Project to expand engagement beginning fall 2023
While the project’s work to date has focused on planning, discovery, system configuration, and documenting changes; advisors, instructors, students, and other affected stakeholder groups will begin to see and hear more details of our transition to Workday Student beginning fall 2023.
“With system configuration concluding this fall, we will be in a good position to begin introducing the broader WashU community to Workday Student,” said Erin Culbreth, associate provost and executive director of the Student Sunrise project. “In the meantime, a number of critical activities will continue to ensure we are on track to complete configuration, test the system, and prepare our community for our go-live year.”
Continuing activities
Several activities that have already begun will continue in 2023. Many staff are already involved in information gathering and data verification activities, including verifying academic (degree) requirements and providing details around advisor assignments and instructional locations.
The second round of change impact validation sessions is also currently underway. Campus teams met in February, and schools and units will meet in March to continue conversations about what is changing and how the changes will affect people and academic operations.
The Sunrise integrations team is continuing to meet with business and technical contacts from schools and units in integration design sessions. These sessions are a critical step to ensure Workday Student and the existing systems it will need to “talk to” are able to send and receive the data necessary to continue campus operations uninterrupted.
New activities
Student Advisory Groups
To make certain student views are considered and to help inform how to best roll the system out to students, the project is forming several student advisory groups.
Groups on the Danforth Campus will focus on undergraduate, graduate professional and continuing education. All schools will be included, and the groups will hold their first meetings later this spring. We are currently working with the School of Medicine on an approach for that school.
Faculty introductions
Project leadership is also beginning to introduce Student Sunrise and the transition to Workday Student to faculty beyond our Faculty Advisory Group.
“Throughout the year, I will be meeting with various faculty groups to introduce them to Student Sunrise, our transition to Workday Student, and what this work means for them and their students,” Culbreth said. “I’ve met with faculty from 12 schools and units to date, and so far, the conversations have been constructive. They also illustrate the value of engagement across campus, as faculty have appreciated the opportunity to ask questions.”
Configuration review sessions
Our first set of configuration review sessions with campus team members, steering committee members, IT advisors and faculty advisory groups concluded in January. These sessions provided an opportunity for the project team to “show and share” a portion of what has been configured in Workday Student so far. We’ll host another round this summer to showcase additional configurations.
Security role assignment review and validation
This April, we will begin security role assignment validation. Security roles determine what you can do in Workday, and the project’s security team has completed a first pass at security role assignments. The validation will ensure individuals are granted correct access by receiving the correct role assignment.
For example, we know that Elizabeth, a department admin, performs cashiering duties and should have access to process accounting transactions. The security team has determined her duties fit within the “student financials transaction manager” role. During validation, campus partners will review what the student financials transaction manager role can do and determine if that’s indeed the right role for Elizabeth.
This validation is the first of three security assignment reviews during the project.
Workday Student Sneak Peeks
This fall we will more formally introduce Workday Student to the broader campus community. This introduction will officially kick off a year-long series of preview events for advisors, instructors, department admins, students and others to hear what is changing and to get an early peek into the system before training and learning resources are made available later in 2024. We will share more details in a future newsletter.
Reporting
In addition to working with campus team members to gather reporting needs, the Student Sunrise reporting team is expanding their efforts to collect data needs from business managers in schools and units. Reporting in Workday will look different than reporting in SIS, and many existing needs may be filled by standard Workday reports. For other needs, the reporting team may need to build custom reports.
We are working with business and operations offices to identify what student data they use and how they use it for operational and functional needs, as well as for any strategic or budget planning, especially any student data needed for finance, budget, or HR decisions.