Last month’s Winter Academy offered a great opportunity for faculty and staff to get a first look at Workday Student, the software product selected by W&L to replace Ellucian Colleague, our 40 year-old student information system. Project team members from the University Registrar, Law Registrar and ITS were on hand to share information about changes and enhancements headed our way in 2022.
Topics included managing student registration authorization, reviewing academic progress, viewing teaching schedules and course selection rosters, and much more. As expected, participants had many insightful questions and comments following the presentation. For those unable to attend, we’ve summarized the discussion in a “questions and answers” format below.
Will departments continue to submit course offerings through spreadsheets or input data directly into Workday? For now and/or until a more efficient solution is available in Workday Student, spreadsheets will continue to be used.
Will there exist the possibility of removing reserved capacities after all registration windows have opened? Yes, there are date settings related to reserved capacities that can be adjusted. Plans are underway to develop an efficient process for date management.
Does granting instructor consent override multiple pre-requisites? Yes.
Does Workday Student manage instances where, per departmental policy, students are not allowed to enroll in lower-level sections downstream, such as enrolling in MATH-201 after successful completion of MATH-221? Yes, “prohibited courses” may be attached to specific offerings to disallow registration.
Why is “pick 1, pick 3” being retired? Workday only allows for one registration appointment per student. All seniors will register for all courses at the same time, then juniors, and so forth. After all classes have registered, then registration will reopen for all.
Can you comment on future departmental management of reserve capacity functionality? Proxy access is not delivered by Workday. We are working with Workday consultants on developing a solution.
Are reserve capacities for a given offering viewable in Workday Student? Yes.
Will there exist the possibility of programming instructor consent to automatically kick in after reserve capacities are met? No, eligibility overrides (instructor consent) only override eligibility rules (prerequisites/corequisites) and does not override reserve capacities.
Can you comment about administrative assistant access to reporting functionality in Workday? Report access is still being thought through. Ideally, a standard report will be developed whereby administrative assistants make use of filters to access desired data, but all are encouraged to identify and make known must-have reports to ensure report delivery. Reports will be accessible in the Dashboard.
Will printable rosters with photos will be available in Workday Student? Yes, through the export feature in the Teaching applet, found on the Dashboard.
How will waitlist functionality operate in Workday Student? Much like how it currently operates, except students will be afforded 48 hours to accept an offer because weekends cannot be excluded in Workday.
