Stories

After eight years of effort, including five years of implementation activities, Workday Student is live!  The new student system that we launch today is the culmination of 20 months of planning, configuring, and testing.  Hundreds of your colleagues put in literally thousands of hours to get us to this point. 

Here are two key takeaways:

First, Workday Student training is available through our Workday Website. Be sure to visit our training page. 

• Start by viewing the recommended training.  This varies depending on whether you are faculty, staff, or students.  Sign up for training, and then
• Review the step-by-step instructional guides available for download. Additional guides will be added regularly, so please check back often in the coming weeks. 
• You can view the schedule and sign-up for training sessions now.  Sessions are offered both in person and virtually. 
• Open drop-in sessions are offered on the schedule for staff and faculty who may have specific questions or need help navigating the system. 
• Students will receive Workday Student training materials soon and have access to open labs and tech assistance during fall registration periods.

Second, Workday Student is being implemented in a phased approach.  SCU faculty, staff and students will continue to use eCampus for all terms through Summer 2023. Workday will be the system of record for all terms starting with Fall 2023. As such, we will introduce Workday in phases with different parts of our community as they approach key milestones (such as registration) for Fall 2023.

The specific schedule is as follows:

If you have questions about Workday Student training, please email WorkdayStudent-group@scu.edu. Please continue to be on the lookout for more updates in the coming weeks.

There are three key things to remember about the Workday Student implementation:

1) Workday Student is far better than the old PeopleSoft system.  Once you begin using the new system and get used to it, this will become very clear very quickly.  That being said,

2) Something will go wrong.  Guaranteed.  The Workday Student launch will not be perfect.  We have tested Workday Student extensively for many months, but inevitably with a system conversion of this size, something will be missed, and something will be wrong.  So if some needed functionality isn't working, or you are reviewing some information and something doesn’t seem right, email us at WorkdayStudent-group@scu.edu, and

3) We will fix it.

If you do find something that is wrong and contact us to fix it, in keeping with our Jesuit heritage, I would ask three things:

1) Be kind.  The people that put in extraordinarily long hours these last several months to get Workday ready for launch are the same ones that will be fielding your phone calls.  We are dedicated to providing you with the best customer service possible, but everyone is very tired.  Being nice will go a long way and will be very appreciated.

2) Be patient.  Seemingly small issues may in fact be very complicated to fix.  We may not be able to solve every issue on the spot.  We will resolve your issue as quickly as possible.

3) Assume good will. No one intentionally screwed up your information or designed this new system to make your life miserable.  We have conducted exhaustive testing over the last 20 months to try and make sure that everything is right, but as noted above, every record in the new Workday system will not be perfect at go-live.

We began this project when Barack Obama was President; here at SCU, we’ve been through four Presidents, four Provosts, and 23 Deans.  It’s been quite a journey – as Sam said in Casablanca, “a lot of water under the bridge.”  I’d like to recognize the extremely hard work of the staff in the: Bursar’s Office; Drahmann Center; Enrollment Management; Financial Aid; Graduate Engineering; Human Resources; Jesuit School of Theology; Leavey School of Business Graduate Programs; Law School; One Stop; Provost’s Office; Registrar’s Office; School of Education and Counseling Psychology; Undergraduate Admissions; and University Finance Office.  For numerous people in these offices, they did double duty for many, many months.

Finally, I conclude by recognizing five years of challenging, often frustrating, and occasionally grueling work by my staff.  What Sam sang in Casablanca is also true: the fundamental things apply as time goes by.  Those fundamental things are the commitment of an extraordinarily talented group of Information Services professionals who are dedicated to bringing you a state-of-the-art ERP system and providing you with superior customer service as you use it.  We believe in the mission and values of this organization, and we feel a calling to support our world-class faculty and staff as they engage with our exceptionally talented students.  We are far from perfect, but you will not find a more professional, dedicated, conscientious, and caring group of people anywhere.  If it sounds like I’m bragging, I am.  I will put my group up against any technology group anywhere in any organization – large or small, public or private, in higher ed or any other industry.  We are blessed to have these individuals as members of our University community, and it is my privilege to lead them.

Bob

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Sustainable, locally-sourced Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

[Some recycled from previous emails, with some fresh, new exciting FAQs as well]

Have you heard of the word “repetitive”?

What do you mean?

How many times are you going to email us about Workday Student?

As many times as it takes.

Ooo…touchy touchy touchy.

Let me point out that touchy touchy touchy is itself repetitive.  But to your point.  After thousands of hours of work by hundreds of people across campus...

Workday Student went live this morning!

It seems like you’ve been talking about Workday forever.

Only eight years.  But who’s counting….

How did it go?

It was an ERP conversion.  What do you expect?

What does that mean?

ERP conversions are notoriously painful.

So is reading your FAQs.

Very funny.  Leave the humor to me.

Why did it take eight years?

Well, the selection process began in early 2015, when I put a committee of “power” users together to look at alternatives to Peoplesoft.  That group narrowed down the candidates to two ERPs (Oracle and Workday), and in a shoot-out between the two in May 2016, you (our users) picked Workday in 43 of 45 voting categories, so Workday won hands-down.

Consequently, we started gearing up for negotiations, but had to suspend our activities due to budget challenges.  We started up again in April 2017, and signed the contracts that winter.  Implementation activities began in March 2018.

We chose to implement Workday HR first (which went live in September 2019), then Workday Finance (which went live in January 2021), and then Workday Student – which brings us to where we are today.

Wasn’t there any way to speed things up?

The way you speed things up is with the “big bang” approach.  The outcomes of this approach are binary: 1) you succeed; or 2) you get blown to smithereens and little particles of you expand into the universe forever (please see the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics).

