5-5-26: Workday Unlocked: Procurement and Absence Enhancements for the College Community

TO: John Jay Faculty & Staff
FROM: Mark Flower, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
DATE: May 5th, 2026
RE: Workday Unlocked: Procurement and Absence Enhancements for the College Community

Dear Colleagues,

As a continuation of our ongoing communications introducing Workday as the College’s future platform for finance and human resources, I want to highlight two additional “Workday Unlocked” updates that will impact the campus community. These updates focus on Procurement and Absence Management, two areas that many of you interact with regularly.

Procurement: Continuity with Targeted Enhancements

For most end users, the procurement process will remain largely unchanged. We will continue to use CUNYBuy as our primary procure-to-pay system, meaning that day-to-day purchasing activities will feel familiar.

That said, there are several important enhancements occurring behind the scenes that will improve financial management and efficiency:

  • Improved financial reporting: Commodity codes will map to Workday “spend categories,” allowing for more standardized and meaningful reporting.
  • Automated budget alerts: Workday will proactively notify users of budget exceptions, reducing the need for manual monitoring.
  • Streamlined approvals: Approval workflows will follow defined organizational hierarchies (company and cost center), simplifying routing and reducing administrative burden.
  • Centralized receipt tracking: Receipts, returns, and adjustments will be managed in one place, improving visibility and auditability.

What this means for you: While your interaction with CUNYBuy remains consistent, you will benefit from stronger controls, clearer reporting, and more efficient approval processes.

Absence Management: A Significant Transformation

In contrast, absence management will undergo a meaningful shift from our current eTime system to a fully integrated Workday solution.

Key changes include:

  • End-to-end digital workflow: All absence requests will be submitted, approved, and tracked directly in Workday—eliminating paper forms, email chains, and local tracking tools.
  • Employee self-service: Faculty and staff will be able to enter requests and manage their own absence activity directly in the system.
  • Automated routing and approvals: Requests will move through structured workflows with built-in notifications and escalation paths.
  • Unified system of record: Workday will centralize all absence balances, transactions, and history in one place.

One of the most immediate and practical benefits is:

  • Real-time access to your leave balances, allowing for better planning and transparency around your available time off.

What this means for you: You will have greater visibility, faster approvals, and a more consistent and transparent process for managing time off.

Looking Ahead

These updates reflect our broader goal of leveraging Workday to:

  • Improve operational efficiency
  • Enhance transparency and reporting
  • Provide better tools for planning and decision-making

We will continue to share additional “Workday Unlocked” updates, along with training resources, as we move closer to our planned go-live in January 2027.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

Sincerely,
Mark Flower
Vice President for Finance and Administration & Chief Operating Officer