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Workday User Guide
Last Updated: 2026-04-17
Reference: Validation Stages

Reference: Validation Stages

To ensure data integrity, you can implement a Validation stage as a quality checkpoint in your data pipeline. By defining rules to catch null values, duplicates, or outliers, you can prevent bad data from reaching your production reports. Any records flagged by these rules are automatically redirected to a Table for Exceptions during the execution of the Data Change Task. This protects the accuracy of your financial reports and eliminates the need for manual cleanup after publication.
To implement the validation stage, you must create the Table for Exceptions table. See Creating Tables and Datasets.
Data Change Task (DCT) is required to move your data into Table for Exceptions.
  • If you use a DCT, Workday uses it as a smart sorter. Sends clean data to your target table and automatically diverts invalid rows to your Table for Exceptions.
  • If you publish the data without using DCT, The validation stage acts as a filter. Your reports will show clean data, but the invalid data is simply discarded—it won't be saved to the Table for Exceptions leaving it empty.
As you complete the Validation stage, consider:
Option
Description
Rules
To add Validation rules, click the plus sign. To identify the validation, specify:
  • Validation Code
  • Validation Message
  • Exception Conditions: Enter a validation expression to exclude rows that match the invalid condition. Example: To exclude rows that have no cost center worktag, enter [Cost_Center] IS NULL.
To add multiple rules, repeat the process. Breaking up rules will make it easier to troubleshoot errors.
Grouping Field
Use only when expanding 1 record per transaction into many records per transaction. Workday uses the field to group rows together by value. If a row generates an exception, all other rows in that group will also generate an exception.
Exceptions Threshold
Workday automatically populates the amount.
If errors exceed the threshold, Workday will stop processing the transactions.
Field Mapping
Is only displayed when you select the Exception table.
  • Validation Code and Message: Map your user dataset validation code and message to your validation code and message in your error dataset
  • Dataset Fields: Depending on your configuration, you can map as many dataset fields as you want.
Click
Done
and then
Save
.