Workday® Deprecation Best Practices

Have you ever seen the term “deprecated” next to a Workday feature and wondered what it means and what to do about it? Well this is your lucky day! In this blog post we will define deprecation and discuss best practices for deprecated Workday features.

What is Deprecation?

Workday uses the term “deprecated” to discourage the use of a feature because it has been superseded or is no longer considered efficient. Most features within Workday can be deprecated, including integrations, core connectors, data sources, reports, and web services. Updates about deprecated features within Workday can be found in Workday’s biannual Release Notes as well as the Workday Community website. 

Why Worry About Deprecation?

You might be wondering why you need to worry about deprecated features in Workday if they are not completely removed or prohibited. There are two main reasons. 

First, deprecated features can be deleted, or “retired,” breaking business processes that use the retired features. For example, the depreciation of the American Express PCI Environment was announced in 2021 but will officially sunset in 2022. This means that the PCI functionality is being completely removed for all Workday clients using the Amex Credit Card integrations. Some clients were not aware of this change and required assistance with the cutover to the new Workday provided integration. Deprecated features are often kept on to avoid just this kind of problem and may be retitled as “Do Not Use” or “TO BE DEPRECATED” in the tenant. Check your release notes for details. 

Second, Workday features are usually deprecated because a better, more efficient alternative has been provided. If your organization is using deprecated features, then your business processes are most likely not running as efficiently as they can be. For example, when Workday deprecated the Update_Employee_Personal_Info web service, it provided more granular web services such as Change_Legal_Name and Change_Licenses. You can review which web services have been deprecated by checking Workday’s API library under the specific version number. It will also list the replacement web service for those services. 

Deprecation Best Practices

So what should you do to keep up with deprecated and retired Workday features? Simply follow these steps to make sure that your Workday business processes are as secure and efficient as they can be:

1. Assign a Workday Administrator to ensure that your functionality is up to date

2. Check the Workday Community website at least once per month for newly deprecated and retired features

3. Keep up with the biannual Workday Releases to see newly deprecated and retired features as well as newly released features

4. For every newly deprecated or retired feature that you find, run an analysis of your Workday business process to see if the changes affect your organization

5. If your organization is using a deprecated or retired feature, then find, implement, and test an alternative feature

6. If the deprecated or retired feature does not contain important files, then delete it after implementing and testing the alternative feature

7. If the deprecated or retired feature does contain important files, then mark the feature as “DNU” (Do Not Use) to prevent employees from using it in the future and archive the files for future reference

How Makse Group Can Help

While maintaining up-to-date Workday functionality is important, it can also be tedious and time-consuming. If you do not have the time or the resources to continually update deprecated and retired Workday features, then consider taking advantage of Makse Group’s Assess & Recommend, Workday Implementation, and Release Management services. Our Workday experts will check the health of your business processes, implement new features, and analyze new releases while you focus on more important tasks. For more information, contact Makse Group today!