Glossary

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  • Banner
  • BPA, or Business Process Alignment

    Business Process Alignment is the process of capturing Richmond’s current business processes as they are before the Workday implementation. An output of BPA is a listing of "alignment opportunities" that inform how the business processes will be streamlined as they are built in Workday.

    The Workday@Richmond team, in conjunction with partners across campus, conducted BPA sessions in 2023, shortly after the project began in earnest. The team mapped out the University’s current processes, policies, and tools, identifying pain points along the way. The processes were then redesigned to be more efficient, to maximize Workday’s functionality, and to align with best practices within higher education. 

    To learn more about the project timeline and the University’s decision to move to Workday, please see the About Workday page.

  • Business User

    Business-users are the core staff within the University’s HR, Finance, and Payroll units who utilize the system to create and edit business processes for the institution’s HR and Finance functions. 

  • Change Management
    Change Management is a methodology that helps employees move through change by providing preparation, support, and skills they need to succeed. Check out our Change Management workstream page for more information.
  • Cost Center
    Cost Center is a number and/or description representing the financial account that funds are charged to and/or sourced from.
  • End User
    End-users are individuals who use the system (Workday/Banner) to execute the processes that the HR and Finance staff have designed. For example, an employee using the system to enter their timesheet.
  • ERP, or Enterprise Resource Planning

    An enterprise resource planning system is software used to manage an organization’s key business processes and workflows such as finance/accounting, procurement, asset management, and human resource functions. Workday is the ERP system that is being implemented for Finance, Human Resources, and Payroll at Richmond. For these areas, Workday will replace Banner when it goes live in January 2025.

  • FDM, or Foundation Data Model
    FDM or Foundation Data Model is how Workday organizes financial information. Similar to how we use the FOAPAL and Chart of Accounts in Banner, Workday has a robust classification system for transactions that allows for excellent financial, operational, and external reporting.
  • HCM, or Human Capital Management
    HCM or Human Capital Management is another way of describing Human Resources. Workday uses HCM when referring to human resource functions. At UR, we will continue to refer to our unit as the Office of Human Resources or "HR."
  • SIS, or Student Information System
    SIS or Student Information System in higher education refers to a digital framework that enables institutions to manage student data as well as the functionalities related to each student’s academic journey, such as course registration, grades and progress toward degree, billing, and academic records. The University currently utilizes Banner as its SIS and will continue to do so after the Workday ERP implementation. There are no plans at this time to explore other SIS solutions.
  • Tenant
    A tenant is an instance of Workday. As the Workday implementation proceeds, Richmond will have three to four successive tenants. The final tenant will be the University’s production instance of Workday.
  • Workday

    Workday is a leading cloud-based platform for Financial and Human Capital Management. Workday is designed to meet the unique needs of institutions of higher education. Many other institutions, both large and small, have implemented Workday with much success. 

    To learn more about the University’s decision to move to Workday, please see the About Workday page.

    Check out the following video about Howard University’s recent shift to Workday: 

     

  • Workstream
    The Workday@Richmond team is organized into functional groups called workstreams. Each workstream meets to work through specific tasks that arise during the project. Some groups meet often, and others only as needed. Each workstream page provides an overview of the work being done by that team.

    Stay tuned for workstream pages that feature our Finance, Technical, Payroll, Reporting, and Testing workstreams.