Hinds Community College
Hinds Community College Streamlines Legacy Systems with Workday
The Challenge
Hinds Community College struggled with lengthy manual processes that inhibited collaboration and limited visibility into the overall institution, prompting the change from legacy systems toward modernization. Hinds had more than 14,000 general ledger accounts in its financials system, and it was the only way to gain insight into the current budget. Reporting for thousands of GL accounts took three staff members multiple days to complete each month, and Hinds leaders knew this was not sustainable.
In addition to seeking to improve business processes, Hinds student enrollment was growing, and legacy systems could not keep up with the needs and expectations of the changing student population. Students expected a modern, consumer-grade experience yet experienced difficulty registering for classes, and faculty were spending time on inefficient processes that could be better spent with students.
Tamisha Johnson, Hinds director of Technology said of their digital transformation, “We decided to move forward with ERP modernization because we knew we had to provide a better experience for students, faculty, and staff and our legacy tools were unable to keep up. Switching to Workday allows us to put finance and HCM in the cloud, bring self-service functionality to our users, and connect the Student system for real-time information into our campus.”
6 Campuses
Across 5 Counties
12000+
Students
HBCU
Designation
Key Highlights
WORKDAY HCM, FINANCIALS, AND STUDENT
Hinds looked to Workday to bring extensive transformation to every aspect of the college’s daily processing for accounting, HR, and payroll. As part of the project, Hinds engaged Avaap in the deployment of Workday Financials. Workday maintains a single line of code in a strong, safe, and secure multi-tenant environment, moving Hinds from a transactional system to a true reporting and analytics-based solution. The first phase of the project focused on transforming the institution’s current practices, streamlining processes, and bringing the college to a single source of data on which to make strategic decisions.
To improve the student experience through transparency and accessibility as well as have an end-to-end student life cycle system,
Hinds selected Workday Student, gaining a single system of record for managing all student data, from admissions to graduation, including academic records, enrollment, financial aid, and more.
Cultural fit was an important factor in the decision to select Avaap as a deployment partner. Hinds wanted to work with an organization that understood how the institution operated, and ultimately become a partner in providing the best solutions for Hinds
Community College. Avaap assembled a diverse and experienced team that fostered relationships and demonstrated interest in
learning how to best support Hinds as they modernized processes.
GREATER VISIBILITY AND IMPROVED STAFF EFFICIENCY
Hinds realized the benefits of its Workday deployment in many instances but has seen immense value in concise, efficient reporting that was not possible in their legacy system. Reports in Workday are generated with ease and provide the college better snapshots of current revenue activity in real-time, transforming their ability to respond to changing business conditions. Students are also reporting an easier time registering for classes and the ability to find what they need in their student portal.
“Before our digital transformation, it used to take three people in accounting multiple days every month to create our board reports,” added Johnson. “That was more than 3,000 minutes each month that the group of three was investing in generating reports. When I ran the board reports in Workday, I did it myself in 21 minutes.”
In Hinds’ previous system, in order to close out the fiscal year, the system would have to be quiet mode with no user access or transactions happening, and it would take up to six hours to close out the fiscal year. In Workday, takes less than 30 minutes. Workday has enabled Hinds to transform itself. The benefits of a streamlined solution have saved hours on administrative work, allowed staff to get a clear view of critical functions and be more efficient and improve the student experience.
“I could not feel better about the choice of Workday, particularly the choice of Avaap, and the opportunities that are available to Hinds as a result of this partnership. Avaap acts as a true partner with a team that was genuine and has had our best interest at heart. Culture fit was a huge determining factor for us, and our instinct was right with that assessment. I have been continually impressed with all layers of the Avaap organization and could not feel better about our choice in Avaap and Workday.”
– Tamisha Johnson, Director, Hinds Community College
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