Glossary
Workday Terms
Glossary of Workday Terms
Find key terms and definitions for using Workday at Southern Oregon University.
Acronyms
APG (Administrative Process Guide)
A step-by-step job aid without screenshots.
BP (Business Process)
A set of tasks that people initiate, act upon, and complete in order to accomplish a desired business objective.
CRR (Customer Readiness Review)
Structured process to increase customer confidence and assess go-live readiness.
E2E (End-to-End Testing)
Verifies the flow of end-to-end processes between multiple functions and third party integrations
EIB (Enterprise Interface Builder)
Integration tool that enables simple inbound and outbound integrations between Workday and external endpoints. Does not require programming.
HCM (Human Capital Management)
HR components of Workday
MTP (Move to Production)
Points in the implementation when tested functionality is added to the production tenant: MTP1 = September 2025, MTP2 = March 2026.
QRG (Quick Reference Guide)
Step-by-step job aids with related screenshots.
SME (Subject Matter Expert)
A person who has a deep understanding of a topic based upon experience and education.
SOR (System of Record)
A data management term for an information storage system that is the authoritative data source.
SOW (Statement of Work)
Legally binding document that captures and defines all project management work.
URR (User Readiness Review)
Process to determine if end-users can and are ready to use Workday.
Cross Applications
Apps: A combination of dashboards and worklets. You can take actions and view analytics and custom reports all within configured and preconfigured apps.
Approve (business process): Designated participants in a business process with a defined responsibility in this type of event to indicate that they approve the proposed action. (The business process can proceed to the next step.)
Business Object: A set of related fields, similar to how a table or spreadsheet is composed of a set of related columns. Instances of a business object in Workday are like rows in a table or spreadsheet, with each instance representing a unique occurrence of that type of object, such as an organization or worker. A business object can have no instances, one instance, or many instances. Workday automatically links related business objects together. Ex. Purchase order lines are linked to a purchase order header; the purchase order header is linked to a supplier; the supplier is linked to a company, and so on.
Business Process Definition: The set of tasks that need to be completed for an event to occur, the order in which they must be done, and who must do them. Workday includes a number of predefined business processes for different purposes. You can edit the default definitions for your organization. You can also create different versions of the same business process for different organizations.
Business Process Instance: A business process that the initiator has started. Ex. The Hire Employee for Organization X business process definition becomes an instance when the initiator uses it to hire a particular pre-hire.
Cancel (business process): An action you can take on a business process. This stops the workflow in progress and reverses any changes made to Workday data. It is also a securable action in a business process security policy. You may need further approvals to cancel a business process.
Contextual Custom Report: A custom report created to simplify the selection of data and fields by limiting choices to those related to the context of the object. You can create a custom report by selecting Reporting > Create Custom Report from Here from a Workday object’s Related Actions.
Correct (business process): An action you can take on a business process. Correcting a business process changes a specification or data in the workflow while in progress. It is also a securable action in a business process security policy.
Dashboard: Preconfigured worklets that are specific to a functional area, like Talent Management or Workforce Planning. Since these worklets are built with the Report Writer and report-specific calculated fields, you can copy and modify them if you have unique requirements. You can add additional custom worklets to these dashboards using the Report Writer. Alternatively dashboards are combined with worklets called “apps.”
Data Source: A particular set of business object instances for reporting purposes. A data source is similar to a database view, except it is more flexible in two key areas. First, a database view always returns a flattened out tabular data structure, whereas a data source can return hierarchical data structures. Second, a database view requires that technical staff manually join related tables together, while a data source automatically allows reportable access to all business objects related to those in the data source.
Delegation (business process): An action you can take in a business process if you have been assigned a task. You can request the task be delegated. Requesting a delegation change is a business process that may require approvals and may or may not be included in your organization’s configuration.
Deny (business process): An action you can take on a step within a business process. If denied, the business process can no longer proceed to the next step. In some cases, the entire business process may be terminated, and all Workday data restored to its state before the business process started. The ability to deny a business process may depend on your system permissions.
Drilldown: A feature to view more data in a matrix report. When you click on a drillable element (such as a drillable field in the table view or a column, line, or pie segment in the chart view), a context menu appears that enables you to select a new View By field. If the Enable Drilldown to Detail Data checkbox is selected on the Advanced tab of the report definition, you can also select details associated with the selected report element.
Event: A transaction that occurs within your organization, such as hiring or terminating a worker.
Field (reporting): Contains data related to a particular primary or related business object within Report Writer.
Approve (business process): Designated participants in a business process with a defined responsibility in this type of event to indicate that they approve the proposed action. (The business process can proceed to the next step.)
Filter: A clickable icon used to narrow down data. Clicking this icon will create a row on your report where you filter data to display from one or more columns.
Functional Area: Grouping of tasks, reports, and objects. Ex. The HCM solution includes functional areas such as Benefits, Talent & Performance, Absence and Manager or Employee self-service. Each of the Workday solutions (like Workday HCM and Workday Financial Management) is grouped into distinct functional areas.
Home: Your default page containing applications, search, notifications, Inbox, and your profile icon main menu.
Initiator : The user that initiates the business process instance.
Initiation Step: The first step of a business process.
