Fix Slow Performance in Large Reports

OfficeConnect refresh takes a long time in large workbooks — diagnose the cause and reduce refresh time.
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Symptom

One or more of the following:

  • OfficeConnect refresh takes more than 30 seconds to complete
  • Excel freezes or becomes unresponsive during refresh
  • Refresh completes but only for part of the workbook — some cells remain stale
  • Performance was acceptable in the past but has degraded recently

Causes

  1. Too many OfficeConnect formulas in the workbook — each formula is a separate server round-trip
  2. Leaf-level accounts used instead of rollup accounts — pulling detail that isn’t needed
  3. Broad dimension scope — formulas pulling data across all cost centers or all levels when only a subset is needed
  4. Workday tenant performance issues during peak usage hours
  5. Network latency (VPN, proxy, slow connection)
  6. Excel calculation mode interfering with OfficeConnect’s refresh sequence

Fix 1: Count and reduce formulas

The number of OfficeConnect formulas is the primary driver of refresh time.

  1. Press Ctrl+F (Find). In the Find dialog, click Options, set Look in to Formulas, and search for OC.. The match count shown tells you how many cells contain OfficeConnect formulas. On Mac, use Cmd+F and set the same options.
  2. If you have more than 100 formulas, look for consolidation opportunities:
    • Replace 10 leaf-level account rows with 1 rollup account row
    • Remove columns or rows that are rarely used
    • Split the workbook into a summary workbook (few formulas, fast refresh) and a detail workbook (used less often)

Fix 2: Switch from leaf accounts to rollup accounts

  1. Open the Reporting pane and look at the accounts your report uses. If individual leaf-level accounts (like “Office Supplies — Northeast Region”) are used instead of a parent rollup (like “Office Supplies”), replace them.
  2. To replace: click the cell containing the leaf account, then drag the appropriate rollup account from the Reporting pane onto the same cell. OfficeConnect updates the formula. One rollup formula = one server call, regardless of how many child accounts are under it.

Fix 3: Narrow the dimension scope

  1. If formulas don’t have Level or Cost Center filters, they pull data across all levels in the model — which takes longer for large org structures. Add Level or worktag filters to scope each formula to the relevant part of the hierarchy.
  2. See Work with Custom Dimensions and Attributes and Optimize Performance for Large Models for detailed techniques.

Fix 4: Test at off-peak hours

  1. Workday tenants experience heavier load during business hours, especially at month-end close. If your refresh is slow during peak hours but fast at other times, the bottleneck is server-side rather than workbook-related.
  2. For time-sensitive reports, schedule refresh during off-peak hours — see Refresh Reports Automatically with Power Automate.

Fix 5: Check network latency

  1. Run a speed test or ping your Workday tenant URL from the command line: ping yourcompany.myworkday.com. High latency (>100ms) or packet loss indicates a network problem that affects every OfficeConnect round-trip.
  2. If you’re on a VPN, disconnect briefly (if policy allows) and time a refresh. If performance improves significantly, work with IT to optimize VPN routing to Workday’s servers or request a split-tunnel exception for Workday traffic.

Fix 6: Check Excel calculation mode

  1. Go to Formulas → Calculation Options and confirm it is set to Automatic. If set to Manual, OfficeConnect formula results may not propagate after refresh, causing apparent “slowness” where the data populated but Excel didn’t recalculate dependent cells.
  2. After setting to Automatic, press Ctrl+Alt+F9 to force a full recalculation.

If none of these work

  • Check whether the workbook performs better on a different machine or network — this helps isolate whether the issue is workbook-specific, machine-specific, or network-specific.
  • Review Optimize Performance for Large Models for additional workbook-level optimizations.
  • Contact Workday Support if refresh times are consistently over 60 seconds for a workbook with fewer than 50 formulas — this may indicate a tenant configuration issue.