Salesforce and Workday, two of the most widely used cloud platforms in business, have announced a strategic partnership that will include an AI-powered assistant, a common data foundation that unifies HR and financial data from Workday with CRM data from Salesforce, and a native Workday integration with Slack, which Salesforce acquired back in 2021.
In this post, we’ll dive into what this means and exactly what you can expect from this groundbreaking announcement.
What Is Workday?
Workday is a cloud-based software platform that simplifies HR and financial management for businesses. Its Human Capital Management (HCM) system streamlines everything from recruitment to payroll, benefits, performance management, and employee development. The Financial Management component handles financial transactions, invoicing, expense management, and provides insights for planning and budgeting. Workday also offers planning tools, comprehensive analytics, and easy integration with other systems. Its user-friendly interface and mobile access enhance flexibility and productivity for HR and finance professionals.
It is also used by many large organizations, including Salesforce. If you’ve applied for any role at a large company, you’ll have more than likely completed your application through Workday.
Integrated AI Platforms
Salesforce and Workday are integrating their AI platforms (Einstein and Workday AI) to create a single, seamless employee service agent.
Integrated into Workday, the AI agent uses natural language processing to understand employee questions, like “How many days of PTO do I have left for this year?” It leverages shared data for accurate answers, can perform actions on the employee’s behalf, and complex issues can be quickly escalated to a human if needed. The goal is to enhance productivity and efficiency by streamlining the employee experience across both platforms.
This AI-powered service agent can revolutionize the employee experience by streamlining onboarding processes, providing self-service HR support for common inquiries and transactions, and fostering continuous development through personalized learning paths based on individual needs and career goals. This should help in offloading lower-level admin tasks and taking on a greater role in how HR teams function overall.
Shared Data Foundation
The strategic partnership between Salesforce and Workday is revolutionizing data management and workforce optimization. By leveraging Data Cloud and the Salesforce Zero Copy Partner Network, customers of both Salesforce and Workday will be able to access their data from both sides. With their Salesforce data being accessible in Workday, and their financial and HR data being accessible in Workday, organizations will be able to seamlessly access and act on this combined information, eliminating the need for duplication and custom integrations. Data security is prioritized, ensuring only authorized personnel can view sensitive information.
This goes far beyond just data consolidation. By harnessing the power of AI and integrated data, Salesforce and Workday empower businesses to optimize workforce management through precision planning, continuous financial forecasting, and intelligent sales enablement. This comprehensive approach aligns skills with demand, enhances decision-making with unified data insights, and guides sales teams through complex deals, ultimately unlocking the full potential of the workforce and driving business success through increased efficiency and data-driven strategies.
Workday and Slack Integration
As part of this partnership, it has also been announced that Workday is improving its integration with Slack, allowing users to access and collaborate on financial and HR data directly within Slack. This includes tasks, pay information, job postings, employee details, and general ledgers. Conversations about this data will be preserved in Slack, making it easy to find, summarize, and act upon this information in Workday whenever needed.
The integration with Slack will also allow for Slack workflows to work within Workday and Workday orchestrations to work within Slack (more details of this are to follow).
Summary
One thing that stands out from this announcement is the switch in AI tactics from Salesforce, forging a partnership with Workday to give a better overall offering of use cases for Einstein AI. This may be something we see more of going forward, with more and more strategic partnerships being set up to help customers leverage the benefits of AI.
Customers can expect to get their hands on this later this year, with the features expected to be showcased at both Dreamforce and Workday Rising conferences later this year.