Release 1 - Human Resources and Finance Architect Stage

Release 1 - Human Resources and Finance Architect Stage

July 27, 2018

Building on the successful completion of the Foundational Data Model in the Plan stage for HR and Finance, the Program is commencing Architect stage with a series of workshops focused on building the Configuration tenant for Release 1 of these two streams. Release 1 will deploy the majority of HR and Finance functionality to replace PeopleSoft Financial Management System (FMS) and Human Resource Management System (HRMS). Student stream Plan and Architect activities will commence when Student implementation starts later this year.

The Architect stage will determine the “how” of implementing Workday at UBC by making a number of design decisions to meet UBC’s administrative needs. This stage will give the UBC campus community its first glimpse of UBC’s data in Workday. Workshops will focus on a deeper dive into functionality, design and configuration, as well as data conversion and a demonstration of basic transactions.

Workshops will be comprised of various stakeholders including UBC subject matter experts in each functional scope area from the Human Resources, Finance, Student and Information Technology workstreams, Integrated Renewal Program delivery team members, Workday, and Deloitte.  

Over 349 Architect stage workshops are scheduled to take place between August and November 2018.

This exciting stage is about validation, understanding design impacts within functional areas, confirming design and starting to build the Configuration tenant. The Configuration tenant will be based upon the Foundation tenant developed in the Plan stage and information collected during the Architect workshops.

The Release 1 Configuration tenant for HR and Finance, the second of five iterative tenants, will be built by the end of December 2018 in preparation for the Configuration & Prototype stage beginning in early 2019.  

Architect Stage Finance Workstream Introductory Session

On July 31 over 100 finance and administrative professionals attended an introductory session to prepare for the workshops. Leisa Belanger, Director of Finance Transformation for the Integrated Renewal Program, welcomed attendees by providing an overview of the Program, introducing the program delivery team including Workday and Deloitte consultants, and inviting attendees to take an active role in designing the future of Finance using Workday. Other presentations included an update on the outcomes from the Plan Stage, the preliminary decisions used to build the Foundation Data Model tenant and what to expect during the Architect stage.

Participants were encouraged to have fun as everyone will be learning about Workday together. Design decisions made in the Architect stage will be socialized and shared with the campus community via focus groups and standing committee meetings.

The session concluded with a brief Q&A. Ms. Belanger wrapped up the session by acknowledging that many contributors will be juggling the institutions’ operational needs at the same time as participating in workshops. She thanked all attendees for marking this exciting milestone on UBC’s road to Workday.

Human Resources Workstream in the Architect Stage

The HR workstream will host 65 workshops in the Architect stage. In addition to the workshops, their core team of UBC functional leads, SMEs and Workday consultants will work with 8 to 12 Feedback and Solution Teams (FaST). These are small teams of 10 to 15 members enabling focused discussion and active engagement. Faculty members, HR leaders, end users and administrators from all process areas will be included in these FaST consultation groups.

Throughout the Architect stage, persona-based focus groups will meet across the HR workstream on an ad hoc basis to provide feedback on proposed Workday design recommendations. Targeted engagement of faculty members and administrators by process areas to seek input and feedback on business process configurations and dashboard views.

The results of these consultations will be considered at various HR standing/committee meetings as well as Integrated Renewal Program committee meetings.