Application Analyst, Vice President of Administration and Treasurer

Position Title: Application Analyst, Vice President of Administration and Treasurer

Department: Information Technology Services

Advertised Pay: Base $67,997, with potential increase commensurate with experience.

Campus Location: Washburn University

Application Deadline:  Application review will begin as applications are received and will continue until the position is filled. Applicants can be assured of full consideration if submitted by: May 1, 2025.

Position Summary: Washburn University is a teaching-focused, student-centered, public institution located in the metropolitan setting of Topeka that has earned national recognition for its high-impact programs for first-generation students. Washburn has a student body of over 5,500 undergraduate, graduate, and law students, a significant and growing number of whom are first-generation and Pell-Grant eligible. The University has created educational pathways for all students to be successful and achieve their educational goals.

Washburn is dedicated to recruiting and retaining a dynamic faculty, staff, and student body and cultivating a robust learning and working environment and curriculum. We employ more than one thousand faculty and staff on our campuses throughout Topeka and strive to offer competitive wages, an excellent benefits program, and a supportive culture and a healthy work/life balance. Washburn seeks to create an environment that reflects our core values for creating positive IMPACT: inclusion, modernization, partnership, achievement, community and transformation. In 2024, Washburn was recognized as one of the best colleges in the nation to work for, according to Great Colleges to Work For® program.

The Application Analyst is responsible for providing operational support for University business applications and to the users of those applications. This includes development, testing, troubleshooting, and ongoing support of the chosen software system (currently Ellucian Banner) and related/partner applications as well as the creation and support of various business process solutions, operational reports, and system integrations. This position works closely with both ITS and functional areas to identify, analyze, and meet the business needs of the University using available technologies.

The Application Analyst is responsible for and assigned to primarily support one of the following areas:
• Vice President of Administration and Treasurer (shared responsibility for Human Resources, Payroll, Purchasing, Budget, and Finance) functions in the appropriate software
• Admissions Office in its use of Admissions and Enrollment Management software modules
• Financial Aid Office in its use of Financial Aid software modules
• Registrar Office and the Student software module and the areas of campus that use it

Essential Functions:
• Interact with functional users via telephone, email, and meetings to provide end-user support for the administrative information systems software.
• Examine job functions and analyze the security needs of individuals authorized by area heads to access the administrative information software. Recommend the appropriate security classes to the appropriate staff.
• Communicating with other Application Analysts, and analyzing the impact of assigned modules on other areas of the administrative information system software to make configuration decisions providing for non-problematic integration of modules.
• Monitor patches and upgrades of the administrative information systems software and other integrated software, informing areas of needed patches/upgrades to keep the modules current and reliable.
• Analyze data integrity issues and determine appropriate steps to clean up data to maintain the integrity of the system.
• Develop scenarios in test mode to replicate problems/errors and design possible solutions through the testing of alternatives.
• Test/troubleshoot software integrated with the administrative information systems software.
• Collaborate with Systems Administrator staff, the Database Administrator and/or vendors to install, update and configure partner applications and integrations to ensure software meets the needs of the functional areas.
• Collaborate with appropriate staff to make necessary changes to the production database after appropriate testing and sign-off from the appropriate area head.
• Document application services processes to establish and modify backup procedures for use by other Application Analysts.
• Consult listservs, release guides and vendor online support, and communicate with other educational institutions to identify and research solutions to problems in administrative information systems software.
• Research features of future versions of administrative information systems software to assess their impact on functionality, including self-service, to plan for future implementation. Provide high-level summaries of new features to the supervisor for making decisions about future projects.
• Develop specifications for queries/reports and write corresponding SQL scripts to generate queries/reports/extracts. Check the output for reasonableness.
• Document query/report criteria and reflect report criteria with the report through meaningful titles and column headings or other annotations where necessary.
• Collaborate with other Application Analysts and Strategic Analysis, Research and Reporting (SARR) to standardize data definitions and minimize duplication of code.
• Analyze the needs of functional users, and develop and document applications/solutions to meet these needs.
• Together with ITS staff, create testing scenarios for the applications being implemented.
• Test to see if applications/solutions meet the required specifications.
• Collaborate with other Application Analysts to develop reference materials for the application services software.
• Inform staff on the technical usage of modules in the administrative information systems software.
• Provide backup training for other Application Analysts on the general navigation of administrative information systems software.
• Provide backup for other Application Analysts and the department’s supervisor tasks.
• Serve as an Information Technology Services representative on project teams as assigned.
• Document issues and known solutions using ticket-tracking software.
• In addition, the application analyst may be assigned the responsibility to support one or more of the following tools, dependent on the specific area of focus or required tool:
Dynamic Forms, Imaging, Argos reporting, FormFusion, IntelleCheck, Experience, and other systems yet to be adopted for Travel and Budget management.
• Performs additional job-related duties as assigned or as appropriate.

Required Qualifications:
• A post-secondary degree in Computer Information Systems or Computer Science OR two years of experience based on a combination of relevant post-secondary education and closely related information technology work experience.
• One year of experience creating SQL database queries using TOAD, Access, SQL Developer, Brio/Hyperion or any similar query tool.
• Demonstrated effective interpersonal and communication skills.
• Prove effective problem-solving and analytical skills.

Preferred Qualifications:
Experience with any of the following:
• Accounting/Payroll
• Travel and expense management systems
• PL/SQL coding
• Integrated database information systems
• Student Information Systems (SIS) and/or financial aid systems
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems
• Finance, Budgeting, and/or Human Resource systems
• Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems
• Institutional research and/or operational reporting
• Operational data store and/or data warehouses
• Workflow, automation, electronic forms, scanning/imaging
• Ellucian Higher Education (Banner) software
• Ellucian CRM Recruit
• Ellucian Degree Works
• Ellucian Experience
• Ellucian Ethos
• Automic
• Evisions MAPS (Argos, FormFusion, IntelleCheck) software
• Dynamic Forms
• OpenText ApplicationXtender
• ScholarshipUniverse

Exempt, Full-time    
Background Check Required