Setup Considerations: Delegation

Administrator Guide

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of delegating business processes. It explains:

Why to set it up.

How it fits into the rest of Workday.

Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.

Security requirements and business process configurations.

Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.

Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

Delegation enables users to give another person the ability to initiate business processes on their behalf or take actions on their My Tasks items. The user can set a start and end date to cover a specific period or they can delegate on an ad hoc basis.

Delegation is different from reassigning a task. Reassignment permanently moves responsibility for a task from 1 person to another. Delegation doesn't remove responsibility (ownership) for the task from the original task owner. Delegation enables a user to perform tasks on behalf of the original task owner.

Business Benefits

Delegation enables users to share responsibility of their business processes among peers, subordinates, and superiors depending on the tenant configuration. Delegation ensures that tasks don't get held up when a user is unavailable.

Use Cases

Delegate Business Process Tasks. (

Do My Tasks On My Behalf

): A manager on vacation can delegate My Tasks items like PTO request approval to their manager, who can then approve any incoming PTO requests.

Delegate Business Process Initiation. (

Start On My Behalf

): A user on a business trip can set a delegation period to have a delegate create expense reports on their behalf while they are out of the office.

Delegate a single task: A user can delegate a coworker to approve a specific expense report on their behalf.

Questions to Consider

Questions	Considerations
Which My Tasks items do you want to delegate to someone else?	Consider configuring the Users Can Delegate Tasks To check box on the Edit Tenant Setup - Business Process task. This task enables you to determine who you can delegate a task to and to require a delegation end date. The Require End Dates check box applies to My Tasks delegations and not to single-task delegation. When you delegate all business processes (by selecting the For All Business Processes option), the delegate can access all My Tasks items that the delegator can take action on in their My Tasks. You might not want a delegate to view and access some My Tasks items. When you enable the Retain Access to Delegated Tasks Within My Tasks check box, you will still see the tasks in your My Tasks during the delegation period. Note that when you add a new delegation configuration and select the For all Business Processes and For Business Process options, Workday enables the Retain Access to Delegated Tasks within My Tasks check box by default. When you update an existing delegation configuration that didn't have the Retain Access to Delegated Tasks within My Tasks check box selected, we enable the check box by default once you select the For all Business Processes or For Business Process option.
Do you want to enable delegation only for specific business processes?	Consider configuring the security policies of any individual business processes that you want to enable for delegation by selecting the Allow Business Process Delegation check box in the Policy Restrictions section.
Do you want delegates to be able to create reports on behalf of delegators?	Consider that when you delegate the creation of an item, your delegate has access to all of your history for that item. Example: When you delegate the creation of expense reports, your delegate can copy all of your existing expense reports.

Recommendations

Include a Review
or Approval
step on the Request Delegation Change
business process when you want someone to review delegations before they take effect. Anytime someone configures a delegation for a period of time, the Request Delegation Change
business process is initiated.

Include an Approval
step on the Delegate Task
business process when you want someone to review single task delegations before they take effect. Anytime someone delegates a single task from their My Tasks, the Delegate Task
business process is initiated.

Requirements

On the security policy of business processes you want to make available for delegation, you must:

Enable security groups to delegate the initiating action to others in the

Who Can Start the Business Process

section.

Select the

Allow Business Process Delegation

check box.

The event you want to delegate must be current or in the future.

Limitations

Not all business processes allow delegation. You can delegate a To Do
step. When an embedded task in a To Do
step doesn't allow delegation, the task won't appear in the delegate's My Tasks as a To Do.

Tenant delegation settings apply only to users requesting delegation on behalf of themselves. When you enable role-based or user-based security groups to request delegation on behalf of others, these settings don’t apply.

During the delegation period, the delegate receives any tasks that would have been directed to the delegator for the specified process, as well as any related process notifications, including alerts. Delegates can request reassignment for any delegated tasks, but they can't delegate any delegated tasks to another worker.

When users delegate single My Tasks items, they can't set when the delegation begins and ends.

Workday prevents a delegated business process from accessing certain Workday functionality that requires connecting to another service, including:

Background conversions.

Business form printing.

Integrations (including Reports as a Service, REST API, and Workday Studio).

Scheduled reports.

Access to documents on My Reports.

Solutions.

When an Action
, Approval
, or To Do
step is configured to be excluded from My Tasks and you delegate the task, it won't display in the My Tasks of the delegate and the delegator. There are some limitations when using the exclude task from the My Tasks functionality with delegation. Workday recommends that you don't configure the exclude functionality on delegation-heavy tasks.

If you can't access a delegated task that's been excluded, the:

Business Process Administrator can stop delegation by accessing the

Manage Delegation Setting

task.

Delegator can stop delegation though single task delegation.

Tenant Setup

You can use the

Edit Tenant Setup - Business Processes

task to:

Require end dates for delegation. The

Require End Dates

check box doesn't apply to single task delegation.

Apply routing restrictions during delegation. When routing restrictions prevent Workday from routing a business process to a delegate, Workday routes the business process to an alternate delegate. Alternate delegates can't initiate a business process on behalf of a delegate. When you enable the

Apply Routing Restrictions during Delegation

check box and a delegate approves a step, Workday considers the delegate to be a prior approver. The ability to act on a step goes away when it has a routing restriction on a prior approver, even when it's a parallel step to the Approval
step. The delegate won't have permission to complete the next step because of the routing restriction on the step, and the delegate is now a prior approver.

Security

Configure the Business Process Delegation
domain in the System functional area.

Business Processes

You can delegate the initiating action on some business processes.

Configure the security policy for the Request Delegation Change (Default Definition)
business process. If the default definition for this business process doesn’t exist in your tenant, you must create it.

Reporting

Reports	Considerations
Business Processes for Delegation	View a list of business processes that are enabled for delegation.
Business Process Tasks Not Delegated	View tasks that Workday doesn't delegate due to routing restrictions.
Current Delegations	View current and active delegations at a glance for organizations you specify. You can select whether to include subordinate organizations and managers in the report results. This report displays the: Delegating person (the delegator). Duration of the delegation. Delegate. Affected business processes. Delegation configuration. This report doesn't include delegations that have expired. Note: You can use the Delegation Assignments report field in custom reports to view all current or future delegations assigned to a worker.
Manage Delegation Settings	View current delegations and past delegations for a worker. You can also view which business processes allow delegation.
My Delegations	View completed tasks from the delegating user's point of view.
View All Delegated Tasks	View a list of delegated tasks that you, as a delegate, can perform based on the original assignment date for the delegating user.
View and Maintain Notifications	View a list of notifications for the delegating user sent during the time that the delegation is in effect.
View More Processes	View a list of delegated business processes and who took action on your behalf.
View My Delegation Assignments	View all the business process Initiation steps that others have delegated to you.

Integrations

No impact.

Connections and Touchpoints

Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.

Concept: Exclude Business Process Steps from the My Tasks

Concept: My Tasks

Reference: Edit Tenant Setup - Business Processes