Business Analyst

Business Analyst

Job Description

Job Summary:

The Business Analyst position involves supporting client-facing and department-supported enterprise systems, performing technical and non-technical operational activities; documenting system enhancements and configuration changes; and crafting instructional materials which synthesize system features, functionality, and business processes. The client systems are crucial, integrated tools that enable teachers and administrators to input, access, analyze, and organize essential student data—including attendance, grades, report cards, demographics, and assessment results—as well as instructional resources, all in support of individualized, group, and differentiated instruction. SIS staff also support and manage student, parent/guardian, and multiple system-to-system interfaces, like the Parent Portal and student transportation systems.

The SIS Business Analyst will be held accountable for the following responsibilities:

Requirements & Documentation: Partner with SIS Managers, Platform Leads, Product Owners, Team Coaches, Analysts, Developers, and client stakeholders to elicit and document business requirements. Translate these into thoroughly defined Features and User Stories, ensuring clear Acceptance Criteria that are "Ready" for development.
Agile & SAFe Participation: Actively participate in SAFe working sessions including daily stand-ups, Planning Interval (PI) sessions, Iteration Reviews, and System Demos. Collaborate within the Agile Release Train (ART) Engineer to ensure alignment on priorities, dependencies, and delivery timelines.
Stakeholder Partnership: Act as a liaison between ITS teams and internal/external stakeholders to deliver optimal technological solutions. Communicate impact-analysis regarding changes to business requirements or application configurations that directly affect end users.
Quality Assurance & Testing: Develop and execute comprehensive test scripts and scenarios. Validate that system functionality aligns with documented requirements and confirm that defects are remediated prior to production releases.
Data Analysis & Reporting: Perform deep-dive data analysis to facilitate issue resolution, report testing, and data quality improvements. Document requirements for new enterprise reports or modifications to existing data outputs.
Teacher-Facing Functional Support: Provide specialized functional support for critical teacher-facing modules, including but not limited to: student marks & assignments, attendance, student behavior, and extracurricular programs
Administrator-Facing Functional Support: Provide specialized functional support for administrative modules, including but not limited to: report cards, transcripts, attendance, registration and enrollment, parent portal management, fees, student health, scheduling, student behavior, and extracurricular programs.
Department-Facing Functional Support: Collaborate with departments to understand and implement client policies and practices, and to comply with municipal, state, and federal laws and regulations.
Training & Knowledge Transfer: Develop and maintain high-quality training materials and internal operational reference resources. Deliver end-user training through various channels, including face-to-face sessions, recorded modules, and live webinars.
System Maintenance & Support: Work toward the timely resolution of technical issues resulting from functional defects or hardware failures while maintaining high levels of customer service and satisfaction. Support efficient and well-managed operational timelines and activities.
Operational Availability: Maintain flexibility to be on call outside of the standard eight- hour workday during critical business cycle windows (e.g., grading periods, enrollment peaks, or start-of-year processing) as defined by the SIS Manager.
Status Reporting: Provide regular, transparent status updates regarding project health, risks, and blockers.

Other duties as assigned.
In order to be successful and achieve the above responsibilities, the SIS Business Analyst must possess the following qualifications:

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

SDLC & Agile Methodologies: Practical experience with the Software Development Life Cycle. You must understand how to manage a product backlog, write user stories, and participate in sprint ceremonies (Scrum/Kanban).
System Integration & Data Mapping: A capability to document how data flows between disparate systems (e.g., from an enrollment portal to the central, or out to a State Reporting database) using Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs).
Testing & Quality Assurance: Leading User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and writing detailed test cases to ensure new Java-based features meet the specific needs of school registrars or principals.
SQL Mastery preferred: The ability to write complex queries to validate data integrity across distributed databases, troubleshoot "ghost" records, and pull ad-hoc reports for district leadership.
Student Information Systems (SIS) Knowledge: Deep familiarity with core school functions like Attendance, Grading, Scheduling, and Special Education (IEP) workflows.
Regulatory Compliance: Understanding of FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and state-specific data reporting requirements.
Process Modeling: The ability to map "As-Is" vs. "To-Be" workflows. For example, "How does a teacher currently submit a grade change, and how should the system automate that process?"
Requirements Elicitation: The skill of "interviewing" non-technical stakeholders (who may not know exactly what they need) to extract clear, actionable requirements.
Stakeholder Management: Navigating the needs of diverse groups, from high-level District Superintendents to a single school’s office clerk.
Complexity Decomposition: The ability to take a large problem (e.g., "The state changed the graduation requirement formula") and break it down into small, technical tasks for the development team.
"Translational" Communication - the ability to speak to a teacher in the morning and a Java developer in the afternoon.
Radical Empathy & User Advocacy - understand the high-stress, "boots-on-the-ground" reality of a school day and the roles of the people involved in day-to-day school operations
Diplomatic Negotiation (Conflict Resolution) - In a large district, departments (like Special Education vs. General Academics) often have conflicting data needs.
Curiosity and "Detective" Thinking - in a distributed system of applications, the "why" behind a problem is rarely on the surface.
Active Listening: Ability to conduct interviews with diverse stakeholders to uncover underlying needs beyond the stated requirements.
Adaptability: Comfortable pivoting priorities in response to sudden changes in state mandates or district policy.
Systems Thinking: Capable of understanding how a single change in the enrollment module ripples across transportation, grading, and funding.
Patience: Experience training and supporting users with varying levels of technical proficiency.

Education & Experience
Experience:

5+ years of experience in Business Analysis, preferably within a K-12 education environment or with large-scale SIS platforms (e.g., PowerSchool, Aspen, Infinite Campus)
Minimum of 2 yrs experience with Agile management tools like Jira or Azure DevOps

Education:

Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited college or university in Information Technology, Business Administration, Education Policy, or a related field.
Business Analysis and Scaled Agile certifications (e.g., CBAP, PMI-PBA, SAFe POPM, or SA) are strongly preferred.

Notes:

Remote

VIVA is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants have an equal opportunity for placement, and all employees have an equal opportunity to develop on the job. This means that VIVA will not discriminate against any employee or qualified applicant on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.