Managers can delegate certain Workday tasks to a designee who can manage tasks on their behalf. Though tasks may be delegated, ultimate responsibility for the tasks always rests with the manager. Delegation is set up for a limited amount of time. At the end of the specified period, the task will no longer be delegated. 

Once assigned, the Delegate or Alternate can act on behalf of their Delegator, but can only perform the specific action(s) delegated to them.

Examples of tasks that can be delegated are:

• Time Off Requests: Time sheets, vacations, or leave of absence requests.
• Change to job information: Transfer, promotion, location, organization, termination.
• Recruitment transactions: Create position/job requisition, hire. 

Use Case Example:

You are going on vacation for two weeks and need someone to approve your timesheets in Workday. You will need to delegate your Workday Inbox tasks to your manager during this time. Your delegated tasks will display in your managers inbox. The action will display On Behalf of, followed by your name. 

Create New Delegation

In the search engine, type My Delegations to be directed to an overview of your delegation set up. To create a new delegation, click Manage Delegations.

Specify a Begin Date* and End Date*. The begin date will be either current date or future dated.

Select a Delegate from the prompt by typing in the colleagues name.

In the Do Inbox Tasks On My Behalf section, select whether to delegate Inbox tasks:

• For all Business Processes (all your inbox items).
• For a specific Business Process (select inbox items).
• None of the above (removes the ability to do Inbox tasks while retaining the ability to initiate specified business processes on your behalf).

Note: When you add a new delegation configuration and select the For all Business Processes and For Business Process options, Workday enables the Retain Access to Delegated Tasks in Inbox check box by default.

To add more delegations, add a row to the delegation’s grid by clicking the + icon, and then repeat the steps above. 

When you finish setting up your delegations, click Submit.

Changing or Ending Delegations

You can manage, amend or remove a delegation as needed. If your Delegate is terminated, all associated delegations will be terminated, and the Delegator will be responsible for all tasks unless another delegate is set up. 

Access the Manage Delegations task and make any necessary changes as needed. Be sure to click Submit to save your changes. 

Completing a Delegated Task

When you are assigned a Colleague's delegate, you will have visibility to the task that you will complete on their behalf.

When trying to complete the task on behalf of your Colleague, you will act as them in Workday. When clicking the task, you will see an action Switch Account. This will temporarily allow you to act as your fellow Colleague for completing the tasks only. 

You will receive a confirmation screen that you want to Switch Account. Click OK. You will now be logged in as your fellow Colleague. 

You will be directed to a Delegation Dashboard. From the screen, click the My Tasks icon on the top right. This action will take you to the tasks you can complete.

From My Tasks, you will be able to review the task assigned to you and take the appropriate action based on what has been delegated to you. Depending on the task, you can Approve, Deny, Submit or other various actions. Below is a sample if you are delegated an approval of a time off request. 

Once you have review and completed all the tasks assigned to you as the delegate, you will want to log back in to your account. You will click the person icon on the top right of the screen and select Switch Account. 

By default you will be logged in as your fellow Colleague, you will click your name (self) and Workday will automatically sign you back in as yourself.