Taleo-to-Workday migration requires TCC extraction (not CSV), WWS SOAP loading (not EIB for attachments), and careful handling of Taleo's double-compressed binaries and Workday's rate limits.
A CTO-level guide to migrating from Oracle Taleo to Workday Recruiting — covering TCC extraction, EIB limits, WWS API constraints, and attachment handling.
Read this first
Pair-specific gotchas that catch teams out. Each one has cost somebody a weekend.
A common pattern
migrate active pipeline data into Workday Recruiting, and extract all historical data into a compliance data warehouse using TCC. This avoids overloading Workday with stale data while preserving regulatory access.
Custom data is where silent loss happens
Workday's Edit_Job_Requisition_Additional_Data docs state that when a custom object allows multiple instances, existing data must also appear in the update request or it will be removed. That is a real overwrite risk during partial replays. (community.workday.com)
For Transitions module documents (onboarding paperwork, signed offer letters), Taleo
For Transitions module documents (onboarding paperwork, signed offer letters), Taleo compresses twice, then Base64 encodes once. For exporting these files using TCC, they need to be decompressed twice. If you don't handle this, exported PDFs and DOCs will appear corrupted.
Which recruiting operations are SOAP-only? As of this writing, critical recruiting
Which recruiting operations are SOAP-only? As of this writing, critical recruiting operations — including Put_Candidate, Put_Candidate_Attachment, Put_Job_Requisition, and Bulk_Import_Put_Candidate — are available exclusively through the SOAP API (WWS). The Workday REST API does not expose equivalent write operations for these recruiting objects. If your migration pipeline relies on REST, you will hit a wall on candidate creation, attachment upload, and requisition management. Plan for SOAP from the start.
If your Taleo instance has 100K+ candidate attachments, plan for the attachment migration
If your Taleo instance has 100K+ candidate attachments, plan for the attachment migration to take longer than all other data combined. Budget time and API capacity accordingly.
The runbook
Work top to bottom. Tick steps as you go — your progress is saved in this browser.
01 Discovery Scope candidates, pipelines and the compliance obligations that come with them.
Objective Agreed scope across candidates, applications, jobs and interview history, with legal signed up on retention.
Keep these open
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Inventory every object in Oracle Taleo
Count candidates, applications (a candidate can have many), jobs and requisitions, interviews, scorecards, offers, and resume files. Applications and scorecards usually outnumber candidates several times over, and resume files dominate storage.
Data Profiler Get real record counts instead of estimating from memory -
Settle retention and consent with legal
Candidate data is heavily regulated: GDPR right-to-erasure, EEOC/OFCCP record-keeping, and per-region retention windows that conflict with each other. Decide what may be migrated at all before you scope anything else — this frequently shrinks scope substantially.
Migrating candidate records whose consent has lapsed or whose retention window has expired creates a new compliance breach in the target system.
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Map the hiring pipeline and agree the target stages
Document every job's pipeline, stage, and rejection reason, then agree the Workday model with talent leadership. Stage definitions drive every funnel metric you report, so changing them silently rewrites your hiring analytics.
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Catalogue integrations and the job-board estate
List job boards, careers-site integration, HRIS, background check, assessment platforms, calendar and email. The careers site and job boards are customer-facing, so their cutover needs its own plan and its own testing.
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Build the business case and choose the window
Model licence delta, effort and recruiter productivity dip. Time the window against your hiring cycle: a migration during peak graduate recruitment or a hiring surge will fail on people, not technology.
Vendor Evaluator Score Workday against alternatives on weighted criteria
Don't move on until
- Counts confirmed for candidates, applications, jobs and offers
- Retention and consent obligations confirmed with legal
- Hiring-stage model agreed with talent leadership
02 Data Audit Audit candidate data with compliance sitting next to you.
Objective Profiled exports with duplicates, expired records and resume files all quantified and triaged.
Keep these open
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Export and profile candidates, applications and jobs
Profile each object separately and reconcile against API counts. Watch the candidate-to-application ratio: a mismatch usually means applications have been silently truncated by pagination.
Data Profiler Profile the Oracle Taleo export for nulls, outliers and type drift -
Quantify duplicate candidates and agree survivorship
The same person applies repeatedly over years with different emails and name spellings. Measure the duplicate rate and agree survivorship rules — which record wins and what happens to the application history attached to the losers.
Merging candidates without agreed survivorship rules destroys application and interview history that you may be legally required to retain.
