Illuminate Your Workday: Big AI Energy Meets Hub Central in R2

As of August 8th, 470 New features were delivered, 23 born from Community Ideas, and many supercharged by Workday Illuminate, the next generation of Workday AI.  And here’s the kicker, so many of these features are debuting in fresh “hubs” designed to centralize, simplify, and supercharge your Workday experience. R2 Release notes are now available!  

The Workday 2025 Release 2 (R2) introduces exciting new features and enhancements from long awaited Community ideas to new AI/ML capabilities to help improve productivity, streamline processes, and offer better user experiences.  

From the Revenue Hub to the Job Architecture Hub, the Analytics & Reporting Hub to the Student Configuration Hub, R2 is basically turning Workday into your ultimate productivity HQ. Sprinkle in some smart AI moves like generating Workday Help articles for healthcare plans or offering AI-powered Payroll Accounting prompt recommendations, and you’ve got a release that’s more than keeping pace, it’s setting the tempo. 

But we get it—whether you’ve been live for years or just launched Workday, a release this packed can feel like drinking from the firehose. That’s why  The Groove  is here—to help you cut through the noise, prioritize what matters, and roll out new features without the chaos.  

Stay tuned for our upcoming Release Webinar(s) where our team will showcase some of the top feature sets and you will have a chance to connect in an engaging format.  

To ensure a smooth transition and leverage the full potential of this release, follow the steps outlined below.  

Your R2 Game PlanMonitor Key Deadlines  

A smooth transition through preview, testing, and production starts with understanding the release schedule. Review key dates, add them to your calendar, and plan ahead to keep the process stress-free. 

Bookmark the Workday Release Center in Community—your go-to hub for everything related to the update. This central resource provides the release timeline, essential tools to stay ahead, details on targeted features, their impact and benefits, and guidance on deploying them effectively to maximize your Workday investment. 

Understand the New Features 

What’s coming? While Workday updates weekly to stay current, major feature releases follow a different schedule. On the Release center, navigate to the Release Notes section to dive in!    

Key Steps: 

• Workday often holds webinars or product walkthroughs focused on the new features, ensuring your company is aware of the full capabilities. These sessions provide valuable tips, best practices, and deployment considerations.  

• Determine which new features align to your organization’s strategic goals and priorities, while also considering any other backlog of enhancements.  To group enhancements by functional areas, leverage the “What’s New in Workday Report” within your tenant and if your organization uses Adoption Planning, tie these features to your Adoption dashboard.  With numerous enhancements in each release, it is important to review with your team and update your roadmap so you can adopt the best practices and integrate the most relevant improvements. 

Plan Your Testing 

How you test and what you test will be unique to your organization. A smaller organization may need to do things much differently than a large, highly regulated industry.  

Consider the resources and SME’s that can support the broader testing effort in the limited timeframe available to regression test. Make sure you assign responsibilities to different team members aligned with their roles and processes. Keep in mind, it can be done very effectively with lean teams.   

As many recognize, there is the “power of one” Workday Customer Community, and the broader testing efforts that organizations are going through. 

However, one question I’ve posed for years is: What critical function—whether a business process, integration, Extend app, or dashboard—that are mission critical and can’t wait for a Workday fix in a weekly patch and do not have viable workarounds? Although this can be a minimal impact event, it’s important to spend the time categorizing these impacts especially for lean internal teams. For example, the Hire BP often falls into the can’t-live-without category, whereas something like the Edit License BP may not be as critical for your organization.   

Key Steps:  

• Run and review the critical integrations or custom reports before any transactions are entered to support data validations or output formats.    

• Complete regression testing on the critical and high priority impact areas cross functionality using “day in the life” scenarios to manage a workflow end-to-end.    

• When feasible line up these regression tests with the automatically available features.  Otherwise, ensure that you review the automatically available features from an end-user experience and change impact, along with the underlying configuration that may be impacted.    

• Review the exception audits recommended by Workday.  Note: It is also helpful to review the audits on a routine basis.  Please see the following Workday community post: Concept: Exception Audit Reports   

• Keep track of the change impacts throughout.    

Communicate with Stakeholders 

Communication and change management will be essential in this next phase. To ensure a smooth Workday 2025 Release 2 and help your business thrive, it is important to keep everyone on your team informed of what is headed their way.   

Key Steps:  

• Keep department leaders and users informed about the upcoming changes and schedule.  Certain organizations may need to pre-plan an extended lock-out period for other enhancements or data validation.  

• Be prepared to share a high-level overview of how the release will impact (and improve) the day-to-day operations. The Release is always a great time to showcase enhancements to your stakeholders and end users.  

Update Training Materials 

Before finalizing your testing plan, update and confirm your documentation. Supporting your team and fostering curiosity will enhance their understanding and streamline everyone's professional growth.  

Key Steps:  

• Update your internal documentation and training guides to reflect the changes in Workday 2025 R2. By keeping information current, you’ll ensure a smooth transition, and it is also a period to revalidate current design. Many times, I have seen organizations designate a “release bug” only to uncover that the current design is not aligned to their expectations.   

•  If there is a significant change impact, schedule training sessions, office hours, or leverage other communication strategies for HR, finance, IT, and other impacted teams.  

• Make most of the certified resources already available to you, ensuring your team benefits from expert-backed learning and training.    

Go-Live Preparation 

Now that you have read the steps to prepare for the Workday 2025 R2, it is time to complete your plan.   

Key Steps:  

• If you plan to validate your production tenant and/or configure critical feature sets before releasing it to your organization, lock your production tenant. It is also important to re-run the exception audits during this time. Once validation has occurred, do not forget to unlock the tenant.     

• Prepare and manage your post-Release support plan to address questions and issues.  

• Designate a team to monitor the rollout during the first few weeks, focusing on any new automatically available or deployed features to ensure a smooth transition. 

Post-Release Support 

After Workday 2025 R2 is rolled out, it is important to continually refine your processes. This includes gathering feedback from your team and staying informed about future updates. 

Key Steps:  

• Continue to deliver on your adoption roadmap features. Your enhancement backlog should include all the optional features that weren’t deployed. Now is the time to continue your rolling adoption of new features!    

• Assess the impact of the update as timely as possible. Use this feedback to discuss what worked well and what could be improved as you plan for Workday 2026 R1.  

By following these steps, your organization will be well-prepared to maximize the benefits of Workday Release 2025 R2 while minimizing disruption to operations. Effective planning, clear communication, and thorough training are key components for ensuring a smooth and successful transition.   

Why Partner with The Groove

We’ve been through every kind of release cycle and know exactly how to help you get the most out of new features, especially when AI and hub-based navigation are redefining work.  With our Workday expertise, we’ll guide your team from preview to post-release, ensuring adoption is smooth and strategic. Stay tuned for our upcoming Release Webinars, where we’ll walk through our top R2 picks and give you an interactive space to ask questions, share insights, and see what Illuminate + some of the new hubs can really do for your organization.