Workday Glossary

Workday Term Legacy Term (if applicable) Definition
Accounting Adjustment Journal Entry An operational journal entry within Workday. They are used to reassign an actual expense by changing the associated worktags.
Approve An action in a business process that designated participants select to progress the event to the next step.
Award Base Center High-level dimension that provides key post award attributes of the Grant/Contract from the sponsor including calendar, budget, and billing details. Does not include gifts. Note: Every award must have an award line.
Award Lines Cost Centers (research) Links the Grant to the Award and specifies the costing and reimbursable methods to be utilized. They are amended based on NOGA using current parameters if a new Cost Center is given today, then a new award line will be created. Award lines must have grant. One or more award lines may be defined for an award, but one must be the primary award line.
Award Tasks
Billable Milestones
Business Process (BP) Set of tasks that need to be completed for an even to occur, the order in which they must be done, and who must do them.
Cancel (business process) An action you can take on a business process. Canceling a business process stops the workflow in progress and reverses changes made to data. You cannot cancel a completed business process; you must rescind it. A securable action in a business process security policy.
Catalog Item A purchased item included in the standard catalog of items in Workday. Catalog items are frequently ordered items.
Company incorporated entity - legal entity with a Tax ID number
Contingent Worker Non-employees of VUMC who have a VUMC ID
Correct (business process) An action you can take on a business process. Correcting a business process changes a specification or data in the workflow while in progress. It is also a securable action in a business process security policy.
Cost Element Ledger Account Used in Research
Costing Allocation See Payroll Costing Allocation
Dashboard A specialized landing page containing a set of preconfigured worklets for a functional area.
Delegation The ability in Workday to temporarily assign business processes to others within your Supervisory Organization.
Deny (business process) An action you can take on a step within a business process. When you deny a business process, the business process is terminated and all Workday data is restored to its state before the business process started. To restart the business process, you need to submit the process again, and redo all previously completed steps.
Employee self-service (ESS) ESS allows employees to perform tasks that pertain to their worker status. For example, staff can update their address, emergency contact, and other personal information.
Enrich Add to a business process already in progress.
Entity Operating entities, (for example,, each hospital) with separate balance sheets
FDM Cost Center/Department The Foundational Data Model (FDM) establishes the framework for Workday transaction processing and reporting. It replaces the pre-Workday center and account number structure at VUMC.
Functional Area A collection of domain or business process security policies that are related to the same set of product features, for example, Benefits or Compensation.
Grant Cost Center The driver worktag in the FDM that is assigned to each award line used to capture costs and record revenue. The grant is where all the financial transaction lives. Can be for a sponsored Grant or Contract. Additional grant worktags can be created for the purpose of cost share, subawards, program income, and partitioning of an award for other purposes as required.
HCM HR "Human Capital Management" (HCM) refers to core human resources (HR) funtionality within Workday.
Home Your default page containing applications, search, notifications, Inbox, and your Profile Menu.
Inbox To-do's or task action items in a business process that require a follow-up step (approval, etc.) appear in your Workday inbox.
Manager self-service (MSS) Manager self-service allows supervisors to perform tasks that pertain to their manager status. For example, supervisors can initiate job changes for their workers such as transfer, promotion or termination
Non-Catalog Item A purchased item not included in the Workday Item Master. Non-Catalog items are a one-time goods and services requisition.
Notifications A "for your information" (FYI) of an activity in Workday driven by a business process; you do not have to respond or complete an activity as a result of receiving a notification.
Object Class Used in Research - The budget categories for awards. Cost categories (salaries, supplies, etc.) that support budget and expenditure reporting. Object class mapping identifies detailed spending categories associated with each object class. Used for calculate F&A costs.
Organization Refers to a group of related workers or a team of workers.
Pay rate type Comp Frequency Defines whether the worker is paid a salary or a certain amount per unit of time; for example, hourly or weekly.
Payroll Accounting Adjustment RDC Used in Workday to adjust salary distribution amounts/percentages for closed fiscal periods.
