Setup Considerations: Student Holds

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of student holds. It explains:

Why to set them up.

How they fit into the rest of Workday.

Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.

Security requirements and business process configurations.

Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.

Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What They Are

Student holds are blocks you place on processes, such as registering for classes or receiving financial aid. The hold is in place until the student resolves the reason for the hold.

Student holds in Workday consist of 3 attributes:

Hold Reason
, such as late payments or overdue library books.

Hold Type
, such as ineligibility to register for more classes or receive a transcript.

Hold Context
, such as blocking a process for all institutions or a subordinate institution.

Business Benefits

With student holds, you can:

Create hold reasons that are unique to your institution and help enforce your institutional policies.

Configure multiple hold types for 1 hold reason, saving you time and effort.

Set up segmented security for hold reasons. Ensure that the appropriate users have access to create, apply, override, and remove hold reasons.

Automatically apply mass holds to groups of students based on criteria you define. Mass holds eliminate the need to create holds individually for each student.

Set up business processes with approvals and notifications, enabling you to manage holds efficiently.

Use Cases

You can apply a registration hold or graduation hold if a student:

Has a past-due balance.

Doesn't declare a major by their senior year.

Misses classes.

Has low or failing grades.

Fails to comply with university policies.

Is missing federal verification.

Questions to Consider

Questions	Considerations
What hold reasons do you want to configure?	Align hold reasons with your institutional policies. Make sure your: Hold names are descriptive. Hold descriptions are complete. Resolution instructions are informative and complete.
What hold types work best for the reasons you've configured?	The processes that you want to block for the hold reason. Example: You can block students who have overdue library books from registering for more classes and getting a transcript.
In what context do you want to apply holds?	The context for a hold type. Example: You can block a student from registering in classes in all institutions or just 1 institution.
How do you want to configure security for holds?	To secure holds, consider which groups can: Create hold reasons. Apply hold reasons. Override and remove holds for a given hold reason. You can use segmented security to secure hold reasons. Consider whether you want to create segmented security groups to create and manage different hold reasons.
When do you want to use mass holds or individual holds?	You can: Define criteria for initiating a mass hold on a group of students. Decide whether the mass operation for the hold should be a one-time occurrence or scheduled for recurrence. Set up a review and approval process for mass holds.
Would you need to override a hold for a specific time period?	Keep in mind exceptions based upon special circumstances. Give access to a smaller subset of users for removing and overriding holds.

Recommendations

Add new hold reasons to a security segment. Only the groups configured on the domain or business process security policy have access to the new reason. Only users who have access to the security segment won't see the new hold reasons.

Create a catch-all segment and grant groups access to that segment. Workday takes the broadest security access of the user. Be sparing with the security access you grant to nonsegmented groups.

Align security access on the Access Hold Reasons
domain and the Override Student Hold Assignment
and Remove Student Hold Event
business processes.

Configure your segmented security groups on the business process directly. You can do so because the hold reason initiates the business processes.

When you configure security groups on the business process policy, keep in mind that:

User-based groups have access to override or remove any hold assignment.

Role-based groups have access to override or remove any hold assignment. To override or remove, they have a role on the academic unit or academic level associated with the assignment hold reason.

Segment-based groups have access to override or remove any hold assignment with any reasons in their secured segment.

Set up a review process for mass holds.

Make sure the

Mass Operation Management Runs

custom report runs within 5 minutes; otherwise, it times out.

Requirements

No impact.

Limitations

You can't apply a transcript hold to an active student or historical academic record. Preventing transcript holds on active students or historical academic records enables you to easily manage students in more than 1 institution.

Tenant Setup

No impact.

Security

Configure these security domains in the Action Items and Holds functional area:

Domains	Considerations
Access Hold Reasons	Grants access to hold reasons from the Hold Reason prompt on the Apply Student Hold business process. You can add any of these security group types to the domain: User-based Role-based Segment-based Segment-based, role-based Make sure that the user setting up the Mass Operation Management task can view the relevant hold reasons.
Manage: Apply Holds	Consider who can apply a hold for which hold reason. Example: A bursar in the Financial Aid office can apply a payment hold, while someone in the Admissions office can apply a registration hold. Determine who has access to the Update Student Hold task to be able to edit a hold. Enable access for the users who have access to the hold reason.
Set Up: Hold Reasons	Determine which users can create hold reasons. To limit access to hold reasons, configure segmented security.
Set Up: Hold Reason Segments	Evaluate which groups or users can create and manage security segments for hold reasons. If a user or group can create hold reasons, give them access to put those reasons into a security segment. As you create new hold reasons, evaluate whether to add them to new or existing security segments.

Business Processes

Business Processes	Descriptions
Apply Student Hold Event	Applies a hold on a student account.
Complete Action Item Event	Defines an action item to upload documents and route for approvals, if configured.
Override Student Hold Assignment	Enables a temporary override of the hold assignment.
Remove Student Hold Event	Removes the hold from the student account.

Reporting

Report Names	Descriptions
Find Student Hold Reasons	Enables you to view all holds, including inactive holds, by academic levels, academic unit, and hold types.
Find Students with Holds	Enables you to view students by hold types and hold reasons.
View Active Holds	Enables you to view active holds for a student.
View Resolved Holds	Enables you to view resolved holds for a student.
View Scheduled Mass Apply Hold Runs	Enables you to view the scheduled runs when Workday applies multiple holds using Mass Operation Management.
View Scheduled Mass Remove Hold Runs	Enables you to view the scheduled runs when Workday removes multiple holds using Mass Operation Management.

Integrations

You can use these web service operations to get more information on and apply student holds and hold reasons:

Get Student Hold Assignments

Get Student Hold Reasons

Put Student Hold Assignment

Put Student Hold Reason

You can use these web services to assign hold-related action items to students in a third-party system and transfer their responses into Workday:

Get Complete Action Item Events

Put Complete Action Item Event

Connections and Touchpoints

Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.

Concept: Student Holds