Workday App Won't Log In: 225 Reviews, 4 Causes (2026)

You put in the password. The verification code arrives. You type it. The screen turns white, or blue with a small gear in the corner, or it just spins on the big W. Nothing else happens, and your shift starts in four minutes.

Workday holds 4.21 stars from 264,210 Google Play ratings, with 36,595 of them at one star. The iOS app is rated 4.73 from 1,866,341 ratings. That gap is unusually wide for the same product, and the reviews explain part of it: several Android users say colleagues on iPhones do not hit the same wall.

Quick Answer: Why Won't the Workday App Log Me In?

In 225 negative reviews we read and categorised, sign-in failures split four ways: the app will not stay signed in (81), it forces password or PIN resets too often (61), it rejects credentials that are correct (44), and it accepts the password then hangs before the app opens (39). Only the fourth one behaves like a bug with a date. The other three sit at roughly the same level every month of the window.

We cannot see Workday's servers, and much of what employees hit is configured by their employer rather than by Workday, so treat every mechanism below as what reviewers describe. What is measurable is how often each description appears, and when.

What We Read

We pulled the 3,000 most recent Google Play reviews from the US storefront and kept the 528 rated 1 to 3 stars with enough text to categorise. They run from 20 March to 23 August 2026. Monthly volume is between 32 and 127, so comparing months as shares is fair rather than an artifact of how the store hands back reviews.

A keyword net for anything sign-in related returned 238 candidates. We read all of them and dropped 13 that turned out to be about something else: a calendar sync request, a country dropdown, an expense photo crash, a locked profile field. That leaves 225 confirmed, or 42.6 percent of every substantial negative review in the window. Each one is assigned to exactly one of the four groups below, so the numbers add up to 225 rather than double counting.

We also pulled the most recent reviews from 19 non-US storefronts, which gave 2,352 more reviews and 232 substantial negatives, used at the end to check whether this is a US-only picture.

The Four Ways Sign-In Fails

1. It will not stay signed in

This is the largest group and the most repetitive. The pattern is always the same shape: the app offers to remember the device, or to use a fingerprint, or to keep you signed in, the user accepts, and the next session behaves as if none of it happened.

Terrible all around. Every single time it asks if you want it to remember your device but no matter what it WILL NOT remember you. Therefore you have to type in your username and password every single time.

Despite being the foundation for countless businesses as an essential management and organizational tool, this app somehow manages to be a buggy mess held together by tape. for over 6 months, the "Remember Me" option has not worked, it can be toggled, but it NEVER remembers any credentials.

This app constantly disables biometric login every few days or after 3 to 5 logins. Re-enabling it frequently locks me out of my account, forcing me to repeatedly reset my password through my employer.

Biometric login is named in 39 of the 81. The complaint is not that it fails to read the fingerprint. It is that the setting switches itself off, which then forces the long path, which then sometimes triggers a reset.

Every time I try to login it requires either a new password, pin login, biometrics reset, or some new requirement.

I check "Remember me" every single time I log in. Then the next time I try, I have to go through Octa Verify to confirm that it's me, again... It gets very tiresome.

Two-step verification appears here too, with a specific detail worth repeating because it is testable: several reviewers say the "remember this device" choice never sticks on a phone.

was great until it implemented a mandatory 2 step verification for every single login. no point in asking me to remember my device because it literally does nothing if you hit yes using a mobile phone. it only recognizes laptop or desktop.

I have an Android. I have to login every time I open the app and have to authenticate. Other coworkers with apple phones do not have to do this.

2. Forced password and PIN resets

Sixty-one reviews are about how often credentials expire, and about what happens when you try to fix that from the phone. The intervals reviewers name do not agree with each other: six say 30 days, three say every couple of weeks, two say 90 days or three months, two say six months, one says 29 days. That spread is the tell. Expiry is set by the employer, not by the app.

What the app does control is the recovery path. A keyword pass for a missing or broken reset returns six reviews, one of which turns out to be about a verification prompt rather than a reset, so the real count is five.

Trash. This app forces you to create a new password every 30 days, but the process is broken. It takes longer and is more difficult than necessary.

No way to recover password. Used to have a "forgot password" button so I could reset it, but for SOME REASON you have removed it... Thanks...

Possibly the worst app I've come across. would give it 0 stars if i could. Can't log in without waiting for a code to be emailed after entering a password. Then after a couple of months app will say wrong password. No option available to reset password have to wait for employer to reset.

Four of the 61 describe the reset screen itself failing to load, which is the worst version of this: the only door out of a lockout is the one that will not open.

for the last several weeks the app itself won't allow you to reset your password. when clicking "forgot my paasword" it suddenly gets stuck in an endless loop of loading denying the ability to gain access through my app.

the app won't let me use the forgot password option. when I click on it, it sends me to a screen with the app logo that flashes over and over. it won't do anything else and there's no other options.

3. Credentials rejected or locked out

Forty-four reviews describe correct credentials being refused, accounts locking, or the app declaring the phone unsupported. A handful quote the error text, which is more useful than a general complaint because it points at an access policy rather than a typo.

The app was working just fine until recently. Now it barely let's me login. Constantly gives an error message saying login was successful but does not meet the criteria to access this resource bla bla bla...

It won't let me log in. I tried 3 different passwords, and it wouldn't accept any. It's logged in on my computer. But my phone cliams I don't even have an account.

The device-compatibility variant shows up repeatedly and is worth knowing about before you spend an evening on it: a phone that worked for years suddenly reports that the app is not available for it.

worked fine for two years and I tried logging in yesterday to do some training and found it's no longer compatible with my phone

4. It hangs after the password goes in

This is the smallest group, and the only one that looks like an event rather than a condition. The description is unusually consistent: credentials are accepted, no error is shown, and the app stops. Reviewers name a white screen, a blank blue screen with a gear icon in the corner, or the W logo spinning.

Worked great for about a week once my university switched to this. Now I can't login. After entering valid SSO it just spins in an endless loop on the W logo and never provides an error or access.

What happened to this app since the last time I used it? I found that it just hangs on the "W" loading screen after logging in, so I cleared the cache (didn't help) and then cleared all data and started over.

After the most recent update the app won't even open/load for me. I log in, it doesn't say anything about my password being incorrect and prompts me with google verification, and then it just stays stuck on the loading screen.

The Part That Has a Date

Split the 39 hang reviews by month, as a share of that month's substantial negatives, and put the other three groups beside them as controls.

March starts on the 20th and August ends on the 23rd, so both are partial months. The three control groups move within a narrow band and show no trend. The hang group goes from nothing to one review in six weeks, then to one negative review in seven.

The daily curve is sharper than the monthly one. Seventeen of the 39, or 43.6 percent of the entire cluster, land in the seven days from 28 May to 3 June, six of them on 2 June alone. In that week, 17 of the 62 substantial negative reviews, or 27.4 percent, are people staring at a stopped login screen.

The version labels agree. Google Play stamps most reviews with the app build the reviewer had installed, and 460 of our 528 carry one.

One build carries almost eight times the rate of the two before it. That is as close to a smoking gun as store reviews get, and it is worth saying what it is not: the version label is the build the reviewer happened to have, so it under-reports rather than over-reports, and a rollout that reaches people on different days will smear the edges.

One honest caveat. The white-screen-with-a-gear symptom is not new. We found the same description in a German review from March 2025 and a Russian one from August 2022. What changed in late May 2026 is not the existence of the symptom but its share, from a rounding error to a quarter of a week's complaints. Read that as a regression on top of a long-standing weak spot, not as a brand-new bug.

What It Costs the People Writing

Workday is not entertainment. Of the 225 sign-in reviews, 17 mention clocking in or out and 19 mention getting to a payslip, a W-2 or a direct deposit setting. Two describe losing paid time because of it, which is a small number and we are not going to inflate it.

Horrendous app. Will make you do 2SV every time you log in no matter how many times you press "stay signed in" so now I have to go 15 mins earlier to work because the app loses connection during sign on & it's the only way to clock in.

this is the absolute WORST app to try to get signed into. Yet my employer requires it so I waste my time after I'm clocked out trying to sign in, just to submit my time at the end of the week.

Haven't been able to even log in and access my wage slips what a useless app I am literally working in limbo havent seen my wage slips for 6 months now.

The reason this matters more than a two-review count suggests is the position the app sits in. For a salaried user a failed login is an annoyance. For an hourly user whose employer put the time clock inside the app, it is the difference between being on time and being marked late.

What Reviewers Tried, and What Worked

We counted the fixes named across the 225 reviews. The results are thin, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

Exactly one review in the 225 reports a phone-side fix that worked, and it is a reinstall after two days locked out. Every other mention of reinstalling or clearing data is a mention of it failing. Six reviewers stopped fighting the phone and went to a browser, a desktop or a computer at work.

text authentication does not work in app just gets stuck at the approved screen. I have to go onto the actual website to log in or reset which defeats the purpose of the app.

I either get a blue screen of death or a blue and orange screen of purgatory when I sign in. It doesn't let me even get to clocking in or out. You're better off getting in through your company's website if that option is available.

let me sign in 3 times and now wants more apps downloaded and still can't gain access thru phone. most ridiculous app ever for work and can't access so have to consistently go to job site and use their computers.

That is not a guarantee either. One reviewer reports the app handing them off to the browser and the browser handing them the same blank screen.

I can't log in on the actual app anymore, but when it redirects me to my browser, it just leaves me with a blank white screen.

Not Only the United States

We read the most recent reviews from 19 other storefronts. Of 232 substantial negatives, 96 are about signing in, and the German, Dutch, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Indonesian and Vietnamese versions describe the same four failures in the same words.

The interesting part is the timing. Three German reviews and one written in English on the Russian storefront describe the post-login hang inside the same late-May window, on the same build.

German

Seit letztem app update geht nach dem login nichts mehr. Dauerladeschleife. Problem herrscht auf drei verschiedenen Galaxy S26 Ultra Modellen.

German

Seit letztem Update hängt App komplett, nicht nutzbar; Abwertung auf 1 Stern.

Hi, after the recent update Workday stopped working. The app opens, but after login it freezes (blue screen or endless loading). Workday works fine through the website in Chrome.

Spanish

Desesperante. Una vez q escribo mi correo, contraseña y verificacion, se queda la pantalla en blanco, y hai te quedas. Tengo que acceder a ella en el ordenador.

The chronic complaints travel just as well.

German

Finde ich nicht gut, das ich beim Anmelden jedesmal alles neu eintippen muss und noch ein Verifizierungscode den ich per E-Mail bekomme auch noch zusätzlich eingeben muss.

Dutch

Vaak biometrische aanmelding opnieuw instellen en dus opnieuw inloggen.

Italian

Non salva mai il dispositivo da cui si accede, ci sono vari passaggi da fare per poter timbrare e a volte non si capisce bene se si ha timbrato o no.

Polish

Nie moge sie zalogować. nie wyskakuje mi okienko do wyboru klucza do zalogowania. już 3 czy 4 razy odinstalowałam i nie idzie.

Portuguese

Horrível! Simplesmente não consigo acessar a minha conta e não é por erro de email, senha ou digitação. Ele simplesmente não me dá acesso.

Vietnamese

cần chi mà bắt phải tải tận hai ứng dụng để đăng nhập được vào tài khoản. làm ăn rắc rối, khó khăng, phí thời gian để đăng nhập.

A German reviewer adds the single most useful diagnostic detail in the whole corpus: the same failure on three different handsets of the same model, which rules out one bad phone.

Step 1: Work Out Which of the Four You Have

Before you try anything, name the failure. If the app refuses your password, that is a credential problem. If it accepts your password and then stops on a logo or a blank screen, that is the hang, and nothing you do on the phone is likely to help. If it lets you in but asks for everything again tomorrow, that is the session problem. The three need different responses, and most wasted evenings come from applying the wrong one.

Step 2: If It Hangs, Go to the Browser First

The hang group is the one where reinstalling is most often reported and least often useful. Open your employer's Workday address in a mobile browser or on a desktop and sign in there. Six reviewers say this is how they eventually got to their payslip or their time entry, including one who first spent days on the app, and it is the only workaround in the corpus with more than a single success behind it. If you have a deadline today, do this before you troubleshoot anything.

Step 3: Check the Build You Are On

Open your phone's app settings and look at the installed version. If it matches the build that reviewers were reporting the hang on, an update is the realistic fix rather than a reinstall, because a reinstall pulls the same build back down. If an update is available, take it. If you are already on the newest build and it still hangs, the loop is not on your side.

Step 4: Stop Fighting the Biometric Toggle

If the fingerprint or PIN option keeps switching itself off, several reviewers report that re-enabling it repeatedly is what leads to the account lock. Setting it once and then using the full password path when the shortcut is gone is slower per login, but it is the pattern that avoids the reset loop. Keep the password in your phone's password manager so the long path stays short.

Step 5: Escalate to Your Employer, Not to the Store

Workday is sold to your employer, and your account, your password policy and your verification method are configured by them. Sixteen reviewers describe contacting HR or IT, and that is genuinely the right channel for a lockout or a reset interval, even when it is slow. A review in the Play Store reaches neither. If your whole team is hitting the same wall on the same day, say that when you report it, because it moves the ticket from a user problem to an outage.

What We Could Not Tell

We cannot see whether any individual login was refused for a real security reason. We cannot see the password policies, which are set per employer and clearly differ, since reviewers name four different expiry intervals. We do not know how many people hit the late-May hang and never wrote a review, which is almost certainly most of them. And a review corpus is self-selecting: nobody writes to say their login worked.

What the corpus does support is narrower and still useful. Sign-in is the dominant complaint about this app, at 42.6 percent of substantial negative reviews. Three quarters of that is chronic and unchanged over five months. The remaining quarter has a date, a build and a matching international footprint.

Read the Full Breakdown

You can read the full negative review breakdown for the Workday app on Android and the Workday app on iOS, or the trust check and apps like it. For the same failure in a different payroll app, see our read of the ADP app's saved login problem. For the wider pattern, see our two-factor app comparison, our analysis of how updates kill ratings and what power users complain about in productivity apps.