Instance: One unique occurrence of a business object. Ex. Your executive management organization, or John Doe, the worker.
Matrix Report: A custom report forming the foundation for custom analytics. It summarizes data by one or two fields that contain repeating values. The resulting matrix is displayed as either a table or chart that users can drill through to see the associated details. You control the specific detail data users should see when they drill down by selecting the desired fields when defining the report. Matrix reports also provide features such as filtering, run time prompts, worklets, and report sharing.
Modify (permission): The permission to view and gain direct access to securable items through the Workday user interface. It includes view permission.
Reassign Task (business process): An action you can take on a business process where you can request for a task to be reassigned. This may require further approvals.
Related Business Object: A set of objects related to the primary business object defined in a report. These related objects might have their own set of fields that can be included in the report as well. Ex. You create a report using employee as your business object. To find the total default annual compensation defined for an employee’s position, you need to access a related business object off of employee, which would be position.
Rescind (business process): An action you can take on a business process to completely reverse all changes made to Workday data in a completed business process. A task must be successfully completed to perform this action.
Security Group: A collection of users, or a collection of objects that are related to users. Allowing a security group access to a securable item in a security policy grants access to the users associated with the security group.
Target: The object on which a business process operates. Ex. For business processes that involve a worker record, the target is the worker. For business processes that involve a financial object, such as an accounting journal, the accounting journal is the target. Since the target determines the organization, it controls which business process custom definition Workday will use.
Task: An action you must take in a business process, unless you reassign or delegate the task. Ex. Notifcations or Inbox alerts are triggered by steps in a business process.
To-Dos: Reminders to do something outside of the Workday system. They can be part of business processes, and have to be marked complete before the workflow will go to the next step.
View (business process): A feature within a business process, enabling you to see its status and report on it. This is a securable item in a business process security policy.
Application: A compact report displayed as an icon on your Home page, providing easy access to tasks and information you use on a regular basis. Ex. Applications include Pay, Personal Information, Benefits, and Expenses.
Worktag: Keywords assigned to transactions and supporting data to make their business purposes’ clear and establish common relationships through classification. You can use them to find information more easily, filter searches down to focused results, and analyze information in aggregated and summarized reporting by business dimension.
Employee Recruiting
Interviewing
Adverse Impact: A question or requirement that may result in unintended discrimination of persons along the lines of a protected trait. Ex. A question asked on a requisition may inadvertently yield “yes” answers from all men and “no” answers from all women.
Behavioral Interview: Interviews that are based on the premise that a person’s past performance on a job is the best predictor of future performance. Ex. Questions might include: “Tell me about a goal you reached and how you reached it.”
Case Interview: An interview in which the job applicant is given a question, situation, problem, or challenge and asked to resolve the situation. Ex. Questions might include: “Two members of your team staffed on the same project are constantly fighting. How would you handle this situation?”
Competency: The ability of an individual to perform a task or do a job properly.
Criminal Check: An investigation of a candidate’s criminal history to assess the candidate’s trustworthiness and morality, often conducted by third-party vendors.
Data Confirmation: Corroboration of information provided on a resume. Ex. Dates of employment, degrees earned, accomplishments, etc.
Drug Testing: A technical analysis of a candidate’s biological specimen (e.g., hair, sweat, urine) to determine the presence or absence of specified drugs. Often conducted by third-party vendors.
Panel Interview: A candidate is questioned by a team of people at the same time.
Pre-Hire: Used in staffing to identify individuals you are tracking before employment. Used in recruiting to identify candidates who are in the offer or background check stage.
Reference Check: Investigation that verifies dates of employment, title, and role; if the candidate is eligible for rehire; duties and responsibilities; etc.
Video Interview: A method of conducting a virtual interview with a candidate via video technology.
Other
Evergreen Requisition: A requisition for high-volume positions for which candidates are always needed.
Offer Letter: A job proposal to a candidate that includes such terms as the starting salary, benefits, dates, and times, etc.
Posting
Applicant Tracking System (ATS): A software application that enables the electronic handling of recruitment needs. An ATS can be implemented on a large-scale or small business level, depending on the needs of the company.
Job Posting Aggregator: Websites that match job seekers with job openings based on relevance, which is determined by their keyword searches. Ex. Indeed.com, SimplyHired.com, GlassDoor.com
Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP): An agency with the U.S. Department of Labor that enforces the contractual promise of affirmative action and equal employment opportunity (EEO) required of those who do business with the federal government.
Post: To publish a job requisition to an internal or external website.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The process of affecting the visibility of a website or web page in a search engine’s search results.
Source of Hire: The job posting or recruiting effort that resulted in a hire. This information helps an organization focus on sources that yield higher rates of hire. Ex. College recruiting, employee referral, external corporate website, etc.
Screening
Disqualification Questions: Questions to which certain answers are mandatory for job performance.
Ex. Asking an applicant if he or she is willing to travel for a traveling sales position.
Keyword Search: The most common and default type of searching by entering words or phrases relevant to your topic into the search box.
Ranking: Involves imposing relationships among a group of candidates such that for any two candidates, the first is ranked higher than, lower than, or equal to the second.
