Workday Real Time Sync | Okta (2024)

Workday Real-Time Sync (RTS) allows Okta to receive user creation, update, and termination events from Workday on a real-time basis. User changes in Workday are reflected immediately in Okta and its downstream apps.

RTS is used to trigger an update from Workday to Okta in real-time. It should be used for changes where timeliness is critical such as immediate termination of a worker. A business process must be configured in Workday to send the trigger to Okta to start this process. Included in the RTS import are base attributes, non-future, and future effective dated custom attributes.

Okta strongly recommends that you use RTS with scheduled imports that are run on a 1–2 day interval. This is because some less-frequently used actions in Workday don't trigger RTS, so scheduled imports are required to reconcile these actions.

Prerequisites

Workday is set up as the Profile Source. For instructions, see Workday.

Features

Workday actions not supported by RTS:

• Updates to the Second Email attribute don't trigger RTS.
• Updates to the Manager Username attribute don't trigger RTS.

Some of the worker attributes, like the Manager Username, can't be populated in Okta as part of RTS. As a workaround, add the attribute to Workday field overrides.

The table displays what does and doesn't require an update in base attributes to trigger RTS:

These are all of the of base attributes:

RTS Deactivation

• RTS follows the same deactivation rules when querying the user in real-time. See Deactivation.
• Users can be deactivated immediately upon sync if the immediate deactivation reasoning has been set up. See Immediate Deactivation Reasons.
• Group name change isn't recommended with RTS. See Manage Workday Provisioning Groups.

Configure RTS in Workday

• Create an Integration System
• Add Integration Attributes to the Integration System
• Add Subscriptions to the Integration System
• Associate the Integration User to the Integration System
• Edit Business Process for adding the Integration System

Create an Integration System

1. Sign in to Workday as an administrator.
2. Type Create Integration System in the search box on the top-left corner of the page.
3. Enter the following information:

• System Name: Name desired for the integration system
• Template: Select New using Template, then select Okta-Worker from the list.
• Click OK.

Add Integration Attributes to the Integration System

1. Click Actions next to the Integration System, and then go to Integration SystemConfigure Integration Attributes:

2. Click the plus (+) sign for the Okta API Endpoint and OktaAPI Token to add an entry for each attribute.

OktaAPI Endpoint

In the URL: https://<ENVIRONMENT>/api/v1/app/<Identity Provider ID>/activities/, use these elements:

• Environment: For example, acme.okta.com, mycompany.okta.com
• Identity Provider ID: From the View Setup Instructions link under the Sign On tab for the Workday app. Use the value generated for Issuer in the setup Instructions.

To obtain the Okta API Token, follow these steps:

You must use an account with super admin privileges to generate tokens.

1. Create an Okta service account.
2. Make the service account an Application Administrator of the Workday application.
3. Sign in to Okta as this user.
4. From the Admin Dashboard page, go to SecurityAPI.
5. Click Create Token and then enter a relevant name for it.
6. Copy the token and use it in the form.

Add Subscriptions to the Integration System

1. Click the ellipsis (three dots) next to the Integration System, then go to Integration SystemEdit Subscriptions.

2. Under Subscribe to specific Transaction Types, select items according to the types of events that are required. (See Table 3 for specifications on the types of transactions.)

3. Click the minus (–) sign below External Endpoints to remove the configuration for External Endpoint.

4. Click Add Launch Integration, and then add the values shown in Table 1:

5. You may see the following alert. You can ignore it as it will be fixed in the next section.

Table 1:

If you receive an error, try inputting Transaction Targets as Workers instead of Transaction Targets.

Associate the Integration User to the Integration System

This Integration System User should be created as described in Create an Integration System User in Workday.

1. Click the ellipsis (three dots) next to the Integration System, then edit the Workday account.

2. Select the Integration System User under Workday Account and add it. This associates the Integration User to the System and completes the setup of the Integration System.

Edit Business Process for adding the Integration System

1. We use Hire in this example. For the appropriate business process type, see Table 3 .
2. Enter bp: hire in the Workday search field.
3. Select Hire for tenant. For example: Hire for Acme Inc. Don't select the default business process.
4. Go to Edit Definition.

5. Add a new step, which will be invoked after the hire process is complete. Find the letter in the Order column matching the Yes in the Complete column. (In this example it's set to a).

6. Click the plus sign (+) to add a step.

7. Set the Order value to b. You need the Business Process to invoke real time sync after the completion step, which is set to a.

8. Select the type as Integration, then click OK to save. You return to the Business Process landing page.

9. You may see the following error. You can ignore it because it will be fixed in the next section.

10. The Configure Integration System button appears. Click this to start the configuration process.

11. Select the Integration System that was previously created, then click OK.

12. Add the values as shown in Table 1:

Table 2

This completes the steps for adding the Integration System event to the Business Process.For the sync between Workday and Okta, see Table 3 for the optimal combination of Business Process and Transaction Type.

Table 3

Maintain termination categories in Workday

There are two ways to edit or view the categories for termination:

• Search for maintain termination categories in the search box and select termination for results.
• Termination IDs through the integration IDs report: search for integration IDs and then select the appropriate values.