Timeline & Progress

It’s fall 2025, and Empowering UF’s multi-year, phased implementation plan is on track. This is an exciting time as we look forward to moving from the conceptual stage into the actual system build, prior to spring 2026 testing through to July 2027 go-live. Please check out the timeline and explore our progress to date.

Click to enlarge the image

2024 Post-selection Readiness

✓ We developed the high-level project and resource plan and reviewed its data and integration components.

Early 2025 Plan

✓ We onboarded new members of the project team and refined our long-term work plan.
✓ We hosted 42 Empowering UF Discovery Sessions for carefully selected UF stakeholders from all levels of the university in which they shared their insights and experience to help shape the future state of Workday.
✓ We also determined our data conversion strategy.
✓ Outreach efforts began in earnest with college- and unit-level information sessions, bringing Empowering UF Roadshows to departmental HR and fiscal teams. These personal connections will continue to help us understand staff and faculty technical and functional needs and guide our organizational change management efforts.

March 2025-February 2026 Architect & Configure

March-July 2025 Phase 1

✓ We engaged selected UF stakeholders and subject matter experts in 84 Design Sessions to gather insights for configuration, reporting, integrations and conversions and completed the project’s initial system design.
✓ We began mapping future-state business processes and identified change impacts that will affect users’ day-to-day interactions with Workday.
✓ We also recruited and onboarded 100+ UF staff to the Change Agent Network to represent their units, departments and colleges as trained liaisons to support organizational change management.
✓ Meanwhile, we are developing a production support model and planning for the re-implementation of other administrative systems as needed.

August 2025-February 2026 Phase 2

✓ We’re using documented stakeholder feedback from summer Design Sessions to build future-state business processes so Workday meets the needs of our staff and faculty. Collected feedback now guides our focus on configuration (hardware and software design), reporting, integrations (connecting software applications into a shared ecosystem) and conversions (the transition from one data format/platform to another).
✓ We remain on track with the project implementation timeline.
✓ We’ve also surveyed stakeholders with one of six Change Readiness Assessments and will use results to guide our future readiness and change management communications and activities.
– Data reporting processes and the Enterprise Data Warehouse (OneLake) Program launched in August. This will integrate data across systems, enabling complex and cross-program analytics plus an efficient and organized way to store, share and learn from collected data.

March 2026-April 2027 Testing

– We will conduct solution interface, data conversion and integration testing as well as develop education and training resources.
– Our Change Agent Network will kick into high gear, along with systemwide communications, helping us engage staff to attend training and take advantage of change management and readiness support.

May-June 2027 Deployment

– We will continue conducting end-user training and share resources to ensure understanding and compliance.
– We will continue communication and change support.
– The Workday system will go live on July 1! 🎯

July-September 2027 Stabilization

– The Empowering UF team will continue providing change management support as staff and faculty adopt the new Workday tools and resources across the UF community. This will be a period of intensive support as we adapt education, training, resources and readiness communications to address users’ needs and help them become comfortable with Workday.
– This will be an anticipated problem-solving time with all hands on deck to hardwire the use of new resources.

Fall 2027 Optimization

– This will be a crucial phase for increasing the efficiencies of the new system by refining configurations, streamlining workflows and addressing any remaining identified issues.