Financial Aid Business Analyst

Financial Aid Business Analyst

Position Summary

The Financial Aid Business Analyst provides complex business and systems support for the Financial Aid Office.  Working with minimal direction, this position provides strategic business analysis services and is responsible for reviewing business processes from end-to-end to identify operational, financial, and student satisfaction efficiencies and optimizations.

The Financial Aid Business Analyst will examine all current systems to ensure they are servicing all constituents while meeting the needs of a complex regulatory and student-focused environment.  This position will gather requirements and produce specifications for a new system and/or modifications to current systems, databases, and third party integrations. Referenced systems, databases, and applicable software include enterprise resource planning (ERPs) and/or student information systems (SIS), Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs), Document Management Systems (DMS), and related third party ancillary systems and applications that are critical to the customer service and regulatory compliance functions of the financial aid office.

This individual will deploy timely and actionable business intelligence, assist in the operational maintenance and data integrity of the systems and databases, develop standardized practices for importing, cleaning, transforming and validating data which includes managing the data exchanges with vendors, use data and system analysis to identify opportunities in existing business practices to improve business processes, collaborate with Academic Enterprise Systems (AES) and Institutional Research (IR) to resolve system and/or data issues.

The Financial Aid Business Analyst will work collaboratively in the design, documentation, testing, and maintenance of business processes, reports, queries, and dashboards to support the recruitment, admissions, financial aid packaging, and onboarding for all student populations.

A critical objective will be to ensure that the systems and third-party ancillary data systems are and remain aligned the needs of federal, state, and institutional regulatory requirements in support of financial aid application processing, awarding, disbursement, audit controls, research, and reporting.

Duties
Design, test and maintain reports, queries and dashboards within the systems and third-party applications to deliver and deploy timely and actionable business intelligence to support end users and offices.

Lead review of business processes and practices; anticipate new and changing requirements; identify areas for improvement; and recommend optimization strategies.

Continually evaluate systems, identify areas of opportunities, and when necessary research, develop, and recommend new system solutions.

Analyze and troubleshoot production problems in a timely manner and resolve or escalate when appropriate

Create and maintain functional specifications, functional information sheets, and user guides and serves as office training lead for staff in the effective and efficient use of systems, databases, and ancillary systems.

Create testing plans for upgrades, patches, and new initiatives

Recommend workarounds or modifications to systems and software as necessary.

Serve as the liaison with AES, IS&T, third party vendors, and other technology partners

Create and generate ongoing error reports to ensure data integrity

In collaboration with IR and AES—Develop and maintain operational production calendars that include outlining and scheduling batch processes, routine/daily/annual processing jobs.

Preferred:

·       Bachelor’s Degree in business, computer information systems, or related disciplinary fields.
·       Knowledge and understanding of concepts and functions of document management systems.
·       Demonstrated leadership, proven project planning and management skills, attentiveness to detail, and ability to meet deadlines.
·       Strong written and oral communication skills and ability to manage multiple assignments in a proactive manner.
·       Relational database/table structure and query development proficiency
·       Lead, facilitate, and support meetings and committees as appropriate.
·       Knowledge of financial aid systems and federal regulations.
·       Demonstrated experience supporting moderately complex systems.
·       Experience using PeopleSoft, Campus Logic, OnBase, and Slate/CRM