Claude + Workday: Sana in Claude, MCP Tools and Limits
Yes, as of October 13, 2026, if your company runs Workday. At Workday Rising, Workday and Anthropic announced a partnership and a Sana in Claude plugin: employees can use Workday’s Sana agents, analyze HR and finance data, and take action from inside Claude, confirming every change. The plugin is in early access, with general availability expected in late 2026. Separately, Workday’s Agent-Ready Tools, its MCP tools for HR and finance, are now generally available through Workday Extend AI, so companies can build their own Claude agents on Workday data.
Both run on your company’s Workday permissions, and an administrator connects them. Here’s what each does, who can get it, and where it stops.
What Workday and Anthropic announced
The Sana in Claude plugin. Sana is Workday’s AI assistant and, since Rising, its home screen. The plugin brings it into Claude. Work can start in either place and move between them over MCP without starting over. Workday’s examples:
- A manager compares open roles against headcount and budget, then builds an internal mobility plan.
- A finance leader checks invoice exceptions against purchase orders, then approves them in Claude or routes them to Sana.
Claude shows each person only what their Workday permissions allow, actions follow the company’s existing audit controls, and “the user confirms every change.” Longer processes like a compensation cycle or the financial close stay in Sana, which calls on Claude for individual steps and keeps the data inside Workday.
Agent-Ready Tools are generally available. In June these MCP tools were early access; at Rising, Workday made its agent platform “headless” and released Agent-Ready Tools, Custom Agents and Developer Agent for general use in Workday Extend AI. Reworked counts 275 read tools and 54 write or delete tools in the catalog. Admins connect once, and Workday says there is “no new permission model to build and no per-user setup.” Agent-Ready Tools come to the Claude plugin later in 2026.
Developer Agent lets developers build Workday apps and agents from natural language in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or the Workday Developer Site.
“Together, Workday Sana and Claude unlock lawful AI across the enterprise to get real work done,” said Gerrit Kazmaier, Workday’s president of product and technology. The rest of the conference is in our Workday Rising 2026 recap.
Who can use it
- Workday customers who also use Claude. The release describes it as reaching “joint customers.” It doesn’t say which Claude plans include the plugin.
- Early access first. Sana in Claude is with early access customers now; general availability is expected in late 2026.
- Through your admin. Your Workday administrator connects it, and Agent-Ready Tools sit in Workday Extend AI.
- Pricing isn’t published. Workday sells its AI through Flex Credits, an annual credit pool metered when an agent completes an action, but the release doesn’t price the plugin.
Why Workday access always goes through your admin
Workday’s APIs (REST, SOAP, and RaaS, Reports-as-a-Service, which exposes any custom report as a REST, JSON or CSV endpoint) are capable, but nothing is self-serve:
- A tenant admin creates an Integration System User (ISU) and an integration security group.
- Domain-level permissions are granted per functional area (HR data, comp, time off, recruiting and so on).
- OAuth clients are registered inside your company’s tenant.
An individual employee cannot generate API credentials for their own Workday account. The Claude plugin follows the same rule: an admin connects it once, under the company’s permissions. Any tool that talks to Workday, Claude or Carly or anything else, does it with access your Workday team provisions.
The limits that matter
- Still early access. The plugin isn’t generally available until late 2026, and Agent-Ready Tools reach it later this year.
- Workday customers only. If your company doesn’t run Workday, there is nothing to connect.
- Claude works when you ask. Inside Claude, Workday work happens in a conversation someone starts. Claude’s scheduled tasks run on a clock, not on events, so an expense approval sitting for three days won’t start a Claude task by itself. Workday’s own autopilot agents run in the background, but inside Workday, and most reach early adopters in 2027.
- Third-party bridges aren’t Workday. CData, Composio and Merge-style middleware can sit between Claude and Workday’s APIs, but they’re unofficial and still need admin-provisioned ISU credentials. With an official path now shipping, your security team will likely prefer it.
- The follow-through lives elsewhere. The plugin works on Workday data. The emails, calendar holds and reminders around that work are still a separate job.
Workday-adjacent work that runs on its own: Carly
The Claude plugin answers “ask an AI about our Workday data.” It doesn’t put the recurring, cross-app work around Workday on autopilot. That’s where Carly fits.
Carly is an AI assistant built to act on schedules and triggers. Your admin sets up an ISU and a scoped RaaS report endpoint, you add the credentials at carlyassistant.com/integrations, and Carly pulls what it needs on your schedule:
- Weekly PTO digest. Every Friday, pull the approved time-off report for your team and put a coverage summary in Monday’s briefing and on the exec’s calendar.
- Open-req tracker. A scheduled pull of the recruiting report (open positions, days open, stage) into a Monday summary for hiring managers.
- Anniversary and new-hire briefings. A monthly report pull that feeds reminder emails and 1:1 agenda items so nobody’s work anniversary gets missed.
- Approval nudges. A scheduled check for expense approvals sitting more than a few days, with a polite email to the approver.
- It sends. Carly drafts and sends email from Gmail and Outlook, holds time on calendars, and connects to thousands of apps, so the Workday data reaches the rest of your stack.
- No-code setup. Describe the workflow in plain English and Carly builds it with you.
Carly also has its own connector for Claude, so you can run these workflows from the same chat. Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month.
Claude vs Carly for Workday work
| Claude (Sana in Claude plugin) | Carly | |
|---|---|---|
| Official Workday connection | Yes, early access; GA expected late 2026 | Admin-provisioned RaaS or API credentials |
| Query HR and finance data | Yes, within Workday permissions | Yes, through scoped reports |
| Take actions in Workday | Yes, the user confirms each change | Through reports and APIs your admin allows |
| Starts on its own | No, from a conversation | Yes, on schedules and triggers |
| Weekly PTO and open-req digests | Ask each time | Runs automatically |
| Email and calendar follow-through | Separate from the plugin | Built in (Gmail and Outlook) |
| Needs a Workday contract | Yes | Only for the Workday data itself |
| Pricing | Claude plan plus Workday Flex Credits; plugin price unpublished | Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/mo |
Use the Claude plugin to ask questions of Workday data and act on it in the moment. Use Carly for the recurring work around Workday that should happen without anyone asking.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Claude work with Workday?
Yes, through the Sana in Claude plugin, which Workday and Anthropic announced on October 13, 2026. Employees can use Workday’s Sana agents, analyze HR and finance data and take action inside Claude, with every change confirmed by the user. It is in early access, with general availability expected in late 2026, and your company needs Workday.
Is there a Workday MCP server?
Yes. Workday’s Agent-Ready Tools are MCP tools for HR and finance data, generally available through Workday Extend AI as of October 2026. Any MCP-capable agent, including ones you build on Claude, can use them under your company’s Workday permissions once an admin connects them.
Can I get a Workday API key for my own account?
No. Workday API access is never self-serve: a tenant admin creates an Integration System User, an integration security group and domain-level permissions, and registers the OAuth client inside your tenant. The Claude plugin also runs on admin-connected access.
What about the Workday MCP servers I found on Google?
Third-party middleware from CData, Composio, Merge and similar vendors, not Workday-official. They still need admin-provisioned ISU credentials underneath and add another vendor between your HR data and the model. Workday’s official routes are now the Sana in Claude plugin and Agent-Ready Tools.
How do I automate Workday reports today?
Use RaaS (Reports-as-a-Service): your Workday admin exposes a scoped custom report as a REST endpoint, and a tool like Carly pulls it on a schedule for PTO digests, open-req trackers and approval nudges, then handles the email and calendar follow-through. AI agents start at $35/month.
More: Workday Sana · Workday AI agents · Claude + Gusto · Claude + BambooHR · Claude + Rippling · Claude connectors
Ready to automate your busywork?
Carly schedules, researches, and briefs you—so you can focus on what matters.
See what people say
"Before Carly, I relied on a Calendly link, but the whole process felt impersonal and not very professional. Carly changed that by handling all the back-and-forth, so I'm no longer stuck in endless email threads trying to line up schedules.
Now Carly reaches out to candidates, shares my real-time availability, lets them pick a slot, then sends a Zoom link and drops it straight into my calendar. She sends reminders to both of us before each call, which has significantly reduced no-shows and last-minute confusion.
On top of scheduling, Carly acts like a full executive assistant, sending me my schedule the night before so I can prepare for each call. It reminds me of the old x.ai assistant, but Carly is noticeably smarter, faster, and better suited to my healthcare recruitment business."
