Technology Analyst

The Technology Analyst, under direction of the Senior Associate Director of Financial Aid, oversees operational and technical functions of the Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships, including the reporting, analysis, and review of more than 30,000 FAFSA records, Scholarship Applications and their associated supporting materials annually. The incumbent provides leadership in the continuous evaluation of system tools and serves as a subject matter expert in the development of strategies to leverage technology and systems that meet financial aid processing needs. This position manages custom-application relationships, technical operations, and systems-based application solutions on behalf of the Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships. Reporting to the Senior Associate Director for the financial aid office, the incumbent manages and coordinates yearly startup of the Aid year and semesterly start-up of reports. This includes Aid Year rollover and custom application startup jobs. Responsible for start-up and configuration of new CommGen RTF/BI Publisher in PeopleSoft. Serves as main liaison, coordinating with the Senior Associate Director, between HCOM needs and Graduate College reporting/OBIEE needs.

Management of Financial Aid Application Processing and Review:
• Strategically analyzes, evaluates, and prioritizes implementation of operational objectives pertaining to financial aid application management and review, while working closely with other senior team managers. Prioritizes projects and enhancements to systems based on the needs of the University. Manages day-to-day financial aid operations and the processing of financial aid applications and supporting materials, monitors progress through analytics and operational reports, troubleshoots operational issues, develops new business processes and enhances existing processes. Develops tools to track operations projects to better manage needs, work in process, results and outcomes.
• Implements quality assurance measures and monitors quality, accuracy and workloads to ensure consistent compliance with state and federal regulations, university policies, and industry standards and best practices. Analyzes current business practices and procedures to assess efficiencies.
• Leads initiatives to design and implement creative and innovative processes and procedures utilizing new and existing technology for financial aid application processing, review and reporting. Manages the identification and utilization of new and existing technologies with focus on financial aid strategies to streamline aid processing queues. Coordinates and facilitates requirements gathering and analysis, including development and implementation of functional specifications, integration documents, and testing scripts. Utilize reporting tools to extract data from operational data systems to help with analysis, testing, and troubleshooting of non-routine production system problems.
• Advises other financial aid office staff, internal and external, regarding the appropriate use of processing technology solutions including the use of new and existing tools. Assists in developing strategic approaches to file review and administers initiatives by analyzing trends in financial aid application volume, workload capacities, and staffing models. Monitors financial aid application review progress and directs load balancing changes. Oversees comprehensive file review training for new and veteran staff.

Technical Operations.
• Manages and maintains relationships with custom application partners for application solutions, including design and testing of applications, data import and the annual changes process.
• Oversees the management of the administrative functions associated with the enterprise-wide student information system, including troubleshooting, data imports, duplicate resolution, configuration, testing, upgrade installation and integrations.
• Directs the design and development of routine and special operational reports utilizing business intelligence analytics on behalf of the Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships, academic units and public requests.
• Oversees configuration and maintenance of financial aid data in the student information system and integrations across various systems.
• Develops and implements new communications from the enterprise-wide student information system (CommGen using PeopleSoft) utilizing RTF templates and BI Publisher.

Management, supervision and training.
• Serves as a member of the Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships management team. Plans, directs and oversees financial aid processing queues.
• Serves as main liaison, coordinating with the Senior Associate Director, between HCOM needs and Graduate College reporting/OBIEE needs.
• Coordinates with leadership to ensure that strategic goals are met and that the processing of over 30,0000 financial aid applications and Scholarship applications per year is completed efficiently and effectively while leveraging new and existing technology that supports recruitment/admission and yield goals.
• Oversee the documentation pertaining to systems and associated policies and procedures for financial aid application processing and review, and train impacted university personnel. Serve as a point of contact and subject matter expert for University financial aid day to day inquiries regarding review workflows and use of the student information system.