Platform Support Analyst - 6 Month Fixed Term Contract

At 1st Central, everything starts with our people.

As one of the UK’s leading motor and home insurers, we use smart technology, data and great service to make insurance fast, fair and simple for over 1.4 million customers. We’re proud to create an environment where people feel supported, trusted and able to grow - whether that’s developing new skills, taking on fresh challenges or making a real impact every day. If you’re looking for a role where you can make a difference, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re looking for a Platform Support Analyst to join us on a 6-month fixed-term contract to play an important role in keeping our core systems running smoothly. You’ll provide 1st and 2nd line support for IT problems, incidents and service requests, with a particular focus on 1st Central’s core platform, Focus, and its integrated third-party services.

You'll ensure high SLA results, ensuring timely and high-quality service delivery to our business end users within expected time frames to guarantee data quality is at is maximum allowing accuracy within core business reporting. Operating and owning core processes and procedures that sustain maximum platform uptime, you’ll lead on all Problems and Major Incidents with the need to engage with various Technology teams to aid investigation, communications, mitigation and root cause solutions.

We’re big on flexible hybrid working. This role is based in Salford Quays (Manchester), and while we primarily work from home, we really value opportunities to collaborate in person. We typically come together in the office once a quarter to connect, share ideas and work together. Prefer being in the office more often? That works for us too.

Core skills we’re looking for to succeed in the role: 

• Enterprise Application Support: Good experience of enterprise software, application support and delivery.
• Focus Platform Knowledge: Good understanding of the Focus Platform.
• Professional Qualification: SDI Service Desk Analyst qualification desirable.
• Service Management Tools: Good understanding of Cherwell Service Management or a similar ITSM tool.
• SQL Knowledge: Some experience of MS SQL would be beneficial.
• Technical Skills:  You’ll have strong technical capabilities across various IT domains. Will be experienced in managing user accounts, permissions, and access controls with knowledge of MS Office applications and MS Windows services.

What’s involved: 

• You’ll pro-actively maintain the Focus application and estate so that it is supported, and failures minimised
• You’ll log, analyse, triage and prioritise all IT Incidents, Problems and Changes received via all communication channels into the team
• You’ll ensure that systems/ applications / services in own area run and meet business Service Level Agreement (SLA) targets
• As part of the team’s support operating hours to carry out without failure daily morning health checks on the estate as well as end of day and ensuring core processes and tasks have successfully run that day
• You’ll analyse Incident, Problem and Change data to identify the underlying causes and propose resolutions via Service Improvement Plans
• You’ll ensure that the team processes and procedures are kept up to date, amending and creating documentation for storage and access within our Knowledge Base systems
• You’ll display leadership in area of specialisation, e.g. championing new features and best practice
• You’ll partner with the IT leadership team to define project technology scope, budget, schedule and deliverables
• You’ll work closely with internal and external development teams to ensure new systems and changes to existing systems are implemented efficiently and on-schedule and all post deployment issues are logged and resolved appropriately
• You’ll provide extended support during delivery of Change, identifying any potential impact on infrastructure, the core platform; Focus or within any 3rd party services used across the platform
• You’ll assist with covering the supported hours of the team across weekdays and to have a flexible approach for evenings and weekends to provide extended support where needed
• You’ll troubleshoot and manage the configuration of the existing technical capabilities to ensure that business requirements are met
• You’ll work with the team lead to identify any weaknesses in existing tooling, dashboards and reports that are used to help maintain production uptime. Suggestions on improvements both short and long term
• You’ll manage, support and co-ordinate on post release critical issues through to successful resolution, working with all parties concerned, including communication to key stakeholders
• You’ll recognise the importance and severity of incidents and problems ensuring direct management is advised where necessary to help manage escalations and business stakeholder expectations
• You’ll provide software support by resolving business users queries in their daily use of any supported software
• You’ll ensure compliance with company and other relevant standards/ regulations at all times
• You’ll be the technical role model within the Platform Support team, e.g. this will involve technical development through the facilitation of workshops, production of standards, procedures and documentation and running or attending training sessions
• You’ll work with Business Change department to assist in the delivery of Projects/Change, ensuring suitable postproduction support procedures are accounted for prior to any release or deployment of new functions, platforms or tooling with a clear Level 1-3 support process is in place as well as paths for escalation
• You’ll support out of hours software upgrades/implementations and testing in conjunction with Business Change, development, and other stakeholders
• You’ll support and co-ordinate on post release critical issues through to successful resolution, working with all parties concerned, including communication to key stakeholders and Technology Management
• You’ll proactively identify and track risk and issues using the documented processes
• In addition to working shifts to cover 08:00 – 20:00 Monday-Friday staff performing this role are expected to occasionally work anti-social hours for specific project tasks and deliveries
• You’ll record and classify received incidents and undertake an immediate effort in order to restore a failed IT service as quickly as possible
• You’ll support first-line investigation and diagnosis of incidents and service requests
• You’ll verify resolution with users and resolve incidents in Atlas
• You’ll escalate incidents at risk of breaching SLA to team. Recording reasons for SLA breach against any Incident and Service Request for review in improvement as well as providing context for end user or stakeholders
• You’ll own all incidents and service requests throughout the lifecycle
• You’ll keep users informed about their incident’s status at agreed intervals
• You’ll perform daybook processes to ensure renewal invites, extracts and pre-accepts are processed
• You’ll own on all daily and weekly processes within the platform ensuring delivery of Renewal functions including batches, reporting and help maintain expected retention levels of business
• You’ll ensure that the daily BACS processing is run in accordance with the scheduled jobs
• You’ll monitor the Focus platform using tools provided, and ensure alerts are acted on and resolved
• You’ll pro-active mindset to help identify potential incidents before production and end users are impacted
• You’ll have a comprehensive understanding of core platform and services to understand response levels and downstream impact of any degraded service.

Experience & Knowledge

• Good experience of enterprise software and application support and delivery
• Good understanding of the Focus Platform        
• Over 5 years IT operations and service delivery management
• SDI Service Desk Analyst – Desired      
• Good understanding of Cherwell Service Management Tool or similar
• Some experience in MS SQL will be beneficial
  

Skills & Qualifications

• ITIL Foundation V3.
• Good communication skills, both verbal and written.
• Good technical skills
• People management skills
• Good time management and organisation skills. Implement and use time tracking methods within daily workloads.
• Problem solving skills with the ability to adopt a logical approach to solving problems.
• Good technical skills
• User administration
• Good knowledge of Microsoft operating systems
• Good understanding of IT infrastructure and networking
• Ability to understand data and its value. To be able to create reports and dashboards from within the SMT and/or Power BI
• Good understanding of First Central’s applications in one or all the following:
  o FOCUS (Insurance Policy System)
  o Microsoft Dynamics / Siskin (CRM System)
  o AIA (Document generation)
  o SharePoint (Collaboration Toolkit)
  o Opsview Monitoring Tool
  o Atlas (CSM) Tool
  o Atlassian Confluence
• Good understanding of the business data and daily reporting and significance in maintaining uptime of reports.
• Knowledge of service desk / issue logging tools
• Good knowledge within MS Office applications
• Knowledge of MS Windows servers
• Knowledge of Service Management Techniques (ITIL Foundation >)
• Knowledge of FCA requirements (including TCF)
• Knowledge of web platforms / web application

Behaviours

•  Self-motivated and enthusiastic
• An organised and pro-active approach
• Ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team.
• A flexible approach and positive attitude
• Emphasis on attention to detail and accuracy
• Takes initiative to make decisions.
• Takes ownership & responsibility of issues
• Understands the importance of owning incidents and problems that need extended effort and time to resolve that day.
• Strives to drive business improvements to contribute to the success of the business.
• Recognition of team values and culture and can operate successfully within the core team.
• Embrace, embed and incorporate the company values.
• Understands the value in training and upskilling, gaining additional qualifications to be able to support future Technology and Business needs.
• Understands the significance of escalation and subsequent processes. 

Ready to join us?

We’re looking for talented people who want to make a real impact for our customers, colleagues and business. Apply today and discover where a career at 1st Central could take you.

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