Campus Spotlight: Owens Community College

Institutional Moment

Navigating Implementation

Institution Snapshot

Institution: Owens Community College

Institution Type: Public Community College

Location: Ohio

Technology Initiative: Workday Student

Engagement Style: Institution-Side Implementation Support and Cross-Functional Governance Partnership

Engagement Length: Implementation Support and Data Validation Engagement

Solving Two Challenges That Went Beyond System Configuration

As Owens Community College progressed through its Workday Student implementation, two priorities became increasingly important.

First, the institution needed a reliable way to classify students for federal reporting. While many institutions expect this capability to be delivered by Workday, Student Type is not provided in a way that meets reporting requirements such as IPEDS. Without a thoughtful institutional approach, colleges often rely on extensive manual effort to produce accurate reporting.

Second, Owens wanted confidence that its historical academic records would be accurate after conversion into Workday. Loading data into a new system was only part of the challenge. The institution needed to know that GPA calculations, earned credits, grades, and academic history would produce the correct outcomes for students and reporting.

Together, these efforts would influence reporting, compliance, and daily operations long after go-live.

You Might Be Here If...

• A key implementation decision affects multiple offices across campus.

• Different departments use the same terms in different ways.

• Reporting requirements depend on consistent definitions and logic.

• Historical data needs validation before future decisions can be trusted.

• Teams are struggling to align around ownership and decision-making.

• Your institution needs a Student Type field that supports federal reporting requirements such as IPEDS.

• You're concerned about how today's implementation choices will be maintained after go-live.

The Challenge

Owens was working through two significant efforts at the same time.

The institution needed a Student Type framework that could accurately classify every student for federal reporting while minimizing ongoing manual maintenance. Rather than creating another process that required continual review and correction, Owens wanted an approach that was repeatable, transparent, and sustainable.

At the same time, the college needed to validate years of historical academic records, including registrations, grades, earned credits, and GPA calculations. Success would not be measured by whether data loaded into Workday. It would be measured by whether the converted information accurately represented each student's academic history.

Neither challenge could be solved by technical teams alone.

The Turning Point

The project changed when the conversation shifted from technical completion to institutional confidence.

Instead of asking whether data had successfully loaded into Workday, Owens began asking whether the institution could trust the information after it arrived.

• Could Student Types consistently produce accurate federal reporting?

• Could historical academic records be trusted to support transcripts, reporting, and operational decisions?

Those questions became the true measure of success.

The Partnership

Legato partnered with Owens Community College to address both challenges.

Working closely with institutional experts, Legato designed a calculated Student Type framework for accurate student classifications for Owens' reporting needs while reducing unnecessary manual intervention. By translating institutional business rules into repeatable calculation logic, the college gained an approach that consistently supported federal reporting requirements, including IPEDS, without depending on ongoing manual maintenance.

In parallel, Legato performed detailed validation of historical academic records to ensure that converted data accurately reflected each student's academic history. Rather than validating whether files loaded successfully, the team verified academic outcomes by reviewing registrations, grades, earned credits, GPA calculations, and other critical data elements that institutions rely on every day.

To support both efforts, Legato developed validation reports, reconciliation tools, decision logic diagrams, and documentation that enabled functional teams to understand the calculations, investigate discrepancies, and confidently maintain the solution after implementation.

The Outcome

Owens established a sustainable Student Type framework that achieved 100% accurate classifications for its reporting needs while significantly reducing manual effort.

The institution also gained confidence that historical academic records accurately represented student outcomes, ensuring that GPA calculations, credits, grades, and registrations could be trusted after conversion into Workday.

Rather than simply completing implementation activities, Owens strengthened the quality of the information that supports reporting, compliance, and daily operations.

Why This Story Matters

Some of the most important implementation decisions are not about configuring software. They are about ensuring an institution can trust the information it uses to serve students, support daily operations, and meet regulatory requirements.

Student classification and historical academic records are two examples where technical implementation alone is not enough. An implementation partner can successfully configure Workday and convert data into the new system, but determining whether Student Types accurately support federal reporting, whether historical academic records produce the correct outcomes, and whether the institution is truly ready to operate often falls outside a typical implementation scope.

This is where an additional set of experienced hands can have a significant impact.

Legato's consultants have lived through Workday Student after go-live as higher education practitioners. We've been responsible for federal reporting, academic records, student services, and the operational decisions that continue long after implementation ends. That experience allows us to identify the "gotchas" that can affect reporting accuracy, user adoption, and day-to-day operations before they become institutional challenges.

By combining deep Workday expertise with lived operational experience, Legato helps institutions bridge the gap between a technically successful implementation and an operationally successful one. The result is not simply a system that works, but one that institutions can confidently operate, maintain, and maximize for years to come.