Grand Valley State University expects to transition certain data categories from Banner to the system “Workday” sometime in January 2024. Currently, GVSU uses the Banner system for the storage and communication of many different types of data. The university will soon be transferring any finance and human relations-related activities to the Workday system.
In effect, Workday will mainly impact GVSU student employees, faculty and the university’s financial administration.
While GVSU is transitioning to the Workday system, there are two main financial operations that will be suspended. According to the University Budgets Department, from Nov. 17 to Jan. 14, any budget changes will be temporarily suspended. Additionally, from Dec. 21 to Dec. 31, transfer requests will also be suspended.
According to a GVSU announcement, any activities that are not directly related to HR and finance, like student records and financial aid, will continue to be accessible through Banner Student. This change will most directly impact any students employed by GVSU, faculty and staff.
According to Katelyn Johnson, the Assistant Director in GVSU’s student employment office, the major activities that will be transferred over are payroll, time entry, budget, and finance-related.
“So Workday is a budget, finance, human resources and payroll platform and so everything currently in Banner using those things will be transitioning,” Johnson said.
In terms of what this means for student employees, Johnson said the main things shifting are paychecks and clocking hours. She said paychecks will be viewable within Workday and students will be using Workday to clock in and out. She also mentioned the possibility of on-campus job postings centrally located in Workday rather than on the current site Handshake.
“Handshake will be transitioning to mostly focusing on off-campus jobs and internships, and then Workday will take over the on-campus job postings,” Johnson said. “So Handshake is still very relevant.”
In order to make this transition as smooth as possible, GVSU is offering training sessions for students and staff. The Workday training kickoff occurred in mid-October, but the Workday Training page on GVSU’s website has the PowerPoint presentation and recording available to those who would like to view them. Training sessions are available to prepare for the transition now through January 2024 and will continue after Workday is implemented.
GVSU has training modules available through their website accessible with the GVSU network login. According to the training resource page, these modules are available “as an instructor-led course in Allendale, Grand Rapids and via Zoom, and as a self-paced course.” This page mentions the first module, WD101, must be completed by all faculty and staff by Dec. 22.
Johnson said this will be a big transition, but it’s expected it will be very beneficial.
“It’s definitely going to be a big transition and there’s a ton of work that has gone into it, but once we are able to start using the system and get more comfortable with it, I think it’s going to be a really beneficial thing,” Johnson said. “Workday can do so many things that Banner can’t. It’s going to make things a lot more convenient for people.”
The exact dates of the transition have yet to be completely solidified, but it appears January of 2024 is when students will see the change happen. According to a GVSU Workday Key Dates page, Jan. 8 is the tentative date for Workday going live for staff and faculty.
