New to Workday Releases
Release basics
New to Workday releases? Start here
Workday updates itself twice a year. This is a plain language guide to what a release is, what changes on its own versus what your area chooses, and where to find the official details for R2.
Starts August 12 | This one R2 2026 | Goes live September 19 |
The basics
What a release actually is
Twice a year, Workday delivers the same feature release to every customer, and it can carry hundreds of changes at once. Some are improvements to things you already use; some are brand new features. Before any of it goes live, there is a preview period where Howard can see exactly what is coming and check that our own setup still works.
You do not have to track all of that yourself. The release cycle, the testing, and the communications exist to bring the important parts to you. This page is just the starting point.
The one distinction to know
Automatic changes vs optional features
Starts August 12 | Starts August 12 |
| Improvements Workday applies to everyone. You do not choose them and cannot turn them off. Our job is to check they do not disrupt how your area works, which is what testing is for. | New capabilities Howard can choose to turn on, area by area. These are reviewed during the preview, and the decision to enable one is made deliberately, not by default. |
What's new in R2
The themes this time
R2 continues improvements across the areas Howard runs in Workday, with a notable focus on smarter, AI assisted support: when you ask a question in Workday Help, the system can route it to the right team and suggest answers faster. The full, authoritative list of everything in R2 lives in Workday's own release documentation, published below.
Where to find the details: The official sources
Release Center
Published August 5
Workday's full documentation of every change in the R2 release. The definitive source.
What's New Report
Published August 7
A summary view of the release inside Workday, good for a quicker read than the full docs.
Howard University ETS
Anytime
Reach the Release and Adoption team directly with a question, or open a ticket in Workday Help to ask or escalate.
One Place To Ask
Every release question goes to Workday Help
Anything about R2 or the release cycle, ask there and it is tracked to an answer. Workday Wednesdays each week walk through the release, live.
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