Business Analyst

Position: Business Analyst (7640)
Background
The State of Florida Accounting Information Resource (FLAIR) system is based on software developed in the 1970s and was implemented as the core of the state's financial system in 1981. Recognizing the risks and shortcomings of FLAIR, the Legislature authorized and appropriated funds to the Department of Financial Services in Fiscal Year  to conduct a study of replacement options. The ultimate result of this study was a recommendation to replace the core functionality of FLAIR and the Treasury cash management system (CMS).

The replacement of FLAIR and CMS has been recognized as the Florida Planning Accounting and Ledger Management (PALM) Project. As the Florida PALM Project proceeds in the replacement of CMS and components of FLAIR, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will need to prepare for and execute specific transition activities that will require additional resources. The Florida PALM transition approach is to replace the CMS components first, followed by the Central FLAIR functions, then the FLAIR Payroll functions, and finally, the Departmental FLAIR functions.

With the replacement of CMS components and the eventual replacement of all FLAIR functions, agency business systems will need to be assessed and analyzed to determine if they will require modifications, if they are to be retired, or if they will be unimpacted. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has numerous business systems that exchange data with FLAIR. Many of these systems will be required to interact with Florida PALM and continue to provide data files and images on a daily, weekly, and/or monthly basis.

Some of these systems, such as Revenue Account Management System (RAMS), are sizeable and will require considerable effort to prepare each of them to accurately communicate with the new Florida PALM system.

Description of Major Duties & Deliverables
FDLE requires the services of two Business Analysts to work under the direction of FDLE's assigned Business Support Program Manager to document and test the changes of FDLE's internal accounting systems to achieve the goals and objectives of the PALM Project. The Business Analysts are expected to use their skills to facilitate, document, and coordinate with the business Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to ensure the changes made to replace FLAIR are documented, tested, and ready for production implementation for FDLE's financial unit to continue to work properly with the new system.

The Business Analysts will be responsible for writing test plans and also conducting quality assurance testing.

The persons in this position:
" Has the ability to read existing documentation to quickly learn business concepts in a financial accounting area
" Is skilled in business analysis to prepare accurate documentation and diagrams of the new processes in FDLE financial systems for the PALM project
" Is responsible for clear communication between stakeholders and the SME's to document detailed test plans for FDLE financial systems impacted by PALM
" Is responsible for following the test plans to test the FDLE financial systems impacted by PALM as well as perform ad hoc testing to find defects

Business Analyst responsibilities include, but not limited to the following:
" Facilitating work sessions with the SME's to learn how the PALM changes impact the FDLE accounting systems and current processes to determine, with the project team, the best method(s) to achieve those processes with the PALM changes
" Documenting business processes and business requirements
" Analyzing business requirements to help define and design solutions to meet the requirements
" Creating the requirements traceability matrix to map requirements to test cases
" Documenting the use cases and test cases
" Performing various methods of testing to ensure minimal defects will be encountered by the business customers
" Documenting project deliverables
" Providing status reports to the Business Support Program Manager
" Assisting in SME training for a train-the-trainer approach
" Ensuring customer expectations are met with the project
" Collaborating with stakeholders and other cross-functional team members (Developers,…