Linking is a foundational element of the Workiva platform that helps maintain consistency by syncing data points between multiple reports. Simply establish a source link, paste it to another location, and hit "Publish" to push the new data to its destination.
Unified Data builds on this foundation by introducing the ability to quickly find, share, and modify data points, while maintaining the critical flexibility you need when working across teams.
What is Unified Data?
Unified Data is what we call our suite of link-based and link-adjacent features.
It includes:
- Smart links: Give names and descriptions to your links before sharing them with others. This added context means you can embed business-critical details and instructions directly within your reports.
- The shareable data library: Your one spot to discover important data, smart links, and other shared content — plus the context behind it all. Only smart links are shown in the library at this time, but new data types will be added soon!
- Link overrides: Make one-time changes to a destination link without removing the connection to the source.
- Content placeholders: Reuse common content and data across your workspace without sacrificing flexibility. By inserting planned variables — "blank" spaces in reports and links which will be filled in later — you can add standardized content to a document while still allowing for unique customizations.
Smart Links
Linking saves time by ensuring consistency across your reports, but adding additional links also introduces additional complexity to your work. Enter smart links.
By assigning a custom name and description to your most important data points or common narrative, smart links occupy an elevated status within your workspace. They're identifiable, unique, and reusable — simply open the library and search for the one you need. No copying or pasting necessary.
Smart link benefits:
- Help others understand calculated or transformed data points by adding descriptions to your links.
- Simplified onboarding — the library provides a central location where new employees can find your most used data.
Share smart links with the data library
The smart links in your library can be shared with users in other workspaces across the organization. When changes occur, simply update the source data and share the change; shared users can then accept the update whenever they're ready. This allows different teams to confidently build individual reports based on the same set of shared data.
Once a smart link is shared, the recipient can create their own destination links from it or extend access to others within the same workspace. If you're a member of multiple workspaces in the same organization, you can even share smart links with yourself.
Shareable data library benefits:
- Keep key stakeholders abreast of important changes.
- Share key data points or content that will be reused across multiple reports.
- Enable non-reporting teams, such as those in Legal or Marketing, to contribute content without accessing any sensitive data.
Link overrides
If you need to make a one-time change to a destination link without removing the connection to the source, you can override the link. This applies to both the standard links and smart links in your workspace.
Overrides can accommodate exceptions or customizations while facilitating reuse and maintaining an audit trail. You can see all of the overrides in your current document through the Link Properties panel on the right side of the screen.
Link override benefits:
- Fix typos or make minor grammatical changes to shared content.
-
Update the style and tone of a narrative to better match the current context.
- Support unstructured changes in multi-entity reports .
Content placeholders
When you have a high level of common content across files with minor variations in usage, content placeholders provide a way to reuse that content. You can either create source links that allow for planned variables, or create document templates without links. Both methods allow for content customization while maintaining workspace consistency.
Content placeholders benefits:
- Significantly reduce time to create reports with common content that can still be customized.
- Build templates for narratives and show where dynamic content needs to be updated each time the narrative is used.
- Support structured changes in multi-entity and other bulk reports.
- Connect placeholders to a spreadsheet, then use the data to quickly enter and update the values for multiple placeholders at once.