Achieving 90% Workday Proficiency in 60 Days via Apty
A global manufacturer's Workday deployment was at risk: 90 days post-go-live, only 55% of users were proficient. In-app guidance via Apty brought proficiency to 91% in 60 additional days—without additional training investment.
The Challenge
“Ninety days after the global Workday HCM go-live, the company's HRIS team was confronting a proficiency crisis. A proficiency assessment showed that 45% of Workday users—managers and employees across 23 countries—were either not logging into Workday, making frequent data entry errors, or unable to complete their self-service tasks without calling HR. The support ticket volume was 3x the projected steady-state, with HR operations consuming significant time on calls that should have been self-service. Additional live training had been attempted (a second round of webinars) but had not moved the proficiency needle.”
The Solution
Eficens deployed Apty's in-application guidance platform on top of the Workday deployment within two weeks. Guided walkthroughs were built for the 12 most error-prone transactions identified from the support ticket analysis. Smart tips were deployed on 34 fields with the highest error rates. A self-help search panel was integrated into the Workday interface, enabling users to find process guidance without leaving the application. The entire guidance layer was deployed without any changes to the underlying Workday configuration.
Implementation
Support Ticket Analysis and Guidance Prioritization
The first step was analyzing 90 days of support ticket data to identify the specific workflows and fields generating the highest error volumes. The top 12 error categories (including bank account updates, time-off requests, manager self-service approvals, and performance goal submissions) accounted for 73% of all support tickets. Guided walkthroughs were built for these 12 workflows first, prioritizing impact over comprehensiveness. The 34 fields with the highest error rates in the data entry analysis received smart tip overlays with format guidance and validation logic.
Multi-Language Guidance Deployment
With users across 23 countries, guidance content required localization into 11 languages. Apty's translation workflow enabled the HRIS team to export guidance content for translation, import translated versions, and deploy language-specific guidance to users based on their Workday language preference—all without rebuilding the guidance content from scratch per language. Localization of the initial 12 walkthroughs and 34 smart tips was completed in three weeks using the company's existing translation vendor.
Proficiency Monitoring and Guidance Optimization
Apty's adoption analytics tracked proficiency metrics in real time: walkthrough completion rates, smart tip interaction rates, support ticket volume by workflow, and user engagement with the self-help search panel. The guidance content team reviewed these analytics weekly, identifying walkthroughs with high abandonment rates (indicating the guidance was confusing rather than helpful) and revising them. The weekly optimization cadence ensured that guidance quality improved continuously rather than being set once at deployment.
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