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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-04-18
Steps: Set Up Waitlist Policies

Steps: Set Up Waitlist Policies

To reduce administrative overhead, you can configure course section waitlists to either:
  • Automatically enroll students into a course when a seat becomes available.
  • Give students a set amount of time to decide what action they want to take when a seat opens up.
You can also configure the policy to send waitlist promotion notifications to students with certain registration restrictions. This provides them with an opportunity to resolve those restrictions and register for the courses that they need.
When you enable waitlists on course sections, Workday manages waitlists automatically based on how you configure the:
  • Registration Waitlist Availability Event
     business process.
  • Waitlist policies that you create for academic unit and academic level configurations.
When configuring course waitlist policies for an academic unit, you can create a policy for each academic level that courses are offered in. Example: When students register for courses at Alma Mater University, different course waitlist policies will apply based on the the academic level of the selected course offering:
Academic Level
Waitlist Promotion Method
Description
Undergraduate
Auto Promotion
Workday automatically adds waitlisted students to a course section when there's capacity, enabling you to manage a large undergraduate population more efficiently.
Graduate
Expiration
When there's capacity in a course section, waitlisted students have a certain amount of time to join the section, defer their decision, or exit the waitlist. This grants students more control over their course schedule, including when they:
  • Attend specialized programs of study.
  • Require course schedule changes before they can join the section.
When you configure a waitlist policy for your institution, you can schedule a mass operation to remove students from course section waitlists after a certain period of time. By removing students from a waitlist that's no longer valid, students receive clarity on their registration status and reduces clutter in your tenant.
  1. Edit Business Processes
    To enable students to respond to waitlist advancement notifications, add the
    Confirm Waitlist Advancement
    action step to the
    Registration Waitlist Availability Event
     business process. Workday sends waitlist advancement notifications based on the waitlist policy that you configure.
  2. Access the
    Maintain Course Waitlist Policy
     task.
    When you enable students to see their waitlist position, you can also select the
    Include Total
     check box to enable students to see how many other students are on the waitlist.
    When you select the
    Enable Waitlisting Into Open Course Sections
     check box, students can join waitlists for course sections with a section status of Open. Example: Aaron Day plans to register for BIOL 101 in the upcoming semester. To complete BIOL 101, students must complete a Lecture component and a Laboratory component:
    Course Section
    Course Component
    Meeting Pattern
    Section Status
    BIOL 101-1
    Lecture
    Tuesday | 9:30 - 10:20AM
    Open
    BIOL 101-2
    Laboratory
    Monday/Wednesday | 9:30 AM - 11:20 AM
    Open
    BIOL 101-3
    Laboratory
    Tuesday/Thursday | 10:30 AM - 12:20 AM
    Waitlist
    However, Aaron can't register for BIOL 101 because BIOL 101-2 is the only available Laboratory component and the meeting pattern conflicts with his current course schedule. Since Alma Mater University enables students to waitlist into open course sections, Aaron can join the waitlists for both BIOL 101-1 and BIOL 101-3. Then, Aaron can enroll in BIOL 101 once there's available capacity for BIOL 101-3.
    Security:
    Set Up: Academic Records
     domain in the Student Records functional area.
  3. (Optional) From the
    Students with Registration Restrictions
     section, select the restrictions that students can have to receive a waitlist promotion notification.
    Students won't be able to register for the course until they've resolved the selected registration restrictions.
  4. (Optional) Access the
    Mass Operation Management
     task.
    When you select the
    Waitlist Promotion Method
     of
    Expiration
    , you need to schedule a mass operation to remove expired waitlist registration events. You can set up multiple
    Cancel Expired Registration Waitlist Availability Events
     mass operations that run at different times to reduce delays in waitlist promotion notifications.
    As you complete the task, consider:
    Option
    Description
    Mass Operation Type
    Select the
    Cancel Expired Registration Waitlist Availability Events
     mass operation.
    Input Report
    Select either the:
    • Expired Waitlist Availability Events
       report.
    • A custom report. You can copy the
      View Expired Waitlist Availability Events
       report to create a custom report for this mass operation.
    Report Definition
    Specify the instances that you want this mass operation to apply to. When you leave this blank, the mass operation applies to all instances of expired waitlist registration events within the tenant.
    Security:
    Mass Operation Management
     domain in the System functional area.
Access the
View Scheduled Mass Cancel Waitlist Availability Events
 report to view all scheduled
Cancel Expired Registration Waitlist Availability Events
 mass operations.