Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and Workday HCM integration

What moves between them

The main synchronization runs from Workday into Oracle Fusion. After each payroll period, ml-connector reads Workday's GL journal records and posts them into Oracle Fusion's journal tables, mapped to the corresponding GL accounts and cost centers. Worker data flows the same direction so Oracle Fusion headcount reflects Workday hires, terminations, and job changes. Reference data such as organizations and cost centers is aligned in both directions so payroll allocations land on valid Oracle Fusion GL dimensions. GL documents in Workday are read-only from a payroll perspective, so ml-connector never writes financial entries back into the payroll system.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores both credential sets encrypted and maintains separate OAuth 2.0 bearer tokens for Oracle Fusion (with approximately one-hour expiry) and Workday REST API (with 60-minute expiry). For Workday SOAP calls to fetch GL journals and supplier data, ml-connector uses Integration System User credentials authenticated via WS-Security, translating SOAP responses into a canonical format for posting into Oracle Fusion. Both systems are pull-only, so ml-connector polls on a schedule tied to your payroll calendar, filtering Workday GL journals and Oracle Fusion journal lines by creation date to detect incremental changes. Rate-limit responses (HTTP 429) are retried with exponential backoff. Cost centers and organizations are mapped first, so every payroll journal line references a GL account and cost center already present in Oracle Fusion. Every record carries a full audit trail and can be replayed if a downstream post to Oracle Fusion fails.

A real-world example

A mid-sized manufacturing company runs Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP for accounting and procurement, and uses Workday HCM for payroll across five locations. Before the integration, the accounting team received Workday GL extracts after each biweekly payroll run and manually posted labor cost entries into Oracle Fusion, mapping them to the correct cost centers and GL accounts. Payroll timing mismatches and manual entry errors caused reconciliation delays during month-end close. With Workday and Oracle Fusion connected, payroll GL documents and worker data post automatically to Oracle Fusion after each pay cycle, mapped to the correct locations and cost centers. Month-end close starts with all labor accounts automatically populated and validated, eliminating the manual posting step and reconciliation delays.

What you can do

• •Post Workday payroll GL journals into Oracle Fusion after each pay cycle, mapped to the correct cost centers and GL accounts.
• •Keep Oracle Fusion headcount aligned with Workday hires, terminations, and job changes.
• •Authenticate Workday via both OAuth 2.0 REST (for worker data) and SOAP WS-Security (for GL journals), and Oracle Fusion via OAuth 2.0.
• •Poll both systems on a schedule tied to your payroll calendar, with automatic retries and rate-limit handling.
• •Translate between Workday SOAP and Oracle Fusion REST, with full incremental change detection by creation date.

Questions

Which direction does data flow between Workday and Oracle Fusion?

The primary flow is Workday into Oracle Fusion. Payroll GL journals and worker records move from Workday into Oracle Fusion, while cost centers and organizations are aligned in both directions so payroll allocations land on valid Oracle Fusion dimensions. Oracle Fusion GL documents are typically treated as read-only from a payroll sync perspective.

Why does ml-connector use both SOAP and REST APIs for Workday?

Workday divides its data surfaces across three APIs. The REST API covers worker and staffing data with OAuth 2.0, while the SOAP API (WWS) with Integration System User authentication covers financial data including GL journals, suppliers, and payment records. ml-connector uses each API for the data it is designed to expose so the integration covers both workforce and payroll GL posting.

How does ml-connector handle the different token expiry times between the two systems?

Oracle Fusion access tokens expire in approximately one hour, while Workday REST tokens expire in 60 minutes. ml-connector tracks each token's expiry independently and refreshes them before they expire on every API call, so token refresh does not interrupt the synchronization schedule. For Workday SOAP calls, ml-connector uses long-lived Integration System User credentials instead of time-limited OAuth tokens.