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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-09-04
Setup Considerations: Distribute Journeys in Business Processes

Setup Considerations: Distribute Journeys in Business Processes

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration of journey distribution through Workday business processes. It explains:
  • Why to set it up.
  • How it fits into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.

What It Is

The Journey Distribution Service step enables you to distribute journeys automatically through any Workday business process (BP). When a BP that contains this step runs, Workday distributes a journey to the person identified by a Class Report Field (CRF) on the BP's Event Business Object (Event BO).
The recipient of the journey isn't determined by the BP itself. It's determined by which CRFs exist on the BP's Event BO and return a single worker or student. If no CRF surfaces the intended recipient, that distribution path isn't available for that business process.
The person the journey distributes to is called the Event Person. A journey can be distributed to:
  • Contingent Workers
  • Employees
  • Students
For information on adding the Journey Distribution Service as a business process step, see the Business Processes Setup Considerations section in the Workday Administrator Guide.

Business Benefits

Adding the Journey Distribution Service step to a business process enables you to:
  • Automate journey delivery at critical lifecycle moments without manual intervention.
  • Target specific individuals based on their relationship to the BP event, such as a new hire, a transferring worker, or their manager.
  • Standardize journey delivery across your organization by ensuring the same experience goes out every time a BP runs, regardless of who initiates it.

Use Cases

You can use the Journey Distribution Service step to:
  • Distribute an onboarding journey to a new hire automatically when the Hire BP runs.
  • Route a manager-support journey to a new hire's manager during a
    Change Job
     event.
  • Deliver a student-facing journey when an enrollment or withdrawal BP runs.
  • Re-engage returning workers by distributing an onboarding journey again on re-hire events, without requiring manual distribution.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
Does the target Business Process Event BO expose the Class Report Field (CRF) for the intended recipient?
The Event Person prompt only displays CRFs available on the BP's Event BO. If no CRF surfaces your intended recipient, distribution to that person isn't possible through this BP. Consider switching to a different BP, using Mass Operation Management (MOM) or ad hoc distribution, or filing a CRF request with the team that owns the BP.
Does the CRF return a single worker or student?
Workday distributes journeys to 1 recipient at a time. Only single-instance CRFs appear in the Event Person prompt. CRFs that return a collection of workers or students aren't supported.
Does the CRF type match the journey category?
The journey category defines whether the journey targets a worker or a student. Only CRFs that return the matching type appear in the prompt. A worker-category journey won't display CRFs that return students, and vice versa.
Does the CRF fall under the Default Areas or Business Rules authorized usages?
Only CRFs with Default Areas or Business Rules authorized usages appear in the Event Person prompt. CRFs outside these usages are filtered out.
Does the user completing the prior step have access to the secured field?
Workday evaluates the selected CRF using the security permissions of the user who completed the step immediately preceding the Journey Distribution Service step. If that user doesn't have view access to the domain securing the CRF, the field won't appear in the prompt and distribution will fail. If the preceding step is system-initiated, Workday uses the actor of the step before that instead.
Is the target worker active at the time of step execution?
Workday distributes journeys only to active, provisioned workers. In Hire or Onboarding workflows, place the service step after the worker record is created and provisioned.
Do you want to distribute the same journey to the same recipient more than once?
If the Exclude recipients who have received this journey builder option is selected on the service step, Workday won't distribute the journey to a worker who already received it. Clear this option to allow distribution on re-hire or other repeat events.
Do you need to distribute a support journey to a pre-hire's manager before their start date?
This isn't supported with this feature. Workday can't distribute support journeys to a pre-hire's manager before the worker's effective start date. Schedule distribution after the worker's start date, or use ad hoc distribution instead.

