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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-11-03
Concept: Academic Structure

Concept: Academic Structure

In Workday Student, you create an academic structure for your institution comprising:
  • Academic units with academic levels.
  • (Optional) Academic unit hierarchies for roll-up reporting.
If you're already using the academic appointments functionality from Workday, you might be able to use your existing academic units and academic unit hierarchies.

Terminology

Term
Definition
Institution
The highest division in your academic structure. Workday secures objects to the academic unit designated as the institution in your Workday tenant. You configure most objects in Workday to the institution, including:
  • Educational Credentials
  • Program of Study Types
  • Program Area Types
  • Restricted Requirement Groups
Within your academic structure, you can designate only 1 academic unit as the Institution. However, you can maintain multiple institutions in the same Workday tenant.
Academic Level
The level of an educational objective that students can pursue at your institution, such as:
  • Undergraduate, Graduate, or Professional at a university.
  • Associates or Baccalaureate at a community college.
Academic Unit
A Workday organization type that represents a unit of your institution, such as the:
  • School of Medicine
  • Biology department
In combination with academic levels, you can configure which academic units can:
  • Recruit prospects.
  • Admit students.
  • Offer programs of study and courses.
  • Have fixed, dynamic, or both academic periods.
You can also use academic units to:
  • Assign appointments.
  • Assign roles.
  • Configure business processes.
Example: You can create an academic unit for the library so that you can appoint librarians to teaching positions.
Superior Academic Unit
You determine the overall structure of your institution by connecting academic units as you create them. Subordinate academic units inherit role assignments and business process definitions from superior academic units.
You can override inherited role assignments and business process definitions for an academic unit and its subordinates.
Example: AMU is the superior academic unit for the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Business. Both schools inherit business process definitions from AMU. The School of Business has a unique approval process for recruiting events. You can associate a modified recruiting business process definition with it that overrides the AMU business process.
Academic Unit Hierarchy
After you create academic units, you can group them into hierarchies to enable roll-up reporting.
Academic Unit Subtype
The subtype identifies whether an academic unit or academic unit hierarchy is a department, school, college, university, or another type.

Academic Units and Academic Levels

Configuring an academic unit controls:
  • What it can do in Workday Student.
  • Access to data.
Example: The admissions counselor for the School of Business and Economics can create, view, and edit recruitment information for student prospects for that academic unit.
The combination of academic unit and level controls most functionality across Workday Student. To configure the levels of an academic unit, consider which academic units and levels have different:
  • Recruiting cycles and campaigns.
  • Admissions criteria.
  • Academic calendars.
  • Programs of study and completion requirements.
  • Curriculum.
  • Financial aid reaction policies and packaging strategy assignments.
Example:
  • The School of Arts and Sciences at Alma Mater University (AMU) offers programs of study at the Graduate and Undergraduate levels.
  • The English department offers courses at the Graduate and Undergraduate levels.