INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND MEDIA SERVICES

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND MEDIA SERVICES

Information Systems and Development

Applications Analyst

Full Time, Fixed Term (24 months) Grade E: £25,513 - £31,342 per annum

An exciting opportunity has risen for an experienced CRM Analyst to join a busy Applications Team delivering business critical applications and services within the ITMS Department. Specifically to provide support to the wider Marketing and Business Development teams with events and the management of mailing campaigns.

You will provide application administration and perform configuration and workflow changes to Microsoft Dynamics CRM applications, developing a clear and extensive understanding of the CRM database whilst ensuring that the governance surrounding this is to the required standard.

The role encompasses working on the project to upgrade the current version to 2013 and associated technologies. This will involve liaising with the Business customers and suppliers and working methodically with other ITMS teams.

You will have excellent communication and organisational skills with the ability to manage relationships at all levels of the University. It is essential that you have experience of working in a customer support environment, working with a mix of internal and external teams, internally or externally hosted systems, bespoke and commercial off the shelf applications and multiple suppliers would be highly advantageous.

Please quote

reference: 8883

Closing Date: Extended to 29 March 2015

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Job Description

Applications Analyst

Information Technology and Media Services (ITMS)

Duties of the role

Overall purpose

of the role

As a member of the Applications team, the post holder is responsible for managing and supporting a range of application systems and to be an authoritative expert in some areas. The post-holder will support DMU applications in one or more of the following areas:

• Student Recruitment, Student Administration (including CRM and QLS) This role involves the support of the day to day administration of Dynamics CRM

applications, implementing configuration changes including but limited to users, security roles, fields, forms and configuration settings for Marketing – recruitment and wider business departments.

It is essential to engage with business users to identify, design and implement new and make changes to existing workflows, following a controlled development, test, production deployment process in line with change management processes.

You will be a key member of the project team to upgrade the exist system to CRM 2013.

Main duties and

responsibilities

• To be responsible for resolving incidents and service requests and ensuring

support is provided to the agreed service levels based on their assigned priorities. To be involved in problem analysis and resolution and to continuously look to improve our application management services at all times.

• To fulfil the role of call monitor when asked to do so by continuously reviewing

incoming calls and ensuring calls are allocated to the correct team or team member. To manage the call queue based on effective and efficient prioritisation and on maximising compliance with service levels.

• To be responsible for the implementation of appropriate minor enhancements,

application configuration, bug fixes and simple reports as appropriate or passing these to the appropriate team.

• To work closely with Application owners and key internal customers in the

University to ensure maintenance and support aligns to end-user needs and

priorities. To agree priorities with customers and to ensure any new enhancement

requests are directed to the correct place e.g. the Business Engagement or Development teams.

• As a Subject Matter Expert support the training team in providing application

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Duties of the role

• To be an application expert in some areas and gain a good understanding of all

applications to ensure support flexibility is maintained. Help build a strong and

effective customer focused and professional team of application experts

through coaching and facilitation. Be authoritative as an expert in a way that motivates staff, promotes continuous performance improvement and enables ITMS to deliver excellence based on meeting agreed targets and objectives

• Work with other teams within ITMS to continuously look at pragmatic ways that

inter-team working can be improved by sharing information, knowledge and best

practice. Identify and suggest solutions to any process gaps that appear and help build a collaborative culture based on transparency, openness and trust

• In conjunction with a Lead Applications Analyst work with third parties and

application vendors on the on-going effective support and continuous

improvement of our applications.

• Maintain relationships with members of ITMS and key users to ensure

applications and associated interfaces remain suitably supported, improvements are identified and problems anticipated in a timely fashion.

• Ensure there is sufficient knowledge transfer between staff and appropriate

documentation to be able to provide adequate service provision for applications regardless of individual availabilities and help eradicate single points of expertise.

• Ensure compliance with corporate standards for information systems, security

and technology are in line with relevant legislation and audit requirements.

• Remain innovative and stay abreast of all relevant industry and technological

developments in the market place and provide advice to the Applications Manager on how to take advantage of these to support the development of initiatives that deliver corporate objectives.

• To participate in on-call rotas and be on-call at pre-agreed times with the ability to be contactable out-of-hours.

• Perform any other duties commensurate with the job grade as reasonably required from time to time.

• Treat all DMU staff, students, contractors and visitors with dignity and respect. Provide a service that complies with the Equality Act 2010, eliminating unlawful discrimination, advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relations with particular attention to the protected characteristics of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief (or none), sex and sexual orientation.

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Person Specification

Applications Analyst

Information Technology and Media Services (ITMS)

Grade: E

Role profile: TSE1

Full Time, Fixed Term (24 months)

Area of

responsibility

Requirements

Essential or desirable

*Method of

assessment

A

I

T

D

Qualifications and Training

Educated to degree level or equivalent

experience.

E

√

ITIL qualification.

D

√

MS CRM Certifications.

_D

_√

Previous Work Experience

Experience of 2nd and 3rd line support of CRM application (4.3, MS 2013) and plugins in large, complex organisations including the monitoring of calls and the compliance to agreed service levels.

E

√

Hands-on experience of implementing and supporting MS CRM application including the implementation of minor enhancements, application configurations, bug fixes and simple data extracts and reports.

Creating/amending workflows, and customisations to enhance usability.

E

√

Ability to manage email marketing execution; Data sourcing and manipulation for list creation. Measure and report on email performances and outcomes, manage unsubscribes and tracking of emails.

E

√

Ability to implement and manage Portals in conjunction with marketing activities such as Prospectus ordering and Open Day

bookings.

E

√

Ability to problem solve and translate

business requirements into technical outputs.

E

√

Experience working closely with customers

(Marketing, Commercial, Students Services) and in cross-functional teams with the ability to build alliances and relationships with key contacts and customers.

E

√

Experience setting application support

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Area of

responsibility

Requirements

Essential or desirable

*Method of

assessment

A

I

T

D

improvements to IT strategy.

Experience of supporting Training Teams with the preparation and delivery of MS CRM 2013 Training.

E

√

Experience supporting data interfaces and to

be able to fix issues.

E

√

Experience using application support standards, including release and change management.

E

√

Experience in MS CRM and associated technologies and Plugins (Marketing Automation i.e. DotMailer), Portals and Integration.

Administration systems including:

Communication systems - Microsoft CRM / Agresso CRM

D

√

Experience of working in HE environment.

_D

_√

Specific

Knowledge/Skill/ Abilities/

Motivation/Attitude Required

Good communication, presentation and

report writing skills.

E

√

√ √

Strong analytical, problem solving and

troubleshooting skills.

E

√

An understanding of service management

methodologies and their application.

E

√

√ √

Strong collaboration and facilitation skills with a good understanding of inter-team working and the ability to build a

collaborative culture based on transparency, openness and trust.

E

√

Customer focused.

_E

_√

An appreciation of working in the HE sector.

_D

_√

The ability to recognise new approaches and be able to contribute to continuous

improvement.

E

√

Knowledge of application monitoring tools, SQL, Microsoft Access, Web Services, Java, XML, HTML and VB, SharePoint.