Workiva's Data Management Suite

tl;dr

The Workiva Data Management Suite (DMS) is a collection of three applications - Wdata, Chains, and Data Prep.  Chains manages the process of getting data from 3rd party systems, Data Prep prepares the data for use, and Wdata stores the 3rd party and curated data that is used across the Workiva platform.  

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In our Workiva Overview article, we discussed the Workiva platform with an eye on the Financial Reporting, GRC, and ESG  solutions.  In this article, we explore a critical part of the Workiva platform known as the Data Management Suite.  

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A Bit of History

For those organizations that have been Workiva customers for a long time, the term Wdesk is likely familiar and you may have also heard the term Wdata.  Wdesk is a colloquial term that is often applied to the reporting solutions of the Workiva platform and Wdata colloquially referred to the components that made a solution connected.  

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Workiva originally had a partnership agreement with a small integration platform as a service (iPaaS) start-up company named OneCloud.  OneCloud invented a product called Chains and later Data Prep.  Through the partnership, Workiva whitelabeled Chains and embedded them as functionality within the broadly termed “Wdata.”

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When Workiva acquired OneCloud in August 2021, it became clear that there was an opportunity to better describe the Wdata, Chains, and the Data Prep products and the capabilities that together these important applications provide.  

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But what’s in a name?  As any marketer worth their weight will tell you, quite a lot.  What does Wdata mean to the average person?  Franky, not much.  That’s not a bad thing, neither did Starbucks.  That said, it was fairly obvious that a rebrand would help customers better understand the intent of these products and, by extension, their value.  So what is the elevator pitch of “Wdata,” what do these products do?  Well they help you integrate and prepare data and automate processes.  Or said more simply, manage data within the Workiva platform.  And so the Workiva Data Management Suite was born.  

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With that history, let’s dive in.  

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The Workiva Data Management Suite

The Workiva Data Management Suite (DMS) is a collection of three applications - Wdata, Chains, and Data Prep.  All “connected” Workiva reporting solutions include the Data Management Suite and represent a significant differentiator for the Workiva platform.  

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With the explosion of software-as-a-service (SaaS), organizations often find themselves utilizing a best in breed approach to enterprise application deployment.  Consider an organization that uses Salesforce for customer relationship management (CRM), SAP for general ledger (GL), Workday for human capital management (HCM), and Persefoni for its carbon accounting.  Each of these systems house data that is foundational to the reporting produced in the Workiva platform.  The Data Management Suite is the cornerstone of connecting these systems and ensuring that data is able to easily be curated and used across the various reporting uses within the Workiva platform.

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For the purpose of this article, we provide a high level overview of each of the applications and how they serve the data management process.  More detailed articles follow for those wanting to understand in more detail.  Before we dive in, let’s take a very short detour.  

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E-T-L

Technologists love to speak in acronyms and that can be a disservice to someone that is not a technologist.  For the purpose of this article, we’ll refer to a functional person that is not a technologist as the business user.  

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For the business user, when we discuss the data management process we need to remember an important acronym - extract, transform, and load or ETL.  More to follow on this as we discuss each application in the Data Management Suite and its role in the ETL process.  

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Chains

Chains is the E&L in ETL

We purposely start with Chains because Chains service the first step in the data management process.  When we consider the need to connect disparate systems such as Salesforce, SAP, Workday, Persefoni, and any instance of the myriad business systems available, we are really describing the need for data integration - connect two systems together and enable the flow of data.  Chains address this need.   

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Chains serve a critical role in the Extract and Load stages of an ETL process.  They are able to connect to various systems deployed throughout the organization and source (extract) data that is needed for reporting.  Chains also load the data extracted from those systems to Workiva.  We discuss where the data is loaded in more detail in the Wdata section below.  

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Data Prep

Data Prep is the T in ETL

Data Prep is an application that is built to allow business users to manage the transformation step in the ETL process.  What does transformation mean?  Transformation is the process of changing the data to meet the reporting needs.  For example, consider a cost center in the GL system that has a five digit numbering convention.  Within the organization, that five digit code may mean something to someone but when needing to report the data associated with that code, it’s easier to understand that a cost center captures expenses related to marketing.  The process of changing the numeric code 92375 to a reporting line named Marketing makes the data far more approachable and useful to its consumers.  

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Data Prep is used to define and apply the transformations that are needed in order to make the data report ready.  Together, Chains and Data Prep can be used to manage the end-to-end ETL process.  Interestingly, Data Prep is not the only option in the Data Management Suite that can be used in the transformation process.  Let’s talk about Wdata.

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Wdata

Wdata is data storage and can be the T in ETL

Wdata is central to a Workiva connected solution.  Its primary function is to store Workiva data (hence Wdata) that can be used and re-used across multiple reporting solutions.  If we think about the entire Workiva ecosystem as a bicycle wheel then the reporting solutions (e.g., SEC, Management Reporting, SOX, ESG) are at the end of each of the spoke while Wdata is the hub at the center.  The data loaded to Wdata - often via Chains - is able to serve multiple reporting needs.  Said more simply, Wdata can be thought of as the database underpinning a connected reporting solution.  Please note that this is an incredibly simplistic characterization of Wdata; a more detailed overview of Wdata is found in our Workiva Wdata Explained article.

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Remember when we said Data Prep is not the only option for transformation?  Well done if you’ve deduced that Wdata is another option.  While Wdata stores information, it does not require the information it stores to already have been transformed.  Instead, transformations can be applied when data is consumed from Wdata through queries.  We explore queries in more detail in our Exploring the Technical Side of Wdata article.  

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For the purpose of this article, Wdata queries serve two purposes.  The primary purpose is that they are the mechanism to connect the data stored in Wdata to the reporting solution and the secondary purpose is to optionally transform the data to make it more report ready.  

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Learn More

Chains, Data Prep, and Wdata offer powerful functionality that can empower a business user to take full control of the data management process.  Workiva provides a number of resources including documentation, an in-depth in-person training course, and a world class customer success organization that ensures that an organization is recognizing the full value of being connected.  

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