Get Ready for Workday 33 The Workday Assistant Q&A

Date posted
19 August 2019
Reading time
4 Minutes
Shelly Wilson

Get Ready for Workday 33 The Workday Assistant Q&A

Is the Workday Assistant Voice enabled?

Currently, there are no out-of-the-box integrations with voice assistants and Workday, but voice enablement will be feasible in the future. Labs built multiple integrations between voice assistants and Workday Assistant using an internal API. The four different platforms Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple HomePod, and the open source Mycroft Mark I were built to show that Workday isn't tied to one voice assistant or ecosystem. This provides flexibility to use whichever device is preferred or to support environments with different voice assistants. Workday plans to make these APIs available in the future for customers and partners to use or exten dvia the Workday Cloud Platform (WCP).

Will Workday Assistant perform the task for the user, or just guide them to the right place in the system?

It can complete tasks for the user (eg, Booking time off, obtaining specific worker data through queries, etc), and it can also provide guidance for tasks which aren't available for 'automatic' submission. Workday will be evaluating Assistant's usage over time and rolling out enhancements including additional tasks that it can automatically submit for the user outside of the usual BP-orientated approach.

Our business has a number of company-specific terms. Can we add those key words within the Assistant chat?

Yes, you'll be able to customise through The Guide Concept, which allows you to map user words or key words to Workday Words

How will Workday Assistant handle instances when a user asks how to do something that they don't have access or permission to do?

The intention is for Workday Assistant to be able to provide responses tailored to the user's security access. Additionally, since responses can be customised through The Guide Concept, you can configure generic responses for unavailable items. If a user can't access a task in Workday (eg, they're not permitted to submit time off) then Assistant will not offer them this functionality; it should all tie back to your security domain configuration.

Do you know if Workday Assistant will always be on top, like the classic Office Assistant paper clip in Word?

The expectation is that this will be configurable. Assistant can pop up on the home screen when a user logs in to Workday, but Workday intends for it to be an entirely non-intrusive and overall user-friendly experience unlike Word's distracting Clippy.

About the author

Shelly Wilson