Position Purpose
The Business Application Specialist is responsible for providing assistance and supporting the Business Application Senior with their portfolio of applications, software and databases in order to ensure they perform optimally, and provides troubleshooting, configuration, installation, tuning, and package administration support.
Key Accountabilities
Technical/Operational Accountabilities:
A. General Accountabilities:
1. Manage Applications Lifecycle
a. Supports the Business Application Senior in managing the transition and deployment of newly developed applications into the DAL production environment
b. Supports the Business Application Senior in monitoring end user computing activities such as when new computers are set up, so that they can install the relevant software and applications
c. Supports the Business Application Senior in performing any data migration exercise between applications as required
d. Maintains inventory, asset and configuration information for DAL applications and interfaces
e. Supports the Business Application Senior in the decommissioning of any redundant applications
2. Manage Applications SLAs
a. Ensures that the applications and interfaces landscape is up and running and meeting the business-as-usual requirements as per the agreed SLAs
b. Monitors the applications and interfaces to assess their performance and availability as per the agreed SLAs, and resolve any issues
3. Enhance Applications
a. Supports the Business Application Senior in implementing application and interface enhancements that have been requested by the DAL business, as per the formal change control process
4. Resolve Applications Issues
a. Supports the Business Application Senior in receiving and resolving applications and interfaces related issues that have been raised through the service desk (tickets)
b. Works collaboratively with the relevant outsourcing vendors to resolve application issues
5. Administer Applications
a. Supports the Business Application Senior in managing all required ‘application and interface’ related housekeeping and administrative activities, such as backups, archiving and upgrades
B. BI Accountabilities:
6. Business Requirements Analysis
Analyze and document business reporting requirements to ensure common understanding of the business needs
7. Systems & Data Sources Analysis
Examine business systems, processes and data sources to assess the availability and quality of needed information and to map requirements to data sources
8. Data Modeling and Data Warehouses/OLAP Design
Develop and build logical/physical data models, staging tables, data marts, and OLAP cubes to satisfy business information needs
9. Extract, Transformation and Load (ETL) Scripts/Jobs Development
Develop and schedule ETL scripts to integrate business data from different data sources and refresh data marts and OLAP cubes with up-to-date data on regular basis
10. Business Reports & Dashboard Development
Develop business reports, dashboards, portals from the data warehouse and source systems to facilitate business users optimum access to information
11. Business Intelligence Production Support & Administration
Maintain, support, and administer business intelligence solutions, servers, tools, and users to ensure availability of reports service for business users
12. Business Intelligence Servers Backups & Recovery
Create and maintain backups of business intelligence development solutions and servers’ relational and OLAP databases to ensure full or partial recovery of business intelligence systems when needed
Knowledge Accountabilities:
13. Understands the business trends, drivers, and requirements for DAL
14. Keeps current with latest market trends and developments, and stays abreast with current trends and leading practices in ICT
15. Shares technical knowledge collaboratively with other ICT team members
16. Maintains documentation of applications landscape
Corporate Accountabilities:
17. Delivers exceptional service to business and ICT stakeholders
18. Acts as a visible role model for colleagues and team members
19. Completes activities and produce outputs (e.g. documents and reports) to a high standard of quality
20. Identifies opportunities for continuous improvements when undertaking the day-to-day activities
21. Identifies opportunities for innovation when undertaking the day-to-day activities
22. Complies with all DAL Group and ICT values, policies, procedures and standards
Operating Environment
Communication &Working Relationships
Internal:
• Business applications lead/ Business Application Senior
• Infrastructure Specialists
• Other Business Application team members
External:
• ICT Vendors / Contractors Focus
Skills & Knowledge
Skills and Knowledge from the DAL ICT Competency Model
- Solution Deployment (B4)
- Systems Engineering (B6)
- Change Support (C2)
- Service Delivery (C3)
- Problem Management (C4)
- Information and Knowledge Management (D10)
- Information Security Management (E8)
Additional Skills and Knowledge
- New emerging technologies
- Understanding of Service Catalogue, service delivery, ICT policies & procedures, including industry standards like ITIL and ISO 20000
- Skill in programming and debugging
- Knowledge of the ERP systems
- Knowledge on ICT security risks, controls and audit approaches
- Knowledge of database design and administration
