Smart Plan Business Analyst (Must have experience with Colleague) - United States Remote

About Ellucian Ellucian powers innovation for higher education, partnering with approximately 3,000 customers across 50 countries, serving more than 21 million students. Ellucian's AI-powered platform, trained on the richest dataset available in higher education, drives efficiency, personalized experiences, and strengthened engagement for all students, faculty and staff. Fueled by decades of experience with a singular focus on the unique needs of learning institutions, the Ellucian platform features best-in-class SaaS capabilities and delivers insights needed now and into the future. These solutions and services span the entire student lifecycle, including data-rich tools for student recruitment, enrollment, and retention to workforce analytics, fundraising, and alumni engagement. Ellucian's innovative solutions, vast ecosystem of partners and user community of more than 45,000 provides best practices leading to greater institutional success and achieving better student outcomes. About the Opportunity Join our team as a Smart Plan Business Analyst, where you will play a key role in helping higher education institutions optimize their academic advising, degree planning, and student success processes. In this role, you will collaborate with institutional stakeholders, functional consultants, and technical teams to understand business needs, translate requirements into actionable solutions, and support the successful implementation and enhancement of Ellucian Smart Plan, Credential Discovery, and Transfer solutions. Your analytical mindset, understanding of higher education business processes, and knowledge of Ellucian Colleague will be essential in identifying opportunities for process improvement, ensuring data accuracy, and aligning technology solutions with institutional objectives. You will serve as a bridge between business stakeholders and technical teams, helping institutions improve operational efficiency and deliver better student experiences. Where you will make an impact Business Requirements Gathering and Analysis: Partner with higher education clients and internal stakeholders to gather, analyze, document, and validate business and functional requirements related to academic advising, degree planning, credential discovery, and transfer processes. Translate business needs into clear functional specifications and actionable requirements for implementation teams. Business Process Analysis and Improvement: Analyze existing institutional workflows, identify process gaps and opportunities for optimization, and recommend improvements that align with business objectives and Ellucian Smart Plan capabilities. Support institutions in adopting effective processes and improving operational efficiency. Functional Solution Design and Configuration: Collaborate with functional consultants and technical teams to translate business requirements into solution configurations, advising rules, and functional workflows. Support the implementation and enhancement of Ellucian Smart Plan, Credential Discovery, and Transfer solutions while ensuring alignment with institutional needs. Data Analysis and Validation: Analyze student academic data from Ellucian Colleague to support business requirements, data mapping, migration, and validation activities. Use SQL or other data analysis tools to investigate data discrepancies, validate business rules, and ensure data integrity across integrated solutions. Stakeholder Engagement and Communication: Facilitate discovery sessions, requirements workshops, and client meetings to understand institutional challenges, clarify business expectations, and communicate functional solutions. Act as a liaison between clients, developers, QA teams, and implementation stakeholders to ensure shared understanding and alignment. Functional Testing and Issue Resolution: Define functional test scenarios, document expected outcomes, and support system integration testing and user acceptance testing (UAT). Collaborate