Workday begins its second phase

After more than six months of using Workday for human resources and payroll, Miami University is beginning its second phase of the Workday transition from BannerWeb and Buyway.

Randy Hollowell, manager for IT communications and communications sublead for Organizational Change Management, said Miami chose to switch to Workday to allow for a more consistent interface across various programs.

Additionally, the Workday app will allow students to access all programs on a mobile platform.

“Banner is a little bit antiquated,” Hollowell said. “We wanted a cloud-based system, and Workday provides us that.”

The Workday transition is broken into two parts. The first part involved the transition of human resources, finance and payroll from BannerWeb to Workday. This initial phase was completed on schedule and went live on July 1, 2024.

Since the new system went live over the summer, many university employees had to adapt quickly as the fall semester began. Some expressed frustration with the new system and processes.

“It’s been a lot of lessons learned about things that went right or went wrong with that first half of the project to make sure that we can have a smooth transition on the student side,” said Duane Drake, senior director for Enrollment Management and Student Success.

The second part of the transition involves all the remaining programs currently running through BannerWeb, including course registration, grades, degree audits and transcripts. This phase is set to take effect in fall 2026, according to Miami’s website.

Certain features will be available before then. For example, registration will become available on Workday in spring, allowing students to register for their classes in the coming fall. Recruitment systems will also transition to Workday in spring 2025, meaning students enrolling for the 2026 academic year will use the new platform.

However, not everyone sees BannerWeb as something that needs updating.

Brooklyn Cotton, a first-year primary education major, said she thought BannerWeb was easy to navigate. However, she added that course registration, a main feature of the BannerWeb services, could be tricky to navigate but didn’t believe it directly correlated to BannerWeb.

“I just think registering for classes as a whole is kind of difficult,” Cotton said, “but I’ve never known a different way.”

Enjoy what you're reading?
Signup for our newsletter

Rejina Akter, a first-year master’s student in the sociology and gerontology department, has only used Workday during her time as a graduate student since she enrolled after the transition.

She said the Workday program has been fine so far, but she dislikes receiving promotional messages from the platform.

The transition will only be noticeable for a few cohorts of students, Hollowell said. Many currently enrolled students will graduate before Workday is fully implemented, while incoming students will use Workday from the start.

For students who use both systems, Hollowell emphasized that training videos and resources will be provided to help with the transition. Miami also has an email address where students can direct questions about Workday.

“Students are welcome to send us any questions that they have,” Hollowell said. “We’ll be communicating more directly to them in the coming months.”

mahones5@miamioh.edu