Overview
Describes MD Connect monthly change release cycle, procedures, available reports, and details about Workday production system changes.
Any production system change that impacts Workday functionality for campuses (e.g. new or existing Workday business process design/configuration, integration, report, security item, training content, or other tenant changes) is tracked in a change ticket in the MD Connect Support Portal ticket system (Team Dynamix).
Change request process visual:
Changes typically begin as a service request ticket in Team Dynamix, and they are reviewed and approved by MD Connect team and an appropriate governance group or lead(s). These governance groups meet regularly as shown in our MD Connect/Campus meeting calendar below:
https://usmd.sharepoint.com/sites/MarylandConnect/Lists/Meetings/
These teams help set a priority and justify, clarify requirements, timelines, and approve and test change requests. Team leads or assigned MD Connect technicians will identify campuses impacted, campus owners and testers, and other details during governance team meetings or other requirements gathering sessions and coordinate with those groups as a change progresses.
MD Connect also has an internal change review that meets every Friday to discuss, identify, coordinate, and schedule change requests for our monthly change release cycle. This group focuses on changes to production that should be scheduled and communicated in our monthly release calendar to appropriate campus stakeholders in the recurring MD Connect meetings above. The monthly change release schedule is below showing when MD Connect will design/configuring/unit-test approved changes, and when user testing will occur before each monthly change release date:
https://usmd.sharepoint.com/sites/MarylandConnect/Lists/Releases/calendar.aspx
Campus Governance teams - decision makers and committee roles:
Release Schedule Dates and Framework
- Change Release schedule: https://usmd.sharepoint.com/sites/MarylandConnect/Lists/Releases/calendar.aspx
- Releases typically occur the last Friday of each month. Changes typically get installed between 9AM and 9PM ET on release dates.
- The schedule and list of changes included each release will be adjusted depending on key consortium activities or program-wide projects that impact team availability to deploy or complete testing. Changes that are not tested will get deferred to a future cycle..
- Releases include
- Projects, Enhancements, Configuration Changes, Reports, Break/Fix if complicated
- Releases exclude
- General maintenance (emergency break/fix, off-cycle, individual's security changes)
- Compliance related requests (e.g. Audit issue)
- 2026 Release Dates
- Jan 30
- Feb 27
- Mar 27 (TBD, depends on R1 Workday Release impact)
- Apr 24
- May 29
- June 26 (FYE)
- Jul 31
- Aug 28
- Sep 25 (TBD, depends on R2 Workday Release impact)
- Oct 30
- Nov 20
- Dec 18
- 2025 Release Dates
- Feb 28
- March 28 (Also 25R1 Workday Release)
- April 25
- May 30
- June 27
- July 25
- August 29
- Sept 20 - 25R2 Workday Release, No scheduled MD CONNECT Release
- October 31
- November 21
- December 19
- Production Deployment Guidelines
- There must be approval to do the work
- It must be tested
- It must be approved for production
- If an item needs to be released outside of a release date, it must be approved by the MD Connect product owner.
- All configuration, development and unit testing will occur in MD1 & MD2
- UAT will be in Sandbox
- Campus Owner Responsibility
- Is responsible for, and has the authority to, determine if this item is needed for their campus.
- Is responsible for communicating which stakeholders would need to be involved with design sessions.
- Is responsible for facilitating requirements gathering.
- Should attend design sessions. If the owner has identified someone else to gather requirements, the owner should ensure that person attends all design sessions.
- Is responsible for communicating whether this is a compliance related request as well as any deadlines, if applicable.
- Is responsible for facilitating testing the request
- Is responsible for approval for production
Change Reports / Dashboards Available to Campuses
Terminology
Release Install Date (date picker) - For closed change tickets, this date is when the change was installed or effective in Production. For open changes, this date is an estimated date of when the change will be moved into production.
Justification - multi-select field, showing any/all reasons or justification for the change based on governance team feedback. This field is used to identify Off-Cycle or Emergency Break/Fix changes that can occur outside the scheduled release date window, after all testing is completed and appropriate change owners approve the change. List of justifications:
There is also an optional justification note field that may contain additional information about the need and justification for the change and its timeline.