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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Reference: Calculated Field Functions

Reference: Calculated Field Functions

Perform Calculations on Your Data

Calculated fields that perform mathematic expressions use the standard order of operations rule, known as PEMDAS:
  1. Parentheses
  2. Exponents
  3. Multiplication
  4. Division
  5. Addition
  6. Subtraction
Calculated Fields
Description
Examples
Arithmetic Calculation
Performs these simple calculations to derive values:
  • Addition
  • Division
  • Multiplication
  • Subtraction
Calculate a worker's:
  • Bonus amount as a percentage and compare it against their salary.
  • Daily, hourly, or weekly rate.
  • Salary difference from this year compared to last year.
Count Related Instances
Dynamically counts the number of instances in a related business object based on a condition.
Count:
  • Managers in an organizational unit in order to compute the management span of control.
  • Open positions in an organization.
  • Sick days occurring on Monday or Friday during the last year for each worker.
  • Workers hired during the last year for each location.
Date Difference
Computes the number of days, months, or years between 2 dates.
Calculate:
  • A worker's age in years as of a certain date.
  • The days remaining before a worker returns from leave.
  • The days since a position opened.
  • The months since a worker back-dated or forward-dated an expense report.
Increment or Decrement Date
  • Computes a date that's a number of days, months, or years before or after the value of a date field.
  • Adds or subtracts a number of hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds to or from a date.
  • Calculate 2 months from now for use in a report filter that selects worker certifications expiring in the next 2 months.
  • Calculate the end of a worker's 6-month probationary period based on the hire date.
  • Subtract 1 millisecond from the time that a business process event ran so you can determine the prior value of a field.
Sum Related Instances
Sums the value of a field in instances of a related business object based on a condition.
Calculate the:
  • Average performance review rating for each organization.
  • VAT amount for each supplier invoice by summing the taxable invoice lines.
Sum the:
  • Employer benefit costs of a worker to calculate their total compensation.
  • Expense line items for meals in an expense report for comparison against an approval limit.
  • Total number of days off a worker has taken in a given time period.
Text Length
Returns the number of characters and spaces in a single instance or text field.
Return the text length of a worker's:
  • City of birth so you can identify workers affected by the 15-character limitation to
    City
     fields when integrating third-party products.
  • Name so you can determine if you need to request a custom name tag for a new hire with a name longer than 20 characters.

Retrieve Your Data

Calculated Fields
Description
Examples
Aggregate Related Instances
Lists all instances associated with a source field related to the business object.
Identify all job profiles within an organization. A single organization might include many positions, each with many job profiles. The calculated field can examine all of the positions within an organization and return all instances of the job profile.
Evaluate Expression
Groups and transforms data by evaluating a series of boolean conditions.
Display a worker's:
  • Age group.
  • Employment status.
  • Management status.
  • Seniority category based on length of service.
Enable users to select the granularity of grouping, such as
Month
,
Quarter
, or
Year
 on the
Trended Workers
 data source.
Evaluate Expression Band
Specifies values for boolean conditions and returns grouped instances.
Group workers by seniority based on their years of service, such as:
  • Junior: Less than 2 years.
  • Midlevel: 3-10 years.
  • Senior: More than 11 years.
Group cost centers based on your spending threshold, such as:
  • On budget.
  • Over budget.
Extract Multi-Instance
Extracts multiple instances from a related business object based on boolean conditions.
List:
  • All staffing events associated with a worker's current position.
  • Any worker event for a worker that occurred in 2015.
  • Current enrollment elections for a worker.
  • Teams a worker belongs to.
  • Training completed by each worker in the last 12 months.
Extract Single Instance
Extracts a single instance from a multi-instance field based on boolean conditions.
Retrieve information about a worker, such as their:
  • Current dental, medical, and vision enrollments, listed as separate fields.
  • Dependents listed as separate fields, such as Dependent #1, Dependent #2, and so on.
  • First completed performance review in 2018.
  • Last degree received.
  • Last time off request as of April 2019.
Lookup Date Rollup
Aggregates, groups, or summarizes data for a time period, fiscal schedule, or weekly schedule.
Return:
  • 2015-Q1
     as the fiscal year-quarter rollup format for the date 2015-01-01 in a fiscal schedule or period.
  • The week end date so you can use it in a repeating column group in a composite report.
Lookup Field with Prompts
Enables users to enter values for Workday-delivered fields with built-in prompts.
Enter:
  • The
    Value
    Division
     for the
    Prompt Field
    Show Custom Organization Type
     when running a report to gain additional information about workers.
  • Values for the
    Prompt Field
    Translated Credit Minus Debit Amount
     so you can analyze planned against actual data.
Lookup Hierarchy
Retrieves data from Workday objects with a hierarchical structure and returns a single instance field containing the hierarchy node.
  • Group purchase order lines by a defined level in the
    Spend Category
     hierarchy in an expense report.
  • Retrieve a count of workers and subordinates from specific management levels in a supervisory organization.
Lookup Hierarchy Rollup
Rolls up report data based on an organization hierarchy, starting at the topmost level of the hierarchy.
View summarizations of:
  • Data and drill down on them within a
    Cost Center
     hierarchy in an expense report.
  • Workers and drill down on them within a
    Supervisory Organization
     hierarchy.
Lookup Organization
Determines a worker's organization level or node based on the assigned organization and criteria configuration using 1 of these business objects:
  • Employee
  • Worker
Determine a worker's:
  • Department.
  • Organization level.
Lookup Organizational Roles
Determines organization role assignments based on the criteria configuration using 1 of these business objects:
  • Employee
  • Organization
  • Worker
Determine organization role assignments and:
  • List each worker's Expenses Representative.
  • Report on the Facilities Manager for each supervisory organization.
Lookup Range Band
Determines where a specified value falls in relation to a set of configured ranges.
Determine if a worker's:
  • Performance review is within the Upcoming, Due, or Overdue range.
  • Total compensation falls in the Highly Compensated or Not Highly Compensated range.
Lookup Related Value
Returns the value of a field on a related business object. You can promote fields from a related business object to the primary business object so you can perform these actions on the fields:
  • Filter
  • Group
  • Report
  • Sort
  • Summarize
Return the value of a field to:
  • Include the email address of a manager when reporting on workers.
  • Require approval if a worker's one-time retention bonus is greater than 20% of their base pay.
Lookup Translated Value
Returns the value of a text field in a specified language.
Return:
  • A worker's position in a different language.
  • The names of organizations in English, French, and German.
Lookup Value as of Date
Determines the value of a field as of a specific date and determines whether a change occurs before, on, or after the effective date.
Return:
  • A list of workers whose address, name, or phone number changed last month.
  • The age of a dependent as of a certain time.
  • The annual salary of a worker as of 2013-12-31.
Substring Text
Extracts a portion of text from a single instance or text field and returns the result as a text field.
Extract a portion of text from
ABC-XYZ
:
  • Before the
    -
    Delimiter
     to return
    ABC
    .
  • From the second
    Starting Character Position
     to return
    BC-XYZ
    .
  • From the second
    Starting Character Position
     with a
    Fixed Length
     of 4 to return
    BC-X
    .
True/False Condition
Returns
True
 or
False
 based on boolean conditions.
Indicate if a worker:
  • Elected to enroll in a Health Savings Account.
  • Has less than a year of service.
  • Has withholding orders.
  • Received a signing bonus that you need to recover if the worker terminates.

