Calculations

Overview

Objectives

Recall the basic functionality of the calculation engine.
Configure and create instance set comparison calculations.
Configure and create value comparison calculations.
Configure and create conditional calculations.
Configure and create lookup tables and lookup table calculations.

Overview of Financial Aid Calculations

Simple calculations: A simple calculation formula (algorithm) returns a single value.
Complex calculations: A complex calculation formula is pieced together using multiple calculation types.
Flexibility: There are multiple ways that you can define calculations, so they are obvious, easy to maintain, and support performance.
Expandability: You can create baseline calculations that are reusable with other calculations for a variety of circumstances.
Customizability: You can create your own custom calculations in Workday Financial Aid using custom fields.

Boolean Calculations

Instance set comparison calculation
Logic calculation
Value comparison calculation

Conditional calculations
Logic calculations

Value Comparison Calculation

The value comparison calculation compares numeric, Boolean, or date values. Operators permitted include:

Equal to
Not equal to
Greater than
Greater than or equal to
Less than
Less than or equal to

Value comparison calculations allow you to define relationships between other calculations and student values, such as GPA or test scores.

In the screenshot below, the calculation determines whether a student's age is greater than or equal to sixty.

Logic Calculation

The logic calculation defines AND or OR logic to return a true/false value. To get to the result, it uses a combination of the following calculations:

Instance Set Comparison
Value Comparison
Instance Value
Logic Calculations

Operators permitted include:

AND
OR

Note

: You cannot combine AND and OR logic in the same Logic Calculation.

In the screenshot below, the calculation determines whether a student has a citizenship status that is not blank, is an international student, and is in their first academic period. If a student meets all three criteria, the calculation will return a value of True.

Numerical Calculations

Aggregate Calculation
Arithmetic Calculation
Constant Value Calculation
Date Difference Calculation
Date Extract Calculation
Lookup Calculation

Aggregate Calculation

The aggregate calculation returns the sum, average, minimum, or maximum of two or more values. The operand is typically the value being aggregated. The Instances for Operand Calculation field is the value aggregated when the operand is non-numeric (e.g., a logic calculation).

Arithmetic Calculations often include an aggregate calculation as a component.

Create Aggregate Calculation task for Student Income Earned from Work

The calculation in the example returns the maximum of two values: 0 or the student's income earned from work multiplied by .0765.

Arithmetic Calculation

The arithmetic calculation adds, subtracts, divides, or multiplies two (and only two) numeric calculations. You can use any calculation returning a numeric value, including another arithmetic calculation, as an operand.

The following calculations often use an arithmetic calculation as a component:

Aggregate Calculation
Conditional Calculation
Lookup Table Calculation

This calculation below returns the student's income earned from work reported on the ISIR multiplied by 0.0765. Notice that this calculation also has rounding, so the system will round the result to the nearest 1.

Constant Value Calculation

The constant value calculation returns the number assigned to it. The numbers can be positive, negative, or decimal.

Note

: Workday delivers many commonly used integer and decimal values.

In the example above, the constant value calculation returns the number 0.0765. The Name field in the

Create/Edit/View Constant Value Calculation

task is commonly the actual numeric value the constant value calculation returns.

Date Extract Calculation

The date extract calculation allows you to pull out the year, month, or day from a date. This calculation is useful when you need to determine the exact day or month of an event. For example, when returning the starting year as a numeric for the Financial Aid Award Year. For the 2025-2026 award year, the system returns the number 2025.

An example of a date extract calculation would be Financial Aid Award Year Starting Year. You can build a calculation that returns the starting year as a numeric (e.g. 2025-2026 would return 2025).

Lookup Calculation

A lookup calculation returns a numeric value based on criteria the system matches. The system can base the criteria on a report field or a numeric range. For example, returning the correct tuition based on a table that stores tuition by academic level and residency status.

Lookup calculations require a lookup table. Although you can create lookup calculations with basic lookup tables, Workday strongly recommends that you use advanced lookup tables. Advanced lookup tables can handle high volumes. In addition, they provide one place to update data for easy maintenance.

Advanced lookup tables allow you to:

Create up to 10 columns. You can then use each column for a different calculation.
Assign an effective date for search and return values.
Define search criteria based on:
Instance or text report fields.
Numeric calculations.

When you access the

Create Lookup Table

task, you can select from the following options:

Option	Description
Advanced Lookup Table - Report Field Search Criteria	Returns values based on the results of a single-instance or multi-instance report field.
Advanced Lookup Table - Numeric Calculation Search Criteria	Returns values based on the results of numeric calculations.
Advanced Lookup Table - No Search Criteria (default value only)	Returns default values.
Advanced Lookup Table - Text Report Field Search Criteria	Returns data based on the results of a text report field.

The lookup calculation below uses a lookup table to determine undergraduate tuition based on residency status.

In this example, the lookup calculation uses a student's residency to determine tuition.

Date Calculations

Build Date Calculation
Constant Date Calculation
Date Increment/Decrement Calculation

Constant Date Calculation

The constant date calculation allows you to create dates as of specific points in time, defining the year, month, and day. You use this calculation for scheduling logic and grandfathering eligibility.

The Constant Date Calculation in the example above identifies "January 1, 1900" as the point in time.

Date Increment/Decrement Calculation

The date increment/decrement calculation allows you to start with a date and then add or subtract years, months, or days from that date.

Here is an example of a date increment/decrement calculation:

The date increment/decrement calculation in the example above adds 30 days to the student's anticipated start date.

Configuring an Instance Value Calculation for a Custom Field

Admissions
Student
Financial Aid
Student Financials
Student Residency Evaluation

Creating a Custom Field Object

Use the Custom Object Management Security domain to assign role-based security access for custom objects. Once an administrator assigns role-based security privileges to you, you can set up and configure custom report field objects to retrieve a value from an instance value calculation. Use the

Create Custom Object

task to create a custom field object. If you need to edit a previously created custom field object, use the

Edit Custom Object

task. If you need to delete a custom field object from your Workday tenant, use the

Delete Custom Object

task.

Once you have created your custom object, you need to use the

Custom Object Definition

task to define business processes for your custom object. When you create a definition for your custom object, you must assign rules and policies for your custom object business processes.

As you create your custom field object, you need to configure the following settings unless a setting is optional:

Custom field types:
Used to optionally create custom field types. You can assign a custom field type to classify any custom field objects that you create.
Custom objects:
Allows you to create one or more custom field objects in the financial aid period record or a dependent business object.
Assign field labels:
Allows you to name your custom field object.
Enable calculation engine authorization usage
: You can authorize the custom object field to be a reporting field by enabling calculation engine authorization. When you authorize the calculation engine to use a custom field object, you are enabling the calculation engine to access and return a data value from the custom field object.
Choose security domains:
Security domains are important because they allow you to access custom field objects with the
Create Custom Object
task.
Activate custom objects:
Activating your custom field object enables roles with security access to use your custom field object in an instant value calculation.

Calculations for Eligibility

Student award items
Cost of attendance items
Charge items
Waiver items

Maintain Student Cost Item Assignments
Maintain Student Charge Item Assignments
Maintain Student Packaging Strategy Assignments

Additional Detail: Calculations for Student

Instance set comparison calculations
Value comparison calculations
Conditional calculations
Lookup table calculations

Mind map your calculations before creating them within your tenant. Before you begin configuring your calculations, mind map the formula that you need to configure.
Determine the best method for constructing your calculation business logic. Start by identifying the business definitions and rules that are associated with your calculation. In a top-down approach, you create your final calculation first and then create nested calculations within your final calculation.
Develop consistent naming conventions for your calculations that are obvious and intuitive. The naming convention you use for your calculations should enable you and your team members to easily identify the purpose of each calculation that you create.
Use comments to note the purpose of your calculations. When you initially create and configure a calculation, you should document the purpose of a calculation within the comments section. Using comments helps you identify the calculations you need to modify and update on an ongoing basis. Entering a comment in the Comment field is a useful way to document:
Why you created a calculation.
What the logic of your calculation was.
What award items were associated with your calculation.
Test a calculation thoroughly in a testing tenant before recreating it in your production tenant. Once you have created and configured your calculation, you can test your calculation from the calculation name's Related Actions, then select Calculation > Evaluate.
Every calculation you can create in Workday has an associated view task. If you need to deactivate a calculation within Workday, confirm where you are first using a calculation in your Workday tenant by using a view calculation task.
Do not delete a calculation after you create it. Instead, modify the name of your calculation by relabeling it as "DNU" for Do Not Use.
You can also run the
Calculation Exception Audit
report to locate previously created calculations that you are no longer using in your tenant.

Performance Considerations

Conditional Calculations: Put the most common conditions first.
Logic Calculations:
­For AND logic calculations, put the least common conditions first.
For OR logic, put the most common condition first.
Lookup Tables:
Limit the number of rows for Basic tables.
Advanced tables do not need to limit rows for performance.