Last Updated: 05/29/2024
Check back here to see what the Student Data Program team is working on and their progress.
Census Data Operational Reporting Project
Description: This project’s focus is capturing student enrollment and demographics data in a snapshot format (4th and 10th week of a semester) to support university operational, accreditation, and compliance reporting. Workday Student does not have the capability to take point-in-time snapshots, so by housing this data in the WashU Data Warehouse, the university will have for the first time a central location where colleagues can access this data.
Progress: Requirements were collected based on meetings with the Office of the University Registrar, McKelvey, Arts & Sciences, Olin, Brown School, Sam Fox, CAPS, Law and WUSM. This resulted in identifying 100+ fields that will have a snapshot taken from Workday Student, along with what security access will look like for this data. A solution has been architected to provide reporting on what a student’s academic record and course registrations are at the 4th week and 10th week of the standard fall and spring academic periods. The snapshot will include both Danforth and Medical School students. Activities have now shifted to developing the solution, with an initial focus on exploring pulling data out of Workday via API’s and custom built RaaS reports. Development is scheduled to last through August 2024.
Student Model (Workday/SIS) Project – Phase 1
Description: As one of the key focal points of the Student Data Program, the Student Data Project is aimed at bringing Workday Student and SIS historical data into the WashU Data Warehouse. Phase 1 focuses on building out the foundational components of Workday Student with scope limited to Course and Course Section Configuration, Academic Calendar, Academic Units, Academic Levels, Instructional Locations and Programs of Study profiles. This phase does not include student record data (i.e. no students will be included in this phase, because student record data will not be live in Workday until February 2025).
Progress: Requirements for Phase 1 have been collected. Focus of this phase will be on building the foundational components of Workday Student including Course/Section Configuration data, Academic Calendar, Academic Units, Academic Levels and Program of Study configuration. In early May, we had our initial Advisory Group kick-off where the scope and delivery date (December 2024) of this first phase was approved. The project has now moved from requirements gathering efforts into Architecture, which will continue into early July.
Cloud SIS Reporting Database Project – Phase 1
Description: This project involves making a duplicate version of the SIS Reporting Database available in the cloud, loaded daily. Leading up to Workday Student being fully live in September 2025, users will be set up with access and can begin using the cloud version. Once Workday Student is live and SIS is retired (including the current SIS Reporting Database), the cloud version will become static but will continue to be available to support historical reporting needs.
Progress: Development activities are wrapping up, with the following databases being refreshed nightly of the Athletics, Course_List, Course_List_Log, Graduate_Admisisons, Student_Info and Student_Info_log databases from SIS Admin and the Cohort_Tracking databases from SIS Reporting Database Server. Some preliminary testing has started with full testing scheduled to begin in June.
Slate Undergraduate Admissions Project
Description: This project focuses on moving the existing Slate Undergraduate Admissions Data Warehouse model from an on-premises SQL server to our new cloud-based Azure Data Warehouse. In doing so, we are updating the architecture, replacing data acquisition with API calls and incorporating required Spring Enhancements. This project is being coordinated with the Undergraduate Admissions Office.
Progress: Development activities have completed, and testing has begun. The initial testing focus is internal to validate API calls and ETL re-write with User Acceptance Testing scheduled for later in June.
Slate Graduate Admissions Project
Description: This project centers around bringing Slate Graduate data into the WashU Data Warehouse. In 2023, most of the university’s PhD, master’s and professional programs migrated to Slate (the MD program and School of Continuing & Professional Studies were not in scope). One of the main goals is to provide reporting capabilities around historical graduate applications and to make reporting easier across multiple admissions systems.
Progress: This project’s team continues with gathering requirements activities. The month of May has focused on meeting with Graduate Admissions stakeholders from around the university to better understand how the data warehouse can help with their reporting and analytics needs. Those meetings have included Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Division of Biology & Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine, McDonnell International Scholars Academy, Arts & Sciences, Office of the Provost, Institutional Research and McKelvey School of Engineering. Once complete, feedback will be incorporated into a final requirement document scheduled to be complete by early July at which point we can begin architecting a solution.
MD Phase 3 Operational Reporting Project
Description: This project focuses on reporting to support the MD Phase 3 enrollment and visiting student management. Specifically focused on recreating the Availability Overview and Combined Roster reports, it involves combining Workday Student data with visiting student data from the Monday system.
Progress: We have continued to meet with Med School and Student Sunrise to document data needed to support the creation of the Availability Overview and Combined Roster reports, security, and delivery requirements. Upcoming focus will be on finalizing requirements and putting a project plan together.