Change Your Data into Different Formats

Calculated Fields
Description
Examples
Concatenate Text
Concatenates a series of text fields within Workday to append text, use in notifications, and so on.
  • Append
    (cell)
     to the end of a worker's mobile phone number.
  • Concatenate a worker's years of service to their name.
  • Create a name field containing a worker's last name, first name, and preferred name. Example:
    Smith, John (Jack)
    .
  • Return the text notification:
    Your current annual salary is $82,500.00
    .
Convert Currency
Converts a currency to another currency.
  • Convert an expense report total to a common currency for business process approval.
  • Convert Canadian worker benefit contributions to USD for consolidated reporting with US benefit data.
  • Determine all worker bonuses in USD using the exchange rate in effect at the end of last year.
  • Display a worker's annual salary in EUR, regardless of how someone enters and stores it in Workday.
Convert Text to Number
Converts a text field number into numeric data so you can perform calculations on that number.
Convert text to a numeric value to perform calculations on:
  • A worker's length of service in years.
  • The 200 rows in an expense report.
Format Date
Extracts part of a date field and formats it as a text field.
  • Determine the fiscal year and period of a worker's hire date.
  • Extract the month and day from a worker's birth date.
  • Group and summarize headcount activity by month.
  • List workers who have a birthday this month.
  • Produce a list of promotions by quarter.
Format Number
Formats a numeric field as a text field to use in concatenations, report notifications, and so on.
  • Assign a proper decimal separator based on the locale of the user.
  • Prefix the currency symbol.
  • Standardize the decimal precision.
Format Text
Changes the case of a single instance or text field to upper, lower, or proper case.
Change the case of a single instance or text field to upper, lower, or proper case to:
  • Configure proper formatting for postal entities, such as bulk mailings that require text to be in a specific format.
  • Format the text
    MY NAME
     to
    My Name
    .

Configure Constant Values

Calculated Fields
Description
Examples
Build Date
Enables you to create a new date or time field by using components from other fields or from specified values.
Determine the:
  • First day of the month in which a company hires a worker.
  • Last day of the fiscal year for a company.
Date Constant
Enables you to create a date, time, or time zone constant for use in other calculations.
  • Compute headcounts or salaries as of 2017-01-01.
  • Determine how many new workers a company hired after a specified date.
Numeric Constant
Enables you to assign a numeric constant to a field so you can use it in other calculations.
  • Compute a rolling window of time, such as 3 months.
  • Configure a currency multiplier as of a certain date for currency exchange rates.
Prompt for Value
Enables you to create a field to prompt users for a value when the report runs or for filter conditions.
Prompt the report runner to select:
  • A company to yield company-specific results.
  • The
    Time Off Type
    , such as
    Unpaid
     or
    Sabbatical
     instead of entering the values in a true/false condition calculated field.
Text Constant
Enables you to create a text constant for use in other calculations.
  • Append text to a field value using a concatenate text calculated field.
  • Use the text
    Highly Compensated
     in an evaluate expression calculated field.
  • Prefix a worker's title, such as
    Miss
    ,
    Mr.
    , or
    Mrs.
     before their full name in an evaluate expression calculated field.
Concept: Calculated Fields
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