Workday Performance Management Configuration Training Course

Course overview

Poorly configured performance processes create late reviews, inconsistent ratings, unclear accountability, and reporting that HR cannot trust. This course addresses the practical work of translating an organisation’s performance policy into a controlled Workday process: who is eligible, which review steps occur, what managers and workers see, how ratings are calculated, and how exceptions are handled. Participants learn to make configuration choices that support fairer performance conversations while remaining workable for HR operations, managers, and employees.

Across five days, participants configure Workday Performance Management components including review templates, evaluation criteria, rating scales, review business processes, routing, notifications, security, eligibility rules, feedback, check-ins, and goal-related performance activities. They practise analysing requirements, mapping them to Workday configuration objects, testing process paths, resolving common setup defects, and building reports that monitor completion, ratings, and overdue actions. The course also examines the governance decisions behind configuration, including effective dating, change control, auditability, and release-readiness.

Teaching combines instructor-led demonstrations with guided configuration labs in a Workday training tenant or structured simulation. Participants work through a realistic annual performance review case, from policy requirements and design decisions through build, test scripts, defect resolution, and reporting. They leave with a documented Performance Management configuration blueprint containing a process map, template specification, security considerations, test scenarios, report requirements, and a deployment checklist that can be adapted for their own organisation.

The course is suited to HRIS professionals, Workday functional analysts, HR operations staff, and implementation team members who need to configure or support Workday performance processes rather than simply use them as managers or employees.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Translate a performance-management policy into a Workday configuration requirements matrix
• Configure Performance Review templates with evaluation criteria, questionnaires, and rating scales
• Build Performance Review business-process steps, approvals, notifications, and routing conditions
• Apply eligibility rules and effective-dated configuration to control participant populations
• Configure feedback, check-in, and goal-related activities for a connected performance cycle
• Assign security policies and functional areas that protect performance data and enable required actions
• Execute end-to-end test scripts for standard, exception, delegation, and rescind scenarios
• Produce a Performance Management configuration blueprint and deployment checklist

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Workday HRIS Analysts — who configure, test, and support performance-review processes in the tenant
• Workday Functional Consultants — who translate client performance-policy requirements into Workday design decisions
• HR Systems Administrators — who maintain business processes, security, and effective-dated configuration
• Talent Management Specialists — who own review-cycle design and need to specify workable system requirements
• HR Operations Managers — who oversee review-cycle execution and need reliable completion and exception reporting
• Workday Implementation Team Members — who contribute to performance-management workstreams and testing

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand core HR concepts such as worker populations, supervisory organisations, manager hierarchies, performance cycles, and rating scales. Familiarity with navigating Workday HCM and locating tasks, related actions, business processes, and reports is strongly recommended. Experience supporting an HRIS, participating in Workday testing, or documenting business requirements will help participants gain more from the labs. This is a foundation-to-intermediate configuration course: prior Workday Performance Management configuration is not required, and programming, Workday Studio, payroll knowledge, or advanced reporting expertise are not required. Complete beginners should expect to spend time learning Workday terminology and configuration dependencies.

Training methodology

Each day combines focused instructor explanation with live Workday configuration demonstrations and guided participant labs. Using an annual review-cycle case, participants convert policy statements into templates, business-process routing, security choices, and test scenarios. Small-group design reviews compare alternative configuration approaches for exceptions such as transfers, probationary workers, and late reviews. Participants use test evidence and report outputs to diagnose issues, then complete an application-planning workshop that turns their configuration blueprint into prioritised actions for their own tenant, project, or support backlog.

Course outline

Day 1: Performance process architecture and requirements

• Workday Performance Management architecture and configuration dependencies
• Performance-cycle policy analysis and requirements elicitation
• Worker populations, supervisory organisations, and eligibility concepts
• Performance Review business-process anatomy and event lifecycle
• Effective dating and configuration change-control principles
• Performance template components and evaluation design choices
• Configuration documentation using a requirements-to-build matrix

Workshop: Participants analyse a sample annual review policy and produce a requirements matrix linking policy rules to Workday configuration objects.

Day 2: Review templates, criteria, and ratings

• Creating and maintaining Performance Review templates
• Evaluation criteria, questions, and comment-field design
• Rating scales, rating definitions, and calculated-rating considerations
• Section weighting and overall performance assessment design
• Manager, worker, and additional evaluator content visibility
• Template effective dating and revision impact assessment
• Usability checks for manager and employee review experiences

Workshop: Participants configure a review template for a defined population and produce a template specification with criteria, ratings, and visibility decisions.

Day 3: Workflow, eligibility, and security

• Configuring Performance Review business-process steps
• Approval chains, to-do steps, and action-event sequencing
• Condition rules for alternate routing and exception handling
• Notifications, due dates, and escalation design
• Eligibility rules and launch population control
• Workday security domains and role-based access to performance data
• Delegation, rescind, correction, and process-administration scenarios

Workshop: Participants build a review-process flow with conditional routing and create a security-and-exception decision log for the case organisation.

Day 4: Connected performance activities and reporting

• Feedback configuration and feedback-request use cases
• Check-in design and ongoing performance-conversation workflows
• Goal-related activities and their relationship to review content
• Launching and monitoring a performance-review cycle
• Workday Report Writer data sources for performance reporting
• Completion, overdue-action, and rating-distribution report design
• Data validation and report-security considerations

Workshop: Participants create a review-cycle monitoring report design and use sample outputs to identify incomplete or incorrectly routed review tasks.

Day 5: Testing, deployment, and operational support

• End-to-end configuration test planning and traceability
• Positive, negative, and exception-path test scenarios
• User acceptance testing scripts for managers, workers, and HR partners
• Defect triage using configuration evidence and process history
• Migration, tenant-change, and release-readiness controls
• Production deployment checklist and stakeholder communications
• Post-cycle review metrics and configuration improvement backlog

Workshop: Participants complete a capstone test-and-deployment workshop and produce a Performance Management configuration blueprint with test scripts and rollout actions.

Tools & standards covered

Workday HCM, Workday Performance Management, Workday Report Writer, Workday Business Process Framework

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions