Client
Our client is a multinational asset management company that operates several different business units across the United States and around the world.
Challenge
Our client had built an approval process into their existing Workday Business Processes that required manual intervention to close approved employee requests for expense reimbursement. Given the growing volume of these approval transactions, our client needed a way to automatically close requests that met specific criteria – for example, reimbursement for fitness and wellness expenses and gifts and hospitality costs.
Solution
We architected and built a hybrid Workday and Workato solution for this workflow automation. In Workday, we developed a custom report determining which requests should be automatically closed. In Workato, we developed a recipe that triggers the actual request closure. This approach dynamically enables the addition or removal of request types and criteria to meet the evolving needs of the business. We leveraged familiar controls in Workday so that administrators could make changes in request criteria themselves without requiring developer expertise in either Workday or Workato.
This workflow automation is typically referred to as a “boomerang integration” because it pulls data out of Workday, applies business logic to the data, and then feeds results back into Workday. A boomerang integration can be a great way to create a “coprocessor” to manipulate, transform and process Workday data in a way that is difficult to do natively. We chose Workato to be the boomerang platform because its no-code approach allowed us to implement quickly and keep maintenance costs low.
Outcome
This was a great example of a lightweight workflow automation solution that saves manual effort, reduces errors, and improves overall efficiency. Boomerang integrations are a great way to eliminate manual tasks that otherwise cannot be easily accomplished within Workday itself.
