CRM Analyst

Department: Advancement and External Relations 

Job Type: Continuing

Full-time/Part-time: Full Time (>=1249 hrs/year) 

Campus: Waterloo 

Reports to: Manager, Advancement Systems & Data Analytics

Employee Group: WLUSA 

Application Deadline: December 7th 2025

Requisition ID: 10309 

Wilfrid Laurier University is a leading multi-campus university that excels at educating with purpose. Through its exceptional employees, students, researchers, leaders, and educators, Laurier has built a reputation as a world-class institution known for its rich student experience, academic excellence, and global impact. With a commitment to Indigenization and commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, Laurier’s thriving community has a place for everyone.

Laurier has more than 21,000 students and 2,100 faculty and staff across campuses in Waterloo and Brantford, as well locations in Kitchener and Milton. The university is committed to providing an inclusive workplace, a flexible work policy and employing a workforce that is reflective of local and national demographics. Laurier's Waterloo, Kitchener, and Brantford campuses are located on the shared traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishnaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples. This land is part of the Dish with One Spoon Treaty between the Haudenosaunee and Anishnaabe peoples and symbolizes the agreement to share, protect our resources, and not to engage in conflict. Laurier's Milton campus is located on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, and part of the Nanfan Treaty of 1701 between the British Crown and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

This job posting is for a current vacancy.

Position Summary

Reporting to the Manager, Advancement Systems and Data Analytics, the CRM Analyst is responsible for the transition, implementation, maintenance and continuous improvement of the CRM. This CRM deployment marks a transformational shift in operations for Advancement as the incumbent will support this transformation from the current Banner into the new CRM. AER is a Department of over 85 staff and is responsible for all major gift fundraising, annual giving fundraising, external relations, alumni relations – including all events, solicitations and communications with our Laurier Alumni and donors. The incumbent supports the day-to-day operations of the CRM including planning the implementation and future growth of the CRM, expectation management, coordination of resources for maximum results, strong communications among stakeholders within the project and across campus.

Primary responsibilities of the CRM Analyst will include acting as a ‘super-user’ of the CRM application that is responsible for data, configuration, security and system administration activities. The incumbent administers and monitors the CRM and performs activities required to configure, maintain, and troubleshoot the CRM solution.

Working with other members of the CRM Project Team, the CRM Analyst plays a key role in planning and advancing the solution through conducting business process analysis. This includes analyzing current state business processes used by AER operations and determining changes to existing procedures and policies to maximize the efficiency of the CRM.  

The CRM Analyst will be responsible for developing, enhancing, implementing, and maintaining information assets supporting the broader functions of the Advancement and External Relations (AER) teams. This position that combines business, statistical, and information analytics with project management and technical support. This position requires a high degree of flexibility with projects including the transition, implementation and maintenance of the CRM. Also including systems support – including iModules, statistical analysis of alumni data (data mining for insights into characteristics of alumni giving), and information and data management.

The position will also work closely with all AER teams and the wider university departments to analyze and develop flexible and consistently executable department wide training, onboarding and file management strategies and special projects/business improvement processes to facilitate, diagnose, and formulate solutions to the business process/data needs and being able to clearly articulate solutions essential to finding effective and efficient solutions to business/workflows. This role will support the department in any/all activities including gifts, events, data management, data analytics, records management, and engagement opportunities.

Accountabilities

Project Management

• Responsible for the transition, implementation, maintenance and continuous improvement of the CRM.
• Regularly communicate with ICT on current state and future direction of the CRM project in weekly team meetings with PM, Vendor and Project Sponsors
• Research and analyze effectiveness of CRM functions and features and prepare plans and recommendations to leadership.
• Develop strategic plans for the implementation and adoption of CRM to deliver maximum value to AER
• Liaise and work collaboratively with all stakeholders to ensure a smooth transition to the CRM
• Plan and manage CRM support and system enhancement tasks that span across AER
• Lead business users in the management of completing CRM system change priorities, enabling prioritization and implementation of users’ needs.
• Develop recommendations to improve the user experience, ensuring a common view of system use and increases user acceptance (e.g. business process improvements, system configuration modifications, data metrics).
• Provide expertise and practical assistance in delivering services.
• Ensure appropriate business participation in information technology projects.
• Follows requirements gathering, project management and change management best practices.
• Balance business users' requests and requirements with technical constraints.
• Report progress, milestones and problems to ICT and advise of solutions

Additional projects

• Maintain and develop improvements for the Alumni Engagement Index (AEI) – including benchmarking against and researching what other Canadian universities are doing
• Improve departmental use of SharePoint including power automate/apps tools to enhance existing business processes or to build new ones as needed.
• System administrator of the eMarketing platform, iModules. This includes the maintenance of its data, user access management, payment gateway and gift processing forms, email exclusions and list management, liaison with vendor application support to diagnose and resolve system errors.
• Responsible for maintaining the Banner/CRM and iModules Connector and develop other data integration and data quality systems. This includes managing corresponding support tickets between ICT, iModules, and Ellucian/CRM.
• Become familiar with the structure and working of the Banner Advancement module and other new software as needed
• Work with business users to elicit and capture information and data requirements

