Preparing for Workday Student, Madison Area Technical College strengthened reporting strategy, data validation planning, and institutional readiness before implementation began.

Preparing for Workday HCM and Finance, the University of Massachusetts System partnered with Legato to strengthen staffing strategy, governance, and organizational readiness before implementation began.

Many institutions expect a new ERP or SIS to reduce workload. In reality, modern cloud systems often redistribute work rather than eliminate it. Functional teams often take on greater responsibility for data quality, exception management, reporting, and user support. When staffing models and support structures don't evolve alongside the technology, workarounds, shadow systems, and frustration can follow.

The most common Workday integration problems don't start with code. They start with missing conversations, mismatched data definitions, and a target system that was never updated for how Workday works. Here's what to change before anyone starts building.

When Legato joined Rhodes College's Workday Student implementation six months before go-live, the project was behind and the registrar wasn't yet sure how her office would operate in the new system. What followed was one of the more instructive mid-implementation recoveries in recent higher ed tech history.

There's a big difference between showing someone what to do and helping them understand why they're doing it. On campuses transitioning to new systems, that difference is what separates overwhelmed teams from empowered ones.

When implementation pressure mounts, teams often recreate familiar processes inside a new platform. But rebuilding the old way just carries forward the same problems. The real opportunity starts with a different question, and it changes everything about how the system works for your campus.

The vendor timeline covers milestones and deliverables, but there's a whole layer of work it doesn't account for. It's the work that connects system decisions to campus impact, and when it goes unaddressed, teams feel the consequences long after go live.