15.1 Scheduling Reports

15.1 Scheduling Reports

Quick Summary: The Scheduling Report task (often labeled Schedule a Custom Report) automates recurring execution of a report. You set cadence, delivery, and report criteria. For each criteria field—especially prompts and filter comparison values—you choose Specify Value (fixed when you save the schedule) or Calculate at Runtime (recomputed every run). The schedule runs as the scheduler’s security, not as unrestricted system access.

Report Writer is about 20% of Workday Pro HCM Core (roughly 10 of 50 questions). Tasks T57–T64 covered building, filtering, prompting, and securing reports. T65 is the operations layer: once a report is useful, how do you deliver it every Monday without someone clicking Run?

Why Scheduling Exists

Interactive runs are fine for ad-hoc analysis. Operational HCM depends on recurring delivery:

• Weekly headcount for region HR partners
• Daily open-position extract for recruiting operations
• Monthly compensation eligibility roster for partners before merit cycles
• Nightly file for an integration consumer that still uses report output

Scheduling answers: run this report on this cadence, with these criteria, in this format, to these recipients—without a human at the keyboard each time.

Exam trap: Scheduling is not deleting reports on a timer, reassigning security groups, or changing the underlying data source. Those are separate design and security tasks.

The Scheduling Report Task

What you start with

You need a runnable custom report (or a schedulable delivered/standard report pattern the tenant allows) that the scheduler can access. Typical preconditions:

1. Report definition is complete (data source, columns, filters, prompts).
2. The scheduling user can run the report (sharing / ownership / domain access).
3. Any required prompts have a strategy for schedule-time values (specify or calculate).
4. Recipients or destinations are known (person, security group, Drive location).

What the task configures

 Report definition (design-time)
   ├── Data source, columns, filters, prompts
   └── Security / sharing / ownership
            │
            ▼
 Scheduling Report task (run-time automation)
   ├── Cadence (when)
   ├── Criteria: Specify Value | Calculate at Runtime
   ├── Output format
   └── Delivery destination

Configuration scenario: Contoso HR needs Active Headcount by Supervisory Organization every Monday at 07:00 for the CHRO. An HRIS analyst owns a custom Advanced report, opens Schedule a Custom Report, sets weekly Monday 07:00, chooses Excel, emails the CHRO, and configures criteria for any date or org prompts. After go-live, nobody runs the report manually each week.

Report Criteria: Specify Value vs Calculate at Runtime

This distinction is the exam heart of T65.

When a scheduled report has prompts or filter comparison values that must be supplied, the schedule UI asks how each value is determined.

Specify Value

Specify Value means you enter a fixed value (or fixed instance selection) when you create or edit the schedule. Every future run uses that same value until someone edits the schedule.

Risk: Fixed dates go stale. A schedule that always uses “As Of Date = last Monday’s hard-coded date” will be wrong next month. Prefer runtime calculation for rolling windows.

Calculate at Runtime

Calculate at Runtime means Workday re-evaluates the criteria each time the schedule fires—using a dynamic expression or runtime rule (for example “today,” start of current week, current period boundaries, or other system-evaluated date/context logic supported by the criteria UI).

 Specify Value                 Calculate at Runtime
 ─────────────                 ────────────────────
 Value fixed at schedule save  Value recomputed at fire time
 Stable, predictable           Rolling, “current”
 Easy to audit                 Needs correct runtime expression
 Stales if dates hard-coded    Stays current automatically

Exam scenario A: “Weekly headcount should always use today’s effective date without an admin updating the schedule.” → Calculate at Runtime for the date criteria.

Exam scenario B: “This schedule must always limit results to Cost Center Finance-100 regardless of who opens it.” → Specify Value = Finance-100.

Exam scenario C: “Scheduling changes the data source from Workers to Positions.” → False. Criteria supply values; they do not redefine the report’s data source.

Criteria vs filter design on the report

Do not confuse layers:

1. Report filters (design-time): field, operator, comparison type/value or prompt reference—built on the report definition (T62–T63).
2. Schedule criteria (run-time automation): how prompt/comparison values are supplied when nobody is interactively filling the prompt screen.

A well-designed report often uses prompts so one definition serves many audiences. Scheduling then either specifies a prompt value for a dedicated schedule or calculates values that should roll.

Security Context of Scheduled Runs

A scheduled report runs as the user who scheduled it. That user’s domain security and other access rules determine which rows and fields are returned—just as if that user clicked Run interactively.

Exam trap: Sharing a report with User B does not make scheduled output run as User B. The scheduler’s security applies to the automated run. (Interactive runs by User B still use User B’s security—that is a different moment.)

Also remember the broader report security lesson from T64: sharing grants ability to run; domain security grants ability to see data. Scheduling does not bypass domains.

Delivery Patterns (and What Scheduling Is Not)

Common delivery

• Email Excel/PDF to a leader or distribution list
• Drive / notification for internal consumers who open files in Workday
• Recurring operational packs for partners before processes (merit, open enrollment readiness, etc.)

Related but different patterns

Configuration scenario: Northwind emails a weekly Terminations Last 7 Days Excel to Employee Relations. Criteria for the date range use Calculate at Runtime so the window always covers the last seven days. Country is Specify Value = Canada because the schedule is Canada-only. The scheduler is a retained HRIS service user with constrained access appropriate to ER—not an unconstrained executive account that over-shares PII by email.

Operational Checklist for T65

When an exam stem says schedule a report or configure report criteria, walk this list:

1. Identify the Scheduling Report / Schedule a Custom Report task—not BP mass actions and not RaaS.
2. Confirm the report is the correct definition (columns/filters already designed).
3. Set cadence and delivery/format.
4. For each criteria field, choose Specify Value (fixed) or Calculate at Runtime (dynamic).
5. Prefer runtime calculation for rolling dates; prefer specify for stable org/country locks.
6. Validate who scheduled it and whether their security matches the intended population.
7. Document ownership so schedules are reassigned when people change jobs.

Common Confusions Table

Study Link to Nearby Tasks

• T62–T63: Filters and prompts make schedules flexible—build prompts before scheduling.
• T64: Sharing and ownership determine who can schedule and who can maintain the report.
• T66–T67: Matrix and Discovery Boards may still be scheduled or refreshed operationally, but their design is separate.
• T68–T69: Heavy calculated fields on scheduled enterprise reports amplify performance risk—design once, schedule carefully.

Master Specify Value vs Calculate at Runtime and the scheduler security context. Those two ideas convert most T65 stems into free points under the ~2-minute-per-question pace of the 100-minute exam.