Administration

• Create policies, guidelines and procedures for CRM-related functions and develop and author systems documentation for CRM.
• Provides support for advanced, complex CRM platform issues for users seeking assistance.
• Maintain knowledge base of common issue resolutions.
• Build and configure CRM dashboards, reports and workflows
• Ensure proper recording, documentation and closure of user cases.
• Provide operational supervision to others in how to carry out work tasks.
• Perform advanced levels of business analysis, problem solving and research to work with the vendor and formulate solutions to complex business needs.
• Ensure the CRM system and data are responsive to the reporting needs of AER.
• Direct business user testing teams to provide technical and process input, support and analysis for software, hardware and operational specifications.
• Follow change control procedures and manage the deployment from test to production.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the Manager, Advancement Systems and Data Analytics.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree with a minimum of five years related experience in the post-secondary, and/or business management sectors
• Demonstrated project management skills
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills are required; must be able to build strong relationships and communicate in highly stressful situations with a broad range of users within the university and with software vendors including instruction to non-technical users on technical applications and with technical users on business processes
• Excellent problem solving and decision making skills
• Proven ability to handle multiple critical demands in order to ensure this multi-faceted project is delivered and implemented successfully with a clear plan for future development. This may include resolving issues between conflicting priorities both inside and outside the university. Using skills of persuasion and applied reasoning to reach a consensus.
• A proven ability to design and implement new processes and facilitate user adoption
• The ability to influence stakeholders and work closely with them to develop solutions to highly complex and inter dependent problems with impacts on multiple facets of the operation.
• Proven knowledge of business analysis, quality assurance, and workflow tools and/or practices
• Experience with information development/management tools and systems, as well as the accessing, analyzing, organizing, evaluating and presenting complex technical information.
• Experience with frequent uncontrollable interruptions to work flows, which create changes in priorities and result in changes in the pace/flow of work. Schedules and deadlines are well articulated but are subject to change based on unforeseen events and may result in conflicting priorities. Resolution will require high volumes of consultation and service.
• An understanding of CRM platforms, with the ability to create and update formula fields, workflows, custom views, and other content of intermediate complexity
• Demonstrated aptitude in working with computing technology; desire to learn, participate and keep current with technologies
• Proficiency with Microsoft products including Excel, Word, Visio
• SharePoint, and iModules experience strongly preferred
• SQL experience required, VBA an asset – a strong programming background is necessary
• Demonstrated experience with ETL data integration solutions like IBM InfoSphere DataStage, Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services, or Oracle Data Integrator

This position is eligible for Educational Equivalencies.

Hours of Work

This is a Full-time, Continuing opportunity. The normal hours of work are 8:30am to 4:30pm, Monday to Friday. Flexibility in hours may be required, including evening and/or weekend work due to periods of high volume. When possible, the manager will adjust hours to ensure no more than 35 hours are worked in a week.

This position is eligible for a flexible work arrangement, as per Policy 8.14 (Flexible Work Policy). All arrangement must be approved by the direct manager. In-person attendance for events, as required to meet operational needs, is expected. On occasion, this schedule may need to be adjusted to meet operational requirements

Compensation

• Level: E
• Rate of Pay: $42.32 - $44.74 per hour with an annual step progression on anniversary date up to $48.37 per hour. Considerations for new hire step placements include, qualifications and length/depth of required experience, relevant market rates for similar jobs, internal equity, and estimated learning curve in starting the job

Wilfrid Laurier University endeavors to fill positions with qualified candidates who have a combination of education, experience, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position while demonstrating Laurier's Employee Success Factors.

Equity, diversity and creating a culture of inclusion are part of Laurier’s core values and central to the Laurier Strategy. Laurier is committed to increasing the diversity of faculty and staff and welcomes applications from candidates who identify as Indigenous, racialized, having disabilities, and from persons of any minority sexual and gender identities. Indigenous candidates who would like to learn more about equity and inclusive programing at Laurier are welcomed to contact the Office of Indigenous Initiatives. Candidates from other equity deserving groups who would like to learn more about equity and inclusive programing at Laurier are welcomed to contact Equity & Accessibility. We have strived to make our application process accessible, however if you require any assistance applying for a position or would like this job posting in an alternative format, please contact Human Resources. Contact information can be found at careers.wlu.ca/content/How-to-apply/

Should you be interested in learning more about this opportunity, please visit www.wlu.ca/careers for additional information and the online application system. All applications must be submitted online. Please note, a resume and cover letter will be required in electronic form.