Seriously?

Yes – the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says that the universe is continually expanding.

As for the being blown to smithereens part, that might not actually occur, but the big bang approach does in fact call for implementing all modules at once.  While this approach can be successful, it is highly stressful for all parties involved, and truly shakes an organization to its core.

So Peoplesoft (eCampus) is dead?

To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of Peoplesoft’s death are greatly exaggerated.  eCampus is not going away immediately. Nor will everyone use Workday Student for transactions right away. SCU faculty, staff and students will continue to use eCampus for such things as advising, grading and accessing course rosters for all terms through Summer 2023. Workday will be the system of record for all terms starting with Fall 2023. As noted below, we will introduce Workday in phases with different parts of our community as they approach key milestones (such as registration) for Fall 2023.

So to cut to the chase: For all things student Fall 23 and beyond, Workday; for all things student up to Fall 23, eCampus.  Right?

You got it.

When exactly will I start using Workday Student?

Folks will start using Workday Student in phases.  We’ll start with JST, and then move on to our Undergrads, then Law students, and finally our Grad students.  Here’s the schedule:

Where do I go to get training on Workday Student?

First, Workday Student training is available through our Workday Website. Be sure to visit our training page. 

• Start by viewing the recommended training.  This varies depending on whether you are faculty, staff, or students.  Sign up for training, and then
• Review the step-by-step instructional guides available for download. Additional guides will be added regularly, so please check back often in the coming weeks. 
• You can view the schedule and sign-up for training sessions now.  Sessions are offered both in person and virtually. 
• Open drop-in sessions are offered on the schedule for staff and faculty who may have specific questions or need help navigating the system. 
• Students will receive Workday Student training materials soon and have access to open labs and tech assistance during fall registration periods.

And the new Workday Student system is perfect, right?

Absolutely not.

But what about all of that testing that you did?

It was needed and worthwhile.  However, whenever you implement a system of this size, no amount of testing will uncover every error.  Something will go wrong -- guaranteed.  You only find all of the problems once you release the system into the wild.

Into the wild?  You consider the user community "the wild"?

Believe it or not, that's the term that's used in the tech industry.

So what do I do if I find an error?

In this order: 1) stay calm; 2) contact us at WorkdayStudent-group@scu.edu; and 3) we will fix it.  Being nice to us will also be greatly appreciated.  The people who will be solving your problem are the same ones that worked overtime for the last several months to get this system up and running, and they're pretty tired.

So you'll fix my problem right away?

Well, we'll try, but please be patient because some problems take some time to get resolved.

How do I access the new system?

You’ll access Workday Student the same way that you access Workday HR and Workday Finance – through our online portal.  You’ll be hearing more from us as we approach the milestones noted earlier.

Early on, and consistently, you noted that ERP conversions are nasty things that you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy, and that they caused “wailing and gnashing of teeth.”  Knowing what you know now, would you still have advocated for this project?

Yes.  It took 25 years to dig ourselves into this hole, and it has taken five years of implementation efforts to dig ourselves out, but we had no choice.  Our existing Peoplesoft solution is archaic and unsustainable.  Besides, our faculty, staff, and students need and deserve a state-of-the-art ERP.

BTW, I was pretty proud of the “wailing and gnashing of teeth” biblical reference (Matthew 13:50).

I would have said something but all of the noise from the wailing and gnashing of teeth made it difficult to think.

Fair enough.

So how do you feel about this?

I’m reminded of the first words that were transmitted over the telegraph – “What hath God wrought?”  Also: be careful of what you ask for – you just might get it.

There will still be ups and down, but we will come out of this in a much better place than we started.  Ultimately, implementing Workday will allow us to provide more and better support to all of you; provide our offices with better tools to do their jobs; provide a far friendlier user experience for our students, faculty, and staff; and provide the University with a robust, modern, reliable, scalable, sustainable, and much more secure ERP solution.

Well it’s a miracle that I’ve read your email to this point.

Amen to that.

All of this is very momentous -- what wine pairs with an ERP launch?

There's only one wine for this type of occasion: Inglenook's Rubicon.  As noted by Grammarist, "to cross the Rubicon means to make a decision or take a step that commits one to a specific course of action from which there is no turning back."  Rubicon is a big, bold, powerful wine, built to last.  You can easily cellar this wine for 30-40 years.  It's also very expensive; the current 2019 vintage is $245 a bottle.

For my money, one of the best vintages of Rubicon that you can still get your hands on would be the 2013 vintage.  Per the Inglenook website, "Although it was one of the driest growing seasons on record, 2013 was a stellar vintage in large part because the vines were optimized by the ideal conditions of the previous year. The growing season produced a large crop, so the vines had to be thinned on multiple occasions, but these efforts paid off. The resulting fruit was highly expressive, well concentrated, and ideally balanced. Rubicon typically contains small percentages of other Bordeaux varietals, but because the Cabernet Sauvignon was so exceptional this vintage we felt it should stand on its own as a pure varietal."  You can find 2013 Rubicon at Total Wine for $180 a bottle.

If you’d prefer to support a local vintner closer to home, then I recommend a trip just south of the Salinas area to Odonata Winery.  Their 2019 Blanc de Blanc is wonderful.  Per the tasting notes, it has “coconut, underripe Meyer lemon, and ginger lemon soda pop. Crisp bright acidity dances on the palate leaving your mouth wanting more. Citrus blossoms and a hint of spice on the nose.”  Odonata is a small, family owned winery.  The owner and winemaker, Denis Hoey, is fun, friendly, laidback, hip, and informative.  It’s worth the drive alone to have a conversation with him.  $42 a bottle at the winery.