The U of A will transition from the current UAConnect student information system to a new Workday Student system in 2024-25. Workday Student is a modern, mobile-friendly and cloud-based solution that will serve U of A System faculty and students long into the future. Workday Student's data-driven approach to student attainment and retention will help the U of A achieve its goal of advancing student success.

Even though the actual implementation of Workday Student is a few years away, Elevate Design sessions started in June and are continuing through September. These workshops are designed to introduce Workday Student concepts to U of A System institutions and begin the information-gathering process for the new student implementation. The UAConnect team and key campus representatives have been participating in the sessions.

Each Elevate session is designed to review Workday Student concepts, evaluate current practices and identify opportunities to better use the student information system, with an eye on meeting student, faculty and staff needs. Another important goal is to identify any potential security issues or risks.

The Workday Student areas being covered during the sessions mirror those used in UAConnect, including curriculum management, financial aid, recruiting and admissions, student financials, as well as student records and advising. Technical sessions are also being held on integrations, data conversion and reporting.

"Workday Student is a comprehensive information system that will affect every member of our campus community, so careful planning is critical to our campus and to all system schools," said Dave Dawson, senior associate vice provost for Enrollment Services and the campus director of Workday Student. "We are building our campus partner team and will engage these key contributors throughout the implementation process. We know that understanding how the system works best for those who use it is essential to the success of the new system."

Elevate sessions provide an opportunity to gather information broadly from across the campus. No content or structure decisions are being made at this time. The entire planning and preparation timeframe for the U of A System Workday Student implementation will continue through the 2021 calendar year.

"A student system implementation is complex, in part due to the enormous amount of information it contains, but also due to the interdependency of the various areas of the student experience from the high school recruit to graduation to post-graduate study," Dawson said.

Another aspect of the Workday Student implementation is the staggered go-live approach for each system campus. In much the same way UAConnect was brought online nearly 20 years ago at the U of A, Workday Student will have different student areas (admissions, financial aid, student financials, registration and more) go live over a period of several months. The timeline for the U of A System Workday Student implementation will span through 2025.

See the campus project team's Workday Student website for more information.