Your Role in Workday: Role-Based Security 101

Watch The Full Functional Overview Session:

Security Roles and Permissions 101

• A security role allows a person to see or do things within Workday.
• Security roles are generally assigned to positions, and allow employees to complete the work required by their position.
• Roles will be used to determine what Workday training employees are expected to complete.
• All workers will have some self-service access in Workday.

What is Role-Based Security?

• Role-Based Security is a collection of permissions operating within a business process which govern what actions you can take in that process.
• Role-Based Security determines what data you can view, including reports
• Workday clusters related business processes together, but we decide which roles will get access to which group of items!

Role-Based Security Is NOT:

• A direct match between a role and your job title
• One role with a comprehensive set of all your job duties
• Meant to tell departments how to divide up work
• Unchangeable

Benefits of Role-Based Security

• Currently security is on a person; in Workday it’s on a position. 
• Security roles are assigned based on what a position does.
• The number of roles a person has will vary by department.
• The roles on a position can change if needed.
• Expect tighter control of data to protect the University.
• Functional first: departments are driving which positions get which roles.

Featured Glossary Terms

Security Roles
Security roles determine who can do what actions (i.e. initiate, review, approve) on a particular task or business process. Security roles also control what data a user can view. Examples of security roles are HR Analyst, HR Partner, Recruiter, Costing Specialist, and Cost Center Manager. 

Approve
Approve is an action in a business process that designated security role holders complete to progress the event to the next step. In an approval step, you cannot modify the initiator's selections, only Approve or Send Back.

Approval Chain
An Approval Chain is a vertical sequence of approvals, starting with users in the assigned security group. The chain continues until it reaches the top or meets exit criteria. A common exit condition is requiring approval from only two workers in the approval chain.

Delegations
Delegation reassigns your business process actions to another user, allowing actions to be performed on your behalf. 

Initiate
Action to be taken to kick-off or begin a business process in Workday.

Supervisory Organization
Supervisory Organizations (Sup Orgs) group workers into a management hierarchy. Jobs, positions, and compensation structures are associated with sup orgs, and workers are hired into jobs or positions associated with a supervisory organization.