Workday Financial Management and SAP Ariba integration

What moves between them

The primary flow runs from Ariba into Workday. ml-connector reads Ariba purchase orders and invoices on a polling schedule (daily or per-cycle), maps the line items to Workday GL accounts and cost centers via a stored mapping table, and posts the validated receipts and invoices as journal entries into Workday's GL. Supplier and cost center reference data is synchronized in both directions so procurement line items land on valid Workday dimensions. Workday GL journals are the final state; ml-connector never writes procurement data back into Ariba.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores Workday OAuth refresh tokens encrypted and refreshes them before expiry on each polling cycle. For Ariba, it caches the OAuth token and API key, presents both on every request, and handles the realm query parameter correctly. Because both systems are polling-only, ml-connector retrieves documents on a schedule you define (e.g., daily, or tied to your invoice processing cycle) using date-range filters to track changes. It submits Ariba async reporting jobs in the required format, polls for job completion by job ID, and handles paginated results (up to 50,000 records per page). Line items are validated against a mapping table before posting into Workday; invalid rows are captured in the audit log and can be corrected and replayed. Ariba rate limits are managed with exponential backoff and jitter. The integration respects Workday's 5-minute minimum polling interval and caches Ariba view templates to avoid repeated validation calls. Every record carries a full audit trail, including the original Ariba payload, the mapping decision, and the resulting Workday journal entry.

A real-world example

A mid-sized industrial distributor uses Workday Financial Management for finance and GL, and SAP Ariba for supplier sourcing and purchase orders. Before the integration, the procurement team issued POs in Ariba, suppliers shipped goods, and the accounting team received physical invoices or Ariba notifications, then manually matched them to PO line items and entered the GL postings by hand. With Workday and Ariba connected, each approved Ariba PO and its associated receipt and invoice automatically post into Workday's GL, allocated to the correct cost centers (warehouse, distribution center, office). The accounting team no longer re-enters procurement transactions, and the GL and accounts payable are always in agreement with the source of truth in Ariba.

What you can do

• •Read Ariba purchase orders and invoices on a schedule and post them into Workday's GL, mapped to GL accounts and cost centers.
• •Map Ariba suppliers, requisitions, and line items to Workday worktags and GL accounts so procurement lands on valid cost dimensions.
• •Handle OAuth2 token refresh for Workday (1-hour expiry) and Ariba (1-hour expiry) on each polling cycle without manual intervention.
• •Manage Ariba async reporting jobs, pagination, and date-range windows, including multi-year backfill in annual chunks.
• •Track every document from Ariba payload through GL posting in a full audit trail, with replay capability if a line item fails validation or a Workday write-back call fails.

Questions

Which direction does data move between Workday and Ariba?

The main flow is Ariba into Workday. Purchase orders and invoices move from Ariba into Workday's GL, while suppliers and cost centers are aligned in both directions so Ariba line items match valid Workday dimensions. Workday GL journals are read-only output; ml-connector does not write data back into Ariba.

How does the integration handle Ariba's async reporting job requirement and pagination?

ml-connector submits async reporting jobs filtered by date range, polls for completion using the job ID, and downloads paginated results (up to 50,000 records per page). For multi-year backfills, it submits multiple jobs in annual chunks because Ariba reporting enforces a maximum one-year window between start and end dates. Cursor-based pagination via pageToken indicates page boundaries.

What happens if Workday or Ariba OAuth tokens expire during a sync?

Workday access tokens expire in 1 hour and are cached by ml-connector, which refreshes them before expiry on each polling cycle. Ariba tokens expire in 1 hour as well. Both token caches are checked at the start of a sync; if a token has expired, it is refreshed before the first API call. This prevents mid-sync 401 errors and ensures the sync completes without manual intervention.