By Nicole Parker, Consultant | David Kent Consulting
A Practical Guide to How Academic Records, Business Processes, Security, Reporting, and Governance Work Differently in Workday Student
Every Workday Student implementation reaches a point where someone in a design workshop asks a familiar question.
“Where do I update that?”
It’s a natural question. Registrar offices spend years learning where information lives, which processes maintain it, and who is responsible for making changes. Those habits don’t disappear when a new student information system (SIS) is introduced.
Workday Student supports many of the same academic and administrative processes institutions already manage, including curriculum, registration, academic records, reporting, and student progress. What changes is how those processes are organized. Workday emphasizes connected academic objects, configurable business processes, role-based security, and shared ownership across functional areas. Understanding those concepts early helps implementation teams spend less time searching for familiar functionality and more time making decisions that support long-term operations.
Here are ten questions we hear registrar offices ask during Workday Student implementations and what those questions reveal about the platform.
1. “Where are all the validation tables?”
Registrar offices are accustomed to maintaining codes, academic structures, and reference data that support institutional processes. During a Workday Student implementation, one of the first adjustments is understanding that much of this information is modeled through related academic objects.
Objects such as Academic Units, Programs of Study, Academic Periods, and Courses are connected throughout the application. Those relationships support advising, Academic Requirements, registration, reporting, and student records.
For implementation teams, the conversation shifts from where a value is stored, to how academic structures relate to one another. Decisions made while configuring the academic model can influence many downstream processes, making it important to validate those relationships before functional testing begins.
2. “Which form updates a student’s major?”
One of the first Workday concepts registrar offices encounter is the Program of Study. A Program of Study is a core academic object that represents a student’s academic program and connects with Academic Requirements, advising, reporting, and student records.
Changing a student’s Program of Study is typically managed through a configured Business Process that reflects institutional policies and approval requirements. This means institutions need to think beyond who can make the change. Who initiates it? Does it require approval? Who needs to be notified? How should the change be documented?
3. “Where do we build our custom forms?”
Most institutions have developed local processes over the years to support unique business needs. Some rely on custom forms, while others use locally developed applications or supplemental tools.
Workday Student provides delivered functionality that institutions configure to support their processes. During implementation, teams should evaluate whether existing Workday functionality, combined with configuration and Business Processes, can meet the institution’s needs. Workday’s Business Process Framework also creates a consistent audit trail by recording how requests move through each stage of a process.
4. “Why does everything have an effective date?”
Effective dating is one of the concepts registrar offices encounter repeatedly throughout Workday Student. Many foundational academic objects and configuration elements support effective dates, allowing institutions to establish future changes while preserving current information until the appropriate point in time.
This becomes valuable when preparing new catalog years, introducing Programs of Study, reorganizing Academic Units, or implementing policy changes. Institutions can configure future changes in advance and activate them according to their effective dates.
For registrar offices, effective dating becomes part of operational planning. It can help reduce last-minute configuration work between academic years.
5. “Why can’t we just update the record?” Understanding the Workday Business Process Framework
Many student administrative activities in Workday Student are designed to follow a defined process over making a direct update. This is where Business Processes become an important.
Business Processes define how work moves through the institution by identifying who can initiate a request, who reviews it, who approves it, and what happens after a decision is made. Activities such as Program of Study changes, academic exceptions, and other student administrative actions may follow these configured workflows.
It is also important to recognize that not every activity follows the Business Process Framework. Student registration is one notable exception. Registration transactions are designed to process immediately through Workday’s registration framework, while many other student administrative actions may be supported by Business Processes. Understanding that distinction helps implementation teams focus on the right type of configuration for each functional area. We’ve written previously about why registration testing deserves more attention than many institutions expect, particularly when validating complex scenarios before students begin registering.
6. “Who owns this now?”
Implementation projects have a way of uncovering questions that have never needed formal answers.
Who maintains Programs of Study?
Who approves curriculum changes?
Who owns Academic Requirements?
Who is responsible for Registration Appointments?
Who manages changes to Academic Units?
These responsibilities may already exist, but they are not always documented. Different colleges or departments may have developed their own practices over time, and implementation brings those differences to the surface.
Workday Student encourages institutions to establish clear ownership for academic configuration and ongoing maintenance. Those governance decisions become just as important as the configuration itself because they determine how future changes will be reviewed, approved, and communicated after go-live. We explored several of these governance and ownership patterns in our common Workday implementation issues in higher education.
7. “Why is security so different?”
Workday Student uses Security Groups, Domain Security Policies, and Business Process Security Policies to determine what information users can access and what actions they can perform. In place of focusing on access to individual screens, implementation teams define security around institutional roles and responsibilities.
For registrar offices, that raises practical questions.
Which staff members should maintain Academic Requirements?
Who should initiate or approve Program of Study changes?
Should advisors have the same information as department coordinators?
How should temporary access be handled during registration or graduation?
Security design requires collaboration across offices, but registrar teams can provide the functional guidance because they understand how academic processes operate on a day-to-day basis.
8. “Can functional offices really build reports?”
Reporting is one area where registrar offices can see immediate value in Workday Student.
