How to Ready Your Workday Tenant for the 2026 R1 Release

This piece unpacks practical steps to prepare for Workday’s 2026 R1 feature update and why getting the groundwork right matters.

Why this update deserves attention

Workday’s 2026 R1 introduces a mix of functional tweaks, user-experience improvements, and deeper automation — especially in AI-driven capabilities. For organisations that rely on Workday to power HR and finance workflows, a smooth rollout is not just about new features; it’s about protecting operational capacity and avoiding disruptions to payroll, compliance, and workforce planning.

Three preparation priorities that actually make a difference

1) Start before the Preview Window

Il Preview Window is essential, but the heavy lifting should happen before it opens. Tenant hygiene — the discipline of keeping configuration tidy — determines whether the Preview period becomes a confident testing cycle or a frantic cleanup.

Common pre-release mistakes include carrying unused components, temporary security constructs, or legacy logic that no one needs anymore. These create noise during testing and waste time investigating irrelevant errors. Pruning these elements early creates a cleaner baseline and frees teams to focus on real release impact.

Practical checklist for early cleanup

• Audit and remove unused calculated fields and integrations.
• Retire temporary security groups and obsolete business processes.
• Document remaining custom logic and tag truly critical pieces.
• Lock down a freeze period for nonessential changes before Preview opens.

2) Resolve unfinished change

Features enabled but not adopted from prior releases create “unfinished change.” This is a hidden cost: it complicates training, clouds stakeholder messaging, and increases resistance to new features. Stabilising the existing baseline before layering in R1 features simplifies change management and makes adoption credible.

To handle unfinished change, organisations should establish a short, focused adoption plan: assign owners, set KPIs for feature use, and close the feedback loop so stakeholders see progress rather than piling on more options.

3) Treat data quality as a strategic task

If R1 leans harder into AI, then data quality moves from housekeeping to board-level concern. AI amplifies patterns—good or bad. Messy job profiles, inconsistent org structures, and unclear role definitions will not hide behind automation; they will surface as friction, wrong recommendations, or unsafe outcomes.

A “pre-AI data scrub” should include normalization of job and position data, verification of supervisory chains, and a sampling process to validate employee attributes. This is not mere technical hygiene; it’s what determines whether new AI features will be meaningful and reliable.

Common upgrade pitfalls and mitigation

Why AI-assisted configuration changes the game

AI tools that can ingest configuration artifacts and accelerate setup are coming closer to reality. That’s exciting — and risky. The most dangerous outcome is not a blatant AI error, but an AI that configures a process perfectly for the wrong reasons: it scales a poor design rapidly. Speed without governance equals amplified problems.

Governance tips for safe acceleration

• Define acceptable risk profiles before enabling AI-driven suggestions.
• Require human review checkpoints for any automated configuration change.
• Retain a baseline snapshot of tenant configuration before major changes.

Implicazioni operative e logistiche

At first glance, a Workday HR/finance update might look irrelevant to logistics. That’s not the case. HR automation affects staffing forecasts, shift planning, and payroll accuracy — all of which ripple into warehouse staffing, transport schedules, and distribution planning. Finance features can change invoicing cadence and freeing up working capital, which in turn affects freight payments and vendor relationships.

For organisations planning office moves, equipment deliveries, or fleet changes alongside an IT upgrade, coordination becomes crucial. Platforms like GetTransport.com can help when physical moves or bulky deliveries are part of the change timeline: the service offers affordable, global cargo transportation solutions for office and home moves, cargo deliveries, and transporting large items such as furniture, vehicles, and heavy goods. In short, aligning IT and physical logistics prevents double-handling both in software and on the loading dock.

Gaining a competitive advantage

When organisations reduce noise, stabilise features, and clean core data ahead of R1, they aren’t merely surviving a release — they’re building fundamentals for long-term value from Workday. The payoff: faster adoption, lower support costs, better data-driven decisions, and a chance to let automation work for people rather than against them.

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In summary: begin early, stabilise what’s live, and put data quality first. Clean tenants simplify testing; finishing last year’s rollouts removes confusion; and tidy, normalized data makes AI enhancements safe and useful. These steps reduce regression, speed adoption, and create tangible value across HR, finance, and operational functions. Whether you’re coordinating a system upgrade or a physical move, aligning software changes with reliable transport and logistics—cargo, freight, shipment, delivery, transport, logistics, shipping, forwarding, dispatch, haulage, courier, distribution, moving, relocation, housemove, movers, parcel, pallet, container, bulky, international, global, reliable—keeps things on track and avoids costly surprises.