Benefits of Workday
Workday will deliver many benefits to the UWs, from improvements at the university level to efficiencies for all faculty and staff. Some benefits include:
- Independent access: You will be able to see or change personal information more easily — meaning fewer phone calls or forms.
- Data accuracy: Job details and personal information are documented and accessible within Workday. Because data is entered electronically, there is less risk of losing papers that contain sensitive and important information.
- Increased compliance: Workday offers a detailed audit trail through reports, so authorized users can see what is happening — and who is doing what — in the system. The ability to assign access based on staff roles ensures only authorized staff will be able to perform or approve certain business processes and review data.
- Greater automation: Workday automates certain processes, saving you from manual entry or input — and saving you time.
- Improved efficiency: Workday lets you see which step of a business process you are on. It also allows several users with the appropriate security access to act on a step, reducing delays in the case of staff absence.
Workday Timeline
ATP is in the Configure & Prototype Stage of the Workday implementation. Workday is on schedule to go live in July 2024.
This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.
Planning Stage: July 2021-April 2022
Finalize project scope, schedule, and budget
Project details including resources, costs, deadlines, and scope for the Workday and Huron Research Suite implementations are finalized.
Build and train ATP project team
Design Team Leads and team members are onboarded and trained on relevant Workday modules. The system implementation firm, Huron, joins the team. Focus and Validation Groups begin to form.
Architect Stage: May 2022-December 2022
Workday Design
Administrative end users, process owners, and leaders from across UW System meet with ATP Design Teams to provide input on high-level business process needs and learn how Workday can meet those needs.
- Design team members identify business processes not addressed during the Planning Stage and suggest solutions in Workday or alternative systems.
- Initial reporting requirements for Finance, Human Resources, and Research Administration are identified.
- Design decisions are documented for Finance, Human Resources, and Research Administration and updated if needed as business processes are configured in Workday.
At the end of the Architect Stage, the initial setup of Workday is configured to manage UW System processes and ready for more specific work in the Configuration and Prototype Stage.
Information Technology
Hundreds of administrative ancillary systems currently in use are evaluated and selected for continued use or disposition. A plan for evaluating ancillary systems in the future is drafted.
Configure & Prototype Stage: December 2022-June 2023
End users attend demonstrations of the proposed setup of Workday, while the ATP team prepares for testing in the next stage.
The primary milestone of the Configure and Prototype Stage is a newly configured version of Workday (the End-to-End Tenant) that will be used in testing.
Test & Train Stage: July 2023-March 2024
End user training is developed, while final testing of Workday takes place.
To ensure a smooth change, a step-by-step cutover plan is created to guide the transition to Workday.
Deploy Stage: April 2024-June 2024
The UW System configuration of Workday is finalized and ready to go live. End users receive training.
Production Support Stage: July 2024-Forward
Upon go-live in July 2024, the system is monitored to ensure it works as expected.
Why Workday
Based on feedback from hundreds of end users, Workday was selected for its excellence in three areas:
Functionality
Workday provides robust functional capabilities for finance, human resources, and research administration. Other advantages include improved security, more accurate reporting, and close alignment with the benefits ATP plans to deliver through this transformation.
Experience
With strong representation at higher education institutions across the country, Workday’s technology successfully supports the operations of many large college systems and research universities. Workday uses its learnings from peer institutions to continuously improve its features, delivering benefits to all.
Technical Capabilities
Workday offers advantages around data backup, testing, and overall user experience.
Measuring Our Success
ATP will use Workday’s value realization framework to track business process improvements and identify areas for growth following go-live in July 2025. Detailed capability metrics captured before and after go-live will be compared with both Universities of Wisconsin and Workday benchmark data to help ATP prioritize and track improvement initiatives over time, ensuring the best possible outcomes for the new ERP system across the UWs.