The 2026R2 release continues to strengthen Workday Adaptive Planning with enhancements that help organisations plan more effectively, respond to change faster, and improve decision-making.
These enhancements are designed to improve efficiency, increase visibility, and help organisations make more informed business decisions.
Workstream | Key Updates | Feature Description | Business Impact |
User experience | Adaptive Planning adds user-managed notification preferences on the Manage Notifications page, letting users enable or disable notifications by category and channel (email, Slack, and MS Teams where configured) with automatic saving and inbox delivery continuing for all notifications regardless of external channel settings. This is available for standalone instances and multi-instance environments where each instance is configured individually. | Users gain control over where they receive Adaptive Planning alerts, reducing noise from unwanted notifications while keeping activity visible in the in-application inbox, and improving responsiveness to shared dashboard snapshots through properly routed external notifications. | |
Modeling | Workday Adaptive Planning now routes metric account formulas with discriminants that include a dimension or dimension attribute=this to an optimized calculation path. This feature changes expected query results by retaining requested dimensionality and returning specific rows for all dimension values, and by returning additional rows when a level dimension is specified but not present on the receiving cube. | It improves performance for reports, sheets, and data exports that reference qualifying metric accounts, enabling faster planning and analytics cycles. It may also alter row-level outputs in specific scenarios, so teams can align expectations with planners and integration owners. | |
Accounting | Workday enhances rule-based transaction matching by adding tolerance-based matching for journal line amounts (ledger/budget and transaction debit/credit) and accounting date windows (within a specified number of days), including required write-off ledger account selection. It also improves ambiguous matching by selecting the most likely candidate using a defined prioritization (exact matches first, then closest accounting date/time of creation, then tolerance within the window, and finally smallest amounts), and it updates matching runs, undo logic, reporting, and introduces a write-off event business process to move write-off transactions to Final. | This reduces manual matching effort and accelerates reconciliation/close by allowing controlled matching of minor variances and resolving multiple potential matches automatically, while maintaining governance through write-off handling, updated reporting visibility (match statistics and write-off usage), and business process-driven status finalization for transaction matching write-offs. | |
Copy Supporting Balances from Prior Periods on Account Reconciliations | In account reconciliation preparation, Workday now allows users to copy supporting balances from a prior period when no supporting balances exist for the current period, including options to copy comments/attachments, set balance dates to the current period end date, edit copied balances, and add new attachments. The feature also adds an “Age in Days” field for supporting balances, supports creating supporting balances with prior-period balance dates, and updates the Get/Put supporting balance web services (v47.0) to handle prior-period balance dates via matching fiscal year and posting interval. | This reduces manual data entry and rework while improving historical tracking and consistency of supporting balances across periods, helping users manage multicurrency and aging of reconciling evidence more efficiently. | |
Prevent Currency Rate Overrides on Accounting Journals (Note: Click the link for more details on this feature and to access the demo video on Workday Community.) | Workday introduces an opt-in “Prevent Rate Override” tenant configuration on selected currency rate types, disabling end users from overriding currency conversion rates on accounting journals for those locked rate types across manual journal entry, web services, and spreadsheet imports. The option is supported on specific currency rate type and journal-related services, with additional validation and reporting updates, and locked rate types make currency rate, ledger debit amount, and ledger credit amount fields read-only in journal tasks. | This reduces financial risk and compliance exposure by enforcing system-generated conversion rates and preventing unauthorized rate deviations, eliminating downstream manual review and rework associated with uncontrolled currency overrides. | |
Account reconciliation automatic certification now supports a new “Select Period” option, allowing you to run certification for any chosen period with jobs completing successfully even when no reconciliations exist for that period. In addition, supporting balance reporting now includes new fields for Ledger Currency and Ledger Amount. | This increases flexibility in certification scheduling and improves multicurrency reconciliation reporting by reducing manual effort required to derive ledger currency and amounts for supporting balances. | ||
Import Supporting Balances and Reconciling Items from External Systems to Account Reconciliations | Workday now enables Integration System Users to import reconciling items and supporting balances into account reconciliations from external transaction-matching systems via web service operations. The integration also benefits from automatic population of certain fields e.g. Company, Ledger Account, when the integration omits values and the reconciliation definition has a single applicable option. | This reduces manual reconciliation work and accelerates close by streamlining the ingestion and maintenance of reconciling items and supporting balances from external systems, while preserving governance through controlled web service permissions and reconciliation status-based authorization. | |
Account reconciliation workspaces now handle high transaction volumes by paginating the Supporting Balance and Reconciling Items grids to 30 rows per page instead of loading all rows, and by automatically disabling filtering/sorting when row counts exceed defined performance thresholds. | This improves stability and responsiveness when reconciling accounts with very large datasets, reducing the risk of performance degradation or slow user experiences during reconciliation management. | ||
Multicompany and Multicurrency Journals from Recurring Journal Templates | Workday now supports recurring journal templates (RJT) that generate journals for multiple companies with different ledger currencies and multiple transaction currencies. The feature will be available when “No Intercompany Payable/Receivable Lines when Journals Self Balance by Company” is selected. | Reduces manual creation and approval effort by eliminating the need to maintain separate recurring journals for each company-currency combination, while enabling multi-currency, multi-company journal generation as long as self-balancing and the tenant setup option are used. | |
Workday API, Accounting | Specified Approver Field on Accounting Journal and Recurring Journal Template Web Services | Adds a new “Specified Approver” field to Workday Accounting journal and recurring journal template web services to specify the worker who should approve accounting journals and journals generated from recurring journal templates. Setup Required, and it applies only when running web service version 47 or higher. | Ensures journals are routed to the correct approvers by letting integrations designate the intended approver, improving approval accuracy for journals created or generated via these web services. Note: the new field is not yet operational. |
Manage Plans & Models | Workday now supports specifying both Grant and Grant All Except for the same secured dimension within a single access rule, evaluating the rule by first granting all values in Grant and then removing any values listed in Grant All Except. This works across levels, accounts, custom dimensions, and attributes (including exclusions for modeled sheet accounts or secured data entry columns), with validation to prevent overlapping or conflicting values. | This enables more maintainable and scalable security configurations by allowing broad hierarchy-based access with targeted exclusions, reducing the need to enumerate large numbers of permitted or excluded values. It also improves configuration governance by ensuring imports fail when conflicting Grant/Grant All Except inputs are provided. | |
Workday Adaptive Planning optimizes the calculation of Cumulative Translation Adjustment (CTA) accounts in sheets and reports via a more efficient calculation path, improving runtime for CTA-dependent views. | It improves sheet and report performance for models that use CTA (Cumulative Translation Adjustment) accounts, reducing wait time. | ||
Adaptive Planning MCP Server | Workday Adaptive Planning now provides an MCP Server that exposes secure, standardized AI agent tools for accessing planning data, model context, and metadata, with tool availability dynamically governed by user permissions, access rules, and tenant configuration. To enable usage, customers must complete required authentication and endpoint configuration for their instance, otherwise agents cannot discover or call the tools. | This reduces integration effort by avoiding custom point-to-point connectors while enabling AI agents to explore and query Adaptive Planning content within the user’s permission scope for planning visibility, narrative reporting, variance analysis, and driver-based insights in external AI workspaces. It also improves governance by enforcing Adaptive Planning security on every MCP call and recording all tool calls in audit logs. | |
Grouped Filters, Hub Files, and Scenario Management for Hubs | Adaptive Planning Hubs adds grouped filters across compatible hub pages, a Files area for storing and organizing supporting documents, and scenario management directly from hubs, alongside enhancements to hub overview content, integration task status, link management, navigation, and accessibility. | Reduces repetitive filter changes by keeping planning context consistent as users move across hub pages that share dimensions, keeps reference materials alongside the hub experience to reduce context switching, and lets users create and manage scenarios without losing version context; additional improvements also provide clearer integration task visibility and better user access to relevant data and navigation. | |
Rich text widget in Adaptive Planning Hubs and Dashboards, built on the Lexical rich-text editor, enabling formatted content, internal linking (dashboards, hubs, reports, sheets) and valid external URLs, plus responsive images inside the widget. Admins must ensure hub/dashboard builders have the required Edit Hubs or Edit Dashboards permission to use the updated widget, and they must have access to the objects they intend to link. | Makes hub and dashboard overview content clearer and more structured, improves planner navigation by linking directly to relevant pages and reports, preserves responsive visuals for hubs with better device sizing, and reduces layout breakage from pasted content through sanitized paste handling. | ||
Plans & Budgets | You can now open and edit existing Cloud Data Connect pipelines updating destination and connection settings without recreating the pipeline. The UI includes confirmation prompts to prevent accidental loss of unsaved changes and restricts edits for pipelines that are still connecting. | This improves operational efficiency by enabling faster pipeline updates with fewer disruption cycles, while reducing configuration mistakes and preventing data loss due to unsaved work during integration management. | |
Adaptive Planning expands Cloud Data Connect authentication in Design Integrations to support Key Pair credentials, letting you create, edit, and manage Key Pair credentials for authenticating Snowflake cloud data sources and pipelines. | Enables secure system-to-system Snowflake connections without storing user credentials, supports centralized credential management, and allows reusing the same Key Pair across multiple Snowflake data sources and pipelines. | ||
(Note: This feature enables Workday AI agents.) | Workday Adaptive Planning renames the on-premises integration component (previously called the integration Agent / Data Agent) to “On-Prem Data Connector,” with UI and installer label updates across Design Integrations, the local configuration manager, and the installer. | Reduces confusion with Workday AI agents and makes on-premises data connections easier to find and manage, while ensuring existing on-prem integrations keep running without changes. | |
(Note: Click the link for more details on this feature and to access the video on Workday Community.) | Adds a Columnar toggle to supported cube sheets, letting users switch from the standard cube view to a flattened columnar layout where each level, account, dimension, and attribute appears in its own column for leaf-level data entry and review. No setup is required. | Improves multi-dimensional planning efficiency by enabling faster row-based entry in a spreadsheet-like view while still supporting cube view for aggregation and analysis, with prompts to save changes when switching and with improved filtering and read/write behaviour for different account types. | |
Integrations Salesforce Connector API Version Upgrade and OAuth2 Authentication | The Adaptive Planning Salesforce connector now supports Salesforce API v66.0 and introduces OAuth2 authentication for Salesforce data source connections, replacing the prior username and password approach for configuring authentication. Admins must review existing Salesforce data sources, switch any password credentials to OAuth2, then upgrade affected sources to API v66.0 using the new Upgrade action | It reduces integration failure risk by aligning Salesforce connectivity with currently supported API versions and provides a security improvement by enabling OAuth2 authentication; it also helps prevent planned disruption when Salesforce retires the legacy SOAP login method by guiding customers to upgrade existing sources and credentials. | |
Analytics & Reporting | Workday for Google Sheets adds an alternate calendar selector for time elements, allowing reports to include time periods from an alternate calendar alongside the default calendar, with alternate periods labeled by their own names; Expand/Collapse and related report builder features are updated to support alternate calendar periods, up to 1 default and 3 alternate calendars. | This lets users run analysis using the fiscal/regulatory calendar that best fits each use case without leaving Workday for Google Sheets, improving relevance of time-based reporting and reducing manual work to translate between calendars. | |
Workday for Google Sheets now localizes key UI elements based on the user’s Google account language, with automatic availability once the latest add-on version is installed and falling back to English for unsupported languages. | Users can work more efficiently in their preferred supported language without interpreting untranslated labels, improving usability and reducing errors when building reports, applying filters, or performing writeback actions. | ||
Workday for Google Sheets now supports Multi-Instance reporting by letting you select the target Workday instance when building a report, with the required Source field provided automatically and each report locked to its originating instance. Existing reports are automatically locked on open and switching to an allowed same-code instance refreshes data while mismatched instance access blocks the report from loading. | This enables teams to work with data from multiple Workday instances within the same workbook while clearly attributing each report to its source instance and reducing the risk of unauthorized or accidental cross-instance viewing and mixing. | ||
Workday for Google Sheets is a new Google Workspace Marketplace add-on that connects directly to Workday Adaptive Planning data in Sheets, adds “Ask Workday” for natural-language AI insights, and supports “Writeback” to update planning data from Google Sheets. Requires admin enablement, permission set updates, and end-user tenant setup. | Streamlines planning and reporting by reducing application switching and manual exports, accelerates analysis and anomaly discovery via Ask Workday, and enables faster report and presentation creation by exporting AI generated summaries and charts to Google Slides or PowerPoint. |
Conclusion
Workday 2026R2 makes planning more efficient, collaborative, and insight-driven with enhancements across forecasting, reporting, and planning workflows.
We’ll also be exploring updates across HCM, Finance, Absence & Time Tracking, and Integrations in our upcoming blog series.
If you’re preparing for the release, our free Workday Release Strategy Template can help you organise priorities and create a clear path forward.
