When leading a Workday Integration design session, the goal is to gather as much detailed information as possible to ensure the developed solution meets all functional, technical, and business requirements. Below are sample questions to start with.
General and Scope Questions
- What are the source and target systems of this integration?
- What is the purpose of the integration? (To understand the high-level goal and the problem it aims to solve.)
- Who are the stakeholders and end-users of this integration? (To identify all parties involved or affected by the integration.)
- What is the current process and how is data fed into the system? (To understand the current process and so that you can understand how to transform it into Workday.)
- What are the key business processes this integration will support? (Understanding the processes helps in tailoring the integration to business needs.)
- Which Workday modules (HCM, Financials, Payroll, etc.) does this integration involve?
- What type of data will be transferred? (Employee data, financial records, etc.)
- How frequently does the data need to be updated? (Real-time, batch processing, etc.)
- Are there specific data validation rules that need to be applied?
Technical Requirements
- Do you have any specification guide to provide requirements?
- If the above is no, could you please provide us list of fields needed in the interface? (it should contain – Field Name, Description, Type, require or Optional, format, Transformation rule, constant/default value) – Note: As a developer, you should work offline to map vendor fields with Workday and in the second design session you should discuss any open items on field mapping.
- Do you have any preferences or requirements for the integration pattern? (REST/SOAP APIs, file-based, etc.)
- What are the data formats required for the integration? (XML, JSON, CSV, etc.)
- Are there specific security or compliance requirements? (Encryption, Key Base Authentication, Data Privacy Approval..etc.)
- How will errors and exceptions be handled?
- What is the expected volume of data to be processed?
- Whom to notify if integration is completed with an error or warning(applicable if integration is built in Workday)? (This could be the support team or business owner so they can get notified if integration is completed with an error or warning.
Testing and Deployment
- Do you have a testing environment available to test this integration?
- Who will be responsible for the user acceptance testing (UAT/SIT)?
- What is the estimated time to provide feedback on the testing file sent from Workday? (Applicable for outbound integration)
- How long will it take for you to send the new file for testing? (Applicable for inbound integration)
Next Steps:
Below are the next steps after the design session
- Field Mapping: Begin by mapping the vendor’s fields to Workday fields, or vice versa.
- Follow-Up Design Session: Schedule an additional design session to address any unresolved questions or concerns that may have arisen during the field mapping exercise.
- Documentation: Thoroughly document the integration requirements into detailed design documents.
- Stakeholder Approval: Obtain formal design approval from the vendor and the business owner, confirming that all parties agree on the requirement documented in the design document.
- Development and Testing: Proceed with the integration development, followed by unit testing to ensure the code meets the outlined requirements and performs as intended.
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Preparation: Prepare for User Acceptance Testing (UAT) or System Integration Testing (SIT), setting the stage for comprehensive testing scenarios that mimic business day-to-day scenarios.
- End-to-End Testing: Conduct an end-to-end test of the integration, validating the complete workflow from start to finish under various conditions to guarantee reliability and performance.
- Final Approval: Get the final sign-off from the business owner, confirming that the integration meets all specified requirements and is ready for deployment.
- Production Migration: Migrate the integration to the production environment