🌞🏗 Workday Extend: Worth the hype or overrated?

Read time: 6 minutes

Hey there! Ceci and Mia here.

You’ve probably heard the buzz:

• Extend is “the future of Workday” 🔮

• It’ll help you “move forever forward” ➡️

• It’s a “low-code/no-code” powerhouse 👩🏻‍💻

But is it just marketing hype?

We wanted to find out.

So, over the past month, we took both of Workday’s Extend courses, flew to Vegas for DevCon, and kicked things off by taking the Extend Pro exam (we passed! ✅).

The days that followed were packed with sessions, labs, and conversations with developers from across the Workday ecosystem.

Today’s newsletter offers our take on Workday Extend.

We’re excited to share what we’ve learned so far—and why it matters if you're building on Workday, or thinking about it…

Real quick, what is Extend?

Extend is a licensed add-on to Workday that lets you build custom apps you can deploy directly to your Workday tenant.

The apps you build with Extend look and feel native to Workday. They blend right in—no clunky, bolted-on extras!

Extend apps hook up to Workday’s native security, business object, and business process models. You can use WD-delivered components, or create new ones, then integrate your app into your tenant with custom tasks. You can easily incorporate lightweight integrations called Orchestrations into your apps to kick off real-time processes that transport data and facilitate transactions in and outside of Workday.

For the right use cases, Extend is a game-changer. You can create custom experiences tailored to your organization, all within Workday.

To use Extend, your org needs to purchase a license. There are 2 plans, Essentials and Professional (Pro), which you can read about here.

Once you’re up and running, you’ll use Workday’s browser-based developer tools (no software downloads required!) to build, store, test, and deploy your apps. This online development mecca is fondly known as “the Dev Site”.

Even with a license at your disposal, you can’t just deploy apps willy nilly. You’ll closely collaborate with your dev team, partner(s), and Workday to ensure apps are Production-ready.

Is it easy to use? 🤔

While there are low-and-no code configuration options within Extend, JSON coding is still needed to build most anything. Our two weeks of Workday’s Extend training was taught nearly exclusively in “Code” mode.

Here’s what we mean by that…

When you build your app’s pages within the App Builder on the Dev Site, there’s a toggle labeled “Visual”, highlighted below, that allows you to build the page using a fairly intuitive no code interface:

Alternatively, you can switch the toggle to “Code” mode, where you can see and edit the underlying JSON code for your page.

As two tech savvy yet functionally-focused Workday pros with zero development experience, learning Extend was doable, but a lot. And of course, our experience is limited to what we learned in formal training and at DevCon—we’ve barely scratched the surface! We will say, our functional knowledge was critical given our lack of development skills. A seasoned developer with no Workday experience may still struggle, as a solid grasp on Workday’s model components (business objects, business processes, etc.) is essential.

So, could your HCM rockstar pick up Extend tomorrow? Probably not.

Could they dedicate themselves to becoming a developer for the next 6 months and experience success? For sure!

At this point, we advise your integrations resources learn the technical ropes while collaborating closely with your functional team on requirements and system design.

But down the road?

Workday is striving to make Extend more and more user-friendly (i.e., the less code the better) to welcome inexperienced developers into the mix (hello world! 👋) while speeding up builds for dev vets. At DevCon, we tested out a number of upcoming no code AI Extend features. Some were truly impressive while others felt more prototypical. Regardless, it’s clear Extend will get easier and easier to use.

For now…

To avoid paying an arm and a leg in development costs, if you decide to build in-house, we recommend having:

✅ A strong internal dev team ready to go

✅ A trusted Extend-specialized partner on standby

If you’re not ready to buy Extend or build in-house, can you still get in on the fun?

Why yes! Yes, you can 😌 Read on…

Now let’s talk about BoW 🙇🏻‍♀️

BoW stands for “Built on Workday”. These are pre-built, partner-developed Extend apps available for purchase in Workday Marketplace (take a scroll through what’s already available—it’s pretty fun 🤓).

You don’t need an Extend license to purchase and use these apps!

