Advisor II, OverOps Gateway (Salesforce) Business Analyst

Gateway (i.e. Salesforce) is a customizable cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform – it has been extensively customized to meet CRS business needs. The Overseas Operations (OverOps) Gateway Business Analyst (BA) will primarily provide business analysis for a Gateway application called ‘Pipeline and Projects’, which provides CRS staff the ability to input and access information including funding opportunities at all stages, institutional donors, local partners, summary project spending, key documents (e.g. funding proposals, donor agreements, etc.), etc. Gateway has been deployed globally.

This BA position sits in CRS’s KML unit within the larger OverOps department. It is not a Salesforce Admin or IT role. While this knowledge is tremendously valuable in this role, knowledge of international development business processes are of higher priority.

The BA will primarily research, evaluate, and comprehend Gateway-relevant OverOps business processes to effectively collect, analyze, and validate user requirements for Global Knowledge and Information Management (GKIM) (CRS’s IT department) administrators or external vendors, to implement. The BA will liaise between “the business” and GKIM to implement new functions, routine system enhancements/maintenance, and enhance inbound/outbound data integrations with Insight (i.e. Microsoft Oracle). Occasionally, the BA will engage with external IT vendors contracted to implement specific scopes of work within Gateway.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Collecting business requirements and advancing user stories:

• Collect and document clear business requirements using standard tools and processes.
• Proactively identify and resolve cases in which new requirements conflict with or break pre-existing functionality.
• Prioritize end-user experience and simplicity by steering requestors away from unjustifiably complex solutions.
• Define and agree on roles and responsibilities of business partners, Gateway staff, and other stakeholders before project start, and document them in a project charter.
• Validate GKIM has resources available to advance project implementation per established timeline and escalate concerns to manager immediately.
• Drive business requirements toward declarative solutions that admins can easily implement in-house, as opposed to custom solutions, which may require costly external vendors.
• Collaborate with GKIM, as needed, to estimate project cost or length, and feasibility of requirements.
• Recognize when business requirements are better achieved through change management, training, or end-user support, then redirect them as appropriate.
• Support in defining functional and technical specifications.
• Create and advance user stories in JIRA once requirements are matured and ready for implementation.
• Actively participate in weekly sprint meetings and regularly interact in Jira to advance user stories to production environment in a timely manner.
• Coordinate user acceptance testing (UAT)

Strategic management support: Collaborate with the OverOps-Gateway Manager to:

• connect the Gateway team’s work with larger KML efforts and agency strategy;
• routinely groom and update project backlog;
• documented projects in backlog with enough detail to allow other colleagues to independently advance them;
• maintain solutions that enable agency staff to access the backlog, and routinely communicate status of active projects to all stakeholders through appropriate channels;
• ensure all tasks align with agency strategic initiatives, or reduce user-support, training, or maintenance burdens, or add other value;
• ensure prioritized projects represent a mature business process and that the relevant business owner(s) have committed appropriate staff resources to advancing;
• understand complex system challenges, articulate them concisely, and suggest suitable solutions;
• create presentations, business cases, solutions documents, and represent Gateway within the agency;

Knowledge management, learning, and user support:

• Contribute to OverOps Gateway Standard Operating Procedures.
• Collaborate with KML data analytics unit to define and measure key metrics, including KPIs.
• Attend and contribute to weekly OverOps-Gateway team meetings.
• Manage Gateway-OverOps knowledge article (KA) library to ensure esoteric processes are documented.
• Ensure GKIM is documenting knowledge and that vendors are transferring knowledge to GKIM, raising concerns to GKIM-Gateway manager as appropriate.
• Proactively seek answers among knowledge stored in SharePoint, Teams, Confluence, OneNote, Jira, etc. before reaching out to colleagues.
• Independently review user support and training material, and practice business processes in Gateway to ensure a solid understanding of the system.
• Build reports and test scenarios to troubleshoot, and measure the scope and magnitude of specific issues, to be able to speak authoritatively and suggest practical solutions.
• Regularly update knowledge of Salesforce cloud packages and administrative declarative solutions to be able to effectively communicate with admins and external vendors.
• Consistently strive to understand all Gateway-relevant business processes to be able to communicate effectively with business owners and stakeholders, and users.
• Contribute to enhancing the business knowledge of GKIM-Gateway staff so they may operate independently and understand the business value of their work.
• Request updates to end-user support material, including job aids, micro-learning videos, etc., following system changes, as necessary.
• Direct end-user questions to service desk or elsewhere, per standard operating procedures.

