Workday's Activity Stream: A new functionality to move things along

The Workday Support Team has made a new functionality available in Workday Financials.  Activity Stream might be just the thing for some users out there who have wished for an in-system way to nudge processes along among colleagues.

Using the "@" symbol, you can tag one or more people in a comment on objects such as purchase orders, requisitions, and supplier invoices, and those tagged individuals will receive a notification.  The stream is the same on all tabs/sub-tabs within the same object (see the resource linked below for a comprehensive listing of objects on which activity stream may be used).

In what kind of instances would an activity stream comment be helpful?

• If you want to call a colleague's attention to a PO number about which you've been discussing.  The activity stream notification will contain a link right to the PO.
• When you create a requisition and it's sitting in approval for a little too long, you can tag the approver and remind them to approve it.
• When you're not sure what worktags to use on a requisition you're creating,  you can save the requisition for later and tag a colleague to ask them to advise you on the worktags.
• You can use the activity stream field to make notes to yourself on supplier invoices so that you can work ahead on account certification.
• The activity stream field is a great option to add clarifying information later on if you forgot to put it in the memo field.

See this handy resource for a quick rundown of the activity stream feature.  Note especially that activity stream is not available on all objects, and that it should not be used in the place of an AskFinance ticket or in the place of a step in the approval process.