Sourcing
Candidate Funnel: The process of narrowing candidates through several different sources. Ex. Elements such as resumes, phone screens, and interviews assist in the process of narrowing down candidates until you are left with a candidate to whom you can make an offer.
Candidate Relationship Management (CRM): Organizing, automating, and synchronizing the attraction, communication, and management of talent. Ex. Maintaining communications and reaching out to those who may not be ready to submit a resume.
Passive Candidate: A qualified candidate for employment who is not necessarily looking for work but may be interested if the right job comes along.
Pipeline: A group of candidates that the company would be interested in pursuing when a job opens that fits their skillset.
Financials
Company: Usually represents a legal entity, and is the primary entity for recorded business transactions and financial reports. A Workday company equates to a single tax ID within an enterprise. A company is a type of Workday organization.
Resource: Any item you want to track, from company vehicles to software licenses and access cards. For capital resources, you can capture the acquisition cost and record depreciation based on the depletion schedule attributes. You can also track resource custodianship.
Procurement: The act of gaining goods or services from an external source. Procure-to-pay functionality within Workday includes: spend for goods, services, contingent workers, and project-based services; managing supplier contracts, requisitions, purchase and change orders, receipts, goods and services sourcing, and requests for quotes; maintaining purchase items, catalogs, supplier links, and a supplier portal; configuring requisition access to spend categories, catalogs, and supplier links; tracking and analyzing time, activity, and spend; and creating receipt accruals for approved, un-invoiced receipts.
Goods: Tracks spend for physical objects, which can be expensed, capitalized, or issued to a worker. Ex. Office supplies, IT hardware and software, etc. Purchase orders for goods will display information related to a purchase item, including item description, unit of measurement, and unit price.
Services: Services procurement tracks spending for services that are cost-based and not based on quantity. Ex. Maintenance,
warranty services.
Project-Based Services: Tracks spending for a project or task-oriented endeavor. Ex. Marketing campaign, Landscaping projec. Purchase orders for deliverable project-based services will display information related to a project including tasks and phases.
Search Catalog : A question or requirement that may result in unintended discrimination of persons along the lines of a protected trait.
Requisition: A catalog of available goods, as well as supplier catalog items. Organizations’ catalogs will vary.
Ad Hoc Requisition: Request a non-standard good not found in the catalog. If you do not know all of the details, the buyer can fill them in later when processing the requisition.
Requisition Templates: A collection of goods and services that make the requisition process simpler, faster, and more manageable. Can also control access to private, shared, and public templates.
Purchase Order: Commercial document and official offer from the buyer to seller. In Workday, you create or edit purchase orders before issuing them to suppliers. Purchase orders based on requisitions can be automatically created.
Spend Authorization: A budget of expenditures you plan to make for a future purpose. Your organization may require you to obtain preapproval for anticipated expenditures before entering actual expenses in Workday. Spend authorizations act as a cost control or expense policy compliance tool. The process of creating a spend authorization is initiated by the worker, not the manager. Managers take actions on spend authorizations after they are submitted for approval.
Expense Reports: The output of money from an individual or group to pay for an item or services. You can create your own expense reports. You can also create them on behalf of other workers when delegated, or if you have security access to the Create Expense Report for Worker task.
Fiscal Year: A year period, without regard to the calendar year, where a company or government determines their fiscal condition. Fiscal years within Workday are created only within fiscal schedules. Each year within that schedule must share the same posting intervals – what differs is the end date from one year to the next. Ex. In a 4-4-5 fiscal schedule, the end date of period 1 might be January 23 for fiscal year 2010 and January 25 for fiscal year 2011, but both years share January as period 1.
Supplier: A business entity from whom you purchase goods or services.
Supplier Request: A proposal made out to the source of goods or services that are requested. There is a supplier request business process available to those who have authorization. Once given, as the initiator, you are required to fill minimal information about the suppliers you wish to add, such as name and contact information.
Purchase Items: Goods and services that are not associated with a supplier or supplier contract. Create or edit each purchase item. They differ from supplier catalog items.
Purchase Item Groups: A way to organize goods and services not associated with a supplier or supplier contract. Purchase items can be grouped to facilitate searching, item selection, and reporting. An item might belong to more than one purchase item group. Ex. A laptop could belong to both the “office supplies” and the “laptops and desktops” purchase item groups.
You can either assign purchase items to item groups or assign a group to an item when creating the item.
Supplier Groups: A way to organize suppliers of different goods and services into one or many groups that you find useful. Groups are a way to categorize suppliers for reporting and selection. They are also available for use in account posting rules, but not recommended as they are not required, and each supplier can have multiple groups.
Spend Categories: A way to organize, track, and report on business assets. All trackable items must have a spend category. It is likely that the business asset you want to track is already associated with a spend category. Spend categories are a prerequisite for capitalizing business assets and tracking custodianship. For capitalized business assets, make sure that the spend category has a depreciation profile associated with it. A spend category is also used as a way to derive the correct ledger account to be used for the accounting journal. You can specify this in the posting rules for business assets.
HCM & Navigation
Application
Absence: Link to common actions and views related to time off, including time off correction, leave of absence, view your time off, and time off balance.
Benefits: Link to common actions and views related to benefits, including change benefits, beneficiaries, and dependents. View your benefit elections and current benefits cost.
