Project Update 1

Project WakeDay focuses on specific modules, including admissions, financial aid, student records, student financial services, advising and curriculum management. Slate and PowerFAIDs will still be key systems supporting student work.

The architecture and configuration portion of Project WakeDay (September 2022-October 2023) is 60 percent complete and on track with expectations.

Huron, the University’s implementation partner, finished building the project’s third tenant in March. (A tenant is another word for the Workday environment or system. Check out this definition and more in the Project WakeDay glossary.) As Wake Forest moves through the project, there will be different versions of the tenant, each including more and more University data.

The project is also broken into Worksets A, B, C and D, with each Workset building upon the previous version. To date, Project WakeDay has completed Worksets A and B and work is well under way in Workset C.

• In Workset A, from September to December 2022, the team focused on defining Wake Forest’s academic structure, including programs of study, academic levels and calendars, and courses and course sections. The team also reviewed key WFU dates to help guide implementation plans, and started gathering information and converting course and program of study data into Workday.

• In Workset B, from January to March 2023, the team looked closely at student records, registration and academic advising. Data conversion continued, and much discussion focused on integrations between Workday and such Wake Forest applications as EMS (DeaconSpace), Slate, Terra Dotta, StarRez and Leepfrog, among many others. Development work for several of these integrations started in January. Team members also began discussions about cross-campus reporting structures and needs.

Next on the activity list is the first Customer Confirmation Session. These sessions are an opportunity for project leads from Wake Forest to share what has been configured in Workday Student so far. Attendees include the Steering Committee, deans and associate deans, among others, depending on topics in each agenda.

Following these sessions, the information is shared with designated faculty and staff during Readiness Sessions, which provide a preview of Workday functionality. 

After the Readiness Sessions, the Workday team will share information about functionality with campus at large to ensure that everyone is aware of new features in advance of formal training. These meetings are called Readiness Activities. The team is excited to feature some early insights over the coming months and then open training opportunities as the go-live dates for each set of features gets closer.

Rather than launching all on one date, functions will be built and launched throughout 2023-24. This timeline shows when specific activities by faculty, staff and students will take place in Workday Student.

A project this size requires engagement at all levels. You can read more about project leadership, including the executive sponsors and community members who make up the Steering Committee, Project Management Office, Workstream Teams and more, on the Project WakeDay website.

Additionally, the Project WakeDay team partners with a variety of campus stakeholders who make up the change networks. These networks are composed of faculty, staff and students divided into three advisory groups. The Staff Change Network launched in December 2022; the Faculty Advisory Panel launched in March 2023; and the Student Change Network will launch in Fall 2023.

These networks play an important role in preparing Wake Forest for the changes coming with Workday Student. They meet regularly with members of the Project WakeDay team so that they can ask questions and share feedback on decisions. They’re also encouraged to share information with their WFU communities. Learn more about their responsibilities — and find out the members of each network — on the Project WakeDay website.

In the last quarter:

The Faculty Advisory Panel, led by Associate Provost Anne Hardcastle, met three times.

• They were given a demonstration of Workday student v. faculty page views and discussed changes to advising, including how improved data on enrollment and student course and degree plans will support more robust academic planning.
• They learned that courses, sections, registrations, plans and schedules will all be in one system, allowing increased searchability for students during registration. 
• And they discussed how improved system compatibility will facilitate interdisciplinary and cross-school collaborations.

The Staff Change Network met to review wins and challenges related to admissions, advising, student financials, student core and student records, including:

• Enrolled student data will move from Slate to Workday after a deposit is paid. Graduate student data will move into Workday when a student accepts their offer of admission.
• The University will sunset DegreeWorks in February to March 2024, allowing students to instead use Workday to create multiple academic plans based on program requirements. It was noted that the Workday user interface does look significantly different from DegreeWorks. Despite this adjustment, this change will help degree planning and the registration process overall. Read more about the move away from DegreeWorks on the Project WakeDay website.
• The University is eliminating the $500 deposit for returning undergraduate students, a win for both students and administrative offices.
• Students will register for Fall 2024 courses using Workday, but continuing students planning to take Summer 2024 courses will need to register for those courses using Banner.

The WakeDay team has also shared information with several campus groups throughout Spring 2023, including the Information Technology Executive Committee (ITEC), the Staff Advisory Council (SAC) and the Dean’s Student Advisory Panel (DSAP). Is your office interested in receiving updates? Please contact us at WakeDay@wfu.edu.

In partnership with the Project WakeDay team, communications specialists from across the University will help distribute information about Workday Student. 

These Communications Liaisons share their expertise in best practices for communicating with various University departments. They also receive updates from the Workday SIS Communications Specialist about project progress, which they post on webpages, publish in newsletters and share during meetings, as applicable. They met once during the last quarter; here’s a list of members.

As you may have read in Inside WFU or in another newsletter published by a liaison, this quarterly update represents the launch of a dedicated newsletter, The Word on WakeDay. Future issues will publish on the last Tuesday of the month.

• Community members can subscribe and read archived versions on the Project WakeDay newsletter webpage.
• The website now features this project-kickoff video, an introduction to Workday Student for students, faculty and staff. (Note: You may need to log in with your WFU credentials to watch the video.)
• An archive of project emails is available on the communications webpage.

The Project Wakeday team continues to work closely with a number of faculty and staff. While the project has so far focused on planning and configuration, a larger segment of campus stakeholders will hear more details about the transition to Workday Student beginning in Fall 2023.

Huron recently completed building the Workset C tenant at the end of March. This tenant includes all configuration that has been prototyped to date and will be leveraged for continued configuration of Workset C through the summer months.