Workday Releases

Bi-Annual Release Schedule

Workday operates on a bi-annual release schedule, with updates occurring twice a year, typically in March and September. This regular cadence allows us to plan and prepare for changes in advance, ensuring that our systems remain up-to-date with the latest innovations and improvements.

Some features are automatically deployed and others are optional. Additionally, there are occasionally some features that require support from consultants to implement.

What to Expect

On this page, you will find reports that offer detailed insights into each release. These reports include:

• Release Timing: Workday will release the new code the evening of March 14 and it will be available on March 15.
• Feature Highlights: The chart below shows the count of changes being delivered on March 14

Detailed List of Items in the Release

Bi-annual release details

Workday maintains a running list of items to be released.  Some of these are released on a weekly / monthly / quarterly basis to apply patches and address urgent issues – most are left for the bi-annual release.  About 8 weeks before the date a bi-annual release is moved to production, the list of release items is approaching finalization and WES begins reviewing the list.  Workday continues to update the release items even up to just a few weeks before the release to production.

As indicated in the graph that shows the count of items, two (and sometimes three) categories of release items are presented in Workday’s release notes.

• Automatically Available – These changes are deployed on the release date.  Our role is to determine if / how they impact us and to prepare for their arrival in production.  That includes release testing and communications as needed based on the change that is coming.
• Optional – Setup required – These represent changes we should review against our current enhancement backlog and see if any of these address issues on the enhancement tracker.  We also need to review these with an eye toward the future.  If any of these have good business value, they should be added to the enhancement tracker for future implementation.  In extremely rare cases where a critical business need is addressed by an item in this category and the time is available to implement, an item in this category may be made available on or shortly after Workday moves the new code to production

Every bi-annual release requires the following activities:

• Regression testing – WES is creating a standard set of tests that will be run against every release.  The primary goal of regression testing is to prove that we can still conduct critical business functions. 
  • Critical business functions include. Payroll processing, Paying our vendors, and billing
  • Our approach for all three will be to execute key processes in both Production and The Preview Tenant and compare results
• Release testing – WES, and as we get beyond Hypercare, business unit users will review items in the release and determine what testing is required to make sure we remain fully functional once the release is pushed to production
• Communications – Again, and as we get beyond Hypercare, business unit users will review items in the release and determine what communications are necessary to prepare the user community for the upcoming changes
• Training updates – The change management team, and as we get beyond Hypercare, business unit users will review the items to see if existing training needs to be modified or if an item introduces the need for additional training materials.

Note: As mentioned above due to this being the first bi-annual release and the fact that we are still in working toward stabilization, ERP Services will be conducting the required tasks for the 2025R1 release.  The detailed list is shared with you in the same way we will do in future releases.  We are just less able to respond to questions about the items in the release under our current circumstances.