Workday Email and Phone Writeback

Okta has added the ability to write back email and phone number attributes to Workday. With this new writeback feature, Okta, Active Directory, or other Profile Source can update Phone Number and Email Workday attributes. No other Workday attributes are supported at this time.

Prerequisites

Set up provisioning for Workday. See Workday

Procedures

Configure Workday

In order for the writeback feature to work successfully, you need to grant additional required permissions to the integration system user/System Group. Then activate the permissions.

  1. Domain Security Policy Permissions.

    Follow steps a-e (part of step 7) of Grant permission to an Integration System User for the domain "Worker Data: Maintain Contact Information" – Get and Put.

  2. Business Process Security Policy Permissions.

    • Search for bp:contact change, then edit the Business Process Policy:

      workday_writeback1

    • Assign the Integration System User’s security group created in Create an Integration System User in Workday to Initiating Action: Maintain Contact Information (Web Service):

      workday_writeback2

  3. Follow step 7 in Grant permission to an Integration System User to activate the security policies mentioned in Requirements under Creating an Integrator System User in Workday.

Configure Okta

  1. In Okta, open the Workday app, and go to the Provisioning tab.

  2. Select To App in the left panel under SETTINGS, then under Workday Attribute Mappings, select Go to Profile Editor.

  3. Add the Workday attributes that are currently supported for writeback. This is done by discovering attributes from Workday and mapping to relevant Okta attributes. Click Add Attribute.

  4. Click Refresh Attributes.

  5. Add the required Workday attributes, then click Save.

    Each attribute has three different data types which are explained below. In the table, the attribute Work Email is used as an example:

    Attribute Name Type Required/Optional Comments Sample Values
    EmailAddressData Work EmailAddress String Required Map to Okta user attribute OktaCustomWorkEmail
    EmailAddressData Work Primary Boolean Required If Work email that is pushed needs to be set as Primary, set value as true. Default is false. true
    EmailAddressData Work Public Boolean Required If Work email that is pushed needs to be set as Public, Set value as true. Default is false. false

    Workday Contact information has 2 parameters: Primary and Public:

    Primary: This parameter defines if the contact information is of type Primary or Additional.

    Public: This parameter defines if the contact information visibility is Public or Private.

    workday6

    See Resources for a list of the Workday attributes that are currently supported.

  6. Map the newly added attribute to relevant Okta attributes. Click Map Attributes

  7. Select Okta to Workday, map attributes as shown below, then click Save Mappings:

    workdayenhancements1

    8. Example Expression Language Function

    Note: See Okta expression language for reference.

    To parse phone numbers:

    For user.mobilePhone = +1 (415) 123-4567 x 12345:

    Work Mobile Phone AreaCode: String.substringBefore(String.substringAfter(user.mobilePhone, "(" ), ")" ) -> 415

    Work Mobile Phone InternationalPhoneCode: String.removeSpaces(String.substringBefore(String.substringAfter(user.mobilePhone, "+" ), "(" )) -> 1

    Work Mobile Phone PhoneNumber: String.removeSpaces(String.substringBefore(String.substringAfter(user.mobilePhone, ")" ), "x" )) --> 123-4567

    Work Mobile Phone PhoneExtension: String.removeSpaces(String.substringAfter(user.mobilePhone, "x")) -> 12345

  8. Attribute-Level Sourcing

    In the typical Workday writeback use case, Workday is set as the overall Profile Source. However, to have email or phone number written back into Workday, configure attribute-level sourcing with Okta, Active Directory, or some other app as Profile Source for those specific attributes. See the following example:

    • Go to Directory > Profile Editor.

    • Select Okta in the left FILTERS panel, then click Profile.

    • Select Edit.

    • Select the profile source of your choice, then click Save Profile.

    • Go to Attributes, then select Custom > Filter.

    • Select User permission and Source priority.

    • Click Save attribute to complete the setup.

Known limitations

  • For Workday v.15: Unlike the Workday user interface, the Workday API doesn’t have format validation/rules for phone number or email (for example: Phone number format must be 3 Digits + Optional dash (or dot) + 4 digits).

    Workday v29 does perform format validation/rules for phone number and email.

  • After Okta sets the Primary Workday attributes, it doesn’t set it back to NULL. This is because of a Workday validation rule that does not allow NULL values.

