Skip to main content
Overview
Northern Kentucky University’s Workday implementation is a major step forward in modernizing operations to better serve our campus community. By upgrading our ERP and reporting systems, we will strengthen operational effectiveness, streamline core processes, and support long-term strategic growth.
 
Project Vision Statement:  NKU's Workday initiative will increase operational effectiveness and efficiencies, realizing present needs and achieving strategic growth for the greater campus community.  
 
This transformation will reach nearly every corner of campus life—enhancing how we work, communicate, and deliver services.
ERP Project Priorities as defined in Phase 0 Alignment Sessions:
  • Modern Student System to Enhance Online Learning
  • Efficient Business Processes (Student, HR, Finance) based on Best Practices
  • Cost Effective, Long-Term, Supported System

NKU Opportunity Statement:  NKU is committed to positively impacting the experience of all campus constituents by optimizing, modernizing, and standardizing business processes to meet stakeholder expectations, achieve strategic goals, and support continued growth.  Investing in a unified and innovative Workday system that fosters community buy-in will benefit the organization in the following ways:

  • Fully leverage an integrated system to automate processes, create efficiencies, improve data integrity and controls
  • Provide a centralized source of accurate and reliable university data
  • Enable university stakeholders to make informed business decisions with easily accessible and timely data
  • Ensure reliable integration of systems across the university
  • Streamline communication
  • Clarify and help enforce policies and procedures that create a culture that embraces best practices and continuous improvement
  • Enhance the student and employee experience throughout the entire student and employee life cycle
  • Empower employees and students with intuitive, feature-rich, and self-service functionality
Workday logo
NKU logo
How will Workday impact me?

New Employees
  • Standardized and streamlined automation of processes like onboarding
  • For example, online standard forms and business process/work flow

Current Employees
  • Utilization of best practice for reduced risk, ease of compliance, and more efficient upgrades while making data more easily accessible
  • For example, one payroll cycle will lower costs and decrease duplication of work
  • Similarly, use of supply catalogs for procurement, lowering NKU prices and maximizing rebates, and decreasing the number of pcards across campus
  • Centralized training integration for student, faculty and staff experience
  • Centralized reporting and analytics
Current Students
  • Centralized Inbox
  • Mobile capabilities
  • Improvements to Student Employment/Hiring processes

Prospective Students and NKU Community
  • Modernized student experience
  • Streamlining tasks and activities
  • Supplier Portal
Project Phases

Phase 0: Planning | January - May 2025

Phase 1: Platform (HCM & Financials) | May 2025 - July 2026

  • May - July 2025: Plan Phase*
    • Configuration and data load of a "Foundation" tenant of Workday
    • Discovery sessions to drive design of Workday for NKU
    • Preliminary Learning of Workday basics
  • July - December 2025: Architect and Configure
    • 3 cycles of "worksets" to build upon the Foundation and enable NKU data and funcationality
    • Target is to prepare for "End to End Testing" tenant build    
  • January - April 2026: Test
  • April - July 2026: Deploy

*Current Phase

Phase 2 | Student Information Services and Reporting | July 2026 - July 2027

  • Strategic Sourcing: 26-week implementation post Phase 1 go-live
  • Financial Planning: 24-week implementation post FDM, E2E Testing, and loading of full month of GL Actuals
  • Messaging: Dependent upon WD Production Release
Aerial View of NKU's Campus
Project Timeline
January 2025
RFP vendors determined
February 2025
Proposal presented to NKU Board of Regents
March 2025
Board of Regents approval to implement Phase 1
May 2025
Begin Phase 1: Platform (HR/FI)*
2025 - 2026
HR/FI activities
June 2026
 
HR/FI Go-Live - Complete Phase 1
April 2026
Begin Phase 2: SIS/Reporting
2026 - 2028
SIS/Reporting activities
2026 - 2028
SIS/Reporting activities
2026 - 2028
SIS/Reporting activities
December 2028
 
SIS/Reporting Go-Live - Complete Phase 2
January 2029
Begin Phase 3: Critical Care
January 2029
Critical care activities
March 2029
Critical care activities
April 2029
Final operational adjustments/tuning
June 2029
 
Complete Phase 3
Why this Matters

Northern Kentucky University currently relies on the on-premises SAP ECC Business Suite with HANA databases to support core operations—including Human Capital Management (HCM), Financials (FI), Student Lifecycle Management (SLCM), and Sigma for Student Financial Aid. Reporting and analytics are managed through a combination of SAP Business Warehouse (BW), Business Intelligence (BI), BOBJ, and SQL databases.

SAP ECC is scheduled to reach end-of-life in December 2030, with reduced support beginning in January 2028. Additionally, many integrated systems will require careful planning and migration to ensure continued functionality.

Large-scale ERP transitions typically take 2–3 years to complete. To avoid service disruptions and ensure a smooth transition, NKU is committed to fully migrating to a modern system before SAP support ends.

What is Workday?

Workday is a modern, cloud-based system that unifies human resources, financial management, and student information into a single, integrated platform. It combines a wide range of functionality across HCM (Human Capital Management), finance, and student services—all in one place.

As a self-service tool, Workday gives faculty, staff, and students easy, real-time access to the information they need. It streamlines processes, reduces manual work, and supports faster, more strategic decision-making. By adopting Workday, NKU will enhance operational efficiency and elevate how we serve our campus community.

Questions?
If you have any questions/concerns, please contact us.