UBC has removed the academic progress wheel from the Workday Student platform for some programs that use academic progress reports (APR), such as the Faculty of Arts, saying the feature did “not accurately reflect the percentage of completion” for some students’ academic progress.
The wheel was a visual summary layered on top of the academic progress report, which provides a detailed breakdown of degree requirements and remains available to students. With the recent changes, students have to rely fully on their academic progress reports to understand which requirements they still need to complete.
In an email to The Ubyssey, Rella Ng, associate vice-president for enrolment services and registrar, wrote that there was not a complete removal of the progress wheel across UBC.
“As new functionality became available — features that were not in place when Workday was first launched — academic units were given the option to assess whether the APR wheel was the most appropriate tool for their programs,” Ng wrote.
One such unit was the Faculty of Arts, which sent an email to arts students on Jan. 2, informing them that the inaccuracy of the progress wheel led to its removal for them in Workday.
“This update is being made to help ensure that you have the most accurate information possible as you course plan toward completion of your degree,” the email read.
Ng also mentioned that academic units that chose to discontinue the progress wheel were asked to consider the potential affect students and to clearly communicate any changes, adding that students with questions about how their academic progress is displayed are encouraged to contact their academic unit.
AMS Vice-President Academic and University Affairs Zarifa Nawar said that inaccuracies in the underlying academic progress reports — which the wheel drew from — were a major source of anxiety for students.
“When I first looked at it, it said I was done zero per cent of my degree — and I’ve been here since 2020. That was a scary moment, and I can imagine a lot of students had those scary moments,” said Nawar.
Nawar said the responsibilities for correcting errors in Workday often fall on students, requiring them to individually contact enrolment services to update their academic records.
She said this process creates additional work for staff while placing an unfair burden on students. They have to monitor the system for inaccuracies and advocate for corrections on a case-by-case basis, a situation she said should not have occurred during the rollout of a university-wide system.
The current challenges with the academic progress wheel are the latest in a series of Workday-related issues flagged by students since its rollout in May 2024.
At an AMS Council meeting last July, Nawar highlighted widespread dissatisfaction with the Workday Student system during a presentation on the student union’s Workday Student Survey Report.
According to the report, which was undertaken in collaboration with undergraduate societies in 2024, 85 per cent of surveyed students reported finding Workday difficult to use, underscoring usability concerns with the registration platform.
The survey also showed a significant drop in students’ confidence in degree tracking tools. While 78 per cent had previously found tools like UBC’s old student portal, the Student Service Centre’s Degree Navigator, or Workday’s Academic Progress page useful, only 24 per cent felt the new Workday version met their needs.
The report also found that only “17 per cent of respondents knew who to contact about issues with Workday,” suggesting confusion around support and troubleshooting pathways.
Meanwhile, 94 per cent of students said they preferred the previous student information system, signalling a strong lean back toward the legacy interface over the new platform.
Nawar noted during her presentation that students felt they were not adequately informed about the transition and changes to Workday, adding to frustration with the rollout process.
The report’s findings included calls for improvements to navigation features, with students identifying drop-down menus, pop-up timetables, and a term-by-term calendar view as critical functionality lacking in the current system.
As challenges with Workday persist, Nawar recognized the importance of student consultation and ongoing dialogue with the university.
“There are students here who can offer their perspective … you can leverage that understanding [and work] in earnest to improve Workday,” Nawar said.
