The IT Services Office presented to the Student Government senate during its Wednesday meeting, focusing largely on WorkCyte, Workday and Workday Student. 

WorkCyte is a website portal aimed at the community to learn about campus technology initiatives as they are implemented. Several of these initiatives include Workday and Workday Student, which are enterprise resource planning systems.

WorkCyte Program Director Francis Quinn, as well as Chief Information Officer Jim Kurtenbach, discussed this enterprise overhaul with the senate in addition to presenting on why the replacement from the old system was needed.

“If you were to ask me why go to Workday? I would say the following things,” Quinn said. “The mainframe system we currently run today, and I can safely tell you, that there are only three people in this room who were born when this [current system] came.”

The key issues with the current enterprise technology, Quinn said, are that while it has served and continues to serve Iowa State well, it does not support mobile enablement and real time. 

Curious about the new @Workday system that ISU will be implementing in a few years? Check out this video! https://t.co/4ancG8ZiR6

— ISU Student Gov. (@ISUStuGov) September 21, 2017

Workday, however, will support mobile enablement, as well as reduce the paper load and provide 24/7 availability. 

Through Workday, operations such as accounting, billing, budgeting, admissions, transcripts, etc. will be all available in one system.

However, Workday and Workday Student are still a ways off, with Kurtenbach estimating that it will be about two and a half years before it is fully implemented. 

“Most of you will graduate before this is finalized,” he said. 

The idea going forward, Quinn added, will be one unique platform to manage all the systems. 

Quinn also discussed current initiatives that will be implemented shortly, including Okta — which places a “glass dome over campus.”

This will be in coordination with @okta which you can learn more information about at this link! https://t.co/C1o4anO4DR

— ISU Student Gov. (@ISUStuGov) September 21, 2017

Okta will provide security from cyber threats and provide convenient access to one’s applications.

Okta will go live by the end of the year with a full rollout in 2018, Quinn said.