Data Cleaner Strip empty rows, stray whitespace and dead columns -
Identify records outside their retention window
Flag candidates whose consent has expired, who have exercised erasure, or who fall outside regional retention. Exclude them from scope and document the exclusion — you need to show the decision was deliberate.
PII & Compliance Scanner Find regulated fields before they land in a new system -
Inventory resume files and attachments
Count files, total volume and MIME types, and check every attachment still resolves to a live URL. Expiring signed download URLs are the classic reason a resume migration completes with a large fraction of empty files.
Resume download URLs are often short-lived signed links. Fetch files close to load time or they will 404 mid-migration.
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Verify relationship integrity
Confirm every application links to a live candidate and a live job, and every scorecard to a real interview. Orphaned applications produce a funnel report that does not tie to anything.
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Clean, normalise and produce masked test data
Normalise emails, phone formats and locations, standardise timestamps to UTC, and generate a masked dataset for the sandbox. Real candidate data in a sandbox is a compliance breach in most jurisdictions.
PII Masker Generate a safe copy for sandbox and vendor testing
Oracle Taleo → Workday specifics
- Requisitions
- How many are open vs. closed/filled? Most organizations only need to migrate open and recently closed requisitions (last 12–24 months). Archived requisitions older than your compliance retention window can stay in a Taleo data warehouse.
- Candidates
- Total candidate count vs. candidates with active submissions. Taleo instances with 5+ years of data often have 500K+ candidate profiles, but only a fraction are relevant to active pipelines.
- Submissions (Applications)
- The critical join object. Each submission ties a candidate to a requisition and carries workflow state (step + status in the Candidate Selection Workflow). Decide which statuses matter: only active pipeline? Or all historical including rejected/declined?
- Attachments
- Resumes, cover letters, certifications, offer letters, onboarding documents. This is the single largest data volume and the hardest to extract.
- Compliance Data
- EEO, OFCCP, and veteran status fields. These often have specific Workday field mappings and regulatory requirements for preservation.
Don't move on until
- Duplicate candidate rate quantified with a merge policy agreed
- Records outside retention identified and excluded
- Resume and attachment inventory complete with total volume
03 Field Mapping Map the candidate-application-job triangle before anything else.
Objective A signed mapping covering objects, stages, rejection reasons, scorecards and EEO fields.
Keep these open
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Map the candidate, application and job model
ATS platforms differ on whether a person or an application is the primary record. Establish this first: getting it wrong means one candidate becomes five, or five applications collapse into one, and the entire field map has to be redone.
Candidate-centric and application-centric models are not interchangeable. Confirm which Workday uses before mapping any field.
Schema Mapper Match Oracle Taleo fields to Workday by uploading both schemas -
Map pipeline stages and rejection reasons exhaustively
Enumerate every stage and rejection reason across all jobs, including retired values on historical applications, and map each explicitly. Unmapped rejection reasons are both a reporting gap and, in regulated hiring, a compliance one.
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Decide EEO and diversity data handling
These fields are separately regulated and often legally required to be stored apart from the candidate record. Confirm with legal whether they migrate at all, and how Workday isolates them.
EEO data usually cannot be migrated into ordinary custom fields without breaching the segregation rules that govern it.
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Map interviews, scorecards and feedback
Structured scorecards rarely have a native equivalent. Decide whether to reconstruct them, flatten them into notes, or keep them only in the archive — and be explicit that flattening loses the ability to report on them.
JSON to CSV Converter Flatten nested API responses into a reviewable sheet -
Plan resume and file migration
Confirm size limits, MIME support and whether Workday re-parses resumes on upload. Re-parsing can overwrite carefully curated candidate fields with worse machine-extracted values, so test it deliberately.
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Set load order and freeze the spec
Users, then jobs, then candidates, then applications, then interviews and scorecards, then files. Keep source IDs in custom fields, then version and sign off the spec.
Oracle Taleo → Workday specifics
- Custom Fields (UDFs)
- Inventory every UDF on Requisition, Candidate, Submission, and Offer entities. Determine which have Workday equivalents vs. which need custom field creation in Workday.
Don't move on until
- Candidate/application/job model mapped and reviewed
- Every stage and rejection reason explicitly mapped
- EEO and diversity field handling agreed with legal
04 Test Migration Pilot whole candidate journeys, not isolated records.
Objective A sandbox pilot where candidate journeys, funnel metrics and resume files all verify.
Keep these open
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Configure the Workday sandbox with the agreed pipelines
Create jobs, pipeline stages, scorecard templates, user roles and custom fields first. Loading applications before the stages exist puts every candidate in a default stage and invalidates the pilot.
