Applications Support Analyst at Save the Children

Role Purpose:

To lead and provide high quality operational and technical application and systems support to Save the Children International’s customers and internal business functions. Minimizing the adverse impact of incidents and Problems on the business and preventing reoccurrence of Incidents and ensuring release management is followed to allow the safe deployment of changes to production systems. Owner of the Problem Management process, ensuring reduction in recurring issue goals are achieved.

In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder will be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.

Scope of role:

• The Application Services Analyst will work closely with country, regional and centre based teams to provide resolution to support tickets raised through the service desk system.
• The Application Services Analyst will work closely with country, regional and centre based teams to provide reporting and analytical information on the organisations Enterprise applications to assist in the running of an efficient and effective global function.
• The Application Services Analyst will work with the Technical Architect, Suppliers and other System Administrators in other locations to provide a reliable, scalable and performant systems to all SCI countries and those members that participate in the shared service.

Reports to: Global Applications Team leader

Description:

• This is a global role working on delivering and supporting Global Applications in over 60 countries, potentially expanding in future to include SCA members. Provide application implementation and support services to ensure the stable operation of Save the Children’s Applications. This includes providing Expert Consultancy capability, Continuous Service Improvements, optimizing key functional areas, application support, accepting new releases of software and transitioning them to Service to ensure maximum availability of systems as well as the interfaces which deliver the end-to-end business process. Scheduling and directing activities to resolve software and integration problems in a timely and accurate fashion.
• The challenge: As Save the Children moves more systems from data centres to the cloud and more into Shared Services the successful applicant in this role will be faced with supporting Global Application Services in a fast paced 24/7 organisation. The challenge is to work with the business, external suppliers, consultants and internal Subject Matter Experts to initiate fast paced resolutions to Service Incidents. This person must be able to conduct root cause analysis and utilise problem management processes to ensure incidents are resolved to meet defined IT Services Levels. They will also need to ensure software releases and major product enhancements to applications and their integrations are managed via Change Management process to ensure the production environment is always protected.

The challenge will include being able to:

•  Demonstrate experience of proactive service management of Global Systems
•  Deliver Continuous Service Improvements.
•  Provide expert consultancy capability for Global Systems & services
•  Demonstrate Innovative thinking and learning whilst adapting to continually evolving services.
•  Work in a team within the ITIL framework
•  Demonstrate good technical troubleshooting / problem solving skills in a high-pressure environment
•  Have a good understanding of System Environments & Configuration management.

Key areas of accountability

• Responsible for acting as the public face of IT to global application users, business partnering with staff globally, assisting them to use core applications to achieve key SCA aims of efficiency and effectiveness in operations
•  Responsible for providing reports and data extracts using browser and other appropriate tools, through BAU development processes in accordance with business requirements
•  Responsible for enhancing and optimising key developed reports
•  Responsible for system administration
•  Act as an advisor to user teams globally on how to use Applications in a best practice fashion, as defined by SCI global standard
•  Create documentation in line with any approved system changes
•  Assist with on-boarding new country offices, which will share Save the Children platforms
•  Business partnering with key stakeholders to capture new business requirements and prioritise for future development

Shared responsibility for support for global users at centre, Regional, Country and Sub-Office levels, which includes logging and management of 3rd/4th level support calls with SCA

•  Responsible for taking ownership of and resolving all Application related support tickets within the appropriate SLA
•  Responsible for escalating unresolved support tickets to L2, L3 or vendor support mechanisms and tracking such issues through to conclusion

Occasional requirement to carry out regression testing to ensure that live Operations are safeguarded at all times.

•  Working with the Software Quality Assurance Analyst Responsibility for participating in user regression testing where required
•  Ensure that all test feedback to documented in the bug tracking system

Behaviors' (Values in Practice)
Accountability:

•  holds self accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
•  holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.

Ambition:

•  sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same
•  widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
•  future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.

Collaboration:

•  builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters
•  values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
•  approachable, good listener, easy to talk to

Creativity:

•  develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
•  willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

•  honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity

Qualifications
Experience and skills

•  Bachelor's degree in computer science, Information Technology or related field
•  Minimum 4+ years of experience, with at least 2 years proven experience as a Level 2 application support analyst or in a similar technical support role.
•  Knowledge of ITL and incident management processes
•  Strong web/collaborative development and support experience required
•  Excellent knowledge of Active Directory and DNS
•  Good experience with collaborative/training applications such as MS Teams
•  Knowledge of relational databases (eg. MS SQL server)
•  Cultural awareness and experience of delivering global web solutions that cater for local needs (eg. area with poor bandwidth, multiple character sets, etc.)
•  Good communication skills (written & oral English), including the ability to communicate and present both at a technical and non-technical level
•  Ability to demonstrate instances of initiative that have delivered organisational benefits
•  Outstanding customer service orientation and follow-up skills
•  Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
•  Ability to work independently without direct supervision
•  Ability to learn new web/collaborative systems and applications quickly
•  Ability to work well under pressure
•  Understanding of basic networking / infrastructure knowledge
•  Experience with Microsoft IIS and/or Apache

Desirable

•  Experience / have knowledge in Project Management
•  Experience of working in organisations with international activities non-profit sector knowledge/experience
•  Experience with administration of Office365
•  Experience with DATIX
•  Experience with Azure Administration and support skills
•  Experience with ERP / Financial management system.
•  Proficiency in programming languages, database management systems, and system integrations is a plus
•  Auditing skills/experience
•  Administrator level knowledge of SharePoint 2010/2013/Online
•  Administrator level knowledge of Jira
•  Experience in working with offshore project team members