What happened in Workday HCM Core & Practical Training
I started my new job 23 days ago. This blog will give you the details what happened in the last 23 days of my work.
In order to be a Workday Functional Consultant, we have to acquire HCM Core and Practical Training in order to be certified as a consultant. How to?
The company hired you will send you to the training pretty much the first month of your training. Every month there are HCM Core trainings organized in Workday training centers. I went to the Amsterdam one to get the training.
The Core Services part in Amsterdam lasted 10 days, starting from first Tuesday of the month until second Thursday of the month. I had 2 days in my new office place to set up computer and phone before going to the training. Some unlucky people even got to fly to the training right away without even few first days in the new office.
BEFORE THE TRAINING
Workday will send you the ebook and access to learning transcript portal where you can check your scores and so on. I spent the first day at work (Thursday) to went through the ebook a little bit. There are 2 ebooks, one is HCM Services Core, the other is HCM Supplemental. The Supplemental one helps extra activities and homework in the course so you do not have to care about it yet though. If you are assigned to get the functional consultant certificate, you will have to watch HCM training videos in the training portal too in order to get the final certification. I also spent the time to quickly watch the few first HCM videos the second day of work (Friday).
There were a lot of cheatsheet provided from my colleagues so that newcomers will not be surpised in the training but I dont think it was necessary. If you are totally new to Workday, the best thing you will do is reading the ebook like I did, try to understand the concept first and watch the videos. You can also ask you company's training coordinator the access to GMS testing tenant of Workday to get to know the system before you go to the training. If you are already familiar with Workday, watching the videos and glance the ebook to understand the flow of the training is already enough. Cheatsheets provided, to me it was just giving more unecessary information that will stuff your head before the training even started.
Next Monday, I flew to Amsterdam at noon. There are some good hotel around the training center in Amsterdam Zuid that you can stay: Element Hotel, NH Hotel, Crowne, CitizenM, and Novotel. My company booked me a place in Novotel which was OK but Element Hotel is better, I will explain why later on.
The evening before the training, I just relaxed because I know the next day there will be lots of information needed to get to my head so better stay out of beers, weeds or redlight district ;). I actually took a walk from my hotel to the training center, it took around 15 mins so all good. I had dinner at Market 33 right the corner neat the training center. Then I went to the nearest Albert Heljin to buy some fruits for the evening, I found out that my visa card does not work there so I had a mission to withdraw some cash :). Remember guys, have some cash in Amsterdam, they dont like your visa card.
THE TRAINING
The training starts at 8.30 every morning. The Workday center in Amsterdam provides popcorn, vitamin drinks, coffee, tea which you can enjoy during all breaks. I sneaked some popcorn back to my hotel to eat while watching training videos ;) quite luxury,
The content of the training follows the order of the book quite strictly.
The first day of the training was quite relaxing. The trainer will show you how to navigate around Workday, where to search stuff, what is the prefix in the search to speed it up. Along the chapters, there are activities that will help you to practice it. The trainer will demo it first and you repeat. There are break of 5-10 mins combine with the activity every hour so if you do the activity fast you can have longer break. At some point of the first day of the training, each trainee will get their own tenant and start logging in to have your first hand dirty. The first day will cover until Chapter 2 where has different types of organization in Workday and you can build your first organizations in the training where all other activities later on will be in it (so do it correct right at first place please :D).
Evening of the first day, I went to Uniqlo Amsterdam to buy office clothes - Uniqlo is my heaven, I think I am addicted to the place.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the the training, you will learn to distinguish between job and position, compensation, setup different security groups, configure business process and hire people in the organization. All are straightforward with the demo from the trainers and you practice based on what instructed in the book. The most difficult activity my class think was the security groups setup and business process configuration on Thursday and Friday so please pay attention there.
The speed of the training is quite fast for those who has never known Workday before so please feel free to interupt the trainer to ask questions because trainers are your best buddy in this journey. If you feel you do not understand something, I recommend you spend the evening in the hotel to read the book once again, repeat the practice and if you have any questions, note down to ask the next day.