Career: Link to common actions and views related to your career, including refer candidates and view your certifications, education, languages, job history, and awards.
Compensation: Link to common actions and views related to compensation including comparing a direct report’s pay and salary range to others on the team. Use this application to request one-time payments, stock grants, and compensation changes for your team, and to view their compensation history.
Dashboards: An application containing key management reports and actions.
Directory: Link to common actions and views related to your organization’s directory. You can view a list of your coworkers and see information about other workers in the company, including their work addresses and phone numbers. You can also view your organizational chart, your management chain, and organizations to which you belong.
Expenses: Link to common actions and views related to expenses, including creating and editing expense reports and viewing expense policies, reports, transactions, payment elections, and recent expenses.
Favorites: Link to favorite reports and tasks for easy access.
My Team: Link to common actions and views related to your team including viewing your direct reports and their employment information. Transfer, promote, or change the job of a direct report.
Pay: Link to common actions and views related to your pay. You can use this application to access withholding elections and payment elections and to view payslips, total compensation, bonus and one-time payment history, tax documents, and allowance plans.
Performance: Link to common actions and views related to performance, including viewing goals, reviews, feedback received, and skills.
Personal Information: Link to common actions and views related to your pay. You can use this application to access withholding elections and payment elections and to view payslips, total compensation, bonus and one-time payment history, tax documents, and allowance plans.
Recruiting: Link to common recruiting actions and views, and a list of recent requisitions. Depending on your role, you can find candidates, invite candidates to apply, create a job application on behalf of an individual, open your job requisitions, search for requisitions by their status, or search all requisitions by name and search for referrals.
Spend Management: Link to common actions and views related to spend management, including viewing your team’s total spending and its details and viewing team members’ expense reports.
Talent: Link to common actions and views related to talent, including managing a succession plan, assessing potential, and giving and getting feedback, and viewing a talent snapshot.
Team Time Off: Link to common actions and views related to your team’s time off, including managing your direct report’s time off requests, correcting time off requests, and placing employees on leave.
Time: Link to common actions and views related to your time, including entering your time and viewing your time off balance.
Learning: Link to courses that you can enroll in, such as learn in person or on-demand courses.
Application Header
Main Menu: The main menu displayed on the home page that displays your profile photo with a blue icon for pending notifications and a red count badge for Inbox items, and these menu options:
- View Profile – displays your worker profile.
- Home – displays the Home landing page.
- Sitemap – This allows you to view your available reports and tasks.
- Favorites – a configurable list of favorite tasks, reports, business objects, and custom and shared custom reports available to you, sorted by category (secured to the Favorites domain in the System functional area). Use the Manage Favorites task to configure this list.
- My Reports – a virtual drive where you can store generated reports (secured to the W: Drive domain in the System functional area). This is not a mapped drive on your computer.
- Documentation – links to the Workday Documentation on Workday Community, secured to the Workday Documentation Link domain in the System functional area. Not recommended for self-service users.
- Help – An example of a document your company can use to display FAQs and helpful tips for navigating your company’s Workday system.
- My Account – provides access to these account management tasks:
- Change Password
- Change Preferences
- Manage Password Challenge Questions (if enabled)
- View Sign on History
- Recovery Assistant – This allows the recovery of interim transactions that were lost due to a time-out or loss of connection.
- Sign Out
Inbox: Displays a count for your action items and takes you to your Inbox.
Notifications: Displays a count for your new notifications and takes you to your Notifications page.
Search: A field on the home page that enables you to find tasks, reports, and people within your organization. Search allows you to narrow results by categories including common, organizations, and all of Workday. Search also allows you to filter results by specified criteria. For example, if you select the Find Jobs task, you can sort results by organization, location, worker type, etc.
Workday Logo: Displays your Home page. This icon can also be used to navigate back to your home page.
HCM Terminology
Benefit Event: An event that gives you the opportunity to change your benefit elections. These include staffing changes (such as getting hired or promoted) and life events (such as getting married or having a child).
Business Process: A business process in Workday includes tasks that you can initiate, act on, and complete in order to accomplish a desired business objective. Business processes are created using a combination of actions, approvals, approval chains, To Dos, or checklists. An action can be a single task or subprocess, which is also a combination of actions, to dos, or checklists. Within the process, conditions can be defined to identify whether a step will be initiated. Notifications can also be created to let a Workday user know that a step has begun or been completed, or that a particular review response was selected.
Examples of business processes include Hire, Change Job, Request Compensation Change, Terminate Employee, etc.
Contingent Worker: A worker who is not an employee. You can use contingent worker types, such as contractor or consultant, to categorize and track contingent workers in your organization.
Full Time Equivalent (FTE) %: The ratio of a worker’s scheduled weekly hours to the weekly hours for the business site. If a worker works 20 hours a week, and the business site weekly hours are 40, then the worker’s FTE is 50 percent.
Functional Area: A collection of domain or business process security policies that are related to the same set of product features, for example, benefits or compensation.
I-9: An employment eligibility verification. A document all workers must complete to verify the identity and employment authorization of each employee.
Life Event: A benefit event that occurs in your personal life, such as getting married or having a child.
