Skip to content

10 · Capstone — Full Workday Implementation Plan

This is the path's capstone project: design a complete, end-to-end implementation plan for a realistic new Workday deployment, applying concepts from every level — organization design, security, business processes, compensation, reporting, integrations, and the architecture/change-management/PM concepts from Level 4 — to one coherent scenario.

The scenario

Meridian Outfitters has acquired Cascade Supply Co. (introduced in Level 4 Module 1), a 25-store regional retailer running its own separate HR system (not Workday). Unlike Level 4 Module 1's tenant-consolidation scenario, this time Cascade is being brought onto Workday for the first time — a genuine implementation project, not a tenant migration. You are the Solution Architect responsible for the implementation plan.

Part 1 — Architecture and organization design

  • Decide: does Cascade get its own tenant or join Meridian's existing consolidated tenant (Level 4 Module 1's decision framework)? Justify your choice.
  • Design Cascade's supervisory org hierarchy as it would sit within (or alongside) Meridian's existing structure, including at least one decision about staffing model (Position vs. Job Management, Level 1 Module 3) for Cascade's stores.
  • Identify one high-cost-to-change decision (Level 4 Module 8) specific to this integration and flag how you'd get executive sign-off on it during the Architect phase.

Part 2 — Security design

  • Design the security group structure for Cascade's workers — do they join Meridian's existing role-based groups (Level 4 Module 1's extension pattern), or need new groups? Justify per group.
  • Identify one domain where Cascade's data should be more restricted than Meridian's existing equivalent population during a transition period (e.g., Cascade compensation data visible only to a small integration team until data validation is complete), and design that as a security segment (Level 3 Module 2).

Part 3 — Compensation and staffing

  • Cascade's existing pay grades don't map cleanly onto Meridian's. Design the grade reconciliation approach (referencing Level 4 Module 1's worked example) and specify how you'd handle Cascade workers whose current pay falls above the reconciled grade's guideline maximum (Level 2 Module 4's guideline-vs-cap distinction).
  • Design the bulk hire/data-load approach for bringing all 25 stores' workers onto Workday on day one (Level 2 Module 6's EIB bulk-load pattern), including one validation check you'd run before the final load.

Part 4 — Business processes and integrations

  • Identify one Cascade-specific business process nuance (e.g., a different termination notice policy) that should become a condition- rule branch (Level 2 Module 1) on Meridian's existing BP definitions, rather than a separate BP definition.
  • Cascade currently uses a third-party payroll vendor Meridian doesn't use. Decide (Level 3 Module 1's EIB-vs-Studio-vs-Cloud-Connect framework) how you'd integrate with it during a transition period before potentially migrating Cascade onto Meridian's payroll approach.

Part 5 — Testing, rollout, and change management

  • Specify at least three regression test scenarios (Level 3 Module 9) you'd run before migrating Cascade's configuration to Production, including at least one edge case involving a worker mid-transaction at go-live.
  • Design a phased rollout plan (Level 4 Module 2's wave-based pattern, adapted from countries to stores/regions) rather than a single big-bang cutover for all 25 stores simultaneously — justify the phasing.
  • Write a stakeholder map and communication plan (Level 4 Module 7) for Cascade's store managers, who are being introduced to an entirely new system, not just a changed process within a system they already know.

Deliverable

Assemble Parts 1–5 into one complete Implementation Plan document — the capstone artifact of this entire path. It should read as a coherent, internally consistent plan a real Workday Solution Architect could hand to an executive steering committee (Level 4 Module 8's governance structure) for review, correctly applying and cross-referencing concepts from Level 1 through Level 4. There is no single correct answer; the goal is demonstrating that you can reason about a novel, multi-faceted scenario the way this path's every prior worked example and exercise has asked you to — and that you can now do it end to end, across the whole platform, without a module boundary telling you which concept to reach for next.

Congratulations on completing the Workday Mastery Path.