WEEKEND ACTIVITY
After the training on Friday, the trainer will divide group in your class into a group of 5-7 people for the weekend activity. The weekend activity requirement details is written in the HCM Supplemental Appendix. On Friday, it is recommended that your team get to know each other, create whatsapp group to chat. If you have time with your group, you can start drafting the organization information that your group will create durign the weekend. Here are the questions that you and your group might want to answer/draft before Saturday:
1- Name of the company (only 1 company required)
2- Name of the reorganization
3- New locations that are not on the tenant yet
4- New location hierarchy (2 layers)
5- New cost centers
6- New cost center hierarchy (2 layers)
7- Name of Supervisory Organizations, recommend to have 4 layers max including the top level. The number of supervisory org depends on number of people in the team but it is recommended to have 5 in a team of 5 people.
8- Name of the people, who will sit in which organization, who are the managers, of which organization?
9- Compensation Grade, compensation package, salary plans, allowance plans, eligibility rules.
My group managed to agree until question number 8 and then we continue on Saturday.
When Saturday came, we started at 9 in Element Hotel. The reason was Element Hotel has very quiet bar and the staff allows us to do it there. The staff was super nice and let us, who did not stay in the hotel, to take drinks from breakfast buffet if we want. That is why I recommended Element Hotel to stay.
Our team started with all of us configured the tenant from question 1 - 8. We did all stuff at the same time and waited for each other if there is any problem occured. This is the recommened way to do from me because if you are good with Workday and you do things before others do, you will not help at all the speed of the whole group. This is a group work after all.
At around 11, we finished and we discussed compensation structure, agreed and then started buiding it. At 12 we finished and had a lunch break until 1. From 1 onwards we finished compensation, security and business process. At 3 sharp, we started to hire people in the organization. The requirements was one of us whose tenant is used for the presentation on Monday, has to have 3 x member number (there were 8 of us se we needs 25 people hired in the tenant). So we chose one person in the group, share the tenant password to everyone of use and we all in the tenant to start hiring people in. We were doing very efficient way by having people per group of hiring 10 employees in, the first person hired 10 people then another person next to that person proxy as the manager to approve, then the next person proxy as Comp Admin to approve that 10 hiring > with that way, we do not have to waste time proxying one by one. The group of hiring 5 people left had some time so we were looking for questions in community and load employees' photo in :D.
WEEK 2
In our week 2, we presented the tenant to the trainer at the beginning of Monday and then the rest of the week until Wednesday we did 2 full exercises just like the weekend activity but this time individually, of course.
The end of Wednesday, we did some theories practices, answering questions which potentially was in the Thursday test.
EXAM DAY
On the exam day, I could not sleep very well, I was worried that I, as a very over confident person, would miss some details in the exam and failed.
But it was not that crazy. We just had to understand the theory we had in class and the build the tenant just like the 2 exercises we did in week 2.
Some tips for you with the exam preparation:
- Do it carefully of each questions, do not rush
- If there are problems and you found it, do not panic! you have a lot of time to go back and fix the problem
- Understand the theory well by reading the book carefully, do not miss a single word. Read the book before the training, during the training, after the training if you did not have Workday experience. And if you had workday experience before, do not assume stuff that you were not clear. I had this problem in 1 question "Report writer can access all business object to write report?" - I answered yes, because I was report writer and I could access everything to write report BUT I was also HR admin, BP admin, Security Admin, Comp admin,.... so I could access to all BO not because I was a report writer. The book wrote this quite clear but I did not read the book, I was over confident, shame!
- Do not hesitate to ask the trainer if you have any doubts before the exam. During the exam you are not allowed to ask. The Wednesday preparation quiz has a lot of tips and hint for the exam so try to memorize or note down what was in the quiz.
- If you have reporting experience with Workday, you can create report for data check. If you dont, then check through all supervisory, locations, employee details. Check everything twice at least.
- What others can do does not matter to you. This is an independent exam so if you see they are leaving the room, do not get panic, they will pass the exam and so will you.
To pass the exam, you have to:
- have more than 70% of theory passed
- have more than 80% of tenant build passed
- have more than 70% of custom oject quiz in learning center - which can be answered later or earlier than the exam on your own time at home, having all sources opened.
Some side note:
- I had talked to some of my colleagues, some of them had very nice weekend activity (like me) some of them had to work on both Sunday and Saturday because the group did not communicate well or whatever reasons there are > don't plan on trip on your Sunday in the training.
- You only have to passed the exam so how many % does not matter, as long as it is higher than 70% so it is fine if you make mistake.
