Administrative Transformation Program
People + Process + Policy + Technology

Information Technology

ATP’s work to streamline our administrative processes is only possible if we have modern technology to support them. This includes the implementation of Workday, an integrated, cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, to replace Human Resource System (HRS) and Shared Financial System (SFS).

Implementing Workday will also allow us to retire hundreds of ancillary systems across the UW System. Many ancillary systems were brought onboard to supplement HRS and SFS and will no longer be needed following the implementation of Workday.

The IT Strategy Team’s role within ATP is to oversee the Workday implementation, including:

  • Supporting reporting goals within the HR, Finance, and Research Administration processes for Workday, the information-management system PRISM, and the InfoAccess Data Warehouse
  • Migrating and converting necessary data for use in Workday
  • Technical testing of the Workday platform, including system testing, integration testing, performance testing, parallel payroll testing, security testing, and user acceptance testing
  • Evaluating current software integrations and coordinating development of integrations between the UW environment and Workday
  • Evaluating the need for a workflow and document management system
  • Coordinating information security and application security for Workday
  • Managing deployments of configuration and data between Workday tenants
  • Intentionally designing the user experience within HR, Finance, and Research Administration

As the Workday implementation moves forward, the IT Strategy Team will align its efforts with existing IT initiatives across the System.

ATP is a people-first project. We will work with ancillary system owners to create a plan to evaluate each system’s role now and after the implementation of Workday.

Meet the IT Strategy Team

We are a group of IT experts committed to advancing the mission of the University of Wisconsin System. Get to know us.

What It Means for You

ATP will deliver improvements that will benefit you, your department, and the entire UW System. These are just a few examples.

IT Professionals

  • Ability to provide greater levels of IT customer service
  • Less time spent on transactional tasks and more time on mission-critical work
  • Improved rebound rate from unexpected catastrophes

Division and Department Leadership

  • Access to additional insights for decision-making
  • Greater capabilities for IT departments to pursue strategic growth initiatives
  • Ability to support changing needs of business users on demand with supplemental procurement features

All Faculty and Staff

  • Universal access to the content and tools needed to perform core Finance and HR tasks with an ADA-compliant ERP
  • Improved user experience, less downtime, and flexible design approach

What's Involved

Moving the UW System campuses toward a modern technology environment has required ATP’s Strategy Leads to understand the functions of the ancillary systems used across the UW System. Because we outgrew our current ERPs long ago, academic, administrative, and auxiliary units use third-party or bolt-on software or homegrown solutions to support their operations.

As part of our ongoing ancillary systems disposition work, we are evaluating all ancillary systems to determine if their functionality and data relate to or duplicate the capabilities of Workday.

Ancillary Systems Disposition Framework

During ATP’s Planning Stage, each ancillary system will be placed into one of three categories: keep, analyze, or replace. We will weigh the ability to consolidate or simplify a process, or change a policy, against the ability to update the technology. 

For example, a process with limited options to update technology that cannot be consolidated or simplified will lead us to keep the current system. On the other hand, systems that no longer support our needs and that handle processes we can simplify or consolidate will be replaced.

In future stages, we will make a final determination of keep or replace.   

Color-coded chart depicting ancillary systems disposition framework

View a screen-reader-friendly PDF of the ancillary systems disposition framework.

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