Preparing for the transition to Workday Student

May 12, 2023

As IRP Student works through completing checkpoints ahead of Launch 1 of Workday Student in October 2023, a number of readiness activities, including community engagements, End-to-End Testing, Change Bundles and Change Impact Assessments, Training, and student readiness are taking place to ensure the UBC community is prepared for the changes ahead.

“Readiness activities provide a process-driven and systematic change management approach to ensure the new system and teams across UBC are ready to perform tasks, and implement new processes once Workday Student is live. These activities are a critical part of our journey to launching Workday Student and ensuring our community is prepared for the transition ahead.”

– Dr. Lesley Cormack, Lead Executive Sponsor, (Chair) Deputy Vice-Chancellor & Principal, UBCO

The readiness activities you will read about below have been carefully planned and will be executed throughout the progressive implementation of Workday Student to ensure individuals and faculties/units have the tools, knowledge, and support they need, and that the system fulfills adequate requirements ahead of Launch.

Throughout the planning and implementation stages of the transition to Workday Student, IRP Student is undertaking multiple Institutional Readiness Assessments to analyze how prepared the UBC community is to respond to the coming changes. These surveys allow our community to provide insight about their experiences with IRP Student to date, and help to inform further readiness planning and preparedness activities. All staff and faculty at UBC are invited to participate. The first survey was completed in late 2022, the second is open for participation between April 26 and May 19, 2023, and the third survey will be available in fall 2023.

Below we’ve outlined the five key readiness activities IRP Student is actively engaging in, or has planned for the coming months:

Community Engagements

Objective: Community engagement sessions provide opportunities for the UBC community to gain insights into foundational knowledge, explore business capabilities of the new student information system, and engage in live Q&As.

Engagements & Impacts: Workday Student 101 was the kickoff of community engagements at UBC. These engagement sessions provided opportunities for the community to build high-level, foundational knowledge about Workday Student, its differences from the current SIS, upcoming changes in terminology, and shared a high-level overview of how the UBC community will be trained. Community Call-in Sessions, which commenced in February 2023, provide a deeper dive into the functionality of the new student information system, highlight the different business capabilities, and details of expected changes. These engagements have been developed in collaboration with TCM (Transformation and Change Management) Leads and the IRP Student Solutions team to help to prepare the UBC community for the upcoming transition through knowledge sharing, live interaction, and ultimately help prepare the community for the next layer of readiness activities, Workday Student Training. You can learn more about all community engagements on the IRP Student website here.

Who: All UBC Faculty and staff.

Timeframe: Community readiness-focused engagements commenced in November 2022, and will continue throughout 2023.

End-to-End Testing

Objective: End-to-End (E2E) Testing aims to validate that the new student information system works as expected by testing business processes from beginning to end.

Impacts: E2E testing is an opportunity for identified community members – who will include staff, faculty, and students from across UBC - to provide an assurance check that the system works as intended, and also provides another touchpoint for engagement.

Who: A multifunctional group of staff, faculty, and students from across UBC.

Timeframe: May – August 2023.

Change Bundles & Change Impact Assessments

Objective: Through collaboration with Change Management Specialists and TCM Leads, Transition Network members will have access to documents called Change Bundles to support their understanding of upcoming changes and create forward-looking action plans to successfully implement within their faculty or unit.

Impacts: Along with training, these curated information bundles will allow users to identify change impacts and begin to interpret what the upcoming changes mean for their units. This will allow faculties and units to identify specific actions and transition planning activities that will need to happen to support their faculty or unit’s transition to Workday Student and its integrated point solutions. If you are a Primary Transition Lead (PTL) or Local Transition Lead (LTL), you can learn more about Change Bundles and change impact assessments on the Transition Network information hub here.

Who: Transition Network Members (PTLs / LTLs). Information will be shared through the Transition Network into faculties and units directly.

Timeframe: Ongoing (March 2023 – until Launch)

Training

Objective: Training for Workday Student will build knowledge and develop skills and competencies to ensure staff, faculty, and students have the necessary capabilities and tools to successfully employ the functions of the renewed student information system.

Impacts: Workday Student Training will build knowledge, and develop skills and competencies to ensure students, faculty, and staff have the necessary skills, knowledge, and tools to successfully use the capabilities of the renewed student information system. In all forms, Workday Student Training is designed to provide ‘end-to-end’ training for all system users, through a full range of online, on-demand training materials – supporting their readiness to use the system once launched. Students will undertake self-directed training through access to comprehensive and on-demand Workday Student training materials. This access aims to provide students with both the knowledge, training, and real-time support required throughout the transition to the new system. For more information on training formats, timeline, and details as they become available, please visit IRP Student’s Training web page.

Who: All UBC faculty, staff, and students who will use the system when it is launched.

Timeframe: Core User Training for all UBC staff and faculty commences in July 2023. Ongoing training will be available online from October 2023 onwards.

If you have more questions about how IRP Student is preparing the UBC community, and Workday Student for the upcoming Launch in fall 2023, please connect with your Primary Transition Lead (PTL).

Student Readiness

Objective: Ensuring the student groups impacted by the transition to Workday Student are aware of the changes to their regular administrative processes, and directed to the appropriate system(s) to complete various student administrative activities; such as updating personal information, course scheduling, registration, and more.

Impacts: There are many web pages across the various faculties and units of UBC that direct students to take administrative action to complete tasks relating to their personal information, courses, or student status in the current SIS. IRP Student is working diligently to understand all digital footprints referencing instructions for completing items in the current SIS, and developing messaging for transitioning these actions to Workday Student.

Who: This will support students who will be transitioning from utilizing the current SIS to Workday Student, who are existing UBC students between Launch 2 (February 2024) and fall 2024. Some students will not be affected by the transition to Workday Student – for example, students registered in the 2023 Winter session as their final term, who will then graduate from UBC in 2024.

Timeframe: Between Launch 2 (February 2024) and fall 2024.

As the program moves forward, we expect and embrace change, and are both prepared and confident in our ability to adapt our approach to meet quickly evolving requirements.

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