Migrating from Workday Performance Management to Confirm
Workday is a powerful HCM. Its performance module — buried inside an enterprise suite — was built for compliance, not insight. Most teams keep Workday for what it does well and add Confirm for dedicated performance intelligence.
The right approach to migrating from Workday
Workday isn't a tool you rip and replace. Here's what most teams do:
Keep Workday for what it does well
- Payroll processing & compliance
- Global HR operations
- Finance integration
- Benefits administration
- Core employee records
Add Confirm for dedicated performance intelligence
- ONA-powered performance insights
- Proactive AI manager coaching
- Flight risk detection (behavioral)
- Modern review cycle management
- Calibration with behavioral data
Confirm connects to Workday via API. Employee data syncs automatically — no manual updates, no data drift. Your Workday investment stays intact.
Why teams replace Workday's performance module
Making changes takes months
Changing a review form in Workday means a change request, IT queue, testing environment, staging sign-off, and production deployment. In Confirm, your HR admin makes the change in 5 minutes. Mid-market teams can't afford IT bottlenecks on their review cycles.
Workday reviews are compliance documents, not development tools
Workday performance management was built to ensure reviews happen and get documented — not to improve what happens inside them. There's no ONA, no AI coaching, no behavioral signals, no flight risk intelligence. It records; it doesn't improve.
Manager and employee UX is brutal
Workday's review interface is notorious for being difficult to navigate. Managers spend 20 minutes on login, navigation, and save failures before they write a word of feedback. Low completion rates follow. Confirm averages 98% review completion because the interface actually works.
What transfers from Workday
Full employee records, org structure, job data, and role history export from Workday. Ongoing sync via Workday API.
Past performance reviews, ratings, and written evaluations export from Workday and import into Confirm's historical archive. Note: Workday exports require custom transformation — we handle this.
Goal history, cascaded objectives, and completion data all export and import with full continuity.
Custom competencies and career ladders you've built in Workday can be recreated in Confirm. We map them during migration planning.
The Workday migration process
Workday migrations take slightly longer due to export complexity. We've done it before — here's exactly what to expect:
Workday audit & API integration
We connect Confirm to your Workday tenant via Workday REST API. Employee data starts syncing. We audit your Workday performance module configuration — review templates, competencies, rating scales — to plan the migration. We also coordinate the data export, which requires Workday admin access and sometimes IT support.
Confirm setup & data import
Configure review cycles, competency frameworks, and org settings in Confirm. Transform and import historical Workday performance data. Set up SSO (usually through the same IdP as Workday). Enable ONA data collection. Validate imported data with your HR team.
Training, change management & go live
Train HR team and managers. The UX shift from Workday to Confirm is significant — in Confirm's favor. We provide change management templates for internal communications. Launch with full live support from your migration rep.
Workday migration questions
Do we need to involve IT to migrate?
For Workday API access and SSO setup, yes — IT involvement is typically needed for 1-2 configuration sessions. We provide detailed technical specs so IT time is minimal and scoped. HR owns the rest of the migration.
Can we keep running Workday performance during migration?
Yes. Workday keeps running until you're ready to go live in Confirm. We recommend migrating at a natural review cycle break to avoid splitting a cycle across two systems.
What about Workday's goal cascading?
Confirm supports OKRs and cascaded goals. Your existing goal structure can be replicated. We map your Workday goal framework during migration planning.
How does the Workday-Confirm integration work long-term?
Confirm reads from Workday's API on a scheduled sync — typically every 24 hours. New hires, terminations, title changes, and org moves all propagate automatically. No manual updates needed.
Ready to upgrade from Workday's performance module?
Book a 30-minute call. We'll walk through your Workday setup, explain the API integration, and show you what you gain when performance management is no longer a compliance checkbox.