A group of UBC students created UBC Scheduler, an app to help students easily schedule courses on WorkDay Student.
The UBC Scheduler team is a group of UBC students who secured funding from the AMS Student Initiatives Fund and UBC eHub to create the app, which works as an add-on to WorkDay to simplify the student scheduling experience.
UBC has transitioned from the Student Service Centre (SSC) to WorkDay Student for the upcoming 2024/25 Winter Session. Students have expressed frustration with WorkDay online on Instagram and Reddit, with many students concerned about the portal’s replacement scheduling and registration functions.
In an interview with The Ubyssey, UBC Scheduler developers Seungwon Lim and Ryan Dick said effort had gone into making the app as functional as possible.
“We've spent a lot of time on really optimizing the speed of this algorithm … so you can get your schedule immediately,” said Dick.
From its option to specify a consistent class start time to its ability for students to drag and drop courses, Dick said all app features have been "very, very meticulously planned.”
Lim and Dick said that even on the SSC, it had been “a pain to create your schedule,” and that recent WorkDay student frustrations were not the motivation for app’s creation.
“Workday came after our app was launched,” said Lim. “Bringing this together took years of work.”
UBC’s transition to WorkDay has increased the app’s popularity with UBC Scheduler boasting about 20,000 unique users in just the last month.
“People want to try something different, because they find it very difficult to navigate … WorkDay,” said Dick. “Everyone's looking for alternatives.”
Dick also said the features UBC Scheduler has should be implemented into WorkDay Student.
“The goal [at the] end [of the] day is that we shouldn’t have these tools. They should already be part of the system,” said Dick.
The app placed third in student entrepreneurship competition Innovation OnBoard and won $2,000.
Lim also said UBC Scheduler is a prime example of why students should create the change they want to see.
“Some of that responsibility really lies on students as well. We cannot forget that…we do have some power to kind of implement and get things [to] happen."
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