Microsoft, Workday announce strategic partnership to accelerate planning for today’s world

Workday Adaptive Planning to run on Microsoft Azure Cloud

Workday on Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Azure Active Directory to create greater integrated customer experience

REDMOND, Wash., and PLEASANTON, Calif. — May 27, 2020 — Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY) today announced a strategic partnership prioritizing enterprise planning in the cloud and expanding the business solutions customers can use to better optimize their everyday work. Through this partnership, Workday customers will also be able to run Workday Adaptive Planning on the Microsoft Azure cloud. Further, Microsoft will adopt Workday Adaptive Planning for its global finance teams for planning, budgeting and forecasting to help accelerate decision-making.

The companies also unveiled new integrations between Workday’s suite of applications and Microsoft Teams and Azure Active Directory that will enable customers to simplify day-to-day tasks, foster collaboration, increase productivity and enhance security.

Planning for what’s next

As businesses adjust and adapt to changing business environments, the need for real-time planning capabilities is accelerating. Making faster, informed decisions across all areas of the business requires a continuous planning process. Workday Adaptive Planning offers customers a modern platform that ties data, people and plans together in one version of truth, accessible in the cloud to finance, HR, sales, functional business leaders, and more. Adding Workday Adaptive Planning to Azure offers increased flexibility as customer demand for cloud-based planning grows.

The addition of Workday Adaptive Planning brings a leading modern planning, analytics and reporting solution at scale to the Azure community. Power users can trust the enterprise security and global availability of Azure to handle robust models, multiple instances and nearly unlimited dimensionality for “slicing and dicing” data in Workday.

Further connecting the Microsoft, Workday communities

Today’s announcement also includes additional integrations and support, focusing on easier access, collaboration and security between Microsoft and Workday applications. Workers are often toggling between applications, and new integrations being announced today deliver a more connected, intuitive workspace and frictionless access for enterprise customers.

• Microsoft Teams integration with Workday Financial Management and Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) makes it easier for users to access Workday to simplify day-to-day tasks such as submitting expenses, providing anytime feedback, looking up employees, or requesting time off, all without having to leave Teams. Employees and managers can ask Workday Assistant — a chatbot that uses natural language processing — various questions to help initiate task steps and business processes, enabling them to get daily activities done faster and more efficiently through a seamless, more connected experience. Read more here.
• Microsoft Azure Active Directory integrations with Workday applications enable customers to access enterprise data and applications easily and securely through single sign-on. With expanded integrations, joint customers that use Microsoft and Workday applications can confidently secure end-to-end identity lifecycle and entitlement settings for greater privacy and security management. The expanded integrations will streamline HR and IT processes and support new scenarios such as real-time deprovisioning, worker conversion and international assignment changes.

Comments on the news

“Now, more than ever, planning takes center stage as companies return to the workplace, rebuild supply chains, and in some cases reimagine their businesses in our rapidly changing world,” said Tom Bogan, vice chairman of Workday. “With cloud planning at scale and even tighter integration to help customers collaborate, this partnership underscores what Workday was built for — to help customers unlock potential in their people and the business even in the most dynamic environments.”

“At Microsoft, we’re hyper-focused on continually innovating new ways to empower every person and organization around the world with the tools and insights they need to securely drive productivity and business performance,” said Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president of One Commercial Partner, Microsoft. “In partnership with Workday, we’ll deliver new solutions that connect the people and financial insights of Workday to the cloud productivity of Microsoft Teams and cloud platform of Azure, so our joint customers can do more.”

Availability

Workday for Microsoft Teams is available to all customers on Workday HCM and Workday Financial Management today. Microsoft Azure Active Directory capabilities and Workday Adaptive Planning on Azure will be available next year.

About Workday

Workday is a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. Founded in 2005, Workday delivers financial management, human capital management, planning, and analytics applications designed for the world ’ s largest companies, educational institutions, and government agencies. Organizations ranging from medium-sized businesses to Fortune 50 enterprises have selected Workday.