What's New in Workday | July 2026

This week, we celebrate 6 months since the University of Mississippi launched Workday for Human Resources and Payroll!

Over the past six months, we've learned, adapted, and continued to refine Workday based on university needs and user feedback. From new functionality and training resources to process improvements and helpful reminders, these updates are designed to help you work more efficiently and stay informed about changes that may impact your day-to-day responsibilities.

Because Workday is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, enhancements and adjustments occur throughout the year. This quarterly update highlights important changes, resources, and tips to help you make the most of Workday at the University of Mississippi.

Departments have flexibility when hiring student employees. While current functionality allows departments to use the Hire Student task without first creating a Recruiting requisition, Recruiting remains available for departments that need to advertise positions and build candidate pools.

Use the Hire Student Task when:

Use Recruiting functionality when:

Recruiting options include:

Reminder: Students MAY NOT BEGIN WORK until the onboarding steps are completed. Hiring managers must review the Onboarding Business Process Status Summary for any outstanding items before scheduling a student to work. Students can monitor their progress through the Onboarding Dashboard.

Workday Help should be your first stop when you need guidance on a business process, policy, or Workday task. To access Workday Help, hover over Personal (on the left side navigation panel) and select Help.

The Help Center includes topic-based articles organized by category, making it easy to find information when you need it. New articles and updates are added regularly, so check back often.

Need additional support?
Select Create Case at the bottom of the Help Center to submit a question directly to Human Resources. Your recent cases will also appear on the right side of the screen for easy reference and follow-up.

The Period Activity Pay (PAP) business process is used to compensate employees for fixed-term activities and payment arrangements, including:

A new recording is now available to walk you through the PAP process in Workday.

As part of the university's transition to Workday, the staff evaluation process is now managed within Workday. Staff Performance evaluations follow a semiannual review cycle designed to support more timely feedback and goal-setting conversations.

Evaluation Cycles:

For Administration and Finance staff employees, evaluations do not begin until September, but employees and managers can begin entering goals now. 

For Chancellor and Provost Division staff employees, goals can be entered at any time if they were not already established during the most recent evaluation process. Managers and supervisors are encouraged to work with employees to ensure at least one goal is documented in Workday so it can be included in the next evaluation cycle beginning in December.

As a reminder, goals must be entered at least 30 days in advance to appear in a performance evaluation. Learn more about entering goals.

To learn more:

The Extract Time Blocks report allows managers to see the method an employee used to enter their time, whether it was on the web, kiosk, or through the mobile app. Learn more by reviewing this Job Aid.

Notifications in Workday are only available for 30 days. After that period, you can review past notifications using the View and Maintain Notifications report.

To access the report, search for View and Maintain Notifications via the search bar, enter the date range you would like to review, and select both Read Notifications and Unread Notifications. The report will then display notifications that match your selected criteria.

Whether you have a question or need assistance, the Department of Human Resources is here to help. Explore resources available in Workday, including Help Articles & Workday Assistant.  

Need Further Support? 
Submit a case directly in Workday by navigating to Personal > Help > Create Case.

You can also reach out to your Human Resources Business Partner (HRBP) for assistance with Workday, Recruiting, People Relations, and other HR-related questions.

Looking for past communications?

To learn more about Encompass: