Workday Wire | Sept 2026

Workday Student Program Update

NEW! Meet the Team!

Anita Park, Functional Lead, Academic Planning & Advising Tools

About My Role and Hobbies

As the Functional Lead for Academic Planning & Advising Tools (APAT) in the Office of the University Registrar, I lead the design and implementation of Workday Student functionality supporting academic advising and planning. Prior to Elevate, I spent more than 15 years in higher education working with students, faculty, academic programs, and campus partners.

I enjoy exploring the DMV, discovering coffee shops, and visiting museums and galleries—and I’m always up for a good crime or mystery series.

Questions/Insights on Milestone 1

Workday Student's advising experience is being built with campus in mind. How has your team brought advisor and partner voices into the design process?

Since implementation began, APAT has worked closely with college and department representatives, advisors, other campus partners, and teams across the Elevate Student project to understand advising needs and incorporate their perspectives throughout discovery, design, configuration, and testing. This cross-functional collaboration helps us consider how advising connects with other areas of the student experience. We continue that engagement as the implementation progresses to help align Workday Student with advising needs and practices across UMD.

Our team also brings firsthand UMD advising experience to this work. Brittany Johnson, DIT Workday Analyst and former UMD advisor, draws on her campus experience to help connect Workday functionality with UMD’s advising practices and needs. Together with the ongoing input of advisors and partners across the university, this institutional knowledge helps ground the design in the day-to-day advising experience.

Workday's degree audit tool, the Academic Progress Report (APR), offers a fuller view of a student's academic journey. What features of the APR stand out as ones that will strengthen the advising experience?

The Academic Progress Report in Workday is a tool that allows advisors and students to monitor and assess a student’s progress toward completing their academic requirements. One of the APR's key strengths is its consolidated view of a student's academic progress. Advisors and students will be able to view how completed, in-progress, and planned coursework applies toward academic requirements across a student's programs of study. The APR also supports tools such as requirement overrides and what-if evaluations, giving advisors flexibility to help students understand their progress and explore different academic pathways.

The Advisor Dashboard will play a major role in centralizing an advisor's day-to-day activities. What are some of the features advisors can expect to find there?

The Advisor Dashboard will bring together the information and tools advisors use regularly in one convenient space. Dashboard content is being organized around areas such as Student Information, Academic Progress Report, Registration, and External Links, providing resources that support day-to-day advising activities. The dashboard is also being designed to help advisors access relevant student information more efficiently. As we continue to refine the dashboard, our goal is to make key advising information and tools as accessible and useful as possible within Workday’s capabilities.

 Join us on October 1 for the Fall 2026 Elevate Town Hall

Join Elevate Program leadership on October 1 for the Fall 2026 Town Hall and receive the latest updates on UMD’s implementation of Workday Student.

The virtual Fall 2026 Town Hall will begin with remarks from Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice. Jack Blanchard, Associate Provost for Enterprise Resource Planning, will then share updates on the program’s goals, implementation timeline, key milestones, and continued progress. The session will also include time for participant questions. Register today!

Fall 2026 Elevate Town Hall
October 1 at 11 a.m.
Zoom Webinar

The town hall will be recorded and made available after the event for those unable to attend.

To prepare for the upcoming event, revisit the Spring 2026 Town Hall for helpful background on the implementation and the work underway across UMD. During the spring session, program leaders discussed why UMD is transitioning from its current student systems to Workday Student and how the new platform will support a more seamless, transparent, and user-friendly experience.

The presentation highlighted several capabilities being designed to improve the student experience, including:

• A comprehensive Academic Progress Report for students and advisors
• Streamlined student onboarding
• Standardized holds with clearer resolution instructions
• Tools for building schedules and identifying course conflicts
• Greater visibility into transfer credit
• Mobile access to information and selected tasks

Program leaders also described how the UMD community is helping shape Workday Student. More than 175 subject matter experts contributed to design sessions, while undergraduate and graduate student advisory committees and a faculty advisory committee provided feedback on the user experience. Watch previous town hall recordings to learn more about the program’s progress, timeline, and planned capabilities before the next event.

New Website Content

Get a Glimpse of What’s Ahead with Workday Student

Two new resources on the Elevate website offer a preview of how Workday Student will help the UMD community access important tools, understand academic requirements, and plan for the future.

Get to Know Workday Dashboards

Workday dashboards, also called hubs, bring frequently used tasks, reports, and links together in one convenient location. Dashboard content is based on a user’s role and Workday security access, so students, advisors, instructors, and staff may see different information based on their responsibilities.

Review the Dashboards page to learn more about accessing dashboards and the types of tasks, reports, and links a dashboard may include. We’ve highlighted a student preparing for registration to show how a dashboard could bring holds and resolution instructions, course-section searches, registration tasks, and university resources together in one convenient place. 

Because UMD’s Workday Student design is still underway, the examples on the page demonstrate general Workday capabilities and do not represent final decisions about how UMD will configure or use dashboards.

Learn About the Future of Academic Progress Tracking

Beginning in Spring 2028, the Workday Academic Progress Report, or APR, will provide students and advisors with a comprehensive view of academic progress, degree requirements, and remaining milestones.

The APR will bring all of a student’s programs together in one degree audit that updates in real time as the student registers for and completes courses. With access to the same current information, students and advisors can more easily review progress and plan next steps. 

The APR will also provide greater visibility into requirements that may currently be viewed or tracked separately. These include undergraduate benchmarks and graduate non-course requirements such as scholarly papers, thesis submissions, and oral defenses. University and General Education requirements can also be tracked alongside a student’s degree-seeking program.

Visit the new Tracking Academic Progress Future Ready page to learn more about the changes, why they matter, and how the APR will support academic planning in Workday Student.

Continue visiting the Elevate website for new learning resources, project updates, and planning guidance as UMD prepares for Workday Student.

Stay Connected…

For Workday HCM and Finance:

• Try the Workday Virtual Agent!
• Visit our website at erp.umd.edu!
• Having a problem in Workday? Open a case.

For Workday Student:

• Visit our website at elevate.umd.edu! 
• Have a question about Workday Student? Email us at elevate@umd.edu.