What is Integration?
Think of integration as building a bridge between two towns so that people and resources can flow smoothly. Picture this: you reside in Town A with an amazing bakery, but work in Town B with a fantastic coffee spot. The catch? There’s a river in between without a bridge. Well, integration steps in as the hero, constructing that bridge to link the two towns. This way, you can easily grab fresh bread from Town A and pair it with your go-to coffee from Town B. In the tech realm, imagine Town A and Town B as different software applications or systems, and the river as the barrier preventing seamless information sharing or collaboration.
Just replicate same example from Workday perspective: Integration between Workday (Town A) and Active Directory (B) . Workday (Town A) have employees data and Active Directory (B) has email data. Both system needs information from each system to function properly or enhance user experience with that data. In this case integration between these two system will work as bridge to share data.
Type Of Integration
Integrations with Workday can generally be classified into two main patterns: Inbound and Outbound.
- Inbound Integration: This involves sending data into Workday from external systems. For example, importing employee data from a recruiting platform(Taleo) into Workday.
- Outbound Integration: This involves sending data from Workday to other systems. For example, exporting payroll data from Workday to a banking system for processing payments or sending Workday employee data to an external benefits provider.
Workday Integration Tools
Workday provides different tools to build integration(bridge) with other systems. These tools can be used to build varieties of integration ranging from simple to complex, real-time data exchanges. The main tools include:
Enterprise Interface Builder (EIB) is a user-friendly tool that makes it easy to create integrations for importing data into Workday or Exporting data from Workday. EIB has a guided interface integration so users with less experience can also create integration very easily. EIB is perfect for requirements that don’t involve complicated transformations and error-handling requirements.
Cloud Connect: A set of pre-built connectors designed to build integration between Workday and specific third-party systems, such as benefits providers, payroll systems, or learning management systems. Cloud Connect reduces the need for custom development by providing ready-made solutions for common integration scenarios.
Workday API: Workday Provides a set of web services that allow for real-time integration with Workday. Workday has SOAP-based API supports wide range of functional areas in Workday in workday. For example for human resources we have many API such as Get Worker, Hire Employee, Put Cost Center, request One Time Payment ..etc. Workday also has the capability to enable reports as a Web Service to provide to third parties to get data from Workday.
Workday Studio: A powerful development tool that allows for the creation of sophisticated integrations. Studio supports complex transformations and connections to multiple data sources within a single integration.
When to Choose Which Tool
Selecting the right integration tool relies on factors like the desired data exchange method(real-time or batch processing), file Type (Full File vs. Change File), Volume of data, and Type of Data required to exchange b/w two systems. While evaluation integration tool we should always select tool that best fit the solution with less effort.
- Core Connector(End to End): Check if end-to-end connector is available for that vendor that can support data exchange between these 2 systems.
- Enterprise Interface Builder (EIB): If the requirement is for a full file and does not require error handling then we can select this integration type. Also check that your integration requirement can be met with Report + EIB + XSLT.
- Core Connector (Generic or Standard): If the requirement is to provide a change file then evaluate if workday you can use any of the integration templates two build an integration third-party system. Workday provides templates like a Core Connector: Worker , Core Connetor: Position , Core Connector: Location ..etc
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