In today’s fast-paced corporate environment, organizations are always looking for creative ways to improve productivity and efficiency across teams.
A crucial component of this undertaking is workforce management, and Workday and Okta are two platforms that bring a lot of attention to effective workforce management operations.
Read on to learn more about Workday Okta integration and how our senior-level Workday consultants can benefit your organization.
What is Workday?
Workday is a cloud-based Human Capital Management (HCM) system that provides users with a single data source, an advanced data security model, and an enhanced user experience.
Workday is designed to meet ever-changing business needs and align critical operations with workforce plans for the future.
With its user-friendly interface, the global Workday HCM system ensures customers are operating on the most recent version of Workday, whether on a mobile device or web browser.
Key features of the Workday app for business users:
- Human Capital Management (HCM): Workday’s HCM module allows organizations to manage their entire workforce in one place, including onboarding, recruitment, performance assessments, and talent management operations.
- Financial Management: Workday’s Financial Management module helps organizations streamline their core financial processes, including accounting, procurement, and expense management.
- Planning: Workday Planning enables organizations to create and manage budgets, forecasts, and other financial plans in a collaborative and integrated environment.
What is the Workday Okta Integration?
With Workday and Okta integrations, organizations can streamline their core lifecycle management processes and improve business process efficiency across business units.
Okta’s pre-built connection with Workday unites critical HR and IT operations by using existing employee data and changes in Workday user accounts to inform user lifecycles across IT platforms, including Active Directory (AD), on-premise apps, and other intelligent SaaS solutions.
The Challenge?
Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) are typically the standard system of record for employee data. Still, they must share data with IT teams to assign applications and create or deactivate user accounts. IT and HR teams must find efficient and effective methods of communication as HR systems, apps, and directories move to the cloud.
Here are a few critical challenges addressed by the Workday Okta integration:
- Security gaps: With traditional HRIS platforms, companies often take multiple days to revoke user access, which puts critical company and employee data at risk.
- Inefficient procedures: Sending data by attachments, email, or file extracts can lead to errors and waste time that could be spent on more value-driven tasks.
- Employee downtime: Employees file helpdesk tickets and wait for permissions to update and get apps assigned, increasing employee downtime and reducing productivity.
The Solution
The pre-built Okta integration unifies IT and HR teams by using updates in employee data stores and the Workday system to better inform the end-to-end user lifecycle across IT systems.
Here are a few significant ways the Workday Okta integration helps business users:
- Improve data quality: Use bi-directional sync features to ensure employee attributes are up-to-date and connect IT data back to HR systems.
- Reduce security risks after employees leave: Close security gaps once an employee leaves by leveraging real-time user provisioning settings based on specific HR triggers.
- Automate user access: Leverage user attributes, such as department or title, to automatically assign IT-managed applications to new hires or employees in existing departments.
- Employee productivity: Assign user roles before the initial start date, update permissions in real-time, and allow users to keep their profiles up-to-date as business needs or requirements change.
With Workday Okta Integration, Users Can…
Connect employee profiles across systems and applications.
Dynamically update permissions when employees switch roles, departments, or geographic locations.
Quickly remove employee access to all downstream systems and applications after they’ve left the company, including Active Directory and SaaS platforms.
Automate user access by assigning applications based on an employee’s role, group, or other attributes within their Workday account.
Why Use Okta?
Here’s a closer look at a few ‘must-have’ features of the Okta solution:
- Workday-driven automated user provisioning and de-provisioning
- Automatically managed AD passwords
- Scheduled save functionality (daily, weekly, or as needed)
- Workday-driven automated creation and deactivation of AD accounts
- Access to Workday and all other apps on all devices with a single sign-on
- Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) capabilities
- Centralized user access to auditing and reporting functions across all applications and platforms
Advanced Workday Okta Integration Features
For joiners: Schedule new user onboarding in advance and plan a pre-hire interval to get ahead on account setup before each employee’s start date.
For leavers: Deactivate contractors or employees based on their last scheduled work day.
For movers: Smoothly change contractor access levels when they move to a new job title or role, like shifting from part-time to full-time, for example.
For ongoing users:
- Real-time Workday data synchronization allows users to create or remove users based on predefined criteria.
- Reformat and clean HRIS data before submitting it to downstream applications.
- Automatically sync information between Workday and IT systems, including phone numbers and emails.
Benefits of the Okta & Workday Integration
Here’s a look at some of the main benefits of the Workday Okta integration:
- Boost IT productivity by automatically granting and revoking user access to accounts and applications.
- Reduce security risks associated with “rogue accounts” during the offboarding process by automatically deactivating all access to the app.
- Give new hires instant access to apps so they can start working immediately.
- Users can increase data fidelity and accuracy by directly integrating HR and IT systems within a single user interface.
- Reduce conflict between HR and IT teams by eliminating redundant data and manual procedures.
Workday Real-Time Sync
Okta receives real-time updates for terminations and user creation events from Workday through Workday Real Time Sync (RTS) functionality. With this tool, modifications to Workday user accounts are instantly mirrored in Okta and its downstream applications.
Real-time updates from Workday to Okta are provoked by RTS, applying to adjustments where timeliness is essential, such as the instant dismissal of an employee.
To begin the real-time syncing process, a Workday business procedure must be set up to transmit the trigger to the Okta platform. The RTS import to the Okta system also includes base attributes, non-future, and future custom attributes.
RTS should be used with planned imports carried out every few days, as some less common Workday activities require scheduled imports to conduct efficient reconciliation operations.
Best Practices for the Workday Okta Integration
Let’s take a closer look at a few common best practices for integrating Workday and Okta:
Configure and set up all import types:
- Full import: This import runs frequently to harmonize all users and can be run based on timeline preferences and the total number of users.
- Incremental import: This can run as often as every hour based on the amount of required updates that can’t be provoked by RTS, like pre-hires, for example.
- RTS: This import enables users to configure core functions for all user role updates and terminations.
Configure field overrides
Configure field overrides by using the latest connector functionality for improved performance rather than configuring a custom report.
Amount of users
If there are more than 50,000 users, contact Okta support for batch imports to enable more powerful system performance.
Group rename
- Create a new group rather than renaming an existing group in the Workday system.
- Renaming a Workday Group can cause unintended consequences downstream in Okta. Create a new Workday group with the required name and add all essential users to address this issue. Once all the required information has been submitted, wait for the creation of the new group in Okta through an import or RTS job.
- Set up the newly created group in the same way as the group you wanted to rename once it has been imported into Okta. Users can delete the original group from Workday once all user memberships, group rules, and application assignments are the same for the new group. To update Okta and remove the old group, perform a full import of the critical information from the old group to the new group.
- As all rules, users, and application assignments are duplicated into the new group, access to existing applications and assignments should remain the same.
How Can We Help?
Whether you’re interested in using the Workday Okta integration to complete and improve your business procedures or need a hand beginning your Workday journey, Surety Systems can help.
Our senior-level Workday consultants have the skills and experience to guide you through a successful Workday implementation or integration project and help you optimize your technological investments in the process.
Contact Us
Are you ready to learn more about Workday Okta integrations and where our expert Workday consultants can fit in your organization?
Contact us today!
