Project Update 5
January to April 2024
The first few months of 2024 were highly productive for the Project WakeDay team, which successfully completed its second milestone and the most comprehensive launch of Workday Student system functionality. In early spring, faculty, staff and students were officially granted access to advising, academic planning and course registration activities in the new system.
“This implementation, especially this second milestone, is a momentous accomplishment for the University. We are already seeing the community benefit from improved efficiencies around academic operations, analytics and reporting,” says Mur Muchane, Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer. “It has been thrilling to watch our campus partners learn together and then begin to utilize Workday in ways that will benefit Wake Forest for years to come.”
In late February, team representatives gave a high-level overview of Project WakeDay at How Wake Works, an event sponsored by Provost Michele Gillespie and Executive Vice President and CFO Jacqueline A. Travisano, the project’s executive co-sponsors. Presenters included Mur Muchane, Matt Imboden, Chief Student Services Officer for the School of Business and the project’s Change Management Lead, and Anne Hardcastle, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs. The presentation focused on how Workday Student aligns with WFU’s technology strategic plan, specifically on improving the student experience and enhancing the University’s overall administrative effectiveness. To learn more, watch a recording of the presentation and view the presentation slides at this link.
Also in February, campus was buzzing with Workday activity as audiences gathered to learn how to engage with the new technology in preparation for Fall 2024 registration. More than 200 on-demand videos and job aids were published on the website’s training pages, and the Change Management team led more than 55 hours of presentations during 36 readiness sessions. These demonstrations were designed for a variety of audiences, including advisors, academic support staff, and graduate and undergraduate students. After the events, videos were published on both the website and the project’s Kaltura channel for those who were unable to attend.
Then, after two weeks of advising in March, in which faculty advisors and academic support staff did a fantastic job jumping into Workday to help students build academic plans and saved schedules in the new system, it was time for registration to begin for more than 3,000 students across campus. As expected with a project of this size, there were a few minor bumps, however, team members were available to support students in real time, including during 128 hours of in-person tabling, as well as through a dedicated phone line and active email inboxes.
“The team is so pleased with how our University partners embraced Workday over the past few weeks. Hearing comments that training materials were easy to navigate and that Workday was much better than Banner make all the hard work worth it,” says Project Manager Phil May. “The testing and preparation seemed overwhelming at times, especially as we neared this second milestone, but the results of registration speak for themselves. Workday is really making a difference in the student experience at Wake Forest, and it’s exciting to see.”
Check out more statistics about registration on this graphic, and read on to learn about testing, engagement and training, as well as what’s next for Project WakeDay.
![](https://prod.wp.cdn.aws.wfu.edu/sites/437/2023/11/image.png)
Wake Forest is launching Workday Student functionality at four key milestones, and with two milestones complete, the team is well on schedule to meet its remaining goals:
- Check! The first milestone, or move-to-production (MTP1), occurred in October 2023 and focused on registrar functions, including setting up the University’s academic structure, programs of study, and courses and course sections in Workday.
- Check! In early March 2024, MTP2 moved advising, academic planning and course registration activities into the new system.
- This summer: For MTP3 in July 2024, student financials activities will go live in Workday. These include accounts, financial aid disbursements, tuition assessment, payment plans, student balances and more. In preparation, Change Management will hold two virtual demonstrations on May 1 and June 12. All community members are invited to attend, and students are highly encouraged to participate. Those interested can register and add their preferred event to their calendar at this link.
This fall: MTP4 is scheduled for Fall 2024, when faculty, staff and students will begin using Workday for viewing grades and transcripts, applying for graduation and grading. More information, as well as demonstration dates and training materials, will be available closer to the live date.
![Graphic showing proposed training dates for remaining project milestones, including February to March for Milestone 2, June to July for Milestone 3, and July to August for Milestone 4.](https://prod.wp.cdn.aws.wfu.edu/sites/437/2024/01/Project-WakeDay-Training-Schedule-Updated-Jan-24-1024x357.jpg)
In late January, the testing team led a mock semester, or dress rehearsal, to simulate key semester activities in Workday. All six schools were represented, and more than 70 Wake Foresters participated, including 30-plus students, 15-plus faculty and 15-plus administrators. These exercises were a live practice session as well as a way to collect feedback and immediately apply it to on-demand training materials. Comments were encouraging and included “easy to navigate,” “everything worked well,” “This was way easier than I thought,” and “Thank you for the opportunity for this trial run.”
“It was a positive experience,” says Associate Provost Anne Hardcastle. “I want to commend the way that Change Management folks have presented little bits of information all along, so that when we were finally in the system we were like, ‘Oh yes, I remember seeing this during a Readiness Session.’ This approach led to good familiarity in what to expect.”
In addition to mock semester, the training team completed in-depth, end-to-end (E2E) testing related to system functions and integrations. E2E testing is a comprehensive review of every process, task and activity that will take place in Workday to be sure everything is working as expected. Compared with E2E testing for the first launch in October, which included roughly 800 test cases and about 25 testers, the testing for MTP2 included about 4,400 cases and almost 100 testers.
“To meet our goals, the testing team leaned heavily on members of the project team and many people outside of the project,” says Anthony Hughes, Assistant Director of Enterprise Systems and Cloud Platforms. “We made tremendous progress with their support. Their focus helped us weed out bugs and unexpected defects so that we could be in the best possible shape ahead of the March go-live date. I appreciate everyone sticking with it through many hours of review.”
Work continues on integrations, which are connections to outside systems WFU uses that are necessary to launch Workday, including Slate, Follett, StarRez, Leepfrog and more. Integrations are completed as they are needed, and 18 were slated and ready for March. There are 63 more integrations in progress, with 36 planned for the July milestone and 27 planned for the final milestone later this summer.
The Change Management (CM) team kicked into high gear over the last few months, continuing its regular meetings with the project’s Change Networks while also spending significant time offering demonstrations to the entire campus community.
“Over the past few months, the CM team has worked diligently to offer multiple modalities of training to the campus community. We wanted to connect with students, faculty and staff in meaningful ways, so getting onto campus to chat one on one was important to us, as was offering several demonstrations of Workday functionality, both in person and on Zoom,” says Matt Imboden, Change Management Lead. “Another major focus was digitally publishing detailed Q&A’s, as well as a comprehensive library of on-demand materials, which were customized and organized for students, faculty and staff. These materials will remain both helpful and relevant as the University community continues to learn and utilize Workday in new and powerful ways.”
Keep reading for an overview of CM’s many activities and communications, and check out this graphic for even more eye-popping statistics.
- The Staff Change Network met four times for Readiness Sessions about Advising and Academic Planning, Registration and Class Management, Student Financials and Financial Aid, and Graduation, Grading, and Transcripts.
- The Faculty Advisory Panel met for a Readiness Session on Academic Advising and Registration.
- Program and Department Academic Coordinators met three times for Readiness Sessions about Academic Records, Advising and Academic Planning, and Registration and Class Management.
- More than 30 Readiness Sessions were conducted both in person and virtually for faculty, staff and students. Advising presentations were designed specifically for lower division advisors, major/minor advisors, graduate academic advisors, and academic coaching and support roles. Advising and registration demonstrations were also held for faculty, student and broad campus audiences.
- Members of the CM team, along with several faculty, staff, student workers and Fellows, tabled across campus for almost 130 hours, handing out Project WakeDay swag and directly helping students create saved schedules and more ahead of registration.
- CM also offered individual presentations and demonstrations to about 20 student organizations between mid-January and the end of March, including DSAP, the World Tea Association, STAC, CLAC, Student Government, CLASS, ROTC, the Women’s Center, the Panhellenic Council, the LGBTQ+ Center, the Intercultural Center and SGA, among many more.
The training team stayed busy preparing, finalizing and publishing more than 200 on-demand support materials for faculty, staff and students, including 85-plus job aids, 10 reference guides, 25-plus videos and much more. These materials are organized and searchable on the faculty, staff and student training webpages. The training team also held 10 open labs, in cooperation with the Office of the University Registrar, throughout February for Program, Department and Academic Coordinators. Ahead of MTP3 in July, the team continues to write and define training and support materials related to student financials, which will soon be available on the training pages.
It is also likely (and by design!) that so far in 2024, almost every person at Wake Forest either received, viewed or engaged with a communication from Project WakeDay:
- Several e-invitations to Readiness Sessions were sent to all faculty, staff and students.
- Banners, fliers, and lawn and digital signs popped up across campus, advertising upcoming demonstrations and reminding students about their Workday onboarding tasks.
- A six-week social media campaign was published in cooperation with several offices, including Information Systems, the Office of the Provost, the Intercultural Center, Human Resources, the Women’s Center and more.
- New Faculty and Staff and Student FAQ pages were published on the project website, and updates were made to the Workday.wfu.edu website.
- A variety of handouts were designed, handed out and published on the project website for both faculty and students.
- And a total of 19 videos were completed and published on the project’s Kaltura channel.
What’s Next for Project WakeDay?
While a team celebration recently recognized the success of the project so far, there is still considerable work to be done. With the University’s first major usage of Workday functionality now complete, the team will focus efforts on supporting campus constituencies as they begin to employ the live, robust data that the new system offers. Team members will also continue to prepare and support those whose work will move into Workday this summer and fall.
To learn more about the next milestone, when student financials activities will go live in Workday, two virtual Readiness Sessions will be held on May 1 and June 12. The demonstrations will focus on the student perspective, but all interested community members are invited to attend a session, as the same information will be presented at each. Register now at this link.
The Project WakeDay website, The Word on WakeDay newsletter and project communications are managed by Communications Specialist Abby Langston. Questions and comments can be directed to the project team at WakeDay@wfu.edu or through this feedback form.
Related content:
- April 17, 2024: Executive Sponsor Message to Faculty and Staff
- Update 1: Oct-Dec 2022, Jan-March 2023
- Update 2: April-June 2023
- Update 3: July-September 2023
- Update 4: Oct-December 2023