System Administrator, CRM

Job Purpose:

The Salesforce Administrator supports implementation and maintenance of Salesforce solutions across Gonzaga’s diverse schools and business units. This position serves as a change agent and value-creator, aligning Salesforce solutions with business strategies via needs assessment, analysis, documentation, clear communication, and ongoing support. We are looking for someone with a strong understanding of the Salesforce platform and a desire to keep learning.

The Salesforce Administrator should be comfortable with change management, liaising with stakeholders at all levels, and enjoy learning new business processes to translate them into technical solutions. The CRM Administrator shares in the responsibility of supporting the University’s Salesforce CRM ecosystem, both operationally and through new projects. The CRM Administrator works closely with Student Affairs, Academic Success, University Marketing & Communications, and Advancement/Development teams to align technology solutions in a shared CRM environment.

The CRM Administrator role is primarily responsible for the design, maintenance, and implementation of requirements defined by campus stakeholders, IT Business Analysts, and the CRM Product Manager. The Salesforce Administrator ensures the stability and scalability of the Salesforce platform and data objects through regularly applying system updates, enforcing security and governance policies, managing the system backup and refresh cycle, and overseeing the flow of data into and out of the CRM. In addition, the CRM Administrator is responsible for designing scalable best practice solutions while contributing to the product road map.

The CRM Administrator will work with a cross-functional team team to design, implement, and support Gonzaga’s Salesforce Education Cloud environment (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Experience Cloud, CRM Analytics, and Data Cloud). This position is highly analytical by nature and can identify and implement efficiencies within the scope of the CRM system.

General responsibilities and duties include implementation of custom objects and fields, administration of system security and access, support integration developers in the maintenance and build of system and data integrations, management of system upgrades, and administration of Salesforce configuration changes. The CRM Administrator will perform proactive system maintenance including Security Reviews, Release Updates, Health Check, and Optimizer. The CRM Administrator is expected to maintain appropriate and adequate technical documentation to ensure the long-term stability of the CRM platform

Essential Functions:

• 50% - Application Administration
  • Salesforce configuration changes, including (but not limited to): Flow, fields, page layouts, record types, custom settings, dynamic layouts, apps, actions, custom settings, mobile administration, dashboards and reports. 
  • User Support: Serves as primary responder to user support tickets. Assists with data reporting for users of the CRM (Salesforce and Slate) and maintain strong relationships with functional clients.
  • Serves as knowledge source for end users - educate, share industry best practices, and direct others to applicable Salesforce resources as necessary.
  • Partner with other IT CRM resources to manage and maintain all aspects of user access and licenses in an enterprise and shared Salesforce org, including user setup/deactivation, roles, profiles, permissions, public groups, OWD, sharing rules. Ensures protocol and training requirements are followed prior to granting production access. Monitor user licenses for inactivity and revoke as necessary, monitor current license allocation and alert CRM Product Manager if additional licenses are needed.
  • Research and develop alternative solutions; identify and document current operation procedures.
  • Data Management:
    • Ensure compliance with University data security standards, policies, guidelines and procedures.
    • Ensures data integrity through vigilant protection of system data, fields, and processes.
    • Performs data import request from business users, ensuring data conforms to system integrity standards.
    • Conducts and monitors daily deduplication process for production Salesforce org.
  • Environment Management:
    • Validates business purpose and deploy change sets from Test org to Production org.
    • Performs software installations and upgrades to application packages.
    • Schedules installations and upgrades in accordance with established university procedures, and service level agreements (SLAs).
    • Assists with Cloud-based deployments and ensures reliability.
    • Serve as back-up in deployment of enhancements and new features through Salesforce DevOps Center.
    • Supports and participates in governance and overall administration of university Salesforce orgs. 
• 20% - Fosters collaborative support among other application administrators and developers, and coordinates/documents problem resolutions 
  • Collaboration: Build and maintain robust, collaborative relationships with cross-functional teams and university stakeholders to gather requirements and implement solutions to address business needs.
  • Serve as application advisor to academic and administrative users, ensuring IT strategies align with departmental and university-wide objectives.
  • Proactively engages campus community members, in alignment with the Strategy & Engagement team leads in the overall planning and change management for anticipated features/enhancement releases and long-term roadmap for enterprise CRM applications.
  • In collaboration with Business Analysts, Engagement Managers, and Director of Digital Strategy & Solutions, advocate for university departments, clearly defining and communicating their business requirements for IT projects and improvements. 

• Additional Duties as Assigned by the Department

Educational Requirement:

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or technology-related field.

Years of Related Experience Requirement:

1 year

In lieu of the educational qualifications, candidates may qualify with equivalent professional experience at a ratio of one year of experience for each year of required education. 

Certifications and/or Licensures:

Certified Salesforce Administrator

Skills & Abilities:

• Self-motivation and ability to work independently with limited guidance and supervision
• Ability to work collaboratively with Strategy and Solutions team to identify the best solution to meet the needs of the customer
• Excellent customer service and communication skills. Ability to communicate with various levels of users to understand to problem.
• Able to manage time and priorities effectively, including being able to handle heavy workloads with limited supervision
• Willingness to adapt and learn new technologies as determined by Gonzaga University leadership (CRM, ECM, CMS, etc.).
• Ability to prepare written proposals, user manuals, and reports.
• Knowledge of information security and systems administration.
• Ability to support IT Core Values by focusing on continual improvement, believing in our team, learning from mistakes, being honest and accountable for actions.
• Positive attitude, proven ability to work successfully with diverse populations and demonstrated commitment to promote and enhance diversity and inclusion.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Trailhead Ranger Status and completion of Super Badges
• Certifications: Salesforce Advanced Administrator, Salesforce Platform App Builder, ITIL Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management
• Experience with Extract Transform Load (ETL) tools such as Workato, Boomi, Mulesoft, Talend, or Informatica.
• DevOps/release management experience
• Ability to support and troubleshoot applications in a multi-vendor environment with limited supervision.
• Experience working in a university environment
• Knowledge and experience in extracting data from end-user reporting tools (SQL, HTML, Salesforce.com).
• Experience with version control systems such as git.
• Understanding of basic triggers/Apex code knowledge
• Ability to comfortably translate technical information into layman’s terms, clearly explaining design options and their potential impact to varying levels of stakeholders from student to CIO.
• Familiarity with standard IT project management processes (e.g., Proposals, Charters, Workplans, etc.) and ability to contribute to project planning regarding individual project complexity, scope, and level of effort.
• Capable of prioritizing and meeting deadlines for wide-ranging technical projects.
• Experience and sensitivity in working with people of diverse backgrounds and cultures. Ability to engage and integrate culturally responsive practices and knowledge in their work.

Physical & On-Campus Requirements:

In-Office Presence - Ability to work on-site in typical office setting and participate in in-person meetings with colleagues: 3 days/week

Standing/Sitting - Ability to remain in a stationary position for a prolonged period: Daily (>75% of time)

Walking - Ability to move about on foot to accomplish tasks: Rarely (1%-49% of time)

Lifting/Carrying - Ability to move or transport objects up to a specified weight (e.g., 50 pounds): Rarely (1%-49% of time)

Attention to Detail - Ability to focus on detailed tasks for extended periods: Daily (>75% of time)

Problem-Solving - Ability to identify and resolve issues effectively: Daily (>75% of time)