The University Senate received updates during its meeting Thursday on the Elevate Program, which intends to modernize the University of Maryland’s administration system.
Workday, a cloud-based system, will replace this university’s current human resources and finance systems starting on Nov. 15, according to Jack Blanchard, this university’s associate provost for enterprise resource planning. The new system will allow this university to increase efficiency and provide better user experiences for faculty, staff and students, according to the program’s website.
Currently, faculty and staff log into multiple systems to perform tasks such as checking pay and disclosing personal information. Workday will allow them to use a “single system” instead, Blanchard said during the meeting.
Plans to implement the new system began in January 2021, according to the program’s website.
Peter Sunderland, a faculty member and senator who represents the engineering department, told The Diamondback he believes the transition to Workday was necessary for this university. The previous systems were outdated and difficult to use, he added.
“I think it’s going to be great,” Sunderland said. “But I have a feeling it could be a little bit rocky for a couple of months.”
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Blanchard emphasized that there are several resources on the program’s website as users navigate the platform transition.
This university launched a series of 24 online courses that will teach faculty and staff members how to use Workday, according to Blanchard. One of the courses, called “Intro to Workday,” teaches users how to log into the platform and find their personal information, Blanchard said at Thursday’s meeting.
So far, more than 8,000 individuals at this university have taken the “Intro to Workday” course, Blanchard added.
Elevate has also held various workshops and briefings to help transition faculty and staff members to the new system, according to Blanchard.
“This is key, this is important,” Blanchard said. “This is critical for us to have a system that matches our profile as a flagship university.”
In addition, users can use a support page to submit questions about the system, Blanchard noted.
Anıl Zenginoğlu, a senator and faculty member in the physical science and technology institute, asked during Thursday’s meeting if there would be an emergency response team to address errors in the Workday’s rollout.
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Blanchard said the program will offer a “hyper care team” composed of full time workers who would provide support for Workday.
Jeff Hollingsworth, Elevate’s vice president and chief information officer, said the program’s employees have done “extensive planning” to prepare for emergency situations.
“The collective teams are really working together,” Hollingsworth said. “Little things we’ve discovered in testing have been fixed in literally hours.”
After Workday’s rollout, this university’s student information systems will eventually be replaced too in early 2025, according to Blanchard. This university began working on the new student information systems in 2023, according to the program’s website.
Ivy Lyons, a senator representing graduate students, told The Diamondback that students will still feel the impact of Workday’s rollout, even though student information systems will not be updated immediately. But student employees will be affected by the changes, Lyons added.