Wish you all luck and I hope this blogpost will help you mentally what will happen in your training
Have a good workday ;)
In order to be a Workday Functional Consultant, we have to acquire HCM Core and Practical Training in order to be certified as a consultant. How to?
The company hired you will send you to the training pretty much the first month of your training. Every month there are HCM Core trainings organized in Workday training centers. I went to the Amsterdam one to get the training.
The Core Services part in Amsterdam lasted 10 days, starting from first Tuesday of the month until second Thursday of the month. I had 2 days in my new office place to set up computer and phone before going to the training. Some unlucky people even got to fly to the training right away without even few first days in the new office.
BEFORE THE TRAINING
Workday will send you the ebook and access to learning transcript portal where you can check your scores and so on. I spent the first day at work (Thursday) to went through the ebook a little bit. There are 2 ebooks, one is HCM Services Core, the other is HCM Supplemental. The Supplemental one helps extra activities and homework in the course so you do not have to care about it yet though. If you are assigned to get the functional consultant certificate, you will have to watch HCM training videos in the training portal too in order to get the final certification. I also spent the time to quickly watch the few first HCM videos the second day of work (Friday).
There were a lot of cheatsheet provided from my colleagues so that newcomers will not be surpised in the training but I dont think it was necessary. If you are totally new to Workday, the best thing you will do is reading the ebook like I did, try to understand the concept first and watch the videos. You can also ask you company's training coordinator the access to GMS testing tenant of Workday to get to know the system before you go to the training. If you are already familiar with Workday, watching the videos and glance the ebook to understand the flow of the training is already enough. Cheatsheets provided, to me it was just giving more unecessary information that will stuff your head before the training even started.
Next Monday, I flew to Amsterdam at noon. There are some good hotel around the training center in Amsterdam Zuid that you can stay: Element Hotel, NH Hotel, Crowne, CitizenM, and Novotel. My company booked me a place in Novotel which was OK but Element Hotel is better, I will explain why later on.
The evening before the training, I just relaxed because I know the next day there will be lots of information needed to get to my head so better stay out of beers, weeds or redlight district ;). I actually took a walk from my hotel to the training center, it took around 15 mins so all good. I had dinner at Market 33 right the corner neat the training center. Then I went to the nearest Albert Heljin to buy some fruits for the evening, I found out that my visa card does not work there so I had a mission to withdraw some cash :). Remember guys, have some cash in Amsterdam, they dont like your visa card.
THE TRAINING
The training starts at 8.30 every morning. The Workday center in Amsterdam provides popcorn, vitamin drinks, coffee, tea which you can enjoy during all breaks. I sneaked some popcorn back to my hotel to eat while watching training videos ;) quite luxury,
The content of the training follows the order of the book quite strictly.
The first day of the training was quite relaxing. The trainer will show you how to navigate around Workday, where to search stuff, what is the prefix in the search to speed it up. Along the chapters, there are activities that will help you to practice it. The trainer will demo it first and you repeat. There are break of 5-10 mins combine with the activity every hour so if you do the activity fast you can have longer break. At some point of the first day of the training, each trainee will get their own tenant and start logging in to have your first hand dirty. The first day will cover until Chapter 2 where has different types of organization in Workday and you can build your first organizations in the training where all other activities later on will be in it (so do it correct right at first place please :D).
Evening of the first day, I went to Uniqlo Amsterdam to buy office clothes - Uniqlo is my heaven, I think I am addicted to the place.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the the training, you will learn to distinguish between job and position, compensation, setup different security groups, configure business process and hire people in the organization. All are straightforward with the demo from the trainers and you practice based on what instructed in the book. The most difficult activity my class think was the security groups setup and business process configuration on Thursday and Friday so please pay attention there.
The speed of the training is quite fast for those who has never known Workday before so please feel free to interupt the trainer to ask questions because trainers are your best buddy in this journey. If you feel you do not understand something, I recommend you spend the evening in the hotel to read the book once again, repeat the practice and if you have any questions, note down to ask the next day.