Open Enrollment Event: A type of enrollment event. This event controls the benefits open enrollment process. Unlike benefit event enrollment, which is triggered by a life event or job change, an open enrollment event applies to an entire employee population.
Performance Review Process: A process where you receive formal feedback on your performance during a given period of time. This process includes a performance evaluation.
Pre-Hire: In staffing, an individual you are tracking before employment. In recruiting, a candidate who is in the offer or background check stage.
Staffing Event: Any event that changes your position or job, such as a hire, transfer, or promotion. Staffing events usually trigger an opportunity to edit or modify benefit elections.
Supervisory Organization: Supervisory organizations group workers into a management hierarchy and are the primary organization type in Workday HCM. All workers are hired into supervisory organizations. Organization assignments such as company, cost center, and region can be configured for supervisory organizations, and unique business processes can be configured for them as well.
Talent Reviews: A process in Workday that enables you to gather, evaluate, and report on a range of employee talent information such as skills and experience, performance and potential, career interests, and mobility preferences. The configuration of the talent review template, the Talent Review business process, and your security determine which actions employees and managers take during a talent review.
W-4: Your withholding allowance certificate. This will inform an employer how much income tax to withhold from your paycheck.
Worker: An employee or a contingent worker.
Task Page Icons
Actions and View : Buttons for commonly grouped tasks and reports. Accessed through worklets.
Add Button: A clickable button that lets you add additional information to any task.
Add Row Icon: A clickable icon to add a row to the current grid.
Alert Message: Soft warning message that alerts you about system limitations based on configuration. This message enables you to continue your work without resolving the issue.
Arrow: A clickable icon that opens the page to additional areas that can be edited. Also referred to as the More icon.
Attachments Icon: A clickable icon that lets you attach .pdf files, Word, and Excel documents to a task.
Back Button: A clickable button that returns you to the previous page.
Calendar: A clickable icon that opens a calendar to select a date.
Cancel Button: A button that disregards a change.
Change Payslip Printing Election Button: A clickable button from the Pay application, where you can change your payslip printing election.
Chart: A clickable icon used to view a report as a chart.
Comments Icon: A clickable icon you can use to leave comments for yourself or other users for a particular page or task.
Configure Worklets: A clickable icon on the home page where you can configure the worklets that appear on your home page. Depending on your organization’s configuration, some worklets may be required, while others are optional. This icon can also be used as a Settings icon.
Continue Button: A clickable button that advances you to the next page or the next step in your task’s process.
Delete Row:A clickable icon that removes the current row from a grid.
Details: A clickable icon that opens additional information relating to your task.
Done Button: A button that closes a confirmation screen.
Edit Button: A clickable button from the Payment Elections in the Pay application that you can use to change your account information.
Edit Icon: A clickable icon that enables the user to add and remove information on the page.
Error Message: Hard warning message that alerts you when there is a critical error. An error must be corrected to move forward in a process or to enable your configuration.
Excel : A clickable icon used to view a page as an Excel file. This can be restricted using the domain Export to PDF and Excel.
Filter: A clickable icon used to narrow down data. Clicking this icon will create a row on your report where you can filter data to display from one or more columns.
Go to Guided Editor: Walks you through the fields and sections of a task to assist you in completing it.
Guide Me Button: Guides you through the fields and sections of a task toward completion.
Location, Phone, Email Icons:Located in the Worker Profiles. Location is location of the worker, email is the email address of the worker, and phone is the phone number the worker has on file.
More Button: A button that displays several additional choices based on the business process.
My Account Preferences: Account information located in your main menu. Allows you to alter certain account information such as changing your password, changing your preferences, and managing your password questions.
Next Button: A clickable button that advances you to the next page or the next step in your task’s process.
More Button: A button that displays several additional choices based on the business process.
OK Button:A clickable button to accept and save your changes.
Open Button: A clickable button to open the desired task.
Progress Bar: The bar tracks your progress working through a task. It also allows you to move forward or return to a previous page within the task.
Prompt: A clickable icon that presents a list of options for a specific field.
Related Actions: A clickable icon that enables the user to perform additional actions for an object. Possible actions include viewing your current benefit elections, editing your contact information, and requesting time off.
Remove Button: A clickable icon that deletes an area.
Request Absence Button: A clickable button to request absence from the Request Absence worklet.
Required Field Indicator: A field with a red asterisk indicates you must enter a value for this field before saving or submitting the page.
Save Button: A clickable button to save the item you are working on.
Save for Later Button: A button that saves the item in your Inbox until action is taken.
Sign Out Button: A clickable button to sign out of the Workday system.
Submit Button: A clickable button to accept and submit your changes, while advancing the business process to the next step.
Tag: A clickable icon to insert a CRF into notications, emails, and other communications.
View Printable Version PDF: A clickable icon used to view a page as a printable PDF file. This can be restricted using the domain, Export to PDF and Excel.
View Team:A clickable icon that links directly to an organized chart of your team and organization. Can be accessed from the Worker Profile.
Payroll
Additional Payment: An off-cycle payment made in addition to a worker’s scheduled on-cycle payment. You can process additional payments as part of a manual payment or on-demand payment.
Balance Period: The period of time, such as current period, month-to-date, quarter-to-quarter, or year-to-date, over which Workday calculates a pay component value.
