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Workday @ GVSU

Workday Academic Progress Report (APR)

Current State

Students, advisors, and faculty use DegreeWorks / MyPath to review academic progress towards degree requirements.

Future State

Users will utilize Workday’s Academic Progress Report (APR) to review academic progress towards degree requirements. Workday’s APR also includes an academic planning tool that allows direct registration from the saved plan.

Students walking in front of the clock tower and Zumberge pond on December 8th.

When Will This Change Take Affect?

 

Beginning in January 2027, academic progress will be reviewed in Workday in preparation for the March 2027 registration period for the Fall 2027 and Winter 2028 semesters. 

Who Will Be Impacted?

Students, faculty advisors/mentors, professional advisors, and degree auditors will be affected.

Looking south down medical mile out the windows of Cook DeVos Center for Health Sciences on the Health Campus. 2025-11-11. Photography by Steve Jessmore

Benefits of Academic Progress Report

  • Enhanced academic planning features
  • Workday will be used for both reviewing academic progress and registering for classes, meaning one less system that users will need to access
  • Integrated with other Workday functions such as financial aid packaging
  • Substitutions/exceptions/waivers to degree requirements (called academic overrides in Workday) can be requested and approved directly through Workday

Potential Challenges for Students

  • Advisor availability: Availability of advisors for students may be constrained due to increased effort to address APR functionality gaps
  • Degree audit and graduation processes may be constrained or delayed due to additional effort for completing degree audit verification for programs with complex requirements
Incoming freshman, Lorelei Wohlfarth, laughing and smiling by her car on August 20th.

Potential Impact to GVSU Faculty & Staff

Additional staff capacity is expected to be required to meet the work effort impact. The precise impact on work effort and necessary staffing adjustments is TBD.

  • Degree progress information reliability: For programs with significant curricular complexity, the APR may not display accurate data on progress to degree completion. This may require faculty and staff in colleges/units to do additional monitoring of student progress using additional custom reports in Workday.
  • Report writing: This will be an urgent need prior to go-live and in the following 18-24 months as colleges (faculty and staff who support academic programs) and the Office of the Registrar will rely on reporting to identify students and their progress toward graduation. 
  • Additional work effort impact may be identified as configuration and change management analysis continues.

NOTE: The impact on students and GVSU staff is based on currently known functionality gaps. The GVSU project team and Implementation partner Alchemy are working with Workday to find solutions to resolve some of the functional gaps.

Decision Making Process

  • The project team vetted two options from Fall 2024 through June 2025: 1) maintain DegreeWorks/MyPath via an integration with Workday, and 2) replace DegreeWorks/MyPath with the Workday APR 
  • These options were considered in collaboration with Workday Student Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), Advising Leaders, the Academic Affairs Advisory Group, and Provost’s Cabinet
  • Workday Student Sponsors recommended using the Workday APR, and it was approved by the Workday Student Steering Committee
  • There were many considerations in making the decision including student experience, faculty/staff experience/workload, university imperatives regarding innovation, cost, etc.
  • The decision was made to proceed with the Workday APR due to the benefits listed above, and some of the challenges associated with integrating DegreeWorks/MyPath with Workday Student:
    • Key pieces of MyPath functionality were no longer going to be available when integrated DegreeWorks/MyPath with Workday. For instance, courses would no longer be hyperlinked in MyPath. (The MyPath course link displays available course sections, which many students utilize to help plan/register.)
    • There was additional risk associated with integrating DegreeWorks/MyPath because this type of integration is rare and would require extensive maintenance from IT and the Office of the Registrar
    • Regardless of whether DegreeWorks/MyPath was integrated, the APR is a foundational aspect of Workday Student and still needs to be configured and maintained
Belinda Boardman, of GVSU information technology, gives a presentation during a breakout session and roundtable at the GV Technology Summit at DeVos Center for Interprofessional Health on October 2. (Photo release on file

Other Important Information

  • The project team has made formal ‘critical’ requests to Workday to improve functionality.  The goal is to resolve as many of the challenges listed before go-live
  • As further determinations are made, a better understanding of the risks will be identified and mitigated. Analysis of work effort impact for advisors/others will be completed to determine potential staffing adjustments
  • The decision was shared with the newly formed Workday Student Leader Network and at the faculty/staff Workday Student Project Update on 6/5/25, and other communications/engagement plans are in place to ensure faculty/staff understand the decision
  • Hands on testing by Advisors (both professional and faculty) will likely begin Fall 2025
  • When a demo is ready, the project team plans to conduct these with a subset of students for feedback.

Contact

  • Cathy Buyarski, Vice Provost of Advising and Student Success
  • Pam Wells, Associate Vice President and University Registrar
Page last modified November 17, 2025