Resources

Supported attributes

S. No

Attribute Name

Type

Description
1 EmailAddressData Home EmailAddress string emailAddressDataHomeEmailAddress
2 EmailAddressData Home Primary boolean emailAddressDataHomePrimary
3 EmailAddressData Home Public boolean emailAddressDataHomePublic
4 EmailAddressData Work EmailAddress string emailAddressDataWorkEmailAddress
5 EmailAddressData Work Primary boolean emailAddressDataWorkPrimary
6 EmailAddressData Work Public boolean emailAddressDataWorkPublic
7 PhoneData Home Fax AreaCode string phoneDataHomeFaxAreaCode
8 PhoneData Home Fax InternationalPhoneCode string phoneDataHomeFaxInternationalPhoneCode
9 PhoneData Home Fax PhoneExtension string phoneDataHomeFaxPhoneExtension
10 PhoneData Home Fax PhoneNumber string phoneDataHomeFaxPhoneNumber
11 PhoneData Home Fax Primary boolean phoneDataHomeFaxPrimary
12 PhoneData Home Fax Public boolean phoneDataHomeFaxPublic
13 PhoneData Home Mobile AreaCode string phoneDataHomeMobileAreaCode
14 PhoneData Home Mobile InternationalPhoneCode string phoneDataHomeMobileInternationalPhoneCode
15 PhoneData Home Mobile PhoneExtension string phoneDataHomeMobilePhoneExtension
16 PhoneData Home Mobile PhoneNumber string phoneDataHomeMobilePhoneNumber
17 PhoneData Home Mobile Primary boolean phoneDataHomeMobilePrimary
18 PhoneData Home Mobile Public boolean phoneDataHomeMobilePublic
19 PhoneData Home Pager AreaCode string phoneDataHomePagerAreaCode
20 PhoneData Home Pager InternationalPhoneCode string phoneDataHomePagerInternationalPhoneCode
21 PhoneData Home Pager PhoneExtension string phoneDataHomePagerPhoneExtension
22 PhoneData Home Pager PhoneNumber string phoneDataHomePagerPhoneNumber
23 PhoneData Home Pager Primary boolean phoneDataHomePagerPrimary
24 PhoneData Home Pager Public Boolean phoneDataHomePagerPublic
25 PhoneData Home Telephone AreaCode string phoneDataHomeTelephoneAreaCode
26 PhoneData Home Telephone InternationalPhoneCode string phoneDataHomeTelephoneInternationalPhoneCode
27 PhoneData Home Telephone PhoneExtension string phoneDataHomeTelephonePhoneExtension
28 PhoneData Home Telephone PhoneNumber string phoneDataHomeTelephonePhoneNumber
29 PhoneData Home Telephone Primary Boolean phoneDataHomeTelephonePrimary
30 PhoneData Home Telephone Public boolean phoneDataHomeTelephonePublic
31 PhoneData Work Fax AreaCode string phoneDataWorkFaxAreaCode
32 PhoneData Work Fax InternationalPhoneCode string phoneDataWorkFaxInternationalPhoneCode
33 PhoneData Work Fax PhoneExtension string phoneDataWorkFaxPhoneExtension
34 PhoneData Work Fax PhoneNumber string phoneDataWorkFaxPhoneNumber
35 PhoneData Work Fax Primary boolean phoneDataWorkFaxPrimary
36 PhoneData Work Fax Public boolean phoneDataWorkFaxPublic
37 PhoneData Work Mobile AreaCode string phoneDataWorkMobileAreaCode
38 PhoneData Work Mobile InternationalPhoneCode string phoneDataWorkMobileInternationalPhoneCode
39 PhoneData Work Mobile PhoneExtension string phoneDataWorkMobilePhoneExtension
40 PhoneData Work Mobile PhoneNumber string phoneDataWorkMobilePhoneNumber
41 PhoneData Work Mobile Primary boolean phoneDataWorkMobilePrimary
42 PhoneData Work Mobile Public boolean phoneDataWorkMobilePublic
43 PhoneData Work Pager AreaCode string phoneDataWorkPagerAreaCode
44 PhoneData Work Pager InternationalPhoneCode string phoneDataWorkPagerInternationalPhoneCode
45 PhoneData Work Pager PhoneExtension string phoneDataWorkPagerPhoneExtension
46 PhoneData Work Pager PhoneNumber string phoneDataWorkPagerPhoneNumber
47 PhoneData Work Pager Primary boolean phoneDataWorkPagerPrimary
48 PhoneData Work Pager Public boolean phoneDataWorkPagerPublic
49 PhoneData Work Telephone AreaCode string phoneDataWorkTelephoneAreaCode
50 PhoneData Work Telephone InternationalPhoneCode string phoneDataWorkTelephoneInternationalPhoneCode
51 PhoneData Work Telephone PhoneExtension string phoneDataWorkTelephonePhoneExtension
52 PhoneData Work Telephone PhoneNumber string phoneDataWorkTelephonePhoneNumber
53 PhoneData Work Telephone Primary boolean phoneDataWorkTelephonePrimary
54 PhoneData Work Telephone Public boolean phoneDataWorkTelephonePublic