Compensation Element: Smallest unit of compensation for a worker in a specific position. Workday uses compensation elements to determine the amount, currency, frequency, and other attributes of a worker’s compensation.
Ex. Base salary, bonus, benefits, commissions, allowances, etc.
Direct Deposit: A payment election. You can choose direct deposit as a payment type. If this is elected, any payment from the company will go directly to the bank account specified. You can set up your direct deposit to include several accounts and specify the percentage of payment that you would like to go into each account.
Manual Payment: An off-cycle calculation that records check or cash payments made outside Workday Payroll.
Off Cycle: A payment, such as a manual payment or on-demand payment, made outside the regularly scheduled payroll run. Reversals and history payments are also classified as off cycle. Off-cycle manual and on-demand payments enable you to issue additional or replacement payments.
On Cycle: A scheduled payroll run.
On-Demand Payment: An off-cycle payment that replaces, or is issued in addition to, a worker’s on-cycle pay.
Pay Component: An earning (such as base salary or bonus) or deduction (such as federal withholding taxes or medical) that applies to a worker’s gross-to-net pay calculation or tax liability.
Pay Component Group: A collection or combination of related earnings, deductions, or pay component-related calculations that are combined to simplify payroll calculations.
Ex. Employer-Paid Benefits, Pre-Tax Deductions, and Federal Taxable Wages.
Pay Group: A group of workers defined to have their pay calculated and processed together.
Pay Rate Type: Type of worker pay, such as a paid salary or a certain amount per unit of time.
Ex. Hourly or weekly.
Payment Elections: Designates the payment type (check or direct deposit), account information for direct deposits, payment order, and the distribution of balance for split payments. Controlled for each type of pay that you receive, such as regular payments and bonus payments.
Payslip: An online or printed summary of your gross-to-net earnings. Also referred to as a pay stub. Payslips can be found in the Pay application.
Period Schedule: When and how often to process payroll. Defines payment dates and forward accruals, using a Period Start Date, Period End Date, and Payroll Payment Date.
Proration: Creates subperiods when there is a mid-period change in the worker’s compensation. It can be based on calendar days or days worked (work shift).
Replacement Payment: An off-cycle payment that replaces a worker’s on-cycle payment in a period that is in progress or not yet started.
Subject Wages: All of your wages subject to a particular tax, including wages for exempt positions and those that exceed a wage cap.
Taxable Wages: All of your wages subject to a particular tax, excluding wages for exempt positions and those that exceed a wage cap.
Timesheets: Record work hours for submission, approval, and eventual payment through payroll, if enabled. (Often this is enabled via the Time Tracking application instead of Payroll.)
Withholding Elections: Income tax withheld from your salary based on a set of criteria. Includes federal, state, local elections, and tax allocations. From the Pay application, view withholding information on the State Elections tab to view or modify your federal elections.
Worker Eligibility: The conditions you must meet to be eligible to receive a particular earning or deduction.
Worker Tax Elections: Your marital status, number of elections, exemption status, and other information required for tax collections.
Time Tracking
Auto-fill: A time-entry method that copies time blocks from a worker’s schedule, or from a previous week into the current week on the time entry calendar.
Micro-edit: The ability to edit existing time blocks or add time blocks directly to a day by double-clicking on the time entry calendar.
Quick Add: A time-entry method that enables you to create a time block and copy it to multiple days in a week.
Time Entry Calendar: A set of self-service pages that you use to enter, edit, and view time.
Time Entry Validation: Errors or warnings that prevent you from entering invalid time. Critical validations prevent you from submitting time. Warnings appear on the time entry calendar, but do not prevent you from submitting time.
Time Off: Reported time that is not worked. Common types of time off include sick leave, jury duty, and vacation.
Time Type: The time you enter in your time entry calendar. Select the time type from a list of time off plans available to you such as family leave, vacation, etc.
Student Admissions
Academic Level: The level of an educational objective that students can pursue, such as associate, undergraduate, graduate, or professional. When you configure an academic curricular division, you specify what each academic level can do in Workday.
Academic Period: A period of time with a defined start date and end date (such as a semester, quarter, or other fixed period) that you can select to identify a prospective student’s anticipated start date.
Academic Person: A student prospect, applicant, or other person in Workday Student who falls within the range of prospect to alumnus.
Academic Unit: The primary organizational structure in Workday. An academic unit admits students and offers programs of study or courses. Academic process flows, permissions, and reporting are often structured by academic unit.
Anticipated Start: A start date for student prospects to begin their enrollment. It can be an academic period, such as Fall 2026, or a dynamic date, like September 21, 2026.
Conversation Tag: A descriptor, such as dietary restrictions or special needs, that can be assigned to an engagement conversation to identify its subject. Search for conversations by conversation tag.
Conversation Topic: A conversation tag or recruiting event name that you can associate with an engagement conversation to make conversations easier to find.
Engagement Conversation: A documented conversation between a student and a representative of your institution. You can search for conversations by topic and see the history of conversations with a student on the Engagement tab of their profile.
Engagement Email: An email that you can include in engagement plans.
Engagement Plan: A communication plan to send email to students who meet specific criteria.