Payroll Costing Allocation EDC Used in Workday to adjust salary distribution amounts/percentages for the current and/or future fiscal periods.
Payroll Obligation Encumbrance Obligated expense from payroll
Position-based role Privilege (Privilege Management) Security access within Workday that is assigned to a position. Therefore when the user in the position changes, the security remains with the position and is automatically assigned to the new user.
Rescind (business process) An action you can take on a business process to completely reverse all changes made to Workday data in a completed business process. A task must be successfully completed to perform this action.
Role A group of people with specific responsibilities and permissions. When a business process runs, the role for each step includes all of the workers in that role in the business process target organization.
Security Group A collection of users, or a collection of objects that are related to users. Allowing a security group access to a securable item in a security policy grants access to the users associated with the security group.
Suggested Workers Workers that will automatically populate based on supervisory organizations.
Supervisory Organization Org Chart The management hierarchy (i.e. who reports to whom). Positions are associated with supervisory organizations, and workers are hired into positions associated with a supervisory organization
Supplier Vendor
Supplier Contract Vendor Contract
Supplier Invoice Request Check Request Used for payment of Non-Purchase Order goods and services.
User-based role Privilege (Privilege Management) Security access within Workday that is assigned to an individual user. Therefore when the user changes positions, the security follows the user.
View (business process) A securable item used to allow members to view status of a business process and report on it.
Worker An individual in the system who may be an employee or contingent worker. Contingent workers are contractors or volunteers
Worker Profile People Finder A worker profile contains employee information such as contact information, job information and work anniversary information. Only limited information, such as contact information (e.g. telephone number; email address), team or organization is available to other employees. This information acts as a directory for all employees.
Worktag Cost Center/Attributes Elements within the FDM that identify attributes such as who is responsible for the transaction, how the transaction is funded, and what the money is used for. Worktags can include the grant, gift, program, fund, supplier, etc.
T&E Card T&E Card Travel & Entertainment Card used for VUMC travel expenses. Must be expensed using Workday Expense Reports.
Ellipsis The Related Actions button or Ellipsis is the "..." within Workday.
Feedback: Share with others Feedback can be viewed by the feedback receiver, managers, manager chain, and HR personnel with appropriate security credentials. Employees at the same level or below cannot view feedback.
Feedback: Share with employee Private feedback between you and the feedback receiver. Only HR personnel with appropriate security credentials can access feedback.
Feedback: Don't share with employee Confidential feedback that is not shared with feedback receiver. Feedback can only be viewed by the manager, manager chain, and HR personnel with appropriate security credentials.
Supports Institutional Goal/Pillar Goal Select drop down to tie development and performance goals to department or pillar goals.
Account Translator Narrative Chart of Accounts (NCOA) Use the Account Translator tab of the Cost Center Translator tool to search by name or legacy account number to see the new Spend Category for Workday.
Cost Center Translator Center Number Use the Cost Center Translator tool to search by name or legacy center number to see the new center number, grant number or worktags for Workday.
Accounting Journal Journal Entry Created for manual adjustments that are not available via Workday operational transactions with an accounting adjustment. This includes corrections involving a split of the original transaction.
Revenue Category Account Rollup Classifies types of revenue. In research, it classifies revenue collected in relation to the award type.
Spend Category Account Rollup What a user selects when making a purchase. It is a granular level of expense that rolls up to a Workday ledger account. For awards, spend categories are mapped to object classes to properly categorize transactions according to sponsor requirements and calculate F&A.
Award Amendment Used to apply changes to an award. All modifications submitted via COEUS or PEER are ultimately processed as Amendments in Workday. When you amend an award, Workday retains the original award for tracking purposes and creates a new award version for the amended award. The entire amendment history for an award or award line of any version is visible.
Award Correction Used to apply changes to an award typically not involving dates or amounts. Like award amendments, award corrections will primarily originate from changes made in the respective pre-award system.

Glossary Questions

For questions about any items in the Glossary, or to recommend additions, please email WorkdayTraining@vumc.org.