Announcing Workday Data Connect federation in Unity Catalog

Databricks has introduced a public Beta of the Workday Data Connect federation connector for Unity Catalog, allowing data teams to query Workday HR and finance data in place without duplicating it. The connector integrates with the Databricks Data + AI Platform, enabling users to access Workday Data Cloud data alongside other enterprise data through Lakehouse Federation. This release follows Databricks' partnership announcement at Workday Rising 2025, where it was named a Workday Data Cloud launch partner.

The new capability leverages Unity Catalog to govern access to federated Workday data, ensuring consistent controls across analytics and AI workloads. Data teams can use Databricks SQL, AI/BI tools, notebooks, and Genie to explore Workday data in real time, combining it with other enterprise datasets for forecasting, scenario planning, and decision-making. The connector supports three complementary paths for accessing Workday data, each governed by Unity Catalog and optimized for different use cases.

To use the connector, organizations need a Unity Catalog-enabled workspace and Databricks compute on Runtime 19 or above. Workspace admins must enable the connector from the Previews page, as it remains in Beta. The connector does not ingest or copy data into Databricks, distinguishing it from Lakeflow Connect ingestion connectors for Workday.

Workday Data Connect federation operates as a Lakehouse Federation connector, enabling Databricks to query Workday HR and finance data directly from cloud storage via Iceberg tables. Unity Catalog governs all access, ensuring lineage, auditing, and permissions are applied consistently. Once federated data is available in a Unity Catalog foreign catalog, teams can use it alongside other governed Databricks data in Genie for analysis.