Instead of relying exclusively on technical resources for every operational report, functional offices can use Workday Report Writer with delivered data sources, Primary Business Objects, Related Business Objects, and Calculated Fields. While more advanced reporting may still require technical expertise, many day-to-day reporting needs can be developed and maintained by functional teams.
Institutions should identify the operational questions they want Workday Student to answer while functional design is underway.
Examples might include students approaching completion of Academic Requirements, monitoring Program of Study changes, registration activity, or supporting advising and enrollment management.
9. “Can we still support the way our institution works?”
Every college and university has academic policies, curriculum structures, approval paths, and administrative processes that have developed over many years.
Implementation is an opportunity to evaluate those processes thoughtfully. Some practices may continue with little change, while others benefit from being standardized, documented, or simplified before configuration begins. The goal is not to recreate every historical process exactly as it exists today, but to determine which practices continue to support the institution and which can be improved.
Registrar offices can play an important role in these conversations because they understand how policies are applied across admissions, advising, registration, academic records, graduation, and compliance. Their perspective helps ensure configuration decisions reflect institutional policy while remaining practical for the offices responsible for maintaining them.
10. “How will we manage Workday Student after go-live?”
Go-live is an important milestone, but academic programs, courses, policies, and organizational structures will continue to change.
Registrar offices may participate in reviewing new Programs of Study, updating Academic Requirements, supporting registration changes, maintaining academic structures, and coordinating with other functional offices when institutional policies evolve.
Documentation becomes especially important. Recording why decisions were made, who owns specific areas of configuration, and how Business Processes were designed helps preserve institutional knowledge and supports future staff members who inherit responsibility for the system.
Continue Exploring Workday Student
If you’re preparing for a Workday Student implementation, these resources may also be helpful:
Workday Student Testing: What Higher Education Teams Should Prepare Before UAT Begins
Workday Data Migration in Higher Education: What Happens to Your Historical Data (2026)
Workday Higher Education Services Explained: How Higher Ed Differs from a Standard Rollout
Key Takeaways
- Understand the Academic Foundation (Academic Units, Programs of Study, Academic Periods, Academic Requirements) before configuring downstream processes in Workday Student.
- Establish governance for Programs of Study, Academic Requirements, and academic structures early in the project.
- Document institutional policies before configuration begins to reduce rework during testing.
- Design Business Processes and Security Policies within Workday’s Business Process Framework that reflect institutional responsibilities and approval structures.
- Define reporting requirements early so functional offices can take advantage of Workday Report Writer and delivered reporting capabilities.
- Treat implementation as the beginning of an ongoing operational strategy and not the completion of a technology project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Start by validating the institution’s Academic Foundation, including Academic Units, Academic Periods, Programs of Study, and Academic Requirements. These decisions influence processes, including advising, registration, reporting, and student records.
Programs of Study represent a student’s academic program and connect to Academic Requirements, advising, reporting, and student records. They are configured as part of the institution’s academic model and supported through established governance and maintenance processes.
No. Many student administrative activities use configured Business Processes, but registration transactions are handled through Workday Student’s registration framework. Understanding which processes follow the Business Process Framework and which do not is an important distinction for implementation teams.
Academic programs, policies, and organizational structures continue to evolve. Clear ownership and documented configuration decisions help institutions manage those changes consistently and preserve institutional knowledge.
Review academic policies, documenting institutional processes, identifying ownership for academic configuration, evaluating reporting requirements, and participating actively in design workshops.
Effective dating is a core Workday concept that allows institutions to establish future changes to academic objects (such as Programs of Study, Academic Units, and catalog rules) while preserving current information until the change takes effect. For registrar offices, this is valuable when preparing new catalog years, introducing programs, or implementing policy changes. It reduces last-minute configuration work between academic terms.
About the Author
Nicole Parker is a higher education student systems consultant with David Kent Consulting, specializing in Ellucian Banner Student and Degree Works. She works closely with Registrars, advising teams, and IT departments to help ensure academic policy, student records, and degree audit systems are aligned and working as intended.
Her work focuses on the operational side of student systems, including curriculum configuration, degree audit scribing, student record structure, and the policies behind them. She helps institutions identify where processes break down between offices and understand how those gaps ultimately show up in system behavior.
Nicole brings that same operational perspective to platforms like Workday Student, focusing less on how a system is presented and more on how institutional decisions around policy, data, and process work once everything is connected. She works with colleges and universities across the country and stays engaged with Registrar and student systems communities to keep her perspective grounded in the day-to-day realities of higher education.
About David Kent Consulting
At David Kent Consulting, we help colleges and universities work through the operational realities behind Banner-to-Workday migration efforts. Our team understands that successful Workday Student projects require more than technical implementation and planning. They require alignment across curriculum governance, student records, reporting, integrations, and institutional operations.
We support higher education institutions through readiness assessments, Banner data analysis, implementation oversight, operational alignment, and post-go-live optimization planning designed specifically for the complexities of higher education environments.
Whether your institution is beginning Workday planning or already deep into implementation conversations, we’re always happy to compare notes.
Learn more: davidkentconsulting.com/how-we-work
