In a presentation to the Board of Regents Friday, University of Wisconsin System Chief Information Officer Steven Hopper reported on the implementation progress of a “once in a generation modernization effort” to streamline online administration across the UW system.
The cloud-based platform, Workday, is the $212 million solution from UW System leadership to standardize and streamline the current platform used for finance, human resources and research administration processes by university employees. User training for Workday is expected to begin in March, with further UW System implementation in July.
“These projects are extremely challenging and complex,” Hopper said. “It’s going to be immediate short term benefits and long term opportunities creating a foundation for which we can build and grow.”
The introduction of Workday falls under the jurisdiction of the Administrative Transformation Program. The program has the goal of simplifying the way important tasks get done at UW‒Madison.
Currently, each UW campus has a different method of doing essential online tasks. Integration between online functions of human resources, finance, and research pose challenges to employees due to their complexity.
“Clearly there’s a poor user experience of ‘where do I go’ and ‘how do I do this,’" said Hopper, adding the data is stored in various, hard-to-secure places, which he called “generally unsustainable.” “It’s not a matter of ‘if’ we solve this problem, but ‘when’ we solve this problem.”
Once Workday is fully implemented, workers in the UW system can expect streamlined job process functions. These include easier accounting, a simplified management system for taking time off, and easier payroll completion.
Hopper also highlighted “Pretraining Learning Events” allowing UW employees the opportunity to engage with Workday and provide feedback as needed.
Regents expressed enthusiasm about the status of the program. UW System President Jay Rothman underlined the new system would provide leadership with better information.
“What I am particularly looking forward to is having data in real time, data from which decisions can be made,” Rothman said.
Workday faced past implementation problems, but UW confident in smooth transition
Hopper took time to acknowledge problems that have occurred at other higher education institutions during their implementations of Workday stating that “there have been some incredibly public challenges in this space of large universities having struggles.”
The massive scale of the project, combined with an “overnight,” implementation, contribute to the difficulty of moving to a new system, Hopper said.
But Hopper was quick to assure the Board his team had the shift under control, outlining a six point check system along with a roadmap with pre launch run-throughs and deadlines to facilitate a smooth transition.
“We are going to make sure all of our critical issues are addressed before go-live. Again, this is a continuous improvement,” Hopper said. “Everything we can’t solve, we’re going to add it to our roadmap - and continue to improve.”
