Leading global organisation enhances Workday testing and security with Smart Shield data masking
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"Smart Shield lets us improve productivity without increasing risk. We can deliver a better quality without exposing sensitive data."
Ensuring robust data security in Workday testing
This global software provider was focused on streamlining operations and ensuring compliance in its Workday HCM and Financial Management environments. As business changes accelerated, from minor configuration updates to larger project rollouts, the IT team had to balance rapid testing with strict data security protocols — especially around sensitive HR information.
While leveraging Workday proxy access proved efficient for testing, broader access raised potential privacy and compliance risks. To avoid data exposure, access was heavily restricted, limiting testing capacity and slowing delivery cycles. Traditional solutions, like data scrambling, were manual, slow, and required multiple tenants, creating inefficiencies. The organisation sought a smarter way to safely accelerate testing across all use cases while keeping sensitive data secure.
“In IT, we see the obvious benefits of using Workday Proxy for testing. You’re not involving as many people in your test, things move faster, and you can validate new developments before bringing in business users,” explains the Workday Security Lead.
Navigating data security risks
Providing broader proxy access for testing posed some risks, so to mitigate this, the organisation restricted proxy access to HR only — limiting IT’s ability to test and deploy changes efficiently. “We understand the sensitivity of the data and don’t want people seeing things they shouldn’t,” says the Workday Security Lead.
Traditional methods like data scrambling were inefficient, slow, and costly, requiring multiple tenants for different use cases. They emphasise, “We don’t want to be limited to just one tenant to test in. We need tenants to serve multiple purposes, reducing complexity and cost.”
The organisation explored using Workday security controls to separate HCM and Finance data by restricting security by functional area within an implementation tenant. While this approach was a good starting point, it didn't completely resolve all of the challenges. Sensitive data remained visible to IT users accessing proxy accounts, and financial data for testing became harder to access.
“We attempted to dedicate a tenant for financial testing, turning off HR-related areas and restricting proxy use to a smaller group. However, it wasn’t as effective as we had hoped in fully protecting sensitive data,” explains the Workday Security Lead.
Smart Shield: Boosting security and testing
To overcome these challenges, the organisation implemented Smart Shield, a solution that masks HR data at a granular field level while keeping financial data unmasked for testing. This has enabled IT teams to test, develop, and deploy efficiently without security risks and streamlined tenant management.
The impact has been transformative. The organisation has reduced risk by 80% and increased tester productivity by 75% with secure privileged access, while lowering tenant management costs.
Minimising risk while scaling efficiencies
With Smart Shield, the IT team has gained secure proxy access, allowing it to test independently before involving business users. This has significantly reduced SME time spent on operational tasks and improved testing efficiency. “Using proxy during testing helps us deliver better results before engaging business users. Smart Shield enhances both efficiency and quality,” explains the Workday Security Lead.
Smart Shield’s granular controls have also played a crucial role in minimising the risk of data exposure. Prior to Smart Shield, proxy access was limited to HR-only users but now, with Smart Shield masking over 120,000 sensitive HR fields, the risk of exposing sensitive data has dropped by 80%, while ensuring seamless financial testing.
Cutting costs and simplifying tenant management
With Smart Shield’s dynamic access controls, the global cloud software provider has eliminated inefficiencies caused by rigid, one-size-fits-all security settings. “Reducing tenant complexity and cost is crucial. Smart Shield allows us to use tenants for multiple purposes,” says the Workday Security Lead.
The organisation’s adoption of Smart Shield has proven to be a game-changer, enabling seamless Workday testing and development without compromising data security. “Smart Shield lets us improve productivity without increasing risk. We can deliver a better quality without exposing sensitive data,” the Workday Security Lead concludes.
The organisation has successfully increased testing efficiency, reduced risk, and streamlined tenant management, laying the groundwork for continued digital transformation.