14.1 Standard Reports & Copy/Modify

14.1 Standard Reports & Copy/Modify

Quick Summary: Workday delivers Standard Reports that customers cannot permanently customize in place. The supported path is Copy Standard Report, then edit the copy—especially columns—so the original survives Workday updates. Copy when a delivered report is close; build new only when the data source or structure must differ.

Report Writer is one of three scored tracks on Workday Pro HCM Core: about 10 of 50 questions (20% of the exam), with 80% pass and 100 minutes total. Tasks T57–T64 form the fundamentals half of reporting (this chapter); scheduling, Matrix, Discovery Boards, calculated fields, and performance sit in Advanced Reporting (T65–T69). This section is the entry skill: copy a delivered report and modify columns without breaking the delivered catalog.

Standard vs Custom: The Catalog Model

Workday ships a large catalog of Standard Reports (also called delivered reports) built and maintained by Workday. They cover common HCM needs—headcount, worker details, position inventories, compensation summaries, audit-style listings—using delivered data sources, fields, and often prompts. Customers run them as-is when they fit, or use them as blueprints.

A Custom Report is a report definition owned and maintained in the tenant by administrators or report authors. Custom reports can be created from scratch or, more often for exam and production practice, by copying a standard report and adapting it.

Exam trap: "Edit the delivered report directly and save over Workday's definition" is wrong. Delivered reports are not a permanent customer customization surface; Copy is the recommended way to start a report that closely resembles a delivered one. Deleting a delivered report is not a supported customer pattern and would break dependencies.

Why Copy Instead of Edit Delivered?

Three durable reasons appear in training language and exam stems:

1. Release safety. Workday updates delivered reports over time. Customer edits to delivered objects are not the durable design model; a copy isolates your design from the delivered baseline.
2. Tested baseline. A delivered report already has a data source, column set, filters, and often prompts that Workday validated for common use cases. Copying preserves that starting quality.
3. Clear ownership. After copy, the new report is a custom definition you can rename, share, transfer ownership of, schedule (later chapter), or enable as a web service (RaaS—next section).

Configuration scenario: Contoso's HR analytics lead needs "All Active Workers with Manager and Location," almost identical to a delivered worker report that already includes name, employee ID, and supervisory org. She runs Copy Standard Report (or the equivalent copy action on the delivered report), renames the copy to Contoso – Active Workers + Manager Location, adds Manager and Location columns, removes two unused columns, and shares the copy with the HR Partner group. The original delivered report remains available for other users and for future re-copy.

The Copy Standard Report Workflow (T57)

Treat "Copy Standard Report and modify columns" as a repeatable procedure:

1. Find the delivered report (Search by report name, report tags, or functional area browsing).

2. Confirm it is the right family: correct business question, correct primary population (workers, positions, orgs), and roughly the right columns.

3. Copy the standard report—Workday creates a new custom report definition owned by you (or as configured).

4. Rename the copy with a tenant naming standard (for example, Company – Purpose – Audience).

5. Modify columns on the copy:

   • Add fields from the primary business object or related business objects available on that data source.
   • Remove columns the audience does not need (improves clarity and can help performance).
   • Reorder columns for the reading order managers expect.
   • Relabel column headers when business language differs from delivered labels.
   • Adjust formatting, widths, or output-oriented options as the UI allows for that report type.

6. Review filters and prompts inherited from the original—keep what still makes sense; change only what the new use case requires (detailed filter/prompt design is section 14.3).

7. Save, test with a representative user, then share appropriately (section 14.4).

   Delivered Standard Report (read-only baseline) | | Copy Standard Report v Customer Custom Report (editable) | +-- Modify columns (add / remove / reorder / relabel) +-- Adjust filters and prompts as needed +-- Share / secure for intended runners +-- (Later) schedule, RaaS, Matrix extensions as required

What "modify columns" means on the exam

Column work is more than cosmetics. Exam items expect you to know that after copy you:

• Choose which fields appear as output columns.
• Reach fields on related business objects when the data source exposes those relationships (Worker → Position → Job Profile is a classic HCM path—see business objects chapter and section 14.2).
• Do not need to rebuild the entire report to add or drop a column if the copy already has the right data source.

Exam scenario: "A delivered headcount report is almost perfect but lacks Cost Center. What should you do?" → Copy the report, add Cost Center from the available fields/related objects on that data source, save the custom report. Not: edit delivered in place; not: delete delivered; not: create an unrelated Integration System User.

When to Copy vs Build New

Decision rule for the exam: If the stem says the report "closely resembles" or is "based on" a delivered report, answer copy then modify. If the stem says nothing fits and a new data source is required, answer create a custom report (still often by starting from delivered data sources, not from raw SQL—Workday report writer is not a free SQL console).

Standard Report Types You May See in Stems

You do not need every report type name for T57 alone, but distractors appear. Common Custom Report type language includes Advanced (flexible columnar), Matrix (row/column summarization), Composite, Trending, Simple, and others. "Pivot Table" is not a Workday custom report type—Matrix covers pivot-style needs. For this section, remember: copying a standard report yields a custom report you then maintain.

Realistic Multi-Step Scenario

Scenario. Finance leadership wants a weekly list of employees in Company "North America" with Employee ID, Preferred Name, Supervisory Organization, Manager, Job Profile, and Location. A delivered "Workers for Organization" style report already has most fields and organization prompting.

1. Search and open the closest standard report; run it once to confirm population and prompts.
2. Copy Standard Report → name NA Finance – Active Worker Detail.
3. Modify columns: add Manager, Job Profile, Location; remove unused address fields; reorder so ID and name lead.
4. Confirm or set a filter/prompt path so runners can limit to Company or Supervisory Orgs (if not already present).
5. Save, run as yourself, then run as a Finance Partner test user to verify security-filtered rows (section 14.4).
6. Share with the Finance Partner security group—not "everyone"—because the report includes operational workforce data.

If a later Workday release improves the original delivered report, Contoso's copy is unchanged until someone consciously re-copies or merges design ideas. That isolation is intentional.

Common Exam Traps

Study Link to the Rest of Report Writer

• T57 (this section): Copy Standard Report; modify columns.
• T58–T60: Create custom reports; choose Index vs Standard data sources; add fields from BOs and related BOs; enable RaaS when required.
• T61–T63: Sort/subsort; filter components; prompts and built-in prompts.
• T64: Design for runner security; sharing; transfer ownership.

If you can open a delivered report, copy it, rename it, and confidently add or drop columns without touching the original, you have the T57 workflow the exam expects under ~2 minutes per item.