Workday Financial Management and FedEx integration

What moves between them

The main flow is bidirectional. Purchase orders and supplier data flow from Workday to FedEx so rates and shipment labels are generated with the correct vendor, origin, and destination. FedEx tracking events flow back into Workday so the procurement team sees shipment status without leaving the system, and freight costs are matched against the original PO and fed into Workday's GL for cost accounting. Workday POs are the source of truth for shipment references; FedEx tracking is pull-only unless Advanced Integrated Visibility webhooks are enabled.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores both credential sets encrypted and presents the FedEx OAuth2 bearer token at the Authorization header on every request, caching the token for its 1-hour TTL and refreshing when a call returns 401. On the Workday side it accepts the tenant-specific SOAP and REST endpoints per customer and authenticates using either the ISU WS-Security UsernameToken for SOAP calls or the OAuth2 refresh-token flow for REST calls. Because Workday cloud is pull-only for procurement, ml-connector polls POs and supplier data on a configurable 15-minute to daily schedule. For each PO, ml-connector calls FedEx's Rate API with the shipper, destination, and weight to get available carrier options and costs, then creates a shipment label if authorized. FedEx rate limits are handled by caching tokens for 1 hour and backing off on 429 responses. Every record carries a full audit trail and can be replayed if a downstream call fails.

A real-world example

A mid-sized distribution company runs Workday Financial Management for procurement and GL, and uses FedEx for outbound shipments to regional warehouses. Before the integration, the supply team entered each PO into FedEx manually to get a rate quote, then the finance team polled FedEx tracking manually throughout the week to see which shipments had arrived, and manually recorded freight costs into Workday for month-end close. With Workday and FedEx connected, each PO flows to FedEx automatically on a schedule, rate quotes are returned and stored against the PO, shipment tracking events flow back into Workday so visibility is real-time, and freight costs are posted into the GL without re-keying. The supply team has one PO workflow, the finance team has shipment status without leaving Workday, and month-end close includes freight costs from the moment shipments are created.

What you can do

• •Sync purchase orders and supplier data from Workday to FedEx rate and shipping APIs, with rate quotes returned and matched back to the original PO.
• •Poll FedEx tracking events and post shipment status back into Workday procurement records so visibility is real-time.
• •Authenticate Workday with ISU WS-Security credentials for SOAP and OAuth2 refresh-token flow for REST, and FedEx with OAuth2 client credentials.
• •Handle FedEx auth rate limits by caching tokens for 1-hour TTL and backing off on rate-limit responses.
• •Maintain a full audit trail on every PO-to-shipment record and support replay if a downstream call fails.

Questions

Which direction does data move between Workday and FedEx?

The main flow is bidirectional. POs and supplier data flow from Workday to FedEx to generate rate quotes and shipment labels. FedEx tracking events flow back into Workday so the procurement team sees shipment status and the finance team can audit freight costs against the original PO. Workday POs are the authoritative source for shipment references.

Does the integration support Workday SOAP and REST APIs at the same time?

Yes. ml-connector uses SOAP for PO creation and updates (which require full CRUD), and REST for lighter reads like supplier master data and GL account lookups. This lets you leverage the full breadth of Workday's financial APIs without maintaining two separate credential stores.

How does the integration handle FedEx rate limits and token caching?

ml-connector caches the FedEx OAuth2 bearer token for its 1-hour TTL to avoid re-authenticating on every request. FedEx enforces auth rate limits at 3 tokens per second, so the token cache prevents hitting that ceiling. API rate limits are 1400 transactions per 10 seconds; ml-connector backs off and retries on 429 responses rather than failing the entire flow.