New this semester, Workday is revolutionizing how students will register for classes and more. The best part, you can finally use the back button.
While Workday has been the main platform for finance, human resources, and budget management since last April, this is the first time Workday will impact all students.
On March 4, the college turned on Workday Student. This new platform consists of five areas: academic records, admission and enrollment, curriculum advising, financial aid, and student accounts.
When students return from spring break, they will be introduced to Workday during pre-registration as they consider what courses to take in the fall. “It’s no different than the normal years except the search features of the Workday are significantly better,” said Steve McDevitt, Chief Information Officer at Saint Anselm College.
He explained that with Workday, it is simple to search classes by checking boxes such as writing intensive or honors.
Some students have already tested the platform, completing a mock registration to help identify any possible errors. Francesca Vesey ’27 said that the Workday portal is much easier to navigate than the MyAnselm portal.
“My personal favorite is that you can prepare for course registration so when it is your slot you can register really quickly. When you are looking at your courses there is an option a little below the search bar that allows you to save your search. While we were testing Workday out I used this and saved searches for each of the courses I was ‘registering’ for and named them so that I knew exactly which classes they were for,” Vesery said.
She noted that, during the test run, the option to save a draft schedule did not work well. “We found that the better option was to just save our searches to make finding the classes we need during registration faster,” Vesery said.
According to McDevitt, there were some changes made to the system following the test. “When the student registration begins, students can choose to register from their saved schedule, or they can choose to register for individual course sections,” he said.
The MyAnselm portal, which students previously used for almost all of the functions mentioned above, will be transformed into something else in the fall. “We are looking at other platforms. We need an information sharing platform so that organizations and clubs and departments and everything can share information internally,” McDevitt said.
Additionally, students will be able to have new control over their financial and academic information. “Whoever’s managing your tuition, you can identify who they are so that they can log in to Workday,” he explained.
This change has no effect on graduating seniors but it will impact underclassmen and future students. As the class of 2028 prepares to start their journey on the Hilltop, they too will become acclimated with Workday.
McDevitt also explained how Workday will have lasting impacts, especially for future classes. “Having better insights into the demand for students for certain classes will provide the dean’s office more information to better plan so that we have enough seats in enough courses that students are needing to complete their degrees on time,” he said.