Workday Data Management Tools for Self-Service Analytics to Enable a Data Culture

Bentley University deployed Workday HCM and Finance in 2017 and Workday Student in 2019, which led to the development of more than 3,000 reports and dashboards, the majority of which were created by consultants and IT.

Statement of problem: There were multiple unmanaged reports, silos, a lack of self-service analytics, and inconsistent data.

Solution: Establish a self-service analytics-focused reporting workstream with the aim of fostering a data-driven culture. 

To support this initiative, Bentley established a data governance framework. Bentley built a data governance structure to assist in this endeavor. Since the launch of the Workday First strategy two years ago, we have equipped power users with strategies and tools within Workday that assist power users to govern their environments. Examples include the Control Dashboard, which acts as a source of truth for key metrics, the Health Check Dashboard, which assists in upholding best practices to regulate the reporting environment, finds anomalies to tidy it up, and stays current with Workday releases and upgrades.

The Missing Access Report is an additional tool that helps the security team identify missing access more easily. Additionally, the project also introduced the establishment of an internal report-writer training program and a data analytics portal.

Our Goal: In order to encourage the use of Workday for self-service analytics in a regulated manner, the Bentley University team wants to share its knowledge with other educational establishments about how they developed and implemented a governed, self-service analytics environment in Workday.