Recommendations

Option
Recommendations
Step placement on Hire or Onboarding BPs
Place the Journey Distribution Service step after the worker record is created and provisioned. If the step runs before the worker is active in Workday, the journey won't distribute.
Event Person field selection for future-dated hires
Select the Worker report field as the Event Person on
Hire
 BPs that include future effective dates. This ensures the step resolves the correct worker instance regardless of time zone differences.
Re-hire Scenarios
Clear the Exclude recipients who have received this journey builder option on the service step to allow returning workers to receive the journey again.
When no CRF surfaces the intended recipient
Consider one of these:
  • Switch to a different BP whose Event BO already has the CRF you need.
  • Use MOM or ad hoc distribution for one-time or urgent cases.
  • File a CRF request with the team that owns the BP.

Requirements

You might need to take additional steps to enable this feature depending on your organization's subscription service agreement. For more information, see this Community article.
  • On the
    Innovation Services Opt-In
     task, select the
    Journeys
     service on the
    Available Services
     tab in the People Experience category.
  • Enable the
    Journeys
     functional area.
  • Create the
    Journey Distribution
     business process definition using the
    Create Business Process Definition
     task.
    • You can refer to the Distribute a Journey Using Any Business Process release notes and the What's New feature video. To add the Journey Distribution Service as a business process step, refer to the Business Process section in the Setup Considerations: Journeys topic.

Security

These domains in the Journeys functional area. You can refer to the Security section in the Setup Considerations: Journeys topic.
Domains
Considerations
Set Up: Journey Administration
Users with access to this domain can create, edit, manage, and distribute journeys.
Manage: Journeys Builders
Users with access to this domain can create security segments and assign security permissions to journey categories for specific users or groups of users.
Distribute Journeys, Self-Service: Journey Distribution domains.
Users with access to these domains can distribute journeys.
Workday evaluates the Event Person CRF using the security permissions of the actor who completed the step immediately before the Journey Distribution Service step. If the preceding step is system-initiated, Workday uses the actor of the step before that. Ensure the relevant actors have view access to the domain securing the CRF you select as the Event Person

Business Processes

You can add the Journey Distribution Service step to any Workday business process. To add the step:
  1. Open an existing BP or create a new one.
  2. Navigate to the business process definition and select
    Edit Definition
     from
    Related Actions
    .
  3. Add a step and configure it with these details:
    1. Type
      : Service
    2. Specify
      : Journey Distribution Service
    3. Step Order
      : Set the order to control when distribution occurs during the process.
After adding the step, configure the Journey Distribution Service with these settings:
  • Select a
    Journey Category
    and the
    Journey Builder
     for the journey you want to distribute.
  • Select a field to determine the
    Event Person
    . This field must be a single-instance CRF on the BP's Event BO that returns a worker or student matching the journey category.
  • From the
    Distribute To
     prompt, select one of these options:
    • Event Person
      : Distributes the journey directly to the individual the CRF returns. This creates a self-service journey experience for the recipient.
    • Role Related to Event Person
      : Distributes a support journey to the manager of the individual the CRF returns.
The Event Person prompt displays fields in Public Fields and Secured Fields sections. Domain security policies govern secured fields. If the actor of the preceding step doesn't have view access to a secured field, Workday won't evaluate that CRF successfully and distribution will fail. You can add this step to any BP, including Hire, Change Job, and Contact Change.
You can add this step to any BP, including
Hire
,
Change Job
, and Contact Change.

Reporting

Reports
Considerations
View All Journeys
Displays journey recipients, distribution methods, and status. Use this report to verify that business processes are distributing journeys as expected.
View Journeys
Displays journeys distributed to the current worker or student.
Journey Builder Report Data Source
Enables you to create custom reports on your journey designs and distribution configurations. Use this to audit Journey Distribution Service step configurations across your business processes.
You can also create a custom report to review journey distribution activity and identify failures. Use the View All Journeys report alongside a custom report on your Journey Distribution business process history to cross-reference distribution attempts with BP execution.

Integrations

Web Services
Considerations
  • Get Journey Event Service Configurations
  • Put Journey Event Service Configuration
Enables you to retrieve and create or update existing business process step journey configurations.

Connections and Touchpoints

Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.