As the Enterprise IT Director for the Sightline program, Dow Weeks and his technical team are dedicated to ensuring that Workday operates seamlessly across The Johns Hopkins University and Health System. This innovative platform combines self-service options, administrative tasks, and data into a user-friendly interface, ultimately enhancing the work experience for all Johns Hopkins employees.
Q: From your perspective as a technical leader at Johns Hopkins, what are some of the beneficial changes Workday brings to everyday work?
A: Workday brings together information like pay, staff performance, and administrative tasks onto a single system, eliminating the need to navigate to multiple digital sites for this information. Workday also integrates financial and operational data together to enable real-time data and analytics that help drive decision-making right within an employee’s Workday page. All of this will mean faculty, clinicians, and staff can spend less time managing multiple systems and more time on the work that matters most.
Q: Tell us about how your team is handling integrating Workday with other systems at Johns Hopkins.
A: While we configure and design Workday, the team is also working on over 400 system integrations with the future Workday platform. These integrations flow data between systems, offering a complete view of administrative operations. From accessing Johns Hopkins resources through my.jh to ordering via Amazon, our integrations cover a wide range of operations and data. We kick off each integration with discussions involving Sightline functional team members and system owners, ensuring everyone is aligned. We’ve hosted over a hundred integration meetings to date. The myWorkday: Integrations site includes a dashboard for real-time updates on this work and a form for questions about integrations. The site and its tools are available to all Johns Hopkins faculty and staff.
Q: Why is it important to move data into Workday?
A: For Workday to reflect the structure of Johns Hopkins, it’s essential to transfer key data, such as employee and vendor information, during our current design phase. Beyond design, we’re also addressing the transactional data that needs to migrate to maintain operational continuity and improved experience after the move to Workday in Summer 2027. For instance, we will coordinate with departments to close historical purchase orders, design a plan to move active purchase orders into Workday at Go Live, and build a purchase order data history across our Workday and archive solutions. Input from our finance teams and subject matter experts will guide these decisions. Throughout 2026 and early 2027, we’ll initiate communications around these and many other transactional data topics to ensure everyone is informed ahead of the final stages before launch.
Q: How will the technical team work through testing before Go Live in 2027?
A: A comprehensive testing program begins in spring 2026 as we wrap up Workday design. Our technical team will engage in two major types of testing: integrations and end-to-end. Integration testing is already underway, focusing on validating data exchange between Workday and other systems. For end-to-end testing (which will happen for integrations too), testers will follow complete processes to ensure everything functions effectively and meets our organizational needs. Sightline plans to conduct over a year of testing before we go live.
Q: What does Workday do to keep information secure and accurate?
A: Workday’s security protocols align with Johns Hopkins Information Technology standards. Users will access Workday through Single Sign-On (SSO), whether on their desktops or mobile devices. The platform uses role-based security groups, ensuring individuals see only the information pertinent to their roles. Integrations follow this same security model. Additionally, with the implementation of Workday, our administrative data governance program was established by data leaders in partnership with Sightline. This program will help maintain data integrity throughout the transition to the new system in 2027 and beyond.
Q: What else would you like to share about Workday?
A: While we have a significant amount of work ahead, the technical team is genuinely excited about the future with Workday at Johns Hopkins. This highly intuitive tool with updated business processes will greatly enhance the institution’s operations.