Workday Functional Lead: Student Financial Aid

at  University of Maryland

BENEFITS SUMMARY

Top Benefits and Perks:
Exempt Benefits Summary

EDUCATION:

Bachelor’s degree required.

EXPERIENCE:

Seven (7) years’ required experience in student financial aid managing federal, state, and institutional aid operations.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Knowledge of federal, state, and institutional aid regulatory and procedural requirements. Ability to work independently and with subject matter experts in OSFA, EM, and other departments to document, configure, test, and deploy financial aid processes.
• Ability to develop highly collaborative working relationships with a broad constituency in a professional and courteous manner.
• Ability to lead groups through a decision-making process to arrive at mutually agreeable conclusions.
• Ability to understand possible impacts of changes to a highly integrated system, determine the depth and breadth of testing necessary to minimize risk of system changes, and execute and record results of testing.
• The possession of analytical abilities, critical thinking, and problem-solving competencies to support issues resolution.
• Demonstrated ability to adapt and evolve in a changing role over time.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATION:

• Master’s Degree. Knowledge of current UMD financial aid business processes, policies, and procedures as it relates to the Student Information System, financial aid programs, and other student service delivery platforms.
• Knowledge of the typical student life cycle is preferred.
• Demonstrated experience leading operational changes, and system or technology implementation initiatives, including project management, team building leadership, and staff supervision.

We are seeking a dynamic, highly skilled, and experienced Student Financial Aid expert and leader to join our team as the Workday Functional Lead. Representing the Office of Student Financial Aid (OSFA), the incumbent will oversee all aspects of the Student Financial Aid workstream. This is an exciting opportunity to be part of the Workday Student implementation, shaping the future of Student Financial Aid delivery at UMD.
The Workday Functional Lead for Student Financial Aid should have a deep understanding of federal aid, state aid, and institutional aid policies and requirements including reporting, disclosure, and cross-functional integration requirements. The incumbent oversees all processes related to the design, configuration, and testing of the student financial aid system, scholarship awarding and processing, federal and state aid program work streams in partnership with the Workday Analysts in the university’s Division of Information Technology (DIT) and with Huron implementation consultants. In particular, the Student Financial Aid Lead must critically analyze and assess proposed future state process designs, and discuss and consult with, and counsel OSFA to enable decision-making. This role bridges functional and technical teams to ensure alignment between business requirements and technology solutions. In addition, the incumbent should have a strong working knowledge of student financial services and student records and registration.

The Workday Functional Lead for Student Financial Aid will have the following main responsibilities:

• Learn Workday processes and functionality to obtain expert-level knowledge of Student Financial Aid.
• Work with campus subject matter experts (SMEs) to identify, include, and represent all areas.
• Partner with analysts to document requirements for student financial aid integration and inbound/outbound data feeds.
• Review Workday design options and provide directions.
• Partner with Change Management (CM) to develop agenda and materials.
• Partner with a communication specialist for all Student Financial Aid presentations.
• Assist CM with communication for the change impact.
• Review and validate change impacts captured by the CM team.
• Partner with the Security Lead to review and confirm that security roles will meet Student Financial Aid and other stakeholders’ needs.
• Be the point of contact for providing functional direction/validation of decisions with various campus stakeholders (schools, offices, programs) and team members (e.g. integration developers, report writers, business analysts, change analysts).
• Document all decisions and prepare detailed decision recommendation documents that will need to be presented to governance.
• Provide guidance on data mapping decisions that support functional/business direction and/or requirements.
• Review testing tracker scenarios and update with institution, school, program, and situation personas, scenarios, security access requirements, and expected outcomes.
• Execute testing scenarios, record results, document defects, and re-test scenarios to resolution.
• Work with training staff to prepare training material for Student Financial Aid
• Conduct training with stakeholders.

This is a full-time, permanent position in OSFA. Following the implementation of Workday Student, the incumbent will serve as a member of the OSFA leadership team and provide support to OSFA staff and other partners, evaluate upgrades, operationalize changes, support configurations, lead continuous process improvements, collaborate with others, and provide guidance as the Student Financial Aid Workday expert.
This position is considered essential and may be required to work at the normal work location or an alternative location during a major catastrophic event, weather emergency, or other operational emergencies to help maintain continuity of University services.