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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-04-17
Concept: Course Evaluations for Academic Progress

Concept: Course Evaluations for Academic Progress

Workday evaluates academic progress for students by applying their course registrations towards their academic requirements. This topic describes how Workday prioritizes registrations to best benefit the student and satisfy their academic requirements in an effective and efficient manner.
The logic described in this topic applies for tenants with the Academic Progress Course Context feature enabled. If not already enabled, you can opt into the feature on the
Maintain Feature Opt-Ins
 report. For tenants that don’t opt in, Workday processes academic progress based on the logic described in Academic Progress with Requirements Context Evaluations - Documentation.
To determine how Workday applies a student’s registrations to their requirements, Workday uses these evaluation principles in sequence:
  1. Course Registration Applicability: Workday determines the order to process registrations based on how many requirements each registration can satisfy and additional logic.
  2. Restricted Requirement Groups: Workday considers the preferences configured on restricted requirement groups to assign registrations to requirements.
  3. Requirement Completion: Workday uses a registration towards the requirement that is more completely satisfied by the registration.
  4. Prioritize Fewest Requirements: Workday uses a registration towards the requirement with the fewest options to satisfy.
  5. Consistent Prioritization: If registrations apply equally to multiple requirements, Workday has defined logic for assigning the registrations to which requirements.

Course Registration Applicability

Workday first determines the order for processing the student’s completed and in-progress registrations, based on how many requirements each course registration is eligible to satisfy, and whether the tenant allows registrations to be shared with multiple requirements. A nonsharing tenant has an academic progress processing policy configured to restrict registrations to 1 academic requirement. See Set Up Academic Progress Processing Policies. For:
  • Sharing tenants, Workday first processes the registration that’s eligible for the largest number of requirements.
  • Nonsharing tenants, Workday first processes the registration that’s eligible for the fewest number of requirements. If the course registration is eligible for only 1 requirement, Workday prioritizes the registration for that requirement.
When multiple course registrations satisfy the same number of requirements, Workday prioritizes the registrations for processing in this sequence:
  1. Earliest registration start date.
  2. Highest number of course units.
  3. Course subject, in alphabetical order.
  4. Course number, in ascending order.
  5. Earliest creation date and time.
  6. Instance ID, in ascending order.
Once the registration processing order is established, Workday then evaluates each registration in order and uses the other evaluation principles to determine which requirements each registration applies to.
Workday displays the registration processing order for a student on the
Academic Progress Troubleshooting Console
 report. See Reference: Academic Progress Troubleshooting.
Example: A student has taken BIO-101 and BIO-102 in Fall 2025, and BIO-150 in Spring 2026. These requirements apply for the student:
  • REQ1
    : Student has completed either BIO-101 or BIO-102.
  • REQ2
    : Student has completed either BIO-101 or BIO-150.
Workday processes the student’s courses in this order:
Configuration
Processing Order
Rationale
Sharing tenant
  1. BIO-101
  2. BIO-102
  3. BIO-150
BIO-101 is eligible for 2 requirements, and BIO-102 and BIO-150 are each eligible for 1 requirement. BIO-102 has an earlier registration start date than BIO-150.
Nonsharing tenant
  1. BIO-102
  2. BIO-150
  3. BIO-101
BIO-102 and BIO-150 are each eligible for 1 requirement, and BIO-101 is eligible for 2 requirements. BIO-102 has an earlier registration start date than BIO-150.

Restricted Requirement Groups

For sharing and nonsharing tenants, Workday considers the preferences configured in restricted requirement groups (RRGs) to see which requirement that a registration applies to. See Concept: Restricted Requirement Groups.
Workday evaluates courses in restricted requirement groups as follows:
Courses in the RRG requirement list configured as
Preference
If a course can satisfy multiple requirements, Workday first evaluates the course for the preferred requirement.
Example: An RRG has this configuration:
  • Requirement List 1 has
    REQ3
    : Student has completed 1 PSY, HUM, or SOC course.
  • Requirement List 2 (Preference) has
    REQ4
    : Student has completed 1 HUM or SOC course.
If the student completed HUM-101, Workday uses the registration to satisfy REQ4.
If 2 or more preferred requirements can use the same registration and sharing isn't allowed, Workday evaluates the requirements based on other configured processing orders to determine which requirement to satisfy.
Example: In this RRG configuration:
  • Requirement List 1 has REQ1 and REQ2.
  • Requirement List 2 (Preference) has REQ3 and REQ4.
If REQ3 and REQ4 can use the same registration, the processing order determines whether REQ3 or REQ4 uses the registration.
If 2 or more preferred requirements can use the same registration and sharing is allowed, Workday evaluates the preferred requirements that can apply to the course.
Courses in the RRG requirement list not configured as
Preference
Workday uses a course to satisfy a requirement that isn’t configured as a
Preference
 only if the course isn't configured as a
Preference
 for another requirement or isn't used in another RRG. If there are 2 courses that aren't configured as a preference in the RRG and either course can be used to satisfy a requirement, then Workday uses other configured ordering principles to determine which requirement to satisfy.
Courses in preferred and nonpreferred requirement lists in RRGs
If a student registers in a course that can be used by multiple academic requirements in 1 or more RRGs with a combination of preferred and nonpreferred courses, Workday evaluates the requirement that appears first according to the program processing order.
Repeatable courses
A student has registered twice in a repeatable course. Even though sharing is allowed, the student has 2 requirements that can’t be shared because they’re in an RRG. Selecting the
Share Repeatable Courses Between Academic Requirements
 option on the
Maintain Academic Progress Processing Policy
 task enables you to treat each registration uniquely and each registration can potentially satisfy both requirements. Workday also ensures that each registration attempt doesn't violate the RRG limits. See Set Up Academic Progress Processing Policies.

Requirement Completion

For nonsharing tenants, if a registration is equally eligible for multiple requirements after considering RRGs, Workday uses the registration towards the requirement where it makes the biggest impact towards satisfying the requirement.
Example: These requirements apply for a student:
  • REQ5
    : Student has completed PSY-401 or HUM-401.
  • REQ6
    : Student has completed either PSY-401 and PSY-402, or PSY-403 and PSY-404.
If the student takes PSY-401, Workday uses the registration for REQ5 because it completely satisfies the requirement.
If the student takes both PSY-401 and HUM-401, Workday uses:
  • HUM-401 to satisfy REQ5, because it’s eligible for only 1 requirement based on the registration processing order (from the Course Registration Applicability principle).
  • PSY-401 towards satisfying REQ6.

Prioritize Fewest Requirements

For nonsharing tenants, if a registration is equally eligible for multiple unsatisfied requirements after considering the Requirement Completion principle, Workday uses the registration towards the requirement with the fewest options to satisfy.
Example: These requirements apply for the student:
  • REQ7
    : Student has completed either PSY-101 or HUM-101.
  • REQ8
    : Student has completed 1 lower-level PSY or HUM course.
If the student takes PSY-101, Workday uses the registration to satisfy REQ7.

Consistent Prioritization

If a registration still equally applies to multiple requirements after considering all previous evaluation principles, Workday then prioritizes requirements based on these factors in sequential order:
  1. The academic requirement processing order on the academic progress processing policy. See Set Up Academic Progress Processing Policies.
  2. Requirements configured for the student’s primary program of study.
  3. The order on the academic requirement configuration. See Set Up Academic Requirement Configurations.