Cutover refers to the planning and execution of activities required to successfully transition the current SIS system to its future state within Workday and other point solutions, as well as all other applications impacted by the implementation of Workday Student. This must be done in a specific time frame with minimal disruption to day-to-day operations.  

The cutover period ensures data integrity and stability by temporarily freezing changes in both legacy SIS and Workday Student systems, by facilitating:

• Data Migration
• System Stability
• Minimizing Data Discrepancies
• Transition Accuracy

In advance of Launch 2, there will be two freezes that will impact current UBC employees:

1. Freeze on some student hiring transactions in Workday from January 23 to 28 as student records are uploaded.
2. Pause of email notifications from Workday on January 27 (to support the student record upload).

Partial Freeze of Student Hiring Transactions (January 23 to 28)

Purpose: This freeze is important to prevent the creation of duplicate records in Workday as student records from our Classic SIS (Student Information System) are added to Workday in advance of Launch 2
Who is impacted: Faculty or staff who are hiring a student, rehiring a past student worker, or terminating a current student worker.

Impact: This freeze impacts the following processes/tasks in Workday:​

• Hiring of a new student (who is not a current student worker) into any position. This includes hiring a current UBC student into a staff position.​
• Rehiring of a student (i.e., hire a previous student worker whose job ended/was terminated).​
• Terminating a current student worker. (This is currently done automatically and manually.)​

Additionally, any in-progress transactions must be completed in Workday by January 22. See Check Business Process Transactions Awaiting Action in the Workday Knowledge Base for how to identify in-progress hires. ​See the HR website for more details, and key deadlines.

​Email Notification Pause (January 27)

Purpose: To prevent unnecessary email notifications from being sent out due to the student record load.

Who is impacted: All UBC staff, faculty, and student workers

Impact: Any notifications from Workday that would normally also trigger an email notification, will not result in an email notification. Notifications will still appear under your Workday notifications. Also, it is recommended users do not update personal information in Workday (e.g., mailing address) over this period as some data validations that prevent errors will be turned off.  

In preparation for Launch 2, student records for both current and former UBC students* will be added to Workday. The majority of the student records will be added at the end of January, and the remaining 1% will be added over February to ensure student information is up to date.

• January: Student records for active students and recent past students as of October 2023 (approx. 149,000 records).
• February: Student records for active students added to the current SIS between November 2023 and February 2024. This may include undergraduate and graduate students who were 1) admitted late to the 2023 Winter session and 2) accepted an offer for 2024 Summer session.

These records will be used to support a new student hiring process in Workday.

*Extended Learning and Sauder Continuing Studies students will not have their student records added to Workday. Only students enrolled in a credit program (i.e., undergraduate studies) will be included.

Who will have a student record in Workday?

Whether someone has a student record in Workday will depend on several criteria, but generally, anyone who was enrolled in the 2021 Winter session or later will have a student record in Workday.

Additionally, student records appear differently depending on if they are a current or former student:

• A current student is someone who is enrolled in the current session (e.g. 2023 Winter)
• A former student is someone who was enrolled in a past session (e.g. 2022 Summer). This would include both students who graduated (i.e. alumni) and students who left UBC (e.g. transferred).

Going forward, when a prospective student accepts an offer in the Admissions (ADM) system, they will also have a student record created in Workday.

Note: Student workers may also see some of their student information in Workday in January/February 2024, but they will not need to use their Student profile until May 2024. Staff and faculty who are currently or recently enrolled as students at UBC may also see some of their student information in Workday. 

To support a smooth transition to Workday Student, some changes will be made to the version of Workday currently used by all faculty and staff before Launch 1 and 2. This is because some parts of Workday will be used for both students and UBC faculty and staff once Workday Student goes live. For example, you may see some options for fields that do not apply to faculty and staff, but may be used for students in the future. These changes will appear starting September 11 and continue on a rolling basis.

Yes, some cutover activities will impact current Workday functions. Depending on the impacted processes, details will be shared through Workday This Week and/or through the IRP Student website. For example, the Person Hub Repository (PHUB) freeze as part of Launch 1, impacted Managers' and HR Administrators' ability to complete hires for new and existing employees for 3 days in September 2023. 

All impacted business units will be informed of any disruptions or limitations during Cutover.

If you have any questions about how cutover impacts your faculty or unit, you can reach out to your Primary Transition Lead (PTL) or contact IRP Student at questions.irpstudent@ubc.ca.