AWS Lambda vs. Workday Cloud Platform

Lambda excels at event-driven, short-lived tasks, such as processing files or building simple APIs. However, it's less ideal for long-running, computationally intensive, or applications that rely on carrying the state between jobs. Cold starts and constant load can easily balloon the costs.

Incentivized

Workday Cloud Platform is primarily suited for large organizations with individual teams handling various Human Resource functions. Since the data is scattered, Workday is an excellent tool to bring all the data to a single platform and then use Machine Learning techniques to generate both descriptive and prescriptive insights to make sure the skillset portfolio remains updated.

Incentivized

• No provisioning required - we don't have to pay anything upfront
• Serverless deployment - it gets executed only when request comes and we pay only for the time the request is getting executed
• Integrates well with AWS CloudWatch triggers so it is easy to setup scheduled tasks like cron jobs

Incentivized

• The platform is quite intuitive to use, even a new user would find be comfortable navigating through different options.
• As a lead, you can easily track the performance, leaves, and any recruitment in process.
• The objective setting process and providing your inputs onto the same is pretty organized, easily accessible. Additionally, one can easily navigate through the historical objectives and performance feedback whenever one wants to review.

Incentivized

• Developing test cases for Lambda functions can be difficult. For functions that require some sort of input it can be tough to develop the proper payload and event for a test.
• For the uninitiated, deploying functions with Infrastructure as Code tools can be a challenging undertaking.
• Logging the output of a function feels disjointed from running the function in the console. A tighter integration with operational logging would be appreciated, perhaps being able to view function logs from the Lambda console instead of having to navigate over to CloudWatch.
• Sometimes its difficult to determine the correct permissions needed for Lambda execution from other AWS services.

Incentivized

• Glitching - Occasionally the app will glitch and shut down completely. Sometimes it can be when you are in the middle of something timely, causing frustration and issues. I haven't seen this happen as often recently.
• Inbox - It would be helpful if Workday developed a feature to organize inbox tasks based off what department they are for, what the task is and so on. So you can quickly filter or look for the task at hand.
• Candidate Tracking - Hiring managers throughout the company work with the HR department to track candidates, schedule interviews and so on. Workday does not always have the best interface in this regard. It could use a feedback feature for hiring managers to be able to be more involved, as they can be on other platforms.

Incentivized

I give it a seven is usability because it's AWS. Their UI's are always clunkier than the competition and their documentation is rather cumbersome. There's SO MUCH to dig through and it's a gamble if you actually end up finding the corresponding info if it will actually help. Like I said before, going to google with a specific problem is likely a better route because AWS is quite ubiquitous and chances are you're not the first to encounter the problem. That being said, using SAM (Serverless application model) and it's SAM Local environment makes running local instances of your Lambdas in dev environments painless and quite fun. Using Nodejs + Lambda + SAM Local + VS Code debugger = AWESOME.

Incentivized

Simple HR tasks are easy to complete (ex, hours, booking time off). It has a clean UI, but not sure we're using the full functionality as only certain tiles are shown.

Incentivized

Amazon consistently provides comprehensive and easy-to-parse documentation of all AWS features and services. Most development team members find what they need with a quick internet search of the AWS documentation available online. If you need advanced support, though, you might need to engage an AWS engineer, and that could be an unexpected (or unwelcome) expense.

Incentivized

I give it this rating because, in its current capacity, it does not meet all of Human Resources' needs - which can cost the organization by having to rely on multiple platforms to do what one might be able to do. Again, as mentioned, it works great for what most employees require of it

Incentivized

AWS Lambda is good for short running functions, and ideally in response to events within AWS. Google App Engine is a more robust environment which can have complex code running for long periods of time, and across more than one instance of hardware. Google App Engine allows for both front-end and back-end infrastructure, while AWS Lambda is only for small back-end functions

Incentivized

Workday is an incomplete product, by this I mean it must work alongside other products and does not work by itself. Trying to make several different products work smoothly together becomes very challenging. As compared to ADP products, when purchased all together work very well all together. Also, ADP has extensive Training programs and extensive Customer Support. So ADP's products are far superior to Workday's products in my opinion.

Incentivized

• Positive - Only paying for when code is run, unlike virtual machines where you pay always regardless of processing power usage.
• Positive - Scalability and accommodating larger amounts of demand is much cheaper. Instead of scaling up virtual machines and increasing the prices you pay for that, you are just increasing the number of times your lambda function is run.
• Negative - Debugging/troubleshooting, and developing for lambda functions take a bit more time to get used to, and migrating code from virtual machines and normal processes to Lambda functions can take a bit of time.

Incentivized

• Employee sentiment has become more positive as evident from various internal and external surveys
• Employees are able to save a lot of time by finding everything they need at a single place
• Hiring process has become more transparent as workday has helped removed unconscious bias from the hiring process

Incentivized