Data quality and user experience:

• Preemptively guard against new data quality issues, utilizing project requirements, roles and responsibilities, Salesforce validation rules, workflows, etc.
• Address existing priority data quality issues, through targeted projects, collaborations with business owners, Salesforce validation rules, workflows, etc.
• Routinely flag unused user-facing components (fields, related lists, picklist values, etc.) then work with Gateway manager and business owners to remove them to simplify user-experience.
• Routinely review Gateway from a user-experience perspective to identify challenges and pain points, then suggest and advance improvements.

Data integration support:

• Comprehend specifications of all inbound/outbound integrations touching Gateway to be able to authoritatively discuss and support them.
• Collaboratively troubleshoot integration issues with relevant subject matter experts to identify root causes of integrations malfunction, and suggest solutions.
• Suggest new integrations or enhancements to existing, as appropriate, to meet business needs and reduce system administration burden.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required qualifications:

• Degree (master’s preferred) or certificate in business analytics/administration, data science, information systems (or related) with international development business experience, or degree (master’s preferred) in international development (or related) with business analytics/administration, data science, or information systems experience
• Five + years’ experience working with Salesforce (or related CRM), including familiarity with declarative administrative tools, and ability to build reports leveraging CRM data
• Five + years’ experience collecting business requirements, writing user stories, engaging in software sprints, and conducting user acceptance testing (UAT)
• Experience analyzing and collaborating on functional/technical specifications documents.
• Ability to create and communicate (written and verbal) convincing and compelling business cases
• Five + years’ experience with technical end-user training, support, and troubleshooting.
• Five + years’ experience implementing, or strong familiarity with, international development business processes (business development, project/financial management, monitoring and evaluation, etc.)
• Five + years’ experience working effectively remotely with global agencies in roles that liaise between IT and business units, and with culturally and geographically diverse colleagues.
• Excellent research, analytical, and troubleshooting skills, and ability to creatively solve problems
• Exceptional leadership, coordination, prioritization, and interpersonal skills, including demonstrated success advancing the work of culturally diverse teams across multiple concurrent projects
• Understanding of the challenges staff face (insecurity, low bandwidth, intermittent power, etc.) in some CRS operating contexts and how they affect work
• Ability to travel internationally up to 15% annually
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, and ability to create and deliver concise and engaging presentations
• Fluency in English

Preferred qualification:

• Experience with Microsoft Oracle, specifically, ERP, ePBCS, Projcts and/or supply chain modules
• Basic understanding of relational databases and/or object-oriented computer programming
• Salesforce certifications or other relevant credentials
• Experience using PowerBI, Tableau, or similar business intelligence or data visualization tool
• Strong understanding of user-experience, and what enhances and degrades it
• Understanding of software development lifecycle
• Experience working with Jira or other software project management platform
• Experience using Confluence or similar tool
• Experience working with technology in low-bandwidth environments
• Working ability in French and/or Spanish

Key Internal Working Relationships:

• KML Unit within Overseas Operations department (OverOps-Gateway manager; end-user support advisors; change management advisor)
• GKIM Department (product manager; system administrators; Service Desk)
• Other (Business owners, stakeholders, and their delegates; end-users; finance support staff; Insight – i.e. Microsoft Oracle) support staff

Key External Working Relationships:

• IT Vendors

Agency-wide Competencies: These are rooted in the mission, values and guiding principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results.

• Serves with Integrity
• Models Stewardship
• Cultivates Constructive Relationships
• Promotes Learning

Mental/Physical Requirements: Normal conditions for an office environment

Disclaimer Clause: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties and responsibilities associated with this position.

Note: Must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. or work location country, at the time of application. Internal applicants are strongly encouraged to apply within first 10 days of posting

What we offer

CRS offers a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, life insurance, vision, generous retirement savings plan and the opportunity to work in a collaborative, mission-driven culture that is committed to improving the lives of the poor throughout the world.

***Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. We welcome as a part of our staff people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.

Note: All positions requiring residence or frequent travel outside their home country must undergo and clear a pre-employment medical examination.

CRS’s talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of all people – especially children and vulnerable adults – to live free from abuse and harm.

EOE/M/F/D/V – CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer. (For all US and International positions)

How to apply

To apply please click here.