Faculty advisers and students navigated a learning curve during Workday’s first week after registration opened on April 7. TigerPaws’ replacement posed challenges as the registration process was rearranged.
As the campus adjusted to the unfamiliar interface, some faculty were kept in the loop about the transition. Among them was Britton Horn, assistant professor of computer science. A member of last year’s faculty senate, Horn said he received early updates on the decision.
“I think that the real surprise was for the students,” Horn said. “Even though there were a couple of emails, I think most students either ignored them or didn’t really understand what was being conveyed to them in those emails.”
As students began the registration process, Horn said that a few issues emerged with the new system. Particularly, Horn said the unintuitive design elements created confusion when faculty advisers attempted to clear holds.
“When I have to clear a registration hold, there’s a little three-dot menu that shows up to remove the hold, but it is invisible until you hover over the particular link,” Horn said. “It’s less than intuitive, and I would say not a very great choice. There are a number of those little … nitpicky things.”
Horn said there were noticeable improvements to the registration process with Workday compared to TigerPaws. He attributed these advancements to Workday’s modern design and to a few key features.
“There are definitely a few things that are very accessible that used to be hidden behind a number of clicks,” Horn said. “Being able to search for certain kinds of subjects — open courses, waitlisted courses, having the tags for the pathways — is really awesome. I know that was a big complaint from a lot of students [with TigerPaws].”
Some students also had concerns about the system’s complexity. Risa Flores, sophomore human resources management major, has previously used Workday to log her work hours, yet said she agrees that it is complex.
“I used to work over this summer with my mom at U.T., and they also use Workday, so I was kind of familiar [from] an employee standpoint,” Flores said. “Now, instead of a simple time [input] or if you took off time or something, it’s a lot more complex now.”
Flores said that despite the initial learning curve, there were a few new features that made registration easier. Particularly, Flores said she enjoyed the filters that Workday provides when searching for specific courses and pathways.
“Once you registered, I like that you just saved it. It was like a less than a minute process after that,” Flores said. “It’s better than Tiger Paws — it didn’t load for 10 minutes.”
Ruby Welch, first-year psychology major, is a student circulation library assistant. Because Welch is studying abroad next semester, she didn’t register for courses with the new system. However, she said that onboarding came with challenges, partially due to her limited exposure to the software.
“I hadn’t used Workday before working here. From an employee standpoint, it wasn’t really hard to get the hang of it, because there’s only two things that you’re doing,” Welch said. “But for registration, there’s definitely a lot more options.”