BoW apps are built in Extend, but designed for easy deployment and setup—think, toggle a few options, enter your business rules, and you’re ready to go. Just like configuring your Compensation or Time Tracking modules, no code is required (and you actually don’t have access to it anyways).

The purpose of these apps is to fill functionality gaps and address pain points customers commonly experience with out-of-the-box Workday products.

Why is this so cool?

BoW allows great ideas to become repeatable products, so customers don’t have to build the same solutions over and over.

If you can dream up something that Workday already does, but make it better….

If you can map out a cost-friendly solution to compete with a go-to, third-party tool…

Or, if you can design a solution that doesn’t yet exist….

… serious opportunity waits for you here 💫

However…

Not just anyone can sell a BoW app—only Innovation Partners (selected and approved by Workday) can. These partners are primarily consulting firms and software companies for now, and they own the development, management, and maintenance of their BoW apps.

Workday is growing the BoW program intentionally. They want to avoid a gold rush on the new frontier, ensuring every app undergoes rigorous review before it ever reaches a customer’s tenant.

As of today, there are 88 approved Innovation Partners and 72 BoW apps in Workday Marketplace. These apps cover everything from one-time payment management to NCAA compliance reporting for universities (shoutout to Michelle Spangler who is building incredible apps for Workday Student at her company, Sisscorp!).

Over the next year, Workday intends to greatly expand its BoW program, growing to over 130 partners and 300 apps available for purchase.

Just check out this chart from the keynote at last week’s DevCon…

The BoW program’s very existence signals something big: Extend isn’t just about internal tools—it’s a runway for ecosystem-wide innovation 🚀

What do Extend and BoW mean for you?

The truth? It really depends!

If your org has a robust internal dev team that opts for homegrown solutions, they might scoff at Extend’s capabilities. Or, they might be chomping at the bit to get their hands on a license.

If your stakeholders aren’t a fan of native Workday UI, they might look at Extend apps and think, “more of the same look?” Hard pass—third-party it is.

Right now, given the cost of custom development, it takes a truly niche requirement (or a strong-willed exec) to push for an in-house build for most orgs. But, as Extend talent becomes more readily available, and as Extend’s App Builder leans more and more low-and-no code, this will likely change!

If an Extend license is unfeasible or far down your org’s roadmap (talk to your Sales rep to learn more, in the unlikely event they haven’t already talked to you 😅)…

… peruse Workday Marketplace! There might already be a BoW app the solves your vendor or business need—natively, securely, and without all the integration overhead.

You may be wondering… what’s the cost of all this? 💸 Well, again, it depends. We’ll dive into this topic in a future newsletter.

Bringing it all back down to Earth…

If you take one thing away from today’s newsletter, let it be this:

If your organization is not on the “cutting edge” of Workday, don’t stress.

The truth is, most Workday customers are just doing their best to stabilize. As in, eliminate tech debt, escape the break-fix cycle, learn the system, and keep operations afloat. You and your team may be focused on sustainably adopting features from the last few releases, as opposed to chasing what’s next.

While we left DevCon feeling clear and energized about where Workday is heading…

And while Extend really is quite exciting…

We’re also more committed than ever to meeting customers where they’re at.

The rate at which technology evolves will continue to rapidly outpace how quickly most organizations can evolve. And that’s okay!

This in mind, you can count on us to keep doing what we do best:

👀 Keeping a pulse on the ecosystem
🎓 Teaching the foundations
💬 Translating it all into something you can actually use

Are you exploring Extend or BoW?

Thinking about building something—or just trying to decide if it’s worth it?

We’d love to hear what you’re curious about! Hit reply on this email and tell us what you want to know more about 🤗

P.S. Next time you’re in Vegas, if you like Indian food, you’ve got to eat at Marigolds 🌼 We’re forever changed by their mango lassi, and actually mad that Rising is in SF, barring a near-future chance to return 😆

As always, thank you for being a reader!

We’re celebrating you and your pursuit of a Well Built Workday 🥳 

Until next time!

Ceci & Mia

Co-Founders of Well Built Solutions

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