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Select complete candidate journeys as the pilot slice
Take 100-200 candidates with all their applications, interviews, scorecards and files — including repeat applicants, hires, rejections at every stage, and candidates on multiple jobs. Repeat applicants are where the model mapping actually gets tested.
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Run the load in dependency order with logging
Jobs, candidates, applications, interviews, then files, logging each request against its source ID. Track file uploads separately: they fail for different reasons and at different rates than record writes.
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Verify journeys and funnel metrics
Confirm each candidate sits at the right stage on the right job with their history intact, and that per-stage funnel counts match Oracle Taleo for the pilot jobs. Funnel mismatches point straight back to stage mapping.
Migration Validation Tool Diff the pilot batch against source before scaling up -
Open every pilot resume and check re-parsing
Actually open the files rather than trusting the upload count, and check whether re-parsing has overwritten any candidate fields. A resume that uploaded as a zero-byte file still counts as a success in most logs.
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Put recruiters in front of the pilot data
Have recruiters work their own pilot requisitions end to end. They immediately spot missing feedback, wrong stages and unreadable history that reconciliation cannot see.
Don't move on until
- Candidate-application-job relationships intact for the pilot
- Funnel counts per stage match source for pilot jobs
- Resume files open correctly for every pilot candidate
05 Cutover Switch recruiting without dropping a live candidate.
Objective All in-scope recruiting data live in Workday, careers site and boards repointed, recruiters working.
Keep these open
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Pre-load historical candidates and closed jobs
Load closed requisitions, rejected candidates and archived applications while Oracle Taleo stays live. Only active pipeline and the final delta need to move in the window.
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Publish the runbook including the careers-site switch
A timed sequence with owners and abort criteria, treating the careers site and job boards as first-class steps. They are candidate-facing, so a failure there is publicly visible in a way a data defect is not.
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Freeze Oracle Taleo and take the final delta
Stop new applications and let recruiters finish in-flight actions, then export everything changed since the pre-load. Coordinate with anyone actively interviewing so feedback is not entered into the old system mid-freeze.
Interview feedback entered in the old ATS during the freeze is lost, and it is the data recruiters most immediately notice missing.
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Load active pipeline and reconcile stages
Load active candidates and applications, then verify every active candidate is at the correct stage on the correct job before repointing anything. Active-stage accuracy is what recruiters check first on day one.
Migration Validation Tool Confirm the final delta landed before you reopen -
Repoint careers site, job boards and integrations
Switch the careers-site integration, repost or migrate live job ads, and repoint HRIS, background check, assessment and calendar integrations. Then submit a real test application through the careers site and every major board.
Job ads left posted against the old ATS keep collecting applications that never reach the new system.
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Go/no-go and switch recruiters over
Call the decision against the exit criteria, then move recruiters with support on hand for the first day. Keep Oracle Taleo read-only — candidate records have retention obligations that outlast the migration.
Don't move on until
- Historical load complete and reconciled before the freeze
- Careers site and job boards posting into Workday and verified
- Active candidates confirmed at the correct stage
06 Validation Prove the funnel, the files and the compliance position.
Objective Reconciled recruiting data, funnel parity with baseline, and a defensible compliance record.
Keep these open
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Reconcile every object including files
Compare counts for candidates, applications, jobs, interviews, scorecards and files, with field-level spot checks on a sample. Count files separately — they are the object most likely to be quietly short.
Migration Validation Tool Reconcile Oracle Taleo and Workday record-for-record -
Tie funnel and time-to-hire reporting to baseline
Rebuild funnel conversion, time-to-hire, source effectiveness and offer-acceptance reporting and compare to pre-migration figures. Variances trace back to stage mapping and to how application timestamps were handled.
Time-to-hire depends on stage-transition timestamps. If those were approximated, the metric will differ even with identical records.
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Verify file integrity at scale
Sample-open resumes across the whole load and compare file sizes against source. Zero-byte and truncated files are common and never surface in an upload success count.
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Confirm retention, consent and EEO configuration
Verify retention rules, consent state and EEO segregation are correctly configured in Workday, and that excluded records genuinely did not migrate. File this as your compliance evidence.
PII & Compliance Scanner Produce the compliance evidence your auditor will ask for -
Test workflow, notifications and candidate-facing paths
Fire every stage automation, interview scheduling flow, rejection template and offer approval, and submit a live application through the careers site. Candidate-facing emails going out wrong is a brand problem, not just a bug.
