Update: A detailed, up-to-date Workday go-live timeline for Person and HR APIs is available in the Workday Go-Live: Person and HR APIs Data Loading Timeline post.
Key Takeaways:
- Production Workday data will begin loading into the Person and HR APIs on July 3, 2025 and complete by July 8, 2025.
- People with access to Person and HR APIs will receive email communications during go-live activities.
- Follow the API Team’s roadmap for planned changes to the Person and HR APIs before and after Workday go-live.
- Follow Person API Guidelines to ensure integrations are flexible to handle changes in data.
- API consumers should contact api@doit.wisc.edu to report issues during or after go-live
With Workday go-live around the corner, the API Team is completing the necessary work to ensure systems have a smooth transition using the Person and HR APIs. Over the past two years, we’ve been adding data to both APIs to allow systems to develop new or modified integrations to incorporate Workday data. This includes changes such as:
- Adding Workday data to the test Person API (test.api.wisc.edu) such as jobs and contact information indicated in the API with a source of “Workday”.
- Adding new attributes and resources that come along with new data in Workday, such as UW Organization Structure data and Supervisory Organizations for a person’s job.
- Adding a list of all Supervisory Organizations in the HR API.
Some new data and changes to values for existing attributes are still planned before go-live. For example, by May 27, 2025, the test Person API will be updated to source most values in the root “/people” endpoint (e.g. firstName, officeAddress) from Workday instead of HRS. The production API will receive the same changes during go-live.
The best way to keep track of the planned changes for the Person and HR APIs is to follow the API Team’s roadmap. Recent API changes are also documented in the release notes for the Person API and HR API.
The structure of the test and production Person API is always the same, since the difference between the two environments is the data used to populate the API. This means that both environments have received updates to add new Workday-related attributes, like Supervisory Organizations for jobs, but only the test Person API has data populated for Workday-related attributes. As part of Workday go-live, production Workday data will be added to the production Person API to populate these new attributes which have been null/empty. Anyone with access to the Person API can access both the test and production environments by changing the hostname used to call the Person API, using test.api.wisc.edu or api.wisc.edu, respectively.
Even with the addition of Workday, we’ve been able to make changes to the HR and Person API in a non-breaking way by only adding new attributes and resources. However, data in the APIs can change frequently with changes or additions of upstream data sources, especially during Workday go-live. We provide recommendations for ensuring integrations safely handle changes in data in our Person API guidelines.
Production Workday data will be added to the Person API starting July 3, 2025. Webhooks will notify webhook subscribers of the new data as it is added. HRS data in the Person API will become stale starting July 3, and a future date will be determined after go-live to remove HRS data entirely. The HR API only has one environment available to API consumers and it will be updated to use production Workday data starting on July 3, 2025. We expect the initial load of Workday data in both APIs to complete by the end of the day on July 8, 2025.
Updates during go-live will be communicated by email to people who have access to the Person API or HR API. Communications will be sent during key times such as:
- A day before starting the process of Workday data.
- When loading Workday data into the API has started or completed.
- Any adjustments to timelines/dates.
- Unexpected changes or issues.
Replacing an entire HR and finance system is no small task, especially for an organization as large as the Universities of Wisconsin. Years of work, starting prior to any test Workday tenant becoming available, has led us to this point and we thank all our partners and API consumers for working with us to ensure a smooth transition. If you have any questions about the Person or HR API, or need to report issues during or after go-live, email api@doit.wisc.edu
Jared Kosanovic – Enteprise Integration Architect
Division of Information Technology