Applications Manager

Founded in 1912 as an adoption agency, Canopy Children's Solutions is Mississippi’s most comprehensive nonprofit provider of children’s behavioral health, educational, and family support solutions. Canopy employs a diverse group of mission-driven individuals committed to honoring the voice of Mississippi children and families. Being an integral part of the Canopy team involves committing to the Core Values that drive our organization forward:

• The voice of our children and families always comes first
• Relationships matter and our differences make us stronger
• We take great joy in service to others
• Our families and our communities deserve our very best

Canopy has been recognized as a Great Place to Work® for the fifth consecutive year and is one of only nine companies in Mississippi to earn this certification for 2025–2026. At Canopy, employees are committed to fostering a healthy workplace culture built on trust and driven by a shared mission: helping children thrive and empowering families to overcome extraordinary challenges.

We offer a comprehensive benefits package for all eligible full-time employees. Benefits include, but are not limited to:

• Competitive Compensation
• 403b Retirement Plan with Match
• Medical, Dental, Vision Insurance
• PTO/Vacation
• Employee Wellness Program and Counseling Services

Applications Manager - Position Overview:

• The Applications Manager leads the team responsible for the organization’s assigned portfolio of software applications and application platforms.
• The role translates organizational priorities into application roadmaps, lifecycle plans, support priorities, and improvement initiatives while managing vendor relationships and coordinating integrations and application changes.
• Working with clinical, operational, administrative, and technology stakeholders, the manager supports reliable, usable, secure, and compliant applications that meet organizational needs.

Job Responsibilities:

• Lead the assigned application portfolio, including electronic health record (EHR) systems and other clinical, operational, and administrative platforms.
• Develop and maintain application roadmaps, lifecycle plans, enhancement strategies, and support priorities for assigned platforms.
• Provide direct supervision, establish individual goals and expectations, deliver regular coaching and feedback, address performance concerns, and support staff development, cross-training, mentoring, and continuity of team coverage.
• Conduct IT department interviews and make recommendations for new hires, consultants and/or replacement personnel.
• Plan and allocate team workload across application support, maintenance, enhancements, and projects; balance operational coverage with capacity for approved strategic improvements, establish ownership and delivery expectations, monitor dependencies, and escalate competing priorities or resource constraints.
• Provide technical guidance and support to team members in the administration, configuration, troubleshooting, documentation, and improvement of assigned applications.
• Partner with organizational leaders and end users to identify opportunities for process improvement, system optimization, automation, and improved user experience.
• Document, review, and communicate functional and technical requirements, business rules, workflow impacts, and application dependencies; clarify solution scope, configuration needs, and ongoing support requirements with stakeholders and technical partners.
• Provide input to project plans and timelines in order to meet established delivery dates and organizational priorities.
• Plan, organize and deliver IT projects aimed at sustaining the company’s business activity.
• Establish and maintain standards for application administration, documentation, change control, testing, support processes, data integrity, access/security, and operational reliability.
• Coordinate application upgrades, configuration changes, system enhancements, user acceptance testing, release planning, and change management activities.
• Adhere to standard compliