Minnesota State students, faculty, and staff can access additional information about NextGen, including project updates by going to MinnState.edu/FriendsOfNextGen
(Student login: YourStarID@Go.MinnState.edu; Faculty/Staff login: YourStarID@MinnState.edu)
NextGen at Minnesota State
NextGen is the Minnesota State project to create a new technology landscape to support students, faculty, and staff at our 33 colleges and universities across the state. As part of this project, Minnesota State committed to identifying and deploying a commercial modern technology solution that meets the needs of today’s students and campuses. It will link all 54 campuses and serve as a unified administrative technology system that improves the student experience and streamlines enterprise-wide business processes in student services, finance, and human capital management (HCM, also commonly referred to as human resources). In 2020, following comprehensive research and a competitive selection process, Minnesota State selected Workday as its technology solution. Read on to learn more about NextGen and our journey to Workday at Minnesota State.
More Information: 2020 Minnesota State NextGen Supplemental Budget Request (PDF)
The Need for NextGen
Minnesota State plays an essential role in growing the state’s economy and opening doors of educational opportunity to all Minnesotans. Because it is a core value to create a better future for students, their families, and their communities, the opportunity to take a fresh approach to enhance the student experience with a modern Enterprise Resource Planning solution is momentous. This project will improve engagement throughout each student’s education journey by creating a personalized technology experience.
Minnesota State selected Workday as its modern technology solution for its ability to provide Minnesota State with a more consolidated and efficient system. Workday will replace the Integrated Statewide Records System (ISRS), the cornerstone data system for the colleges and universities of Minnesota State for more than 20 years. ISRS was originally developed by in-house information technology professionals to meet the needs of Minnesota’s state colleges and universities after merging as a single system. As campus needs grew and ISRS evolved to support necessary changes, the architecture supporting ISRS is rapidly becoming obsolete.
Deloitte Consulting, LLP, was selected as our system integration partner to work alongside the implementation team from Workday. Deloitte has significant experience in Workday implementations, particularly in higher education HCM, finance, and student administration. The Minnesota State NextGen team is enhanced by the experienced leadership and commitment of the functional and technical professionals from Deloitte and Workday who are working closely with the Minnesota State team. Each resource brings considerable knowledge to NextGen that will contribute to the overall success of this endeavor. Learn more about Deloitte’s Higher Education practice.
Workday will bring a multitude of benefits to Minnesota State, most notably enhanced service delivery. With Workday, Minnesota State will be able to:
Align and integrate mission critical enterprise data, information, and business processes across the Minnesota State system to support the strategic mission
- Transform business processes through adoption of industry best practices
- Enable enhanced self-service capabilities for faculty, staff, and students
- Reduce the number of outdated systems and act as a single source of truth
- Transform many manual and paper processes to leverage technology
- Improve reporting, transparency, visibility, and audit history capabilities
Standardized processes across the entire system and a robust training program will support faculty, staff, and students in their transition to Workday.
NextGen is integral to the ability of Minnesota State faculty and staff to increase the success of our students at every step of their higher education journey – from application to graduation and beyond.
The NextGen Project strives to:
- Deliver a seamless experience for students across the Minnesota State system, regardless of the Minnesota State institution attended.
- Provide technology that integrates and personalizes student engagement on- and off-campus.
- Apply the use of analytics to guide students through their education and track status towards completion – ensuring students are enrolled in the right courses based on their major and are successfully meeting their goals.
- Enable communications at every level to ensure that multiple channels of communication are used to reach each student.
- Provide streamlined, simplified processes that are reliable, responsive, and developed with the student in mind.
- Use modern technology that delivers personalization of the student experience.
- Create an integrated environment to capture data and improve decision making.
Implementing Workday across the entire Minnesota State system is a change of significant scope and magnitude. Minnesota State made a commitment to prioritize Human Centered Design (HCD) to foster impactful change and best connect with institutions, campuses, and end users throughout the process.
Change readiness surveys, early learning opportunities, robust communications, effective stakeholder engagement, and other change management strategies and practices support a personalized approach to change as we move through the project journey towards the transition to Workday. Our strategic approach to change is designed to:
- Increase community commitmentduring the transformation from current to future state
- Lessen resistance through proactive engagement
- Build momentumfor the implementation across the enterprise
- Gain alignment from leadership to present a unified front
- Engage employeesto fully embrace and adopt new ways of conducting business
The NextGen project began in 2015 when it was identified as a priority by the Charting the Future technology team. The timeline below highlights the complete project life cycle – beginning in 2015 and continuing into 2027, when the Student module is projected to go live. It provides a more comprehensive overview of the project lifecycle and highlights some of the important project milestones leading up to the go-live dates for the HCM, Finance, and Student modules. Please note that all dates are tentative and are subject to change during the project lifecycle.
Below are two of the NextGen informational videos. For more, check out our NextGen video playlist.
Contact the NextGen Project Team
If you have feedback or questions for the NextGen Project Team, email NextGenERP@MinnState.edu.
