LYNX for Workday - Architecture and Workflow

Web Services and LYNX Operations

The LYNX for Workday Interface is compatible with Workday Web Services. LYNX connects to Workday with four operations:

  • Course section data initialization: syncs data directly related to sections in a specific term, such as section details, location assignments, and instructor information
  • Reference data initialization: syncs background data available to be used by sections in any term, such as academic periods/term codes, department codes, location records, and meeting patterns
  • Location export: sends location assignments from 25Live to Workday
  • Integration health check: regularly verifies that the API endpoint and credentials stored in LYNX are correct

Integration Architecture

The LYNX database acts as an intermediary between the Series25 database and the Workday tenant database. It syncs changes from both databases before importing data to 25Live and exporting data to Workday. All imports and exports are filtered through "extract sets" configured in the LYNX user interface. Although everything is synced in LYNX, nothing is imported or exported unless it meets the criteria of an active extract set.

Diagram depicting connections via LYNX among Workday tenant, CollegeNET servers, and end-userImage: Diagram depicting connections via LYNX among Workday tenant, CollegeNET servers, and end-user.

Integration Workflow

The API Dispatcher service on CollegeNET servers makes requests to the Workday API to synchronize academic-related data between the Workday tenant and the CollegeNET LYNX database. This service runs every minute Monday through Sunday from 3 am to 8 pm Pacific time. During that minute, the API Dispatcher runs a health check by making a timestamp request to ensure that the Integration System User (ISU) can access the Workday API.

In addition to the health check, the API Dispatcher makes the appropriate Workday API requests for any pending data initialization or export processes. Data initialization results in the LYNX database being updated to sync with Workday and can be initiated manually or configured to run automatically every hour. Export processes update Workday with location assignments from LYNX. They are triggered automatically, as LYNX updates as soon as assignments are made in 25Live.

Once any initialization processes are complete and course/reference data is synced to the LYNX database, LYNX initiates imports to 25Live and exports to Workday. Both imports and exports are filtered via extract sets configured in the LYNX user interface.

To ensure data integrity, the LYNX database should be up to date before running any import or export processes. In order to keep the LYNX database in sync with changes made in the Workday tenant, use one or more of these methods:

  • Manually initialize course or reference data in LYNX. This is the only way to initialize reference data.
  • Configure course data in LYNX to automatically initialize every hour. You may configure up to three-term codes to automatically update this way.
  • Set up the Student Transaction Log Outbound Connector in the Workday tenant, which can be scheduled to run at certain time intervals.

When LYNX detects changes via any of these methods, it will trigger an import process to 25Live.

Initializing Reference Data

The Student Transaction Log Outbound Connector only tracks changes to course sections. There is no change detection for reference data in Workday. If any changes are made to reference data (such as academic periods, locations, subject codes, etc.) those changes need to be synced in LYNX via a manual initialization process.

Note that CollegeNET doesn't save any personally identifiable information (such as SSN or tax ID) that is returned in API responses from Workday.