Guide to Academic Appointments in Workday
This guide provides the fundamental concepts for managing academic appointment data in Workday, including:
- Basic Workday organizational structure, including interactions between the Academic Unit and Supervisory Organization
- Roles and responsibilities of various security role holders
- Academic appointment scenarios
Guide Contents
- What's New in Academic Appointments
- Academic Appointment Reference Guide, Tip Sheets, and More
- Managing Academic Information in Workday
- Academic Track Types and Ranks
- Interfolio and Workday
- Supervisory Org Actions Triggering Academic Unit Action
- Appointment Scenarios
- Academic Appointment Fields
- Named Professorships
- Academic Leaves of Absence
- Faculty, Pending
- Change Job Guidance and Scenarios (Coming soon)
Last Updated: 08/14/2025
Contact Us
Penn Employee Solution Center
solutioncenter@upenn.edu
or
(215) 898-7372
Quick Links
Academic Appointment Reference Guide, Tip Sheets, and More
Provost's Office Resources
Security Role Training and Reference Document
- Academic Appointment Reference Guide. The legacy guide in PDF format.
Tip Sheets for Step-by-step Instructions
- Academic-Add or End Academic Appointments
- Academic-Create Academic Affiliate
- Academic-Update Academic Appointments
- Academic-View and Manage Committee Membership
Supplementary Guidance
- Workday@Penn Supplementary Guidance-Add Academic Affiliate Status to Worker
- Workday@Penn Supplementary Guidance-Convert Employee to Affiliate
- Workday@Penn Supplementary Guidance-Postdoc Reappointment
HCM Core Concepts
- Academic Worker Structure in Workday
- CPUP Worker Structure in Workday
- Graduate Student Worker Stipend Structure in Workday
- Hourly Paid Student Worker Structure in Workday
- Postdoc Worker Structure in Workday
- Annual Work Period and Disbursement Plan Period
Self Service
Managing Academic Data in Workday
Academic Security Roles
For detailed information on how security, security roles, and academic units function in Workday, please consult the details in the Workday Security Guide.
For information on training requirements, please consult the details in the Training Catalog.
- Academic Partner. The key initiator for adding/updating/ending academic appointments
- Academic HR Partner. The key reviewer/approver for adding/updating/ending academic appointments
- Academic Appointment View. -View-only access to academic appointment information in the academic unit/academic unit hierarchies to which they are assigned
- Academic Worker View. View-only access to academic workers' demographics, contact information, and academic appointments as well as academic leaves, sabbatical credits, and FIAP dates
How to View Academic Data
To view a worker's academic appointments, individuals with authorized Workday security roles can search for and click on a name using the search bar in Workday, then select the academic tab in the left navigation bar. The current appointments tab provides full appointment details.
Academic appointments track an individual's academic career (information such as rank, track, and tenure status) with the university.
Conversion from Legacy System
Workday is the single system of record for academic appointment data at Penn. When transitioning to Workday from legacy systems in July 2019, note these data conversion challenges:
- Only an individual's most recent academic appointment in July 2019 was converted – historical appointments are stored in the university's Data Warehouse
- "Date of First Appointment" in Workday reflects the date of the most recent appointment action in the former system(s)
It is mission-critical to maintain accurate employee data in Workday to support data integrity in the university's single system of record for academic appointment and human capital management.