This level of change requires a multi-year commitment.
Replacing an enterprise system impacts every business process throughout the university’s Human Resources/Human Capital Management, Finance, and Student systems. Planning for the Elevate program required an extensive evaluation of our ERP system and the available cloud-based solutions used in higher education.
Three Stages of Workday Implementation
Implementation began on January 4, 2021 and includes three phases.
The first phase of Elevate involves a multi-year implementation of Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) and Financials. HCM and Financials Go Live occurred in November 2024.
Adaptive Planning, Workday’s budgeting and forecasting module, will deploy after HCM and Financials as part of the second phase of the implementation. Workday’s Adaptive Planning module will greatly improve our budgeting processes with enhanced reporting and analytics.
The third phase begins after the implementation of HCM and Finance and will involve Workday Student. The HCM and Finance modules form the foundation on which the Student system will be built.
First Workday Student System Launch — August 2027!
Workday Student will be introduced in phases from Summer 2027 through Fall 2028, with the first system launch occurring in August 2027. Functionality introduced as part of this milestone includes:
- Academic Foundation elements (e.g., academic calendars and programs of study)
- Curriculum Management to support scheduling of Fall 2028 course sections
While the system supporting these activities is changing, the underlying academic calendars, policies, governance, and approval processes will remain the same.
The training and learning resources below are aligned to this first milestone, with a primary focus on course scheduling as Departmental Schedulers begin creating course sections in Workday in September 2027 for the Fall 2028 semester.
In June 2027, Department Schedulers will receive a demonstration of Workday Student to help with Fall 2028 planning. Training will follow in July and August of 2027. To help support training, during the summer of 2027 a Readiness Tenant will be available allowing team members to explore Workday Student and build confidence in their ability to complete course scheduling tasks.
Beginning in September 2027, Department Schedulers will start using Workday Student to create and edit Fall 2028 course offerings. All scheduling activities for Fall 2027, Winter 2028, Spring 2028, and Summer 2028 will continue to be completed in SIS in accordance with established timelines. This includes finalizing Winter and Spring 2028 offerings, making updates to Fall 2027 schedules, and building Summer 2028 course sections in SIS.
This phased approach provides time for training, hands-on practice, and support while allowing UMD to continue critical academic and administrative operations according to established timelines.
To see a more detailed accounting of planned activities, check out our July 2026 Workday Wire article: How Can I Prepare for the First Workday Student Launch?
In the coming months, we'll share more information about what each milestone means for your role including upcoming learning and training opportunities. To learn more about when you will engage with Workday for the first time, please see the first-use calendar below:
Workday Student Timeline
Below is a high-level summary of our Student program timeline, with updates on what has been accomplished thus far, and the schedule of events to come.
Student Transformation and Readiness (Complete)
January 2023 - August 2023
- Interviews and focus groups with Students, Staff, and Faculty
- What are pain points of the current system? What do users want in a new system?
- Review existing processes and policies to understand structures that support the UMD academic experience.
- This, along with stakeholder input, will allow for identification of areas of improvement.
- Develop long-term communication strategies for Student project.
- Keep Students, Staff and Faculty informed.
- Keep Students, Staff and Faculty informed.
Student Plan (Complete)
August 2024 – February 2025
The Elevate Program is currently in the midst of the plan phase of the Student Module. The plan phase will continue through February 2025. Similar to phase one, the Elevate Program team will:
- Confirm the Student module’s scope and establish project management tools and processes.
- Recruit and onboard staff members onto the Elevate Program team.
- Prepare for discovery sessions and Future State Process Design (FSPD) sessions.
- Kick off advisory groups to launch information sharing and collaboration with stakeholders.
The Student system will have multiple go-live events, with the first event focused on admissions and records operational team members in Summer of 2027. Subsequent go-live events will occur throughout 2027 and 2028, with a plan to be fully launched by Fall of 2028.
As activities and events occur, we will continue to update this section with the most up-to-date activities in relation to where we are in Phase 2 of the Elevate program.
Click here to Learn More about the Student Implementation Plan Phase.
Student Architect & Configure (In Progress)
March 2025 – March 2027
Functional workstreams will allocate time to understand our requirements as an institution and how configuring Workday will meet those needs. From there, the team will hold Customer Confirmation Sessions to finalize input and configure the Workday Student Platform.
Student Test (Not Started)
January 2027 – December 2027
Functional workstreams will confirm the configured Workday tenant will meet UMD’s defined needs through testing the system.
Student Train (Not Started)
August 2025 – October 2028
The change management team in partnership with functional workstreams will prepare campus to use the system moving forward through functional overviews and role-based trainings for the appropriate groups at the right time.
Deploy (Not Started)
June 2027 – September 2028
The Elevate team will move Workday Student to production for campus to use.
Workday HCM and Finance Timeline
Below is a high-level summary of our program timeline, with updates on what has been accomplished thus far, and the schedule of events to come.
Plan (Complete)
January 2021 - April 2021
The Elevate Program successfully completed the Plan Phase of the project at the end of April 2021. During this time, the Elevate team successfully built a foundation for the rest of the project's success. We successfully:
- Confirmed the project's scope and established project management tools and processes.
- Recruited and onboarded 36 full-time and 2 part-time staff members onto the Elevate Program team.
- Conducted an organizational readiness survey across all four entities.
Architect (Complete)
May 2021 - October 2021
During this phase, the Elevate team focused on understanding our requirements and analyzing how Workday will be configured to meet those needs. Some of these activities included:
- The Future State Process Design (FSPD) process helped Elevate define the who, what, when, and where of Workday’s major business processes, such as Recruit to Hire and Award Setup and Management. With the help of 62 subject matter experts across all four entities, Elevate conducted FSPD Drafting, Review, and Playback sessions for 23 separate HR and Finance business processes. These experts included individuals in both academic and administrative units who have HR and/or finance responsibilities and functional knowledge.
- The Elevate Program’s Change Management team organized 34 PIT (Project Implementation Team) Crews, which are small teams within Schools and Colleges or administrative groups that help employees prepare for and understand the upcoming changes. PIT Crews will be critical in ensuring a successful implementation by planning and implementing Workday program decisions for their units, providing input about impacts to current work processes, and more.
Configure and Prototype (Complete)
November 2021 - Jun 2022
Based on the information gathered in the Architect phase, during the Configure and Prototype phase Elevate will:
- Held Customer Confirmation Sessions to finalize input from 300+ stakeholders across our campuses.
- Configured the Workday application.
- Built integrations and reports.
- Converted data from our legacy systems into Workday.
- Designed the end-user training plan.
- Conducted Functional Overviews, which are demonstrations of Workday open to the entire campus community.
Test and Train (Complete)
July 2022 - Early October 2024
During this phase, Elevate:
- Ensured the configured Workday system, integrations and reports sufficiently meet UMD's defined needs
- Developed and piloted end-user training and continue functional overviews
Deploy (Complete)
Late October 2024 - Mid November 2024
During this phase, Elevate will:
- Move to production.
- Conduct training and support end-users as they transition to Workday.
Adaptive Planning
Adaptive Planning is a separate module whose Go Live date has not been finalized. Elevate will:
- Conduct requirement sessions.
- Design data flow, security and integrations.
- Build out the Adaptive Planning module in 11 “sprints” focused on different parts of the system.
- Conduct User Acceptance Testing.
- Create user guides and design training.
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