Fixed Period: An academic period (quarter) that has fixed start and end dates.
Match and Merge: The process that identifies duplicate students when adding or updating applicant information in Workday. This process merges individuals that are an exact match and flags those that are very similar as suggested matches. You can review and reconcile suggested matches.
Program of Study: An educational objective, such as a history major, for which students can achieve a degree at your institution. Each program of study is specific to a level of an academic curricular division.
Program of Study Type: A classification, such as major, minor, or noncredit, that you associate with a program of study to control the configuration options available to it. You can configure a program of study type to stand alone, grant credentials, or have concentrations.
Student Tags: Attributes, such as veteran, athlete, or scholarship recipient, that can be assigned to applicants and serve as criteria for associating engagement plans.
Workday Student
See also this crosswalk showing the corresponding Banner terms.
Academic Calendar: The official calendar of the institution that lists key academic and administrative dates, including deadlines.
Academic Leave: An interruption of studies for one or more time periods with definite plans to return. Note: The U.S. Department of Education’s meaning of “leave of absence” has specific parameters that are not usually met by many traditional programs or institutions.
Academic Standing: The state of a student’s progress toward graduation.
Academic Status: The state of a student’s academic performance, which may result in temporary or permanent separation from the institution for example academic probation, suspension, dismissal (negative) or dean’s list (positive).
Academic Year: A period of time schools use to measure a quantity of study.
Accepts/Admits: Students who have been accepted into the institution.
Applicants: Students who have submitted an application to the institution.
Applicants (Completed): Students who have submitted all necessary credentials in support of their application.
Articulation Agreement: An official agreement between a community college and a four-year institution that designates the transferability of specific courses or degrees.
Audit: Signifies the course has not been taken for credit. Tuition and fees are sometimes charged (but may be a lower rate than for credit), but the student is not evaluated nor does the student receive a grade.
Award Letter: A letter that details federal, state, institutional, and private student financial aid.
Award Year: The school year for which financial aid is used to fund a student’s education.
Class Level: Freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior. The level is usually determined by the number of credits completed, not by the number of years in attendance.
Cost of Attendance (COA): The total cost to attend school for the academic year.
Course Transcripts: The transcript is a chronological order of a student’s academic history. It contains courses taken at other institutions, as well as current academic history at their home institution. Also included are any placement exams taken and passed. The transcript academics are split by terms, and each term, in two sections. The top section contains courses taken or currently enrolled. The bottom section contains the current and cumulative hours or points and GPA.
Curriculum: An organized program of study offered at an institution.
Direct Loan Program: Student loans provided by the U.S. Department of Education to enable a student to pay for education after high school. Eligible students borrow directly from the U.S. Department of Education at participating schools.
Disbursement: Payment of funds to the borrower by the school. Can be scheduled or anticipated and actual (when funds are paid out).
Dual Enrollment: A program through which high school students may enroll in college courses while still enrolled in high school. Students are not required to apply for admission to the college in order to participate.
Earned Hours/Units: The total number of earned hours that count toward the student’s career.
ED: U.S. Department of Education
Eligible Program: A program of organized instruction or study of a certain length that leads to an academic, professional, or vocational degree or certificate, or other recognized education credential.
Endorser: Someone who does not have an adverse credit history and agrees to repay the loan if the borrower does not repay it.
FAFSA: Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The FAFSA is a form that must be completed annually to help determine eligibility for federal student aid.
Federal Work Study (FWS): A part-time work program awarding on or off-campus jobs to students who demonstrate financial need. FWS positions are primarily funded by the government, but are also partially funded by the institution. FWS is awarded to eligible students by the college as part of the student’s financial aid package. The maximum FWS award is based on the student’s financial need, the number of hours the student is able to work, and the amount of FWS funding available at the institution. This is a type of Title IV aid but is not considered grant aid to students.
Financial Aid Package: The types and amounts of financial aid (federal and non-federal) a student is offered by the school to help pay educational costs.
Financial Need: The difference between the cost of attendance (COA) at a school and a student’s expected family contribution (EFC). While COA varies from school to school, the student’s federal EFC does not change based on the school they attend.
First-time Freshman: A student who has not previously enrolled in an institution of higher education, but who may have earned some college units prior to matriculation.
FTE (of students): The full-time equivalent (FTE) of students is a single value providing a meaningful combination of full-time and part-time students.
GED (General Educational Development): Refers to the tests of General Educational Development (GED), which provide an opportunity to earn a high school credential.
Grade Type: The type of grading method selected by the student for a course. Grade type is required for enrollment in the course or assigned by the registrar’s office staff to handle special grading considerations, e.g. pass/fail, audit, graded.
Grants: Monetary gifts to people who are pursuing higher education. Unlike student loans, grants do not require repayment.
Incomplete: A grade given to students whose work in a course has been qualitatively satisfactory but who, due to illness or other circumstances, are unable to complete the course requirements. The student makes a contract with the instructor, specifying the work to be completed, which must be completed before a regular grade can be assigned. Usually, the work must be completed prior to the end of the subsequent semester.
Inquiries: Students who have expressed interest in the institution.
Leave of Absence: See Academic Leave
Lender: The organization that made the loan initially; the lender could be the borrower’s school, a bank, credit union, other lending institutions, or the U.S. Department of Education.
Lifetime Eligibility Used (LEU): The amount of all federal pell grant aid (in percentage) awarded to a student divided by the amount of pell grant aid the student would have been eligible to receive based on full-time enrollment. The amount of federal pell grant funds a student may receive over his or her lifetime is limited by federal law to be the equivalent of six years of pell grant funding.
Loan: Money that a student borrows and must repay with interest.
Loan Fee (Origination Fee): A fee charged for each federal student loan that is a percentage of the total loan amount borrowed (gross amount). The loan fee is deducted proportionally from each disbursement of the loan. This reduces the actual loan amount received (net amount). Students are required to repay the gross amount.
Loan Period: The portion of the academic year for which the loan is requested.
Master Promissory Note (MPN): A legal document that is a promise to repay a federal student loan or loans and any accrued interest and fees to the lender or loan holder. There is one MPN for direct subsidized or unsubsidized loans and a different MPN for direct PLUS loans.
Matriculants: Students who have begun their academic career at the institution and are eligible to enroll.
Merit-based: Based on a student’s skill or ability, for example a merit-based scholarship might be awarded based on a student’s high grades.
Need: The cost of attendance minus the student’s expected family contribution.
Net Price: An estimate of the actual cost that a student and the student’s family need to pay in a given year to cover education expenses for the student to attend a particular school. Net price is determined by taking the institution’s cost of attendance and subtracting any grants and scholarships for which the student may be eligible.
NSLDS (National Student Loan Data System): The central database for student aid. The NSLDS receives data from schools, guaranty agencies, the direct loan program, and other federal student aid programs.
Official Grade: The grade assigned to the student for a course.
Origination Fee: See Loan Fee
Payment Plan: Payment method designed to assist those students and their families who may find it difficult to pay the total semester bill by the due dates. Can be administered by the institution or an outside company and allows families to divide charges into monthly payments without penalty and/or interest.
Perkins Loan: A loan made under the federal Perkins Loan program for students with exceptional financial need. Perkins Loans are administered by the school.
PLUS Loan: Loans for eligible graduate or professional students and eligible parents of dependent undergraduate students to help pay for the cost of the student’s education at participating schools.
Post Baccalaureate Teacher Certification Program: A program for students who have already earned a bachelor’s degree that (1) does not lead to a graduate degree, (2) is treated as an undergraduate program, and (3) consists of courses required by a state in order for the student to receive a certification or license to teach in an elementary or secondary school in that state.
Prerequisite: A requirement that must be completed prior to enrollment in a particular class. This can be a placement test score or a course, for example Accounting 101 must be taken prior to Accounting 102.
Propriety School: A private, for-profit school that provides education and training.
Prospects: Students who have not yet expressed interest in the institution, such as students whose names and addresses were purchased from a list vendor.
Provost: The chief academic officer of an institution.
Quality Hours/Units: The student’s total number of quality hours earned toward a career. Quality hours are registered hours that are divided into quality points to determine a student’s GPA.
Quality Points: The student’s total number of grade points. These are divided by quality hours to determine a student’s GPA.
Registered Hours: The number of credits a student will receive upon successful completion of a course.
Remedial Coursework: Coursework to prepare a student for study at the post-secondary level (as opposed to preparatory coursework which prepares a student for a given program). A student enrolled solely in a remedial program is not considered to be in an eligible program. The student may count up to one academic year’s worth of these courses in his enrollment status for federal aid. For the purpose of this limit, that is 30 semester or trimester hours, 45 quarter hours, or 900 clock hours.
Satisfactory Academic Progress: A school’s standards for satisfactory academic progress toward a degree or certificate offered by that institution. Check with your (student and staff) school to find out its standards.
Scheduled Award: The maximum grant amount a student is eligible to receive for the award year if they are enrolled full-time for the full school year. This amount is calculated from the information the student and their family provided when filing a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Stealth Applicants: Students who made their first contact by submitting an application without inquiring beforehand; often categorized dually as applicants and inquiries.
Student Aid Report (SAR): A summary of the information submitted on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) that provides students with their expected family contribution (EFC).
Student’s Career: The academic career to which the cumulative statistics apply. Categories are undergraduate, graduate, or professional.
Subsidized Loan: A federal student loan for which (in some cases) a borrower is not responsible for paying the interest while in an in-school, grace, or deferment period.
Transfer Credit: Credit taken at collegiate institution that is transferable to another institution.
Transfer Hours: The student’s total number of transfer hours associated with a career.
Unofficial Transcripts: A report that includes the same course and grade information as the official transcripts. However, these reports are not considered official because they do not have the official university seal imprinted on them and are not suitable for transfer purposes. Unofficial transcripts are used primarily for student reference.
Unsubsidized Loan: A federal student loan for which the borrower is fully responsible for paying the interest, regardless of the loan status.
Verification: The process a student’s school uses to confirm that the data reported on a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is accurate. The student’s school has the authority to contact their students for documentation that supports income and other information that the students reported.
SOU Information Technology
Southern Oregon University IT Department
1250 Siskiyou Blvd.
Ashland, OR 97520
Phone: 541.552.6971
Email: cisr@sou.edu
