Workday Newsletter #1

Welcome to the first edition of the Workday Project Information Monthly Newsletter!

Miami University is in the process of replacing our current legacy Banner system with Workday, a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The new system is going live with HR, Payroll, and Finance in July 2024, followed by a phased Student implementation slated for completion in 2026. For more information about the background of Workday coming to Miami, please check out the Workday Announcement article.

The planning stage of the project took place in the spring, and with the start of June came the transition from planning to the system build phase. The Miami functional team heavily involved in these project phases includes David Ellis (Finance Team Lead), Ruth Groom (Human Capital Management Team Lead),  Lisa Riendeau (Payroll Team Lead), and Lindsay Carpenter (Reporting Team Lead). Visit the Meet the Team webpage for the full list of the Leads and Subleads.

This month the Workday Implementation Project is completing a major milestone, Unit Testing. A significant population of Miami employees and Avaap representatives were involved in this stage of the project, spanning three full work weeks and over 1,400 individual testing scenarios. This critical testing initiative is being led by Don Kidd, the Team Lead for Workday Testing and Quality Assurance. 

The Project Team set up testing pods and conference rooms in Hoyt Hall to allow unit testers a place away from their regular offices to navigate the scenarios in a collaborative environment with the testers in proximity to each other for speed of communications during the tests.

Sarah Persinger, Team Lead for Organizational Change Management (OCM) did a tremendous job of creating a festive and welcoming atmosphere for the testers who journeyed over to Western Campus, including decorations, inspirational messages, and most importantly, SNACKS!

The Change Champion program component of the Workday implementation project started off on October 16.  The Change Champions program members are 40 individuals from across all University divisions, willing to engage the campus community, fostering awareness of the project and facilitating the flow of information from now through the Workday go-live date of July 1, 2024. These engagements are all about sharing information, collaborating with the rest of the university, and most importantly, gathering feedback from their collective departments to share with the project team.  

The program officially got started with a two-hour kickoff event that brought together, in person, many of the representatives, and a few more via Zoom from as far away as Luxembourg.

To learn more about the program, and to view a list of our Change Champions, please visit the Change Champions news article.

To learn more about the project, including a full timeline of the project, Workday terminology, FAQs, and more, visit the project website at MiamiOH.edu/WorkdayInfo. Look for the “Contact the Workday Team” section near the bottom of the homepage to sign up for future editions of the project update newsletters.

If you know of a group that would benefit from learning more about the Workday implementation project, please visit MiamiOH.edu/WorkdayInfo and click on the Make an Appointment for Us to Be at Your Next Team Meeting link at the bottom of the page to schedule a visit from the Workday Change Management Team.

If you have any questions about the project, please send an email to workdayinfo@MiamiOH.edu.