Workforce-based approvers
Resolve a participant according to business unit, department, geography, worker type, or other report-provided metadata.
“Who should approve this request for the Canadian business unit?”
Roster for Workday
Turn workforce and organizational data into runtime routing context.
Roster connects to Workday JSON custom reports to resolve who should approve, own, review, receive, or handle work. Use worker and organizational data from your HR source of truth without reproducing workforce rules in every agent, workflow, or internal application.
Last verified 07/13/2026
Your HR system knows the workforce. Roster resolves workflow responsibility.
Identity directories are useful for technical accounts and access groups. Workday can provide the workforce and organizational context behind business responsibility.
Roster uses selected Workday records to answer questions such as:
“Who reports to this manager?”
It asks:
“Who manages this employee?”
“Who should approve this request for the Canadian business unit?”
“Which HR group handles this employee case?”
“Who is currently responsible for this organizational role?”
Roster does not become another HR system. It uses configured report data as organizational context for participant resolution.
How Roster connects to Workday
Roster reads JSON custom reports, including Workday report-as-a-service-style endpoints.
A typical configuration can include a users report, an optional groups report, and an optional group-members report.
When an administrator searches Workday records from Roster, the connector loads and filters the configured report data.
Selected records are materialized in Roster. Scheduled refresh updates the selected records and attached membership relationships used by participant resolution.
What you can resolve
Manager and HR routing
Associate workers or organizational groups with participants representing HR, management, payroll, or employee-services responsibilities.
“Who handles this employee case?”
Regional responsibility
Route requests to the appropriate participant based on location, operating company, or regional responsibility.
“Who owns approvals for EMEA operations?”
Organizational escalation
Resolve the correct person or group for employee, finance, procurement, compliance, or operational escalations.
“Who should receive this compliance escalation?”
Delegated responsibility
Combine Workday-derived workforce context with time-bound Roster delegations.
“Who is covering while the regional lead is on leave?”
From Workday data to a Roster participant
The Workday report determines which workers and groups are available. Roster determines how they participate in a particular workflow.
Stable external IDs are essential because they allow Roster to refresh a selected record without relying on a changeable name or email address.
Participants can carry metadata such as: Region, Business unit, Worker type, Cost center, Case category, Escalation level.
Use Workday context from every Roster surface
Once workforce records back Roster participants, the same organizational context is available across every Roster surface.
MCP
Let an MCP-compatible AI client resolve workforce responsibility.
REST API
Add workforce-backed participant resolution to internal apps and workflow engines.
CLI and CI
Resolve ownership and sign-off from the terminal or a pipeline.
Roster platform
Administrators associate Workday-derived records with participants and manage delegations.
What Roster reads from Workday
| Report data | Used by Roster | Materialized in Roster |
|---|---|---|
| Stable worker ID | Yes | For selected workers |
| Worker name | Yes | For selected workers |
| Username | When mapped | For selected workers |
| Primary email | When mapped | For selected workers |
| Stable group ID | When groups are configured | For selected groups |
| Group name | When groups are configured | For selected groups |
| Group membership edges | When configured | For selected groups |
| Payroll details | No | No, unless deliberately mapped |
| Compensation data | No | No |
| Sensitive HR case data | No | No |
The users report should expose fields that can be mapped to:
external_id
display_name
primary_email
user_nameWhen groups are used, the groups report should expose:
external_id
display_name
mailThe optional group-members report should expose:
group_external_id
user_external_idOnly expose fields needed for participant resolution in the configured custom reports.
Live browsing and scheduled refresh
Roster uses configured report data both interactively and at runtime.
Administrative browsing
When an administrator searches Workday users or groups, Roster loads the configured report data and applies the connector's search and field mappings.
Runtime resolution
Once records have been selected, REST, MCP, CLI, and Resolve operations use the materialized Roster records. The background refresh updates only the selected records and associated group memberships used in Roster.
Connection requirements
You need:
- 01A JSON users-report URL
- 02An optional groups-report URL
- 03An optional group-members-report URL
- 04A report integration username
- 05A report password stored securely
- 06Stable external IDs
- 07Field mappings
- 08A refresh schedule
- 09Workday-side access controls limiting the report data
Store the report password outside source control:
env:WORKDAY_REPORT_PASSWORDThe Roster connector uses the report output you explicitly configure. Control the available rows and fields through the Workday report definition and associated security policy.
Workday and identity-directory data can serve different purposes
Workday and an identity directory do not need to compete as a single source.
Workday
Provides workforce and organizational context (who works where, in which unit, under which manager).
Identity directory
Entra ID, Okta, or Google Workspace can provide current identity groups. Roster participants express workflow responsibility across whichever source is authoritative.
The intended source depends on the responsibility being resolved. Roster delegations add temporary coverage on top of either.
Example: resolve a regional HR reviewer
An employee-services workflow receives a request involving a Canadian employee.
It asks:
“Who should review this employee-relations request for Canada?”
Roster evaluates:
- The employee-services project
- The Employee Relations Reviewer participant
- Regional metadata
- The associated Workday worker or organizational group
- Current materialized membership
- Any applicable delegation
The workflow receives the participant that should act and continues through the existing case-management or approval system.