Changes Related to Workday Student

As part of the Workday Student transition, there will be periodic freezes in the implementation of approved course, program, and degree audit changes beginning in June 2027 and continuing through March 2028.  While proposal review and approval processes will continue as usual, approved changes will be temporarily held before being implemented in SIS and uAchieve.

These implementation freezes are necessary to support Workday Student configuration, testing, data conversion, and implementation activities while minimizing disruption to academic operations.

The proposal review and approval processes will continue as usual, with campus review committees, such as VPAC, Graduate PCC, Senate PCC, and General Education, still reviewing proposals along their normal timelines. The CourseLeaf CIM system, which manages course and General Education proposals, will not be paused during this time.

However, during the designated “freeze” periods, approved proposals will be held at the final step before being implemented into SIS and uAchieve.

Each “freeze” period will last two to three months and will be followed by a processing window (or “catch-up” period) during which approved proposals will be finalized and implemented in SIS or uAchieve. Dates of the freeze and catch-up periods are subject to final Workday Student implementation scheduling. Updates will be made to the table below as soon as they become available.

During the freeze periods, your academic units should expect the following pauses in the implementation of program and course information:

• New courses (both Regular and Pilot courses) cannot be updated in SIS (and therefore cannot be scheduled)
• Course modifications cannot be entered in SIS (and therefore will not show in Testudo)
• New General Education codes cannot be added to existing courses in SIS
• New suffixed courses will not be created in SIS (and therefore cannot be scheduled)
• Program modifications cannot be added to uAchieve
• New approved programs cannot be added to SIS (and therefore major codes cannot be created)

We recognize that these changes will require advance planning across the campus community. Academic units should start thinking about their academic program and course needs now, including the following items:

• What new courses will be needed for Fall 2027, Winter 2028, or Spring 2028?
  • Are there particular Pilot courses that need to be renewed or put through the regular approval process?
  • Do recently approved or modified programs need specific courses for these terms?
• What course modifications--particularly in terms of prerequisites, restrictions, or other eligibility issues--should be in place for Fall 2027, Winter 2028, or Spring 2028?
• What new programs or program name changes need to be in place for Fall 2027 or Spring 2028?

Please Plan Ahead

We anticipate a significant increase in proposal activity during Spring 2027 as academic units prepare for the upcoming Workday Student freeze periods. At the same time, our office will be supporting a number of Workday Student implementation activities. As a result, proposal review timelines may be longer than in a typical year.

Our process is to review and troubleshoot course and program proposals before we send them to the campus review committees. This initial review may take longer because of the expected workload. Typically, especially with program proposals, additional information or clarification is needed before a proposal can go to the next level of review, and the time it takes to work with academic units to make any proposal updates may also be delayed. For new degree or certificate programs, we must also abide by MHEC and USM procedures and timelines.

As a result, we encourage academic units to plan ahead and submit course and program proposals as early as possible to help ensure timely review and implementation. Our office can assist with thinking through the timelines for proposal actions. We can be reached at pcc-submissions@umd.edu. Otherwise, our goal is to communicate regularly so that academic units have sufficient time to prepare while maintaining normal academic proposal activity.

Thank you for your partnership and support as we prepare for this important institutional transition.

Course numbers will transition from three digits to four digits. Expanding to four digits increases the available numbering range for academic units and reduces the need to create new course subject (prefix) codes as curricula evolve and programs grow. Implementing this change during the Workday Student transition allows the university to take advantage of dedicated staffing and external consultant support for system-wide updates.

The conversion of existing courses will be managed centrally. Current three-digit course numbers will be updated by adding a zero to the end (e.g., 101 will become 1010). Workday Student will retain links between former and updated course numbers to support student eligibility requirements (such as prerequisites) and course repeatability. For suffixed courses that remain in use after Fall 2028, the zero will be added before the suffix (e.g., 389A will become 3890A).

Four-digit course numbers will be in place for student registration beginning in Spring 2028. The Schedule of Classes for Fall 2028 and beyond will reflect the new numbering.

Suffixed courses—typically used for special topics courses that have not undergone the regular course (i.e., VPAC) review—will be phased out, except for limited exceptions (i.e., certain School of Music performance courses). Suffixed courses were intended as temporary offerings to pilot new content; however, Workday Student’s special topics functionality does not support this use in most cases.

Beginning with the Fall 2028 implementation term, academic units that wish to pilot new courses prior to VPAC review will use the Pilot functionality in CourseLeaf CIM. CIM will remain the system of record for course data and will continue to support course proposal reviews after Workday Student is implemented. This Pilot functionality is already available and in use by many units.

As of Fall 2028, no new suffixed courses will be scheduled. Any new course that has not been approved through the VPAC process must be submitted using the Pilot functionality in CIM in order to be offered.

Because of the scope and complexity of converting the large number of existing suffixed courses to unique course numbers, this work cannot be completed prior to the Fall 2028 implementation. As a result, suffixed courses currently in use that will continue after Fall 2028 may be offered on a transitional basis but must be renumbered to non-suffixed course numbers by Fall 2030.

We recognize that this transition will affect a range of academic and administrative processes that rely on course data, including transfer articulation, dual enrollment, and accreditation reporting. Guidance will be provided by the appropriate offices as needed, and our office is available to help connect units with the relevant resources. 

For more information, please see our detailed guidance about the phase out of suffixed courses, including an FAQ document.