What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Business Applications Specialist position at Novara?
At Novara, we help organizations in high-risk industries resolve issues before they become incidents through safety and operational risk management software and training content.
The Sr. Business Applications Administrator is a hands-on owner of the day-to-day administration and continuous improvement of Novara’s go-to-market systems—Salesforce at the center, plus its connected ecosystem. Reporting to the Business Applications Manager, you will keep our revenue and customer operations running smoothly by maintaining clean data, scalable automation, reliable integrations, and an excellent user experience for Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Support, and Finance stakeholders.
This role blends classic Salesforce administration with modern SaaS systems operations. You will take ambiguous requests, turn them into clear requirements, build declarative solutions (and occasional light-code enhancements where appropriate), and drive adoption through documentation, training, and thoughtful change management.
Novara is also investing in AI-forward workflows, including an AI prospecting motion and an account copilot agent. You will help operationalize these capabilities inside our CRM and broader tech stack with the right guardrails, monitoring, and human-in-the-loop review so AI is useful, safe, and measurable.
Salesforce Administration & User Support
Serve as a primary Salesforce administrator (with the Business Applications Manager), supporting Sales Cloud and related GTM workflows.
Manage user setup, profiles, permission sets, role hierarchy, and access requests; maintain security controls aligned to least-privilege principles.
Troubleshoot and resolve Salesforce issues and integration-related sync errors; act as an escalation point for complex user and data problems.
Build and maintain Salesforce configuration: custom objects/fields, page layouts, record types, validation rules, and Lightning record pages.
Design, build, and iterate on declarative automation (Flows, approvals, assignment rules, notifications) to remove manual work and reduce cycle time.
Create and maintain task/case templates, email templates, guided processes, activity plans, and in-app guidance that improve user consistency and adoption.
Own sandbox hygiene, release coordination, testing/UAT support, and deployment processes (change sets/devops tooling as applicable).
Revenue Systems & Integrations
Monitor and support integrations between Salesforce and adjacent systems (e.g., sales engagement, lead enrichment, routing, marketing automation, support, finance/billing).
Partner with internal teams and vendors to troubleshoot failures, improve data mappings, and keep end-to-end data flows reliable.
Maintain a consistent data model and system architecture in partnership with the Business Applications Manager; document key objects, fields, and integration touchpoints.
Data Integrity, Governance & Reporting
Own operational data quality: deduping, normalization, enrichment workflows, picklist rationalization, required fields, and validation patterns.
Establish and maintain lightweight governance (field definitions, process standards, release notes, and change control) to keep the CRM trustworthy as Novara scales.
Build and maintain reports and dashboards that improve pipeline visibility, operational throughput, and customer lifecycle insights for leaders and front-line teams.
Partner with RevOps analytics on metric definitions and dataset hygiene (ARR/MRR, pipeline stages, conversion rates, activity, renewal/expansion tracking).
Process Optimization & Enablement
Translate stakeholder needs into clear requirements, solution options, and effort/impact tradeoffs; contribute to system roadmap prioritization.
Map workflows across Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Support, and Finance; identify bottlenecks and implement scalable improvements.
Create and maintain SOPs, playbooks, and process diagrams in the internal knowledge base; partner with Enablement on training and adoption plans.
Support user communications for new features and process changes (release notes, office hours, enablement sessions, and in-app announcements).
AI-Enabled Workflows & Agent Operations
Partner with the Business Applications Manager and RevOps to implement and scale AI-assisted workflows within Salesforce and adjacent tools (e.g., guided support, intelligent routing, knowledge surfacing).
Help operationalize an AI SDR/BDR capability by ensuring AI-driven outreach, qualification, and activity logging integrate cleanly with CRM data and routing rules.
Support an account copilot agent for customer-facing teams by enabling secure access to account context (with permissions), curated knowledge, and measurable next-best-action recommendations.
Define and maintain AI guardrails: sensitive-data handling, role-based access controls, auditability, and clear human-in-the-loop escalation paths.
Create repeatable AI patterns (prompt libraries, reusable templates, evaluation checklists) and monitor performance for drift, quality issues, and adoption gaps.
Track success metrics for AI initiatives (cycle time, throughput, conversion, quality, CSAT/user satisfaction) and iterate based on evidence.
5 years of experience administering Salesforce in a SaaS environment (Sales Cloud required; Service Cloud a plus).
Salesforce Administrator Certification required; Advanced Admin, Platform App Builder, Sales Cloud Consultant, or CPQ/Revenue Cloud certifications strongly preferred.
Strong hands-on experience building declarative solutions (Flows, approvals, validation rules, automation patterns) and supporting complex business processes.
Proven ability to support a connected revenue stack (e.g., sales engagement, enrichment, lead routing, marketing automation, support/CS tooling, finance systems) and troubleshoot integration issues.
Working knowledge of SaaS go-to-market and customer lifecycle concepts: lead-to-cash, opportunity management, forecasting, renewals/expansions, subscription/ARR mechanics, and basic quote-to-cash stages.
Comfort working with data at scale (Excel/Google Sheets); experience with data loads, deduping strategies, and data quality monitoring.
Strong stakeholder management skills: can gather requirements, communicate tradeoffs, and drive adoption without formal authority.
Clear written communication and strong documentation habits; able to turn tribal knowledge into usable SOPs.
Interest and practical exposure to AI-enabled business workflows (even if early): prompt design basics, evaluation, failure modes, and the need for human review and governance.
Nice-to-Have:
Experience with Salesforce CPQ / Revenue Cloud, CLM, subscription management, or billing integrations.
Familiarity with common RevTech tools (e.g., Outreach/Salesloft, ZoomInfo, LeanData, Marketo/HubSpot, Gong, Chili Piper) and iPaaS automation (Workato, Zapier, MuleSoft).
Basic SQL and/or BI experience (Power BI, Looker, Tableau) and comfort partnering on data models and definitions.
Experience implementing AI features in Salesforce or revenue tooling (e.g., Einstein/Agentforce or other LLM-powered assistants), including governance and monitoring approaches.
Exposure to regulated SaaS verticals and data/privacy constraints.
Salesforce is reliable, well-governed, and easy to use: users trust the system and adoption improves over time.
Support requests are resolved quickly with strong root-cause fixes, not repeated workarounds.
Data quality measurably improves (fewer duplicates, higher completeness/accuracy) and reporting is consistently “exec-ready.”
Key integrations remain healthy and issues are detected and addressed before they impact the business.
Automation reduces manual steps across lead-to-cash and post-sale workflows, improving cycle time and throughput.
AI initiatives launch with appropriate controls and deliver measurable improvements in efficiency and customer/rep experience.