Workday HCM EIB | Workday HCM Online Training | Workday HCM Online Tutorial | Workday HCM |UppTalk

Summary of Tech Concepts & Tutorial Content (Workday HCM EIB / Integration Online Training)

Introduces Uptalk and the training goal

• The course-style onboarding introduces Uptalk and the goal of learning Workday HCM integration concepts through hands-on tutorials.

What is an EIB (Enterprise Interface Builder)?

• An EIB is a Workday integration tool used to:
  • connect Workday with external systems, or
  • expose Workday actions as web services.
• EIBs are one of multiple integration types in Workday, and they come in two forms:
  • Inbound EIBs: data comes into Workday (“incoming information”)
  • Outbound EIBs: data goes out of Workday (“export data”)

Inbound vs. Outbound responsibilities

• Consultant focus (mainly inbound): consultants commonly work with inbound EIBs.
• Outbound: often handled by an integration specialist, though the tutorial still covers outbound concepts.

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Core Architecture: 3 Components of an EIB (Inbound or Outbound)

Regardless of direction, an EIB includes:

1. Get Data

   • Identifies where the source data originates.
   • Inbound: often sourced from an attachment/template.
   • Outbound: can come from a custom report or a web service.

2. Transformation

   • Converts data between the formats/languages understood by Workday and external systems.
   • Conceptually similar to ETL (Extract, Transform, Load).
   • Inbound: aligns with the target Workday web service operation.
   • Outbound: built to match the required third-party format (custom or auto-created).

3. Deliver

   • Defines how the output/input file is delivered.
   • Inbound: typically uses a template service (attachment via the EIB process).
   • Outbound: delivery options can include FTP/HTTP, email, and Workday attachments.
   • The tutorial specifically uses Workday attachment.

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Inbound EIB Tutorial: “Change Business Title” (Bulk Loading via Web Services)

Inbound EIBs as web-service-enabled business processes

• Inbound EIBs are described as business process actions exposed as web services.
• Similar idea: reports can also be exposed as web services.
• Mentioned business process examples:
  • hire/onboarding
  • job termination
• Key use case demonstrated:
  • mass updates, such as changing business title for many workers.

Steps for creating an inbound EIB

1. Create an EIB
2. Define Get Data source (template/attachment)
3. Select the correct web service operation (e.g., “change business title” web service)
4. Use the default delivery approach (template service)

Generating and editing the Excel template

• Template generation:
  • Template Model → Generate Spreadsheet Template
• Template layout includes:
  • an Overview tab
  • multiple tabs/sections aligned to the business process structure
• Manual vs. automatic processing
  • Manual: routes records to approvals (manager/HR)
  • Automatic: skips approvals to complete bulk loads faster
• Comments fields for traceability
  • Example usage: case ID and request context (without exposing employee names)

Template data rules

• The tutorial highlights:
  • Required vs. optional columns
  • Formatting constraints (text vs ID vs date formats)
  • Need to populate required identifiers so Workday can uniquely identify transactions (e.g., transaction header unique ID / spreadsheet key)
• Template complexity examples:
  • some EIBs have ~50+ area headers
  • others may have ~200 area headers, but you only fill what you need

Testing and running the inbound integration

• During integration setup/testing:
  • upload the filled template file during integration launch
  • use a validation/enable checkbox during testing
• Validation behavior
  • If validation is enabled, Workday checks the file first and reports errors.
  • If validation is disabled, partial success is possible and error records won’t update—often causing repeated re-load cycles.

Effective vs. validated runs

• Demonstrated behavior:
  • validation mode does not apply the change immediately
  • a real execution run updates employee records as expected (e.g., business title changes applied after relaunch with validation disabled)

Complex EIBs

• Examples of more complex scenarios:
  • Change contact information
  • Change job compensation
• The main challenge is understanding which fields map to which template locations.

Template editing caution

• Strong warning against editing templates:
  • prefer the standard generated template
  • if edits are unavoidable, coordinate with the team and proceed carefully, since changes can affect others.

Handling large loads

• For large employee counts (e.g., 500):
  • suggest using reporting skills to generate a report first
  • then copy/paste required columns into the EIB template rather than manually building everything

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Outbound EIB Tutorial: Exporting Data to External Systems

Outbound EIB creation mirrors inbound

• The flow is the same conceptually:
  • create EIB → define Get Data → transformation → deliver

Outbound “Get Data”

• Uses a custom report as the input data source (example: “complex scan new hire”).
• Transformation depends on what the third-party system expects:
  • may reuse existing transformations
  • or create a new one

Outbound deliver method: Workday attachment

• Delivery is emphasized as critical for outbound.
• The tutorial uses Workday attachment as the delivery mechanism in the example.
• Document retention details:
  • maximum retention noted as 180 days
  • retention set to 0 means it won’t be retained for later access
  • default retention described as roughly 1 day unless configured

Outbound execution and output

• After a successful outbound integration:
  • an attachment file is created for the external system
  • file format is typically shown as XML/text
• Monitoring:
  • Process Monitor report can be used to track long-running integrations (e.g., thousands of records)

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Main speakers / sources

• Speaker: Harika (Uptalk presenter)
• Sources/Platform referenced:
  • Workday HCM (Enterprise Interface Builder / integrations)
  • Uptalk channel (training provider)