Student data and the transition to Workday Student

With the transition to Workday Student, there have been questions surrounding where student information currently residing within the legacy Student Information System (SIS) will be stored once Workday Student is launched. The transition to Workday Student is happening in phases, and the transfer of student data, both for historical and active students, will also take a phased approach.

At Launch 1, in October 2023, the foundation for Workday Student and the business capabilities that admit undergraduate students to UBC for the 2024 winter session goes live. This Launch mainly impacts staff and faculty users as well as admissions capabilities for future students. It is at Launch 2, in February of 2024, when Workday Student becomes live for all current users - including students - and the business capabilities that support students to study, advance, and graduate from UBC all come online.

With Launch 2, UBC enters the Coexistence Period, and data required to support business processes from both active and historical students starts to shift to allow for business continuity at UBC. Lastly, in fall 2024, IRP Student Completion establishes continuous improvement of Workday Student at UBC. It is after this time that the legacy SIS will be fully decommissioned, and the future state of student data at UBC will start to take shape.

This blog will outline what happens to historical student data at Launch 2, where information can be found for operational purposes during the phased transition to Workday Student, and what the future state of information regarding student data looks like within the new system from IRP Student Completion and beyond.

Preparations for Launch 2: The Development of the Historical Academic Record (HAR) in Workday Student

Once Workday Student is live for all active students at Launch 2, historical data will be required across various parts of the renewed system for operational purposes, for example, assisting with the readmission and credit transfer processes. As such, data belonging to historical students at the point in time of the Launch 2 cutover period, will be migrated to Workday in text format as part of the new Historical Academic Record (HAR). The creation of HARs will only happen at the time of transition at Launch 2 from SIS to Workday Student; no further HARs will be created after this point. This historical student data will be viewable and editable within Workday Student, but will include only limited information. It will be stored in the HAR within Workday, separately from the data of active students, on the ‘Historical Records’ tab. IRP Student anticipates migrating this information by February 2024’s Launch 2 release, at the same time as data belonging to active students in Workday.

Information that will be converted to the HAR includes: a student’s academic record, including programs of study by academic period, registrations, grades, transfer credit, educational institution attendance, and write-off amounts.

Information that will not be converted to the HAR includes: non-graded elements of a student’s academic history, financial holds, preclusions, and high school courses – this information will be migrated to the University Data Platform (UDaP) on as needed basis.

For the definition of active and historical students, please scroll to the bottom of the page.

Launch 2-3: All Student Data during the Coexistence Period

Starting in February 2024, the legacy SIS and Workday Student will run in parallel; this is known as the Coexistence Period, and this period runs between Launches 2 and 3.

During this transitionary period, students who have ‘active student’ status, and those admitted after Launch 2 will be able to log into their Workday Student profile to view all current and historical information. Active students who are completing 23W and 24S sessions will manage administrative activities within the legacy SIS, and all students will register and manage activities for 24W within Workday Student. 

Students with ‘historical student’ status during this transitionary period will have no access to Workday Student. These students will be able to request transcripts through the regular channels, and their information will be made available either through UDaP (for documents such as Transcripts and Program of Completion Letter) or other mechanisms.

An academic advisor will be able to see all active and historical students in Workday. Although searching for historical students in Workday will be done using a search functionality called ‘Find Historical Academic Records’.

After IRP Student Completion in fall 2024, the SIS will no longer be used to manage active students’ data but will remain active for historical students’ data rectification. At the start of the coexistence period, SIS data required to enable specific requirements and tasks will start to be ingested and curated into UDaP. For example, updates on legal names are one of the most common changes that will happen to historical students once Workday goes live. Updates on legal names for historical students will be made in SIS, from where it will be ingested into UDaP. In addition, there will be a manual process for making the same updates on legal names in the Workday HAR for sustainment purposes.   

IRP Student Completion: Workday Student and the University Data Platform (UDaP). After IRP Student Completion, all historical student data will be moved to UDaP – which will be the system that stores data for all historical students moving forward. This data will be accessible for a variety of administrative research and reporting purposes, including all required information that enables transcripts and requests for transcripts. As part of sustainment, making further data available for business use will continue based on explicit requirements provided by the community.

The legacy SIS will remain the ‘system of record’ for all data relating to 2024 Summer and prior, up until IRP Student Completion. From Launch 2 and beyond, Workday will become the ‘system of record’ for data relating to 2024 Winter onwards. At IRP Student Completion, Workday will become the ongoing System of Record for Student data. UDaP will be a system of reference for both historical and active students, which will also be utilized as the source for transcripts.

Workday Student, along with IRP Student’s functional requirements, is evolving quickly, and this could mean that we may have to adapt our approach throughout the project timeline