The Integrated Renewal Program – Student (IRP Student) has numerous focus areas – following the student journey from application to graduation. This series aims to explain each area, its unique requirements, and our designed solutions in terms you, our UBC community, will understand.
Workday Student will replace UBC’s Student Information System (SIS). It will be the foundation for the renewed student information ecosystem, integrating with external systems - both existing and new - that are required to conduct operations at UBC.
Learner Financial Support (LFS) is an area that UBC takes very seriously. LFS manages how the University distributes money to students (for example; scholarships, bursaries, loans, and awards). IRP Student is responsible for the design of a “point solution” to enable the management of these funds. A point solution is a newly created system that is required when Workday Student or an existing application does not meet UBC’s needs.
The Appian BPMS (Business Process Management Solution) has been selected as the point solution for managing awards, bursaries, student loans, and related processes and it will be integrated with Workday to disburse awards, refund awards, and repay transactions. Appian BPMS is a robust, scalable platform that the program team has been using successfully to deliver other needed point solutions for IRP Student.
Currently, the SIS has limited award management functionality. It uses various offline tools to supplement the rest of the award processes. The high usage of offline tools results in varied award application, adjudication, and award packaging processes across a broad group of stakeholders in both campuses. Moving to the Appian BPMS enables the provision of efficient, standardized processes, and improves access to relevant financial information and supports to empower applicants and students.
- Chloe Kwan, Business Lead - Learner Financial Support
LFS will manage numerous processes within Appian BPMS and Workday Student. These include:
- Award Profile Management (e.g., Award Setup)
- Award Budget Management (e.g., Budgeting)
- Award Donor Communications (e.g., Donor Letters)
- Award Eligibility Criteria Management (e.g., Eligibility Criteria Setup)
- Institutional Appendix (e.g., IA Database)
- Loan Management (e.g., Government Student Loans)
- Financial Profile (e.g., Bursary Application)
- Financial Profile Auditing (e.g., Bursary Audits)
- Need Assessment (e.g., Bursary Need Calculation)
- Fund Allocation (e.g., Award Packaging)
- Award Adjudication (e.g., Auto-Adjudication, Adjudication Committees)
- Award Assignment (e.g., SISC MSA Equivalent)
- Award Offer Management (e.g. Offer Acceptance)
- Award Disbursement (e.g. Payment and Instalment Plans)
- Eligibility Monitoring (e.g. Error Reports)
- Award Appeal Management (e.g. Award Appeal Application)
The system will also allow students to apply for awards and loans, track the status of their applications, and accept their award offers online.
For more information about IRP Student focus areas, we invite you to read the other entries in this content series on the IRP Student website.
*Reflecting on our experience so far in working with Workday and seeing how our design is shaping up, we realize that we have to embrace change and be confident in our ability to adapt. Workday Student, along with IRP Student’s functional requirements, are evolving quickly and this could mean that we may have to adapt our approach throughout the project timeline.