WEEKEND ACTIVITY
After the training on Friday, the trainer will divide group in your class into a group of 5-7 people for the weekend activity. The weekend activity requirement details is written in the HCM Supplemental Appendix. On Friday, it is recommended that your team get to know each other, create whatsapp group to chat. If you have time with your group, you can start drafting the organization information that your group will create durign the weekend. Here are the questions that you and your group might want to answer/draft before Saturday:
1- Name of the company (only 1 company required)
2- Name of the reorganization
3- New locations that are not on the tenant yet
4- New location hierarchy (2 layers)
5- New cost centers
6- New cost center hierarchy (2 layers)
7- Name of Supervisory Organizations, recommend to have 4 layers max including the top level. The number of supervisory org depends on number of people in the team but it is recommended to have 5 in a team of 5 people.
8- Name of the people, who will sit in which organization, who are the managers, of which organization?
9- Compensation Grade, compensation package, salary plans, allowance plans, eligibility rules.
My group managed to agree until question number 8 and then we continue on Saturday.
When Saturday came, we started at 9 in Element Hotel. The reason was Element Hotel has very quiet bar and the staff allows us to do it there. The staff was super nice and let us, who did not stay in the hotel, to take drinks from breakfast buffet if we want. That is why I recommended Element Hotel to stay.
Our team started with all of us configured the tenant from question 1 - 8. We did all stuff at the same time and waited for each other if there is any problem occured. This is the recommened way to do from me because if you are good with Workday and you do things before others do, you will not help at all the speed of the whole group. This is a group work after all.
At around 11, we finished and we discussed compensation structure, agreed and then started buiding it. At 12 we finished and had a lunch break until 1. From 1 onwards we finished compensation, security and business process. At 3 sharp, we started to hire people in the organization. The requirements was one of us whose tenant is used for the presentation on Monday, has to have 3 x member number (there were 8 of us se we needs 25 people hired in the tenant). So we chose one person in the group, share the tenant password to everyone of use and we all in the tenant to start hiring people in. We were doing very efficient way by having people per group of hiring 10 employees in, the first person hired 10 people then another person next to that person proxy as the manager to approve, then the next person proxy as Comp Admin to approve that 10 hiring > with that way, we do not have to waste time proxying one by one. The group of hiring 5 people left had some time so we were looking for questions in community and load employees' photo in :D.
WEEK 2
In our week 2, we presented the tenant to the trainer at the beginning of Monday and then the rest of the week until Wednesday we did 2 full exercises just like the weekend activity but this time individually, of course.
The end of Wednesday, we did some theories practices, answering questions which potentially was in the Thursday test.
EXAM DAY
On the exam day, I could not sleep very well, I was worried that I, as a very over confident person, would miss some details in the exam and failed.
But it was not that crazy. We just had to understand the theory we had in class and the build the tenant just like the 2 exercises we did in week 2.
Some tips for you with the exam preparation:
- Do it carefully of each questions, do not rush
- If there are problems and you found it, do not panic! you have a lot of time to go back and fix the problem
- Understand the theory well by reading the book carefully, do not miss a single word. Read the book before the training, during the training, after the training if you did not have Workday experience. And if you had workday experience before, do not assume stuff that you were not clear. I had this problem in 1 question "Report writer can access all business object to write report?" - I answered yes, because I was report writer and I could access everything to write report BUT I was also HR admin, BP admin, Security Admin, Comp admin,.... so I could access to all BO not because I was a report writer. The book wrote this quite clear but I did not read the book, I was over confident, shame!
- Do not hesitate to ask the trainer if you have any doubts before the exam. During the exam you are not allowed to ask. The Wednesday preparation quiz has a lot of tips and hint for the exam so try to memorize or note down what was in the quiz.
- If you have reporting experience with Workday, you can create report for data check. If you dont, then check through all supervisory, locations, employee details. Check everything twice at least.
- What others can do does not matter to you. This is an independent exam so if you see they are leaving the room, do not get panic, they will pass the exam and so will you.
To pass the exam, you have to:
- have more than 70% of theory passed
- have more than 80% of tenant build passed
- have more than 70% of custom oject quiz in learning center - which can be answered later or earlier than the exam on your own time at home, having all sources opened.
Some side note:
- I had talked to some of my colleagues, some of them had very nice weekend activity (like me) some of them had to work on both Sunday and Saturday because the group did not communicate well or whatever reasons there are > don't plan on trip on your Sunday in the training.
- You only have to passed the exam so how many % does not matter, as long as it is higher than 70% so it is fine if you make mistake.
Wish you all luck and I hope this blogpost will help you mentally what will happen in your training
Have a good workday ;)
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