The scoop
If you pay for items or services that are provided by UW-Madison, process P-card expenses, or submit an expense report, Workday and the resulting change in funding strings will impact you. The old funding strings, sometimes called “UDDS,” are changing to follow a new Workday format.
To support you in the transition, you can find an updated Funding String Job Aid (link to an Excel document that requires Net ID) on Inside FP&M. This tool has long assisted users with which numbers to use for purchasing. Now, the updated job aid includes a “crosswalk” that maps the funding numbers or UDDS to the new numbers that will be used in Workday.
You can find this tool on FP&M Purchasing’s page (look for “Funding String Job Aid”)
Background
About funding strings
When purchasing, billing, making payments, transferring funds, and managing reimbursements at UW-Madison, we frequently use “funding strings.” A funding string identifies both a specific source of funding, as well as the type of expense for an individual transaction. This allows us to allocate expenses to various types of funding and to track and budget spending in various categories.
In very simplified terms, it’s like giving someone your Venmo/PayPal/Zelle username, so they can charge you — except much more detail that allows you to record and classify the transaction.
Funding strings have been made up of many different type of numbers that specify the account, fund, project and program, among other details. The department code (formerly called the UDDS because it consists of the University, Division, Department and Subdepartment) was also a part of the funding string.
Workday changes
In Workday, funding strings have a new structure called a Foundation Data Model, or FDM. The FDM is the single accounting structure for all Universities of Wisconsin (UW System) universities. It impacts every area of Workday including human resources, finance, and research administration. The FDM is made up of several elements, called worktags. You can think of these as attributes or labels.
In Workday, users will assign worktags to transactions (like a P-card purchase, for instance). A Driver worktag is the main worktag associated with a transaction. (You can think of this worktag “driving” the rest of the related worktags.) There are several different types of Driver worktags which are classified into Programs, Projects, Gifts, or Grants. In Workday, a funding string will contain a Driver Worktag, as well as other worktags that will sound familiar, such as program or fund.
A funding string in Workday will contain one of each of the following:
- Driver Worktag
- Cost Center (or CC)
- Program
- Fund
- Spend or Revenue Category
You can find out more about worktags in this post. If you are familiar with how funding strings are currently structured, this graphic or this guide may be helpful to translate funding to Workday terms.
- ATP’s Worktags Quick Reference Guide defines worktags, describes different types of worktags and maps them to what they used to be called. (requires Net ID log-in)
- This ATP graphic shows the between how a transaction might be labeled today, vs. what it could look like in Workday.
- Worktags — the building blocks of Workday is a post that dives into worktags and the FDM.
- SMPH’s Funding Strings page is a helpful explanation of funding strings and how they translate to Workday. It also breaks down the parts of funding strings.