2025R1: Key Insights You Can’t Afford to Miss
Workday 2025R1 is here! This blog shares all the top features that Kognitiv’s Product Lead team has determined you need to be aware of and should be adding to your roadmap.
A few features are automatically available, requiring no setup for you to see and use; the rest require setup, which typically includes some configuration, testing, and change management (as needed).
As organizations strive to adapt to an ever-evolving business landscape, Workday continues to lead the charge with cutting-edge solutions designed to enhance efficiency, elevate user experience, and drive organizational success. Take a read, make note of anything you’re not already planning to implement and get a plan in place to put them into use in your tenant!
| Workstream | Feature | Description | Setup Effort | Product
Lead |
| Absence | Effective Dating Service Dates Absence Impact | The new Effective Dating Service Dates requirement has absence impacts. Everyone should review and confirm what their plan will be regarding absence fields going forward. | Setup Required | Christina Duritza |
| Absence | Time Off Results Reporting | A new data source, Time Off Results by Period, is available and self-service groups can be added to create custom Time Off Results reports visible to Employee As Self.
https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/abs/8183888.html |
Setup Required | Christina Duritza |
| Benefits | Mobile Benefits UI Rearchitecture | Benefits on Mobile now enables translation to other languages besides just English. Enhance accessibility with features such as Dynamic Text Resizing and Enabling Voice over and talkback. | Automatically Available | Maribeth Ebert |
| Benefits | Purge Dependents / Beneficiaries for Active Workers | Can now enter in a WD ticket to have dependents/beneficiaries purged due to duplicates, being deceased, etc.. for active workers (was only prior able to do this on termed workers) | Setup Required | Maribeth Ebert |
| Compensation | Configurable Visibility of Pools and Budget Wheels in Compensation Reviews | Improved manager experience by enabling hiding compensation review pool and budget wheel graphics from target populations of compensation review users. ttps://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/hrcomprev/7931019.html | Setup Required | Anne Reichler |
| Compensation | Increased Flexibility for Compa-Ratio and Position in Range Fields | Display of Compa-Ratio and Position in Range in the Compensation section of more transactions. | Automatically Available | Anne Reichler |
| Compensation | Infinite Scrolling on Compensation Review Grid | Increases limit of 500 employees in grid up to 2000 when accessing from either the inbox task or Employee Search Report. https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/hrcomprev/8428045.html | Automatically Available | Anne Reichler |
| Compensation | Minimum Wage in Compensation | Configuration on Hourly plans can now leverage data in the Payroll Authority Minimum Wage (PAMW) table or a calculation. https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/hrcomp/8406795.html | Setup Required | Anne Reichler |
| Compensation | Propose Compensation Hire as Substep of Hire with Enhanced User Interface | Expansion of the new user interface allowing Propose Compensation for Hire to be consolidated with Hire.
https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/hrcomp/8266101.html |
Setup Required | Anne Reichler |
| Compensation | U.S. Federal Pay and/or Grade Retention | Workday enables U.S federal government users to retain a worker’s previous pay and/or grade when they must move to a position of lower responsibility. https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/hrcomp/6922043.html#Impact-tab | Setup Required | Anne Reichler |
| HCM / Recruiting | New Workday Onboarding Experience | Workday enhances the onboarding experience, enabling you to send personalized and engaging content to new hires at defined stages of their onboarding period.
https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/onb/8133451.html |
Setup Required | Francine Vosikas |
| HCM Core | Hire Employee Task Redesign & Consolidated Hire Business Process with Compensation | Redesign of Hire is no longer opt-out, and you can consolidate the Propose Compensation Hire step in the consolidated Hire template now.
https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/hrcore/8768925.html |
Automatically Available | Alex Wilson |
| HCM Core | Supervisory Organization Editable on the Change Job Business Process | You can now change the supervisory organization on a review step after the initiation instead of having to restart the event.
https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/hrcore/8455001.html |
Automatically Available | Alex Wilson |
| HCM Core | Workday Docs and Document Generation for Onboarding Business Process | Workday Docs now supports Onboarding as a source. https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/onb/8751853.html | Setup Required | Alex Wilson |
| Student Admissions, Recruiting | Delay External Account Creation | Workday enables you to delay external student site account creation for applicants to Fast Path programs of study. Workday also provides more configuration options for step delays and condition rules for creating external student site accounts on the Create Student External Account and Publish Application Grouping business processes. https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/stups/8396665.html | Setup Required | Melissa Ginelli |
| Student Advising, Financial Aid | Academic Progress Evaluation for Future Effective-Dated Programs of Study | The Academic Progress job will now automatically run the night of the effective date of a program of study change. A welcome feature for both advising and financial aid. This will ensure that course registrations reflect accurately on the student’s Academic Progress report and Financial Aid load status.
https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/stuadv/8723612.html |
Automatically Available | Melissa Ginelli |
| Student Communications | Segmented Security for Student Engagement Categories | Segmented security is now extended for tasks and web services involving student engagement categories.
https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/stueng/8368615.html |
Automatically Available | Melissa Ginelli |
| Student Finance, Financial Aid | Student Payment Precedence Charge Item Selection | Workday now enables you to select individual student charge items to include in your payment precedence group. https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/stufin/7733919.html | Automatically Available | Melissa Ginelli |
| Student Financial Aid | Action Items: Added Flexibility with Assigning Holds for Business Processes | Workday now provides you with more flexibility in applying ISIR action item holds in your business processes. https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/stufad/8426423.html | Automatically Available | Melissa Ginelli |
| Student Records | Course Registration Reports | Workday improves the user interface on course registration reports to make it easier for students to manage their course registrations. https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/stureg/8327556.html | Automatically Available | Melissa Ginelli |
| Time Tracking | Effective Dated Time Entry Templates | Workday now allows you to effective date some items on the time entry template.
https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/time/7068921.html |
Automatically Available | Christina Duritza |
| Time Tracking | Workday Time Kiosk | A new feature – Workday Time Kiosk is available as an App to allow multiple workers to easily use one source to check in/out. https://doc.workday.com/release-notes/en-us/time/8533365.html | Setup Required | Christina Duritza |
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology and enterprise solutions, staying ahead of the curve is not just a choice but a necessity. Workday has consistently demonstrated its commitment to empowering businesses with cutting-edge tools, and the 2025R1 update is no exception.
If you need help with implementing any of the above features, Kognitiv is here to help! Reach out to any of the Product Leads directly or contact us here.
