After a review of 147 systems storing or using student data and discussions with campus partners, the Student Sunrise Integrations team has determined that 83 systems currently in use will be replaced with Workday Student. An additional 64 will be retained and 79 will integrate with Workday.
“One of the Student Sunrise project’s guiding principles is to adopt Workday Student’s core product functionality as much as possible,” said Michael Coffman, Student Sunrise project director for information technology. “Achieving this goal will help the university streamline our current student systems, processes and data to improve the experiences of students, staff and faculty.”
Determining scope for Workday Student
The Sunrise team completed a review of 147 WashU systems with a student connection to find out if Workday Student could do what our current systems do today.
Following the review, the team recommends retaining 64 of these systems and replacing 83 with Workday Student or another solution. Of the 83 “replace” systems, Workday Student can perform most of their academic processes. Some of the retained systems, like Canvas, feed data to other systems and will continue to do so.
The chart below shows the university’s systems by function and extent of change. Gray circles represent the current number of systems. Blue circles illustrate the number of systems we will have in the future, along with Workday. Student records, which has the largest number of systems today, will shrink from 45 to 23 systems, and Workday will be our single tool for advising. A list of the retained and replaced systems is available here.
System Integrations Scope
Next, the project team developed an inventory of student systems that may require an integration, or data connection, with Workday Student. To find out if a system would require integration, the team asked:
- if Workday would need the system’s data to function, and
- if the system would need Workday’s data to function and perform academic processes.
After answering these questions for each system, the team identified 79 that need to share data with Workday Student. Some systems require multiple connections with Workday Student, bringing the total integrations to 235. A list of the 79 systems slated for integration is available here.
With the scope of work at hand, the team prioritized the integrations to create an optimal work plan for designing them. They used factors such as whether the university will need the system at go-live or if an academic process change will alter the data the system receives. In the latter case, the system may need refactoring, or the reworking of its data components, to achieve a smooth and accurate flow of information.
“Now we are getting to the best part, the actual integrations work,” said Adam Ulrich, Student Sunrise project integrations lead. “We are excited to be starting this journey with our campus partners.”
If you have any questions or need more information about the Sunrise integrations process, please contact the Integrations team senior project manager Lisa Spahr or project coordinator Kywanda Butler.