Application Support Officer in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire

Application Support Officer
Duration of assignment: 3 months with possible 3 month extension
Location Flexible Hybrid Working - Northampton office/WFH
£19.37 PAYE OR £25.18 Umbrella per hour Inside IR35

My client, a local authority are looking for an Application Support Officer to join their fast paced team on an initial 3 month contract, likely extending to 6 months.

Job description:
Provide day to day support for the Capita one revs and bens system.
Database management including rollbacks

To support the ICT Projects Manager by:
* Playing a senior role in a customer focused application support team, providing expertise on a wide range of applications, including 3rd line support for complex enquiries / service desk calls
* Undertaking proactive research, to develop, maintain and administer specific application systems, to identify business benefits and ensure the maximum value is achieved
* Overseeing the monitoring of ICT applications, maintaining service levels where this is not undertaken elsewhere, liaising with the Applications Support Officers and other ICT colleagues, suppliers and business users where appropriate.
* Managing or playing a senior role on ICT Projects relating to improving or reviewing ICT applications.
* Acting as an escalation point for all Application Support Officers.
* Provide training for all Application Support Officers.

Main outcomes to be achieved
* Proactively manage and maintain application systems in line with the needs of the customer and senior stakeholders.
* Provide staff with the right skills and knowledge to be able to utilise the systems needed for their role. Actively promote the applications supported and how they can be used to maximise benefits and value.
* Produce, maintain and share documentation for all supported systems.
* Proactively manage the knowledge base and other key items, used by Service Desk Analysts e.g. Service Desk scripts are audited for accuracy and relevancy and kept up to date. This is to allow all 1st and 2nd line calls to be handled at 1st point of contact.

Main responsibilities
Identify opportunities for using ICT applications to deliver outcomes such as reducing duplication, improving the customer experience and performance / service levels.
To be responsible for the research, implementation, development and ongoing support of critical business applications.
Provide specialist technical expertise, knowledge and skills for the support and development of large critical corporate business systems (Windows and Linux), in line with business requirements and legislative changes, working out of hours when required, including: -
* Database administration - backups and copies, restoration, data extraction, and queries.
* Planning and implementing upgrades and patches, assessing the business impact and arranging change management processes when required.
* Develop, create and maintain bespoke programs for reporting, file transfers and data manipulation and presentation.
* Support interfaces between business critical systems including BACS transfers.
Responsible for conducting all types of audits on ICT applications, including user audits.
Proactively discuss and negotiate changes with users and suppliers to ensure that applications are fully used by the council and potential areas of improvement / enhancement are identified and highlighted to the Project Manager.
Liaise regularly with the users of ICT Applications and their managers to promote best practice and development of systems. Identify issues to the Project Manager.
Liaise and work with other key officers within the council when required.
Proactive engagement with suppliers of ICT Applications to ensure that applications work as expected, met or exceed the standards set out in service level agreements and all contract information is up to date.
To provide 3rd line support via the ICT Service Desk for ICT Applications and tools, including escalation from Application Support Officer.
Liaise with the relevant support teams to ensure that training and training materials are provided and kept up to date.
Promote the importance of industry standards relating to ICT applications.
If required, represent the council with external organisations regarding designated systems.
Assist the Project Manager with managing relevant projects and work on projects as and when requested.
To ensure adherence to the ICT strategies and policies and to help maintain the strategy. Assist with the promotion of other key areas such as compliance with data standards and security.
Provide support to the ICT Service Desk as and when required, e.g. Provision of 1st and 2nd line support when the ICT Service Desk is unable to do so.
Any other reasonable tasks commensurate with the grading, abilities and skills of the post holder.

Knowledge
IT related degree or equivalent, or significant experience of IT.
Detailed knowledge of the major computer components, computer operating system functionality and concepts.
Knowledge of Capita's One Revenues and Benefits System (previously Academy)
Experience of Income Management systems such as Pay 360, Heycentric
Understanding of Payment Channels e.g. Pay point, All Pay
Proficient knowledge of the full suites of MS Office products including Word, Excel, Access, Visio and Project.
Experience of supporting business application systems used in local government.
Technical knowledge of Microsoft SQL scripting and reporting.
Knowledge of relational database structures.
Knowledge of managing Ingres databases and database administration within a Red Hat Linux environment.
An understanding of FTP and SFTP protocols.
Knowledge of Linux operating systems and Linux scripting.
Knowledge and experience of IDOX Uniform, Document Management System, GIS, and financial management systems

Desirable experience-
Experience of working within a Citrix environment.
Experience of working within Hyper V environment.
An understanding of computer programming language e.g. Java, Python,
Windows batch language
Shell scripting languages (Unix shell, Windows powershell)
Unix interactive command language, SQL.
Understanding of web technologies e.g. HTML, CSS
A working knowledge of project management concepts and ITIL.

Disclaimer:

This vacancy is being advertised by either Advanced Resource Managers Limited, Advanced Resource Managers IT Limited or Advanced Resource Managers Engineering Limited ("ARM"). ARM is a specialist talent acquisition and management consultancy. We provide technical contingency recruitment and a portfolio of more complex resource solutions. Our specialist recruitment divisions cover the entire technical arena, including some of the most economically and strategically important industries in the UK and the world today. We will never send your CV without your permission. Where the role is marked as Outside IR35 in the advertisement this is subject to receipt of a final Status Determination Statement from the end Client and may be subject to change.