Frequently Asked Questions

All Faculty, Staff, and Students will use Workday in some capacity. Individual use will be variable based on roles and responsibilities. Workday is more secure, more intuitive, and some processes have been streamlined. Here are some of the actions you will be able to perform in Workday:

• View and update personal employee data including compensation and benefit elections
• Update payroll and accounts payable bank information in one place
• Manage absences from work including time off for vacation, sabbatical, or FMLA
• Submit time in/time out for daily work
• Submit and approve expense reports
• Manage procurement and supplier requests
• Manage new hire process from recruiting to onboarding
• Document and manage goal-setting, mid-term reviews, and performance reviews
• Complete training and enroll in professional development courses
• Optional use of the mobile app to manage business tasks while you are traveling or away from campus

We are currently on track to make Workday available for Time Tracking on December 18, 2022 with expanded functionality on January 2, 2023 when we return to campus for Winter Term. We will continue to add and enhance functionality during 2023. Our Workday Training site provides a wide variety of training materials and registration is now open. We will continue to keep users informed about progress through regular updates on the SEAMS website.

No — Workday uses Single Sign-On, so your Carleton NetID and password are used to provide access.

Staff and faculty will have opportunities to participate in training and view recorded demos beginning in late Fall 2022. Supportive training material, including Quick Reference Guides, will also be available. Further training will be made available in November 2022 and will continue through winter 2022. Visit the Training page on the SEAMS website which will be the primary repository of training materials until we go live in January 2023.

Workday information is secure and private. Access to data is based upon Workday roles assigned in the system. For example, hiring managers are able to manage recruiting and hiring tasks inside Workday.

Workday functionality includes a personal inbox where notifications are received. Workday will notify users through an email that they have a pending task to complete in Workday. Users will need to log into Workday to complete daily tasks.

If you know the office that provides service for the functionality that you are wondering about, you can contact them directly. For example, if you have a question about payroll dates you can contact the Payroll Office. If you are not sure who to contact or if you are experiencing technical issues, please contact the ITS Helpdesk at x5999.

Workday has the capacity to gather and route information via an integrated workflow engine. This will give us the opportunity to automate processes and eliminate the need to fill out paper forms. We will have some processes automated at our initial rollout in January 2023 and will work towards further automation in years to come.

We were not able to migrate account access from our legacy system into Workday. We have done our best, but modifications may be necessary. Please submit a Help Desk Ticket with the Title Workday Security. Our security team will review your request and provide additional instruction.

Security configurations are different in Workday than they were in our legacy system. Please submit your inquiry to the ITS Helpdesk with the subject Workday:  Security. The Security team will review your access and confirm next steps.

Please see this blog post for details about how to manage email notifications sent to your inbox from Workday.

Examples of this may include reporting past sick leave, leaving suddenly for sick leave on a particular day, and supervisor being on vacation when time off is requested. The system will allow exempt employees to request the time off after the fact. Additionally, employees can edit their submitted requests.

Employees should record their actual start and stop times.

Operating budgets, Gifts and Grants are in separate reports in Workday, which allows us to give users better information about each different type of fund. Please see the Quick Reference Guides for each area to access the reports and directions.

Workday will have detailed data for the current fiscal year (FY23), and summarized data for prior years (FY22, FY21, FY20). You can still access detailed data for prior years in the Hub.

Workday uses words and names, instead of numbers. Please use these resources (Video and Quick Reference Guide) to learn more about worktags and finance fundamentals in Workday.

Typically:

• Operating budgets use Cost Centers and Programs
• Restricted accounts use Gifts or Grants
• Faculty professional development accounts (FDA) are listed by faculty name.

Please see the Quick Reference Guides for each area to access the reports and directions. We also prepared a Colleague to Workday Crosswalk which is available on the Business Office References page.

Please direct transaction inquiries to the appropriate office: 

• Payroll: payroll@carleton.edu
• Accounts Payable: accountspayable@carleton.edu
• Purchasing Cards: Nick Sahli nsahli@carleton.edu
• Journal Entries: Karl Symons ksymons@carleton.edu

Jane Rizzo jrizzo@carleton.edu and Kris Sharp ksharp@carleton.edu will assist with budget inquiries

There are daily drop-in sessions scheduled at the Business Office between 11:00–1:00 and Zoom drop-in sessions during the same period. Stop in with your questions or contact Linda Thornton lthornto@carleton.edu to schedule an individual appointment.

Worktag requests should be submitted as a Help Desk Ticket with the title “Workday Account.” The Budget and Business Office will evaluate these requests on a regular basis. We will not make changes until we have more experience with Workday Reporting. Please use a reasonable alternative from the select lists provided, and capture additional information you might need for reference in the memo fields available.

Yes — you can find a guide to Workday Worktags on the Training area of this website (see the Finance pages).

Extract Reports were created for Carleton to more easily see all accounts associated with a particular Worktag. 

No — some are Cost Centers and some are Programs

Yes

The new vendor/new supplier request process has not moved to Workday. Please initiate the W-9 Request Form the Business Office Forms website Purchasing & Accounts Payable Forms to establish a new vendor/supplier.

Workday comes with a feature called Delegation which lets you assign specific tasks to another person for a specific time range. This is very helpful in particular instances such as during vacations and other outages. See our Delegations Overview guide to learn more. 

Workday provides many different types of delegation opportunities. We will have seven delegation opportunities at our initial rollout in January 2023. They are: 

• Spend authorizations
• Expense reports
• Requisitions
• Receipts
• Supplier invoice requests
• Request one-time payment
• Time entry approvals

Please see the delegation guide for more information on these seven delegations.

We have a guide to Managing your Workday Delegations. Please note that most delegations route to your supervisor for approval.

Workday is designed to be self service and the features and functionality associated with your roles and responsibilities were configured with that in mind. We encourage you to learn how to use the features and functionality of Workday before configuring Delegations.

Financial Analysts will have the ability to view account balances and initiate activity for their accounts.  Cost Center Manager/Gift Managers and Grant Managers are responsible for review and approval of transactions. Federal Compliance requires Principal Investigator (Grant Manager) approval of all financial transactions.

Expense reports are created and managed in Workday. An employee creates an expense report, indicates the business purpose/description, and attaches a photo of the receipt. The expense report is sent electronically to the department cost center manager for approval. Training will be provided to help the campus community develop a familiarity with this process in Workday.

If you are eligible for a Professional Development Account (PDA), then your PDA is one component of your Workday Faculty Development Account (FDA). Your FDA will also include any start-up awards and large or small Provost Grants you might have. The PDA portion of your balance will automatically carry forward each fiscal year, but large balances may require additional review. The Provost Office has visibility into and oversight over all FDA accounts.

FDA accounts are not eligible for Compensation and rarely used for Student Employment. Including these defaults in your budget review will ensure that in the unlikely event that there is an error, it is identified in a timely manner.

It will take some time for our FDA activity to transition to Workday. We will load December activity as soon as the month is closed in late January. Faculty Development Available Balances will be current in Workday by February 15, 2023. We will send a message to all FDA Managers to confirm.

Enter your Name in Workday Search. Your FDA Report will be available in Reports. Please note: Available balances will not be current until February 15, 2023. Please spend with caution prior to that date to avoid overspending. Activity through December will be available in The Hub Budget Manager Reports.

Our payroll schedules remain the same. Supervisors will be expected to complete review and approval of time entry by 3:00pm on Monday.

Enrollment periods will remain the same and open enrollment this fall will continue in our current system. Starting in January 2023, employees will be able to view their benefits through Workday and see their entire compensation and benefits package. Once the system is fully configured, employees will be able to select and manage their benefits in Workday.

All non-exempt and exempt employees can view their available time balances and log their time off in Workday. Managers can deny or approve employee requests for time off in Workday, and will have a full calendar view of their team’s planned time away from the office.

Your current banking information will be transferred into Workday. You will be able to easily review or update your current direct deposit using the “Update Payment Elections” once Workday is live.

Your paystub will become a payslip in Workday. The payslip will look different, but all the information will remain the same, including the federal tax codes.

You can change your bank account information by selecting the ‘Pay’ (wallet icon) from the universal menu and selecting ‘Payment Elections’ under ‘Actions’. You can also type ‘Maintain Payment Elections’ in the Workday search bar and enter your name. Students may elect to split their student payroll elections between their student account and a personal bank account. 

Workday will allow employees to enter time for a previous pay period for up to 30 days following each pay period. These changes cannot be entered during payroll processing. Time that has not been entered within 30 days will require manual adjustment. Contact payroll@carleton.edu for additional support.

Timely approval is a critical supervisor responsibility and advance planning to avoid missing this deadline is appropriate. If you know in advance you will not be available to approve time you may Delegate Time Entry Approval to another individual who can act on your behalf. Delegation does not remove your responsibility for accurate and timely management of Team Time. 

The Payroll Specialist will monitor the approval process and attempt to contact you with additional support. Monitoring reports will document payroll processed without supervisor approvals for remedial attention. 

Identify an individual who can serve as your Delegate. Enter My Delegations in the Workday Search bar, then select Manage Delegations. Enter a Begin Date/End Date and enter the name of the person who will serve as your Delegate. You may also enter an Alternate Delegate under Do Inbox Tasks On My Behalf (select your Business Process and choose Enter Time from the select list).  Delegations must be approved by your supervisor.

Employees can request time off up to a year in advance (timing may vary based on where we are in the fiscal year). Individuals can request a change to leaves submitted if there has been a change or they were unable to take the time off.

Starting in early January, exempt employees will manage all leaves in Workday. There are some fairly significant procedure and policy changes related to exempt leave reporting. 

• In lieu of reporting leave used at the end of the month, employees will request planned leaves in advance. As a result, teams will have a shared leave calendar to help with planning and staffing coverage. 
• Exempt employees will request leave in increments of one hour, which should allow more flexibility in scheduling. 
• Accruals will also transition from days to hours, but the overall rate of accrual will remain the same. 
• Please see these training materials for more details: Time off and leaves (video); Time off and leaves (pdf)

Yes, employees can view and update their personal information in Workday at any time, including preferred name, phone numbers, address, emergency contacts, and bank account information.

Students, including student employees, have the ability to update personal information in Workday. Some of this information is authoritative to Workday and other information is still authoritative in Hub/Colleague until Carleton has moved completely to Workday. For example, name, phone number, address, and other bio/demo data are authoritative in Hub/Colleague.

While students can technically update this information in Workday, it will get overwritten each night by an integration between the systems.

The only demographic information students should complete in Workday should be documentation for their student employment position and bank account information. The Hub will continue to be our official record for all other Student demographic information, with updates integrated into Workday on a daily basis until our Workday Student implementation is complete in 2024. All other student demographic information entered in Workday will be overwritten. If you have questions about where to update your demographic information, please contact the Registrar’s Office.

You can access your bank account information in several ways. From your Profile, select ‘Pay’ from your menu. Then, click the ‘Payment Elections Tab’ at the top of the Screen. This will allow you to Add/Edit/Remove/View you bank information and payment elections for expense reimbursement. 

View a short video that discusses the differences between the Old Hub, New Hub, and Workday.

Workday suggests that Windows users use Chrome, Safari or Firefox, and that Android and iOS users use Chrome or Safari.

No. You must choose to sign out of Workday in order to completely end your Workday session. This is especially important if you are using a public/shared device.

Workday releases upgrades twice a year, in March and September. These updates introduce new features that will be available to Carleton to explore. Additionally, Workday does weekly maintenance on Friday evenings that can last up to 12 hours. If this occurs, you will see a page stating that Workday is down and an estimate of how long it will be down. 

No. To protect Carleton’s data, the software has an “inactivity” timeout.

Workday is not our public directory. All employees and students are discoverable in Workday.  

You should DENY an inbox task when the worktags are not what you would expect them to be, the attached supporting documentation is insufficient, and/or the transaction is not a qualified business expense of the college or outside the funding available in your budget.

Students who submit hourly time will use Workday. Managers of students will approve students’ time as established by Carleton College policies. Students will view their personal information in Workday, including their payslip. Students and their managers will be supported with training.

Generally, no. Employees, including student employees, are expected to record time worked in Workday before and after each shift. The mobile app will make it a lot easier to enter time as it is worked, using either a time clock or calendar approach. Supervisors are responsible for verifying employees enter time worked to ensure timely payment in accordance with state law.

Yes. All Carleton Students will have access to Workday. Their current access is limited to Workday HCM/Finance functionality until our Workday Student implementation is complete in 2024. 

In order to provide all Students with access to Workday in advance of our Workday Student implementation in 2024, all current Students have either been hired as a Student Non-Employee (no hours/no pay) or as Student Employee with a specific position. Student Employees should enter time (and travel time when applicable) ONLY to their Student Employee position. Time entered to a Student Non-Employee position in error will not be processed.

NOT YET! Student refund requests will be included in the Workday Student implementation planned for completion in 2024. Student refund requests can be submitted by email to studentaccounts@carleton.edu. Note: Credit balances on student accounts created by pending aid are not eligible for reimbursement until the end of the add/drop period each term. 

All student bank account information is maintained in Workday. Your Student Non-Employee status in Workday will allow you to add Payment Elections.

Visit the Student Employment website for information about how to apply for a position at Carleton.

In order to provide all Students with access to Workday in advance of our Workday Student implementation in 2024, all current Students have either been hired as a Student Non-Employee (no hours/no pay) or as Student Employee with a specific position. Student Employees should enter time (and travel time when applicable) ONLY to their Student Employee position. Time entered to a Student Non-Employee position in error will not be processed. 

In addition to the Student Non-Employee job, Carleton Students may hold multiple positions at Carleton.  Your Profile will allow you to report time for each position you work. DO NOT ENTER TIME for your Student Non-Employee job. This job is not configured for payroll processing. 

Yes. CSA participants who incur an eligible out of pocket expense during participation in a CSA program can submit their expense for reimbursement with attached receipt documentation in Workday using “Create Expense Report” in the Expenses section. Their report will route to their CSA Organization Treasurer for review and approval and then to the CSA Treasurer for final review and approval prior to payment processing. Students will be able to monitor the progress of their expense reimbursement request in Workday.

Workday security allows for only one person to be identified as the CSA Agency Manager. All CSA Agency Managers were confirmed with the CSA Treasurer before being loaded into Workday. If you think your CSA Manager has been configured in error please contact the CSA Treasurer for clarification. They will work with the Carleton Business Office to coordinate updates.