Setup Considerations: Calculated Fields
You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of calculated fields. It explains:
- Why to set them up.
- How they fit into the rest of Workday.
- Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
- Security requirements and business process configurations.
- Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.
What They Are
Calculated fields are configurable field definitions associated with a business object that use data in Workday.
Business Benefits
Calculated fields enable you to work with data in your tenant on transactions throughout Workday, including:
- Business processes.
- Integrations.
- Reporting.
- Scheduling recurring processes.
You can view the data how and where you want it by performing arithmetic calculations, creating logical and conditional expressions, and transforming your data.
To capture accurate data, Workday resolves calculated fields when the fields run because the values of other fields used to determine the value of calculated fields can vary.
Use Cases
You can set up calculated fields:
- As condition rules and metrics for business processes.
- For custom pay result reporting.
- For time tracking and entry validations to evaluate data.
- To override data collected for document transformation and Enterprise Interface Builder (EIB) integrations.
- To send notifications to all workers and new hires.
Questions to Consider
Questions | Considerations |
|---|---|
What Workday-delivered calculated fields should you use? | Workday delivers tenant-wide calculated fields that you can use in multiple reports in Workday. They provide 1 less calculated field that you need to create in your tenant.
You can run these reports to view Workday-delivered calculated fields:
|
Where and how do you want to use the calculated fields? | Workday enables you to use report-specific and tenant-wide calculated fields throughout Workday. You can convert report-specific calculated fields into tenant-wide and the other way around.
Use report-specific calculated fields if you:
Use tenant-wide calculated fields if you:
|
Where can calculated fields help improve your workflow? | You can use calculated fields on:
|
Which business objects should you associate with your calculated fields? | Calculated fields can deliver data that would otherwise be unavailable from the primary business object of the report. The business object determines:
You can view all fields available for a business object by running the Business Object Details report. |
Recommendations
- Before configuring local scripts, ensure that the calculated field can accommodate additional local script fields.
- Consider the downstream impacts to processes such as financial reports or hiring business processes whenever you update a calculated field.
- Consider the impacts to security and create security groups to control who can create or edit calculated fields.
- Consider the standard order of operations rule, known as PEMDAS, for mathematic expressions in calculated fields:
- Parentheses
- Exponents
- Multiplication
- Division
- Addition
- Subtraction
- Incrementally test calculated fields in a nonproduction environment to ensure proper configuration for all users.
- Label your calculated fields so all users can easily identify them.
- Use the most granular report field when creating calculated fields with related business objects so there are fewer instances to evaluate.
- When using multiple calculated fields, consider a hierarchical structure and create the foundational calculated fields first. Start with the specific data you want to return, then decide on the calculated fields you need to achieve that result.
Requirements
When you use calculated fields based on:
- Constant values: Configure the static date, numeric, and text values as references for calculated fields that build on constants.
- Currency conversion rates: Configure the currency exchange rates, calculate cross rates or inverse rates, or override existing currency exchange rates to avoid errors when using calculated fields with different currencies.
- Currency rates: Configure the currency rate types for multiple currency conversion rates to avoid errors when the calculated field runs.
Limitations
- For currency calculated field results, Workday adheres to ISO currency code standards to determine the number of decimal places.
- For numeric calculated field results, Workday displays up to 6 decimal places.
- For discovery boards and the Report Writer, you can't filter on fields that return derived instances, such as lookup date rollup calculated fields.
- You can't use report-specific calculated fields on simple reports.
- You can't set up calculated fields as eligibility rules for business processes.
Tenant Setup
No impact.
Security
Domains | Considerations |
|---|---|
Custom Field Management domain in the System functional area | Enables users to create, change, or delete tenant-wide calculated fields. |
Private Calculated Field Management domain in the System functional area | Enables users to create, change, or delete report-specific calculated fields. |
Business Processes
No impact.
Reporting
Reports or Dashboards | Considerations |
|---|---|
All Calculated Fields
| Displays all calculated fields in your tenant. |
Calculated Field Exception Audit
| Displays the severity, location, and solutions for tenant-wide calculated field exceptions. |
Calculated Field Usage Hierarchy
| Displays the downstream areas and objects affected when you change calculated fields used on reports. |
Maintain Calculated Fields
| Displays all tenant-wide calculated fields in Workday.
Also enables you to convert a tenant-wide calculated field into a report-specific calculated field. Workday displays the Convert button when all of these conditions are true:
Maintain Calculated Fields . |
Maintain Calculated Fields for Report
| Displays all report-specific calculated fields in Workday.
Also enables you to convert a report-specific calculated field into a tenant-wide calculated field. The Convert button displays only on the rows of calculated fields that can be converted. You can click Convert All to convert all report-specific fields into tenant-wide calculated fields. You can only convert calculated fields that don’t depend on other report-specific fields. |
Recently Updated Calculated Fields
| Displays the date, time, and location for changes made to calculated fields in your tenant. |
Report Specific Calculated Field Exception Audit
| Displays the severity, location, and solutions for report-specific calculated field exceptions. |
View Calculated Field
| Displays details about a calculated field. |
Integrations
You can use calculated fields with Workday integrations to use with connectors and in reports that can collect data for document transformation and EIBs.
Connections and Touchpoints
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships across your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.