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Sign off and schedule decommission
Get written acceptance against the Discovery criteria, retain Oracle Taleo read-only for the period your retention policy requires, take a final archive export, and diarise cancellation.
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Record counts
Compare source extraction counts vs. Workday record counts per entity
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Rebuild recruiting workflows
Taleo's Candidate Selection Workflows don't migrate as configuration. Recreate business process definitions in Workday's Business Process Framework.
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Monitor for 30 days
Watch for data inconsistencies, missing attachments, and broken candidate-requisition links that surface during normal recruiting operations.
Oracle Taleo → Workday specifics
- Field-level sampling
- Pull 5–10% of records via Get_Candidates and compare field values against source data
- Attachment verification
- Spot-check that attachments open correctly and are associated with the right candidates
- Relationship integrity
- Verify Job Application → Candidate and Job Application → Job Requisition links
- Stage/status accuracy
- Compare Taleo CSW state vs. Workday recruiting stage against your mapping table
- UAT with recruiters
- Have recruiters verify candidate profiles in Workday — can they find a candidate from two years ago, view their resume, and see the requisition they applied for?
Don't move on until
- Reconciliation complete across candidates, applications and files
- Funnel and time-to-hire reporting tie to baseline
- Retention and EEO configuration verified, acceptance signed
Field mapping reference
The field-by-field mapping for each object. Use this as the starting point for your mapping spec.
Taleo Workday
| Oracle Taleo field | Workday field | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Candidate.EmailAddress | Candidate_Data.Contact_Information_Data.Email_Address | Validate format; primary deduplication key |
| Candidate.FirstName / LastName | Candidate_Data.Personal_Data.Name_Data | Workday requires legal name structure |
| Candidate.Phone | Candidate_Data.Contact_Information_Data.Phone_Data | Map phone type (home/mobile/work) |
| Requisition.Title | Job_Requisition.Job_Posting_Title | Character limit differences |
| Requisition.ContestNumber | Job_Requisition_ID | Must exist before linking applications |
| Requisition.HiringManager | Job_Requisition.Hiring_Manager | Must resolve to existing Workday Worker IDs |
| Submission.Status + Submission.Step | Job_Application.Recruiting_Stage | Requires a custom status-to-stage mapping table |
| Offer.Salary | Offer_Data.Compensation | Currency and compensation plan alignment |
| Candidate.Resume (binary) | Candidate_Attachment (via WWS) | Requires Base64 decode + decompress before re-upload |
| UDFs (custom fields) | Calculated Fields / Custom Objects | Not all UDFs have direct equivalents; may require Workday configuration |
Tools used in this playbook
All free, all run entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
FAQ
Can I use CSV exports to migrate data from Taleo to Workday?
Only for a small, flat scope. CSV exports from Taleo lose relational data (Candidate → Submission → Requisition chains), can't export attachments, and produce cartesian product explosions for multi-valued fields. Use Taleo Connect Client (TCC) with T-XML mode for any migration that requires relational integrity or historical fidelity.
What is the Workday EIB file size limit for data imports?
Workday EIB allows a maximum of 30 MB for browser uploads and 300 MB for SFTP uploads. Files exceeding these limits return an error. For larger datasets or attachments, use Workday Web Services (WWS) SOAP API instead. Verify the exact limits in your tenant, as these are not prominently published in Workday's marketing materials.
How do I extract attachments like resumes from Taleo?
TCC doesn't natively export attachments. You need the TCCCustomSteps JAR library with the ExtractAttachedFilePostStep Java class, XML export mode, and post-processing steps. Recruiting module files require Base64 decode plus gunzip decompression. Transitions module files (onboarding paperwork, signed offer letters) require double decompression — miss that step and exported files will appear corrupted.
What Workday API should I use for loading candidate data?
Use Workday Web Services (WWS) SOAP API: Put_Candidate for candidate profiles, Put_Candidate_Attachment for resumes and documents, and Put_Job_Requisition for requisitions. For high-volume imports, Bulk_Import_Put_Candidate supports serial, low-concurrency, and high-concurrency processing modes. The REST API has narrower coverage for recruiting operations. Expect approximately 10 requests/second rate limits and 60–90 second response times per SOAP call.
Can Zapier or Make handle a full Taleo to Workday migration?
Not realistically. As of April 2026, Zapier supports Workday but marks Taleo as not officially supported. Make's Workday HCM tooling still leaves Taleo extraction and historical mapping entirely on you. These tools may help with lightweight ongoing sync, but they are not designed for a one-time historical migration with attachments and complex relational data.