What’s Ahead for Workday Student

Erin Shannon and Brian Pokojoy on how ES and the ISC are working together and with other teams to continue to improve Workday Student and related systems for faculty, staff, and students. 

When the IRP Student Program ended, both the ISC and Enrolment Services became responsible for supporting Workday Student and related systems at UBC. Over the past year, we’ve been working closely together with the Student Completion and IT teams to chart a path forward for UBC’s student systems. 

Continuous Improvement 

A request we heard from the UBC community was to have one place where they can find information about recent and upcoming changes to Workday Student and related systems across all teams, and to have more visibility into the overall plan for our student systems. To address this feedback, we have updated the enhancements page of the ISC website to show our four main focus areas for Workday Student and related systems, as well as completed and upcoming items by area. We hope this gives UBC faculty and staff more clarity, and provides a window into our work. 

UBC can also expect additional improvements to Workday Student and Workday generally through Workday releases. The most recent Workday release included several student-related changes that gave administrators, advisors, and students access to new information or tools. We will continue to explore new features in future bi-annual releases. 

We also work directly with Workday and other system providers, sharing feedback and requesting changes to align with UBC’s needs and help inform development. 

Community Consultation 

Over the summer, we had our first sessions with our User Working Groups, which bring together a range of representatives from the community to provide input, help us prioritize work and share ideas for system and process improvements. We now have three groups, each focused on a specific topic: 

• Admissions Learner
• Financial Support
• Records and Advising 

Through our user groups, we identified several important items, including improvements to registration, reports, multi-term courses, and tax forms (T4A/TFA). All feedback – from our user groups or the wider UBC community  – is recorded and tracked. The ISC and ES will continue to work together evaluate these requests.

Communications and Engagement 

To stay up to date on any changes to Workday Student and related systems, you can visit Workday This Week and/or subscribe to Enrolment Services Updates. We continue to update our knowledge and training resources, including expanding Student materials in the Workday Knowledge Base, and evolve our approach. 

The ISC is also meeting with various faculties, units, and teams to share more about our work, and get feedback on our services, including support. Please reach out to us if you are interested in connecting. 

We understand and acknowledge that some members of the UBC community continue to experience challenges working with Workday Student, and we are always open to hearing from faculty and staff. You can share your suggestions for improvement through the Workday Student support form. 

We continue to improve how our teams coordinate and collaborate to better support our community. Together, we address emerging issues as well as plan for future enhancements. 

Thank you for your patience as we work together to find solutions that work for you and UBC. 

Sincerely,