Business Solutions Analyst

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Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.

Job End Date

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career. 

Job Description Summary
The Business Solutions Analyst (BSA) plays an important role in the overall planning and direction of the technology environment for Enrolment Services as well as the enterprise Student Information System. The BSA leads high-level requirements gathering and analysis of complex systems requests impacting operational processes and the family of enterprise Student Information Systems. The BSA plays a critical role in ensuring alignment across, and with, operational functions and strategic IT initiatives while promoting best practices in the appropriate use and safeguarding of student information. The BSA is a liaison, building and managing strong working relationships with business units and stakeholders, both internal and external to Enrolment Services (ES), including UBC IT teams. The BSA is called upon to collaborate with all levels of staff at the university, both technical and non-technical as well as provide guidance to ES business stakeholders in the participation and direction of systems implementation projects. This role provides technical and operational support, for system use and access, for all users of the SIS, acting as a systems subject matter expert as appropriate. The BSA also actively engages in IT systems projects; participating in systems design, testing, and quality assurance.
Organizational Status
The Business Solutions Analyst, reports to the Associate Director, Student Systems Management. The Business Solutions Analyst interacts with all levels of staff across units within Enrolment Services and other academic and service units across the campus, including UBC IT, to provide service and support in identifying and shepherding system requirements. The Business Solutions Analyst may coordinate, provide direction and/or assign work to staff when necessary.
Work Performed
- Analyzes, plans and manages requests from faculties and service units for change(s) to the enterprise SIS applications, and collaborates with UBC IT and other ES units in developing project proposals for system implementations.
- Actively engages in systems projects, acting as a primary contact for IT partners; recommends appropriate stakeholder engagement, provides guidance to Enrolment Services business stakeholders in participation and direction of systems implementations efforts and acts as subject matter expert, as appropriate.
- Using in-depth knowledge of the Student Information System, and an understanding of all registrarial functions, guides the business stakeholders in determining and articulating their business needs and how system integration efforts can be a benefit to them; works with UBC IT to communicate business issues on behalf of multiple stakeholders; communicates solution proposals, resource estimates and scoping assumptions back to stakeholders and involves stakeholders in discussions as appropriate.
- Responsible for communications to the Student Information System user community for critical system updates, outages and developments in a timely and efficient manner.
- Communicates the status of IT initiatives, projects and operational performance of systems to the ES affected business unit (s) he or she supports.
- Monitors project progress including providing direction, advice, training and feedback to project participants.
- Maintains a balanced perspective of project progress and challenges; negotiates deliverables and timing across multiple stakeholders; manages stakeholder s expectations during high stress problem/crisis situations and keeps relevant parties focused on the primary objectives and critical tasks at hand.
- Examines processes for streamlining opportunities and coordinates relevant systems and process changes.
- Coordinates testing of developments and/or improvements to the Student Information System and ensures quality assurance.
- Understands and applies technology roadmaps for key applications and infrastructure that are critical to the business.
- Keeps up to date with new technologies and leverages them to recommend and provide creative solutions for staff.
- In collaboration with colleagues in the Student Systems Management team, provides subject matter expertise in the content development and delivery of system and business process training to the University community regarding the Student Information System and related applications.
- Evaluates and assigns security and access permissions to data and systems in accordance to university policy, legislative requirements and best practice;
- Participates in the development of communication plans and promotional campaigns for systems projects.
- Designs, develops and delivers reports and statistics to the University community and to federal government agencies such as Statistics Canada;
- Actively promotes best practices in the security and privacy of personal information and student data;
- Keeps up to date on privacy legislation and information security policy and requirements of the university;
- May represent the Associate Director on committees or at meetings;
- Performs other related duties as required.
Consequence of Error/Judgement
The BSA is a representative of ES and liaises with ES staff and various members of the university community including UBC IT, faculties and service units. This is a highly visible position, which has continuous contact with Enrolment Services staff and a very diverse university and public community. Projects coordinated by the incumbent will directly impact faculty, staff and student relationships with UBC and the outside community. Failure to adequately involve stakeholders could result in ineffective design of technologies to support business operations or the ineffective use of available technologies resulting in unnecessary work by faculty, staff and administrators. Inability to liaise appropriately with UBC IT could lead to unsustainable technology deployment or unnecessary downtime of systems which could negatively impact system availability for faculty and staff and service to students. The success of these projects directly impacts the recruitment and retention of students at both UBCV and UBCO and service delivery levels by faculty, staff and administrators. A thorough understanding pertaining to privacy legislation, policies and data security is required to adequately ensure the appropriate levels of security are met. Unless adequate management and monitoring take place, the integrity of the security of the SIS and student records would be jeopardized resulting in non-compliance and negative legal and reputational consequences for the University.
This position also carries responsibility for facilitating the testing of new and changed pieces of the SIS. A thorough understanding of the Student Information System s complex structure is required to adequately identify possible problems. Unless adequate testing takes place, problems can occur once in production, again reflecting negatively on the system, Enrolment Services and, ultimately, the University s customers and clients.
Supervision Received
Reports to the Associate Director, Student Systems Management. Works independently with minimal supervision. Exercises initiative and sound judgment in making decisions. Works in collaboration with other senior University staff.
Supervision Given
Provides leadership, direction and guidance to staff on project teams, as required.
Minimum Qualifications
- Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own
- Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion
Preferred Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline.Minimum of four to five years of related experience or the equivalent combination of education and experience.Experience preferably in a post-secondary student service environment. Proven experience working with end users, preferably in a leadership or facilitative capacity, to perform requirements gathering and/or systems analysis.Experience with formulating recommendations on business and IT strategies to support business unit goals. Demonstrated experience, including knowledge of principles, tools and best practices of business analysis, process streamlining and project management.Background or previous experience working in IT preferred.Experience developing and writing online documentation an asset.Knowledge of current UBC administrative and student processes an asset.Knowledge and experience with standard PC software and a demonstrated ability to learn new software quickly.Ability to learn and interpret complex business functions and understand how systems can be used and applied to support business needs.Effective communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to develop strong working relationships and interact with all levels of personnel.Excellent analytical, problem solving, planning and organizational skills.Ability to work under pressure and produce measurable results.Ability to exercise diplomacy and demonstrate a flexible attitude.