How to Configure Worklets in Workday Core HCM: A Step-by-Step Guide

Worklets are the individual action tiles that appear on the Workday homepage and landing pages — the icons that give employees, managers, and HR staff quick access to the tasks they need most. Configuring worklets well means the right people see the right actions without having to navigate through menus to find basic functions. Configuring them poorly means cluttered homepages, confused users, and a help desk full of "how do I find X in Workday" tickets. Getting this right is worth the upfront attention.

Understanding what worklets are and how they work

A worklet in Workday is a link to a task, report, or application that displays as a tile on a configured page. Worklets live within dashboards (also called landing pages), and which worklets appear depends on the security groups the user belongs to and how the dashboard has been configured for those groups. The same physical worklet — say, "Benefits" — can be visible to all employees while "Manage Headcount" shows only to hiring managers. The worklet itself just needs to exist and be assigned; the security layer controls who sees it.

Worklets fall into two categories. Standard worklets are delivered by Workday and cover common HCM functions — Time Off, Benefits, Pay, Performance, and so on. Custom worklets can be created to link to custom reports, external URLs, or tenant-specific tasks. Both types can be configured to appear on standard Workday dashboards or on custom pages you build for specific audiences. The way HRIS platforms are used in practice varies significantly by organization — worklet configuration is often one of the first customizations HR teams make to align the system with how their workforce actually operates.

Finding where to configure worklets

In Workday, worklet configuration lives in the Configure Dashboard and Configure Worklet tasks, accessible to users with the appropriate security roles (typically System Administrator or a custom role with tenant setup permissions). To get there, search for "Configure Dashboard" in the search bar. You'll be presented with a list of dashboards in the tenant — the Home dashboard is the one most users see after logging in, but there are typically several others for specific roles or modules.

Click on the dashboard you want to configure and you'll see the current worklet layout — which worklets are displayed, in what order, and which columns they occupy. From here you can add worklets, remove worklets, and reorder them. Changes to a dashboard take effect for all users who access it based on their security role, so test changes in a sandbox or non-production environment before applying them to your live tenant. Custom workflow configuration in Workday follows a similar pattern — changes affect everyone in the configured security groups, which makes testing critical.

Adding a standard worklet to a dashboard

To add a worklet to an existing dashboard, open Configure Dashboard for the target dashboard and select "Add Worklet." Workday will present a search interface where you can find worklets by name. Type the name of the worklet you want to add — for example, "Compensation" or "Team Performance" — and select it from the results.

After selecting the worklet, you'll specify which column it should appear in (dashboards typically have two or three column options) and where in the column order it falls. Higher-priority actions typically go in the first column at the top. Once placed, save the configuration. Users with the appropriate security roles who reload their Workday homepage will see the new worklet appear.

The worklet will only be visible to users whose security roles grant them access to the underlying task. If you add a "Compensation Review" worklet but the user's security role doesn't include access to compensation review tasks, Workday will silently suppress the worklet for that user. This is expected behavior — the configuration determines which worklets are available, but security determines which ones actually render. Compliance with access controls in Workday depends on this security layer working correctly — worklets won't bypass the underlying permissions.

Creating a custom worklet

Custom worklets are particularly useful for linking to custom reports, external tools, or tasks that don't have standard Workday worklet equivalents. To create one, search for "Create Worklet" in Workday's search bar. You'll be prompted for the worklet name, an icon (selected from Workday's icon library), and the task or URL the worklet links to.

For worklets that link to custom reports, you'll reference the report by name — Workday will let you search your tenant's available reports and select the one you want. For worklets linking to external URLs (a benefits portal, a time clock system, a learning management platform), enter the full URL. The worklet will open the URL in a new browser tab when clicked.

After creating the custom worklet, it won't appear anywhere until you add it to a dashboard using the Configure Dashboard task. Create the worklet first, then go through the same add-worklet process described above to place it on the appropriate dashboard. When adding AI or external tools to Workday, custom worklets are one of the most practical integration surfaces — a simple link tile that takes users directly to the AI tool from their Workday homepage reduces adoption friction significantly.

Configuring role-specific dashboards

One of the most powerful worklet configuration patterns is setting up different dashboards for different user populations — employees, managers, HR business partners, and executives each see a homepage configured specifically for their role. This requires creating separate dashboard configurations and assigning them to the appropriate security groups.

To do this, use the "Configure Home" task and look for the option to assign dashboards by security group. When a user logs in, Workday evaluates their security group membership and serves the dashboard assigned to their primary role. If a user belongs to multiple groups with different dashboard assignments, Workday uses the hierarchy to determine which dashboard takes precedence.

Manager dashboards typically include worklets for team time off, headcount, performance review status, and compensation planning. Employee dashboards prioritize personal actions — pay, benefits, time off requests, and learning. Building these intentionally, rather than giving everyone the same default dashboard, makes Workday feel purposeful rather than generic. AI-powered tools for improving the employee experience are increasingly being embedded into Workday landing pages — a well-configured worklet structure makes that kind of extension cleaner because users already understand where to find things.

Worklet ordering and visual layout

Within a dashboard, worklet order matters more than it might seem. Workday displays worklets in the sequence you configure, left to right, top to bottom. The first few worklets visible without scrolling are the ones users will actually use. Actions buried at the bottom of the page get ignored. For most employee dashboards, the top worklets should be the most frequent actions — time off, pay stubs, and benefits — not administrative functions that employees access rarely.

Workday also supports worklet groups, which let you cluster related worklets under a section header. This helps on dense dashboards where many worklets are needed — grouping them by category (Personal, Team, Organization) makes the page scannable rather than overwhelming.

After any configuration change, use Workday's "View As" functionality to see what the dashboard looks like from the perspective of specific security roles. This prevents the common scenario where an administrator configures a dashboard that looks fine from their view but renders differently — or shows error states — for users with different permissions. Workday reporting governance and worklet governance share the same underlying principle: configuration changes need to be tested from the end user's perspective before they're treated as complete, because the administrator's view and the end user's view of the same configuration can look very different.

Worklet configuration is one of those Workday tasks that repays attention at setup and then mostly runs without needing changes — unless your organization's structure changes significantly, or you add new modules. Getting the initial configuration right, with intentional role-based dashboards and a logical worklet hierarchy, sets the foundation for a Workday experience users can navigate without training.

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