The latest Workday release (2024R1) included changes for higher education institutions using Workday Student Recruiting and Admissions. These configuration changes allow an administrator to better organization application questions and have more control of what is collected from the student applicant.
Workday now delivers an Application Overview Section that allows you to display an alternate title and additional brief instructions at the top of the application in the external student site to assist in navigating the various sections of the application.
In the example below, see how the alternate title provides more direction to users visiting the page.
NEW:
vs.
OLD:
Personal Information Section Updates
With this new option in Workday, the former general section (name information, load status, and learning mode) has been removed. Information collected in this section has been added to other sections that make more sense. For example, name information has been added to the personal information section, while learning mode and load status have been moved to application details, grouping it with additional application interests.
NEW:
vs.
OLD:
The personal information section is broken down into biographical information, demographics, nationality, citizenship, military service and veterans’ benefits, and additional questions. Providing these subsections allows an institution to highlight important items of note closer to the applicable questions.
It is not recommended to populate a section label and description for each section because it could significantly lengthen the application. However, this functionality is great for highlighting areas of confusion for applicants, such as citizenship information.
Here is an example of the new admin view:
While this is an example of the newly improved applicant view:
Education Section Updates
The education section on the new configurable online application allows for secondary education and post-secondary education information to be collected in separate subsections, allowing an institution to display specific information about each, closer to where an applicant enters the information. The questionnaires to collect information about missing institutions are now maintained in this section.
Furthermore, each section offers a checkbox to require an institution of that level be entered OR require the applicant to specify their institution is not listed, which you can see below. This was not possible in the previous configurable application, and now ensures an institution receives the information needed for their processes.
Institutions can now require specific start dates and end dates for educational institutions listed on the application allow for better reconciliation of transcripts received:
For institutions allowing or requiring students to input their transcript information, the transcript data, educational credential data, and course data are broken into subsections to provide more targeted instructions for the applicant.
Questionnaire Updates
Questionnaires now show as an individual section for each questionnaire, and Workday has corrected the programming to allow the display title for the questionnaire to show in the external site. Previously, only the transcript name would show, so you can see the different below.
See below how the administrator experience is now more streamlined.
Improving the Applicant Experience
With the new configurable online application, after entering personal information, each section will display with a start button allowing the applicant the ability to complete sections easier in their desired order. In the old application, a section had to be completed before moving to the next section.
Also, for applicants, entering educational institution data is easier to navigate by allowing the check boxes for not having an institution listed immediately following the institution information being captured.
Helpful Tips to Navigate Workday 2024R1
Current Users (Live on Workday Student Recruiting and Admissions):
- Review label overrides to ensure they adapt correctly in the new configuration
- Review available data fields and ensure they align for necessary reports
- Timing Considerations: If an applicant begins an application during the time of transition, the information will still be available. However, questionnaire answers will not follow application. Applicants that start before the transition will have to start their questionnaires over.
New Users (Currently implementing Workday Student Recruiting and Admissions or considering Workday):
- Opt-in timeline:
- Institutions began opting into the new Configurable Online Application in February in preview environments
- New functionality was available in production environments beginning 3/8/24
- Opting into this functionality in preview tenants ends on 5/31/24, so we recommend completing all testing by this time to configure for your go live and uptake it from the beginning
- All customers will be automatically opted in in production tenants on 8/9/24
With this latest Workday release, higher education institutions live on Workday Student are seeing results from their Workday investment while improving the student, faculty, and staff experience.
Yadira Tate is a Workday solution architect with more than 15 years of experience in higher education and digital transformation.
Christi Hardy is a senior consultant for Workday Student and has more than 12 years of experience as a higher education technology leader and consultant.