in this EIB that allows manual send back, Workday sends the event back to a completed step of the business process that allows this action. When you are on the
Initiation
 step of:
  • A subprocess, you can send the event back.
  • The parent business process, you can't send the event back.
Workday recommends that you manually send back a sample event in your tenant before you attempt to do a mass send back. The sample event should be from the same business process definition as the other events you want to send back.
You can access the
Manual Send Back
 task from the related actions menu of the business process event. When the status of the business process event is:
  • In Progress
    , the
    Send Back To
     prompt displays all of the previous steps that you would typically see in the
    Send Back
     prompt from within the business process toolbar. When you have multiple security groups configured on a step, and you manually advance the step but then manually send it back to where you manually advanced it from, Workday displays all awaiting persons for the step in the prompt. Example:
    Previously Awaiting Persons (4): (Dawn Myers, Logan McNeil, Betty Liu, Steve Morgan) – Complete Manager Evaluation
    . When you select the prompt option, Workday sends the step back to all previously awaiting persons.
  • Completed
    , the
    Send Back To
     prompt displays only the previous steps that allow the
    Manual Send Back by Administrator on Completed Event
    .
When you attempt to manually send back a business process to a step that you configured to run in parallel with another step and:
  • Both steps are
    In Progress
    , you can’t manually send back the business process to either of the parallel steps.
  • 1 step is
    In Progress
     and the other step is
    Completed
    , you can manually send back the business process to the
    In Progress
     step.
  • Both steps are
    Completed
    , you can manually send back the business process to either of the parallel steps.
When you send the business process event back, the process history displays the step with a
Manual Send Back
 status.
When you configure an
Action
,
Approval
, or
To Do
 step to be excluded from My Tasks and you send a step back to the excluded step, the step doesn't display in My Tasks. You can still send back a step from the excluded step using the
Business Process Transactions Awaiting Me
 report.
The business process administrator can reassign excluded steps by using the:
  • Reassign Business Process Step
     mass operation type on the
    Mass Operation Management
     task.
  • Business Process
    Reassign This Task
     related action from an event.
  • Reassign Business Process Step
     web service.
You can't use the
Reassign Tasks
 task to reassign excluded steps.
When you send back an event to a worker that has a future-dated business process that changes their worker type, such as from a contingent worker to an employee, Workday sends the event back to the assigned worker. The step doesn't go unassigned.
Example: James is a contingent worker and his contract ends on 2023-09-10. The company submits the business process to hire him as a staff employee. The hire process completes and effective 2023-09-15, his role changes to a staff employee. On 2023-09-08, James submits an I-9 form. On 2023-09-14, an HR Partner sends back the I-9 form to James to correct. He receives the sent back task on 2023-09-15.

Reassign Unassigned Tasks

A task becomes an unassigned task when the specified security group doesn’t contain a user, or contains only users with disabled Workday accounts. Example: If a step is secured by the
Employee as Self
 security group but the assigned user has a future hire date, the task is unassigned. A task can also be unassigned if the assigned user's Workday Account is disabled, expired, or locked, or if the assigned user has no user ID and password and cannot access Workday to see their notification or complete their assigned step. The
Unassigned Tasks
 report displays steps where this is the problem.
Business process administrators can reassign unassigned tasks to workers or to Affiliate role holders in the required security group. Workday sends a notification email to members of all security groups with
View
 and
Modify
 permissions to the
Business Process Administration
 domain when a task becomes unassigned.
From
My Tasks
, you can reassign tasks that are unassigned. On the
Unassigned Task
 item, you can reassign:
  • A single unassigned task by selecting a person in the
    Reassign To
     prompt.
  • Multiple unassigned tasks by clicking
    View Unassigned Tasks
    . This enables you to filter and view additional unassigned business process tasks. We recommend that you filter the list of unassigned tasks by business process, date range, or both. Once you apply a filter, you can reassign steps on the
    Business Process Unassigned Step Audit
     report.
From an
Unassigned Tasks
 item, you can also click
View Details
 under the gear icon. When you click the
Reassign
 button in the grid, Workday displays the
Unassigned Task
 report where you can reassign a single unassigned task or multiple unassigned tasks.
You can also reassign unassigned tasks by accessing the
Unassigned Tasks
 report.

Correct a Business Process

You can correct business processes only when the business process security policy specifies the security groups that can correct a business process instance.
You can configure Workday to send custom and alert notifications on business process corrections.

Fix Business Processes in Error

When a business process event goes into an error state, business process administrators can manage and restart the events. Workday displays a
Business Process Definitions with Exceptions
 field that lists all definitions in an error state. Active definitions that aren't in an error state display in the
Other Business Process Definitions
 field.
Workday alerts administrators of new events in error by displaying a
Fix Business Process
item at the top of their
My Tasks
 list. After all events for the business process type are fixed, Workday removes the item from
My Tasks
. When the
Restart Business Processes in Error
 button is not visible on the
Fix Business Process
 page or in the
My Tasks
 item, it's because the background job to fix the processes is already in progress. Workday displays help text in these locations to explain the status.
Business process administrators who don't have the
Fix Business Process
 item in their
My Tasks
 list can access the standalone
Fix Business Process
 task using the
Search
 prompt. This standalone task enables administrators to select a specific business process type in an error state and restart the events.

Delete Comments from a Business Process

Business process administrators can remove 1 or more comments from a business process, either before or after the business process is completed.
From the related actions menu of the overall business process (not from a business process step), select
Business Process
Remove Comments
. You can then select the check box next to each comment that you want to remove, and click
OK
.
Similarly, if a comment has been made on a subprocess, you can remove the comment as a related action on the subprocess, not from an individual step within the subprocess.

Inactivate a Business Process Definition

To define a custom business process, you must associate it with a business object, typically an organization. The business process definition is then available within that organization. When the organization has a hierarchy, Workday links all subordinate organizations to that business process definition until reaching a subordinate organization that's linked to a different business process definition.
Workday uses the default business process definition when you haven't:
  • Associated a business process definition with any superior supervisory organization in the hierarchy.
  • Defined a custom business process for the supervisory organization or other organizations in the superior supervisory organization hierarchy.
When you inactivate a custom business process for a specific business object, such as an organization, and then initiate the business process, Workday uses the custom business process associated with the supervisory organization.
Make sure that there’s always an appropriate custom business process defined.
On the
Inactivate Business Process Definition
 task, you can specify the business objects for which you want to activate the custom business process. When you inactivate a custom business process for all business objects, Workday completely removes it and you can't reactivate it.