Yesterday’s webinar focused on Workday integration with the rest of the enterprise and the need for an elastic integration platform as a service (iPaaS). We’ve highlighted some key details and a portion of the Q&A discussion from the Workday Taleo integration webinar below, and you can also check out the recording here. Before jumping into a SnapLogic cloud integration demonstration, the team touched on the topics of Human Capital Management (HCM) as it moves to the cloud, exploring integration options specific to Workday and some questions around integration’s role in driving adoption and customer success.
Perhaps most important to note is that Cloud HCM is becoming an unstoppable trend, worth the risk and making HR better in many ways. A 2014 Cloud HR technology survey from Human Capital Media Advisory Group asked what kind of Cloud HR software companies currently use, plan to purchase in the next year and plan to purchase in the next three years. Workforce management (Workday, for example) was the most currently used type of Cloud HR software, and the interest in making systems “mobile-friendly” was listed highest as software that companies plan to purchase in the next three years. When asked about an organization’s motivations for exploring cloud-based software services, the top five mentioned were accessibility, cost savings, mobility, productivity and scalability.
All of this means that HR departments are moving along with the adoption of SMACT (social, mobile, analytics and big data, cloud computing and the Internet of Things) like the rest of the enterprise and will need to adapt as they adopt new applications and tools to help these departments run. Integration therefore will be critical to Cloud HCM adoption and success, contributing to some or all of the following:
- Migrating data from legacy HR systems to the cloud
- Optimizing recruitment and employee engagement programs
- Automating employee on-boarding
- Attracting and retaining employees through multi-source talent management and analytics
- Synchronizing employee information across front and back-office apps
- Connecting candidate sourcing and screen applications via Web Services, FTP
- Modernizing employee compensation
- Expanding from HR to Finance
The webinar also featured a Q&A session with John Sandhu, who has over 10 years of integration experience working with Workday, SAP and other enterprise applications. Some key questions and answers below:
In your experience, whe
re do Workday customers typically start?
I typically see 3 common scenarios:
- Migrating from on-premises HCM applications like PeopleSoft, which requires the new Cloud HCM solution to adapt to existing processes.
- Consolidating disparate HR applications into the new HCM platform.
- Adopting an HCM platform for the first time, which requires new processes and the greatest amount of change management both from the business and technology perspective.
Depending on which scenario applies, this will help determine if you take a modular, scale-in approach to the Workday implementation or whether it’s more of a “big-bang” deployment.
What are the most common initial integrations / use cases?
Of course, this depends on many factors including company size, industry and file-based integration requirements, but some of the common HCM integrations are (with examples):
- Benefits Providers (Aetna, Kaiser, Blue Cross)
- Payroll (ADP)
- Application Tracking Systems (Taleo)
- Learning Management Systems (Cornerstone)
- Custom applications and processes (probably the most common use case!)
How important is integration to Workday adoption / success?
Time and time again, integration has been recognized as the essential ingredient to SaaS application adoption and success. You don’t want to end up with a disconnected SaaS silo that fails to deliver end-users with all of the information they’re going to need to do their jobs. You need to be able to orchestrate an end-to-end business process, such as new employee on-boarding, which requires connecting with multiple systems, often in real time. Your integration platform must be flexible, not brittle and realistic, not rigid.
If you weren’t able to catch the live Workday Taleo integration webinar yesterday, the recording can be found here as well as some additional resources below:
- Presentation slides: Integrating Workday with the Rest of the Enterprise
- An overview: Workday integration
- Whitepaper: 5 Ways to Revolutionize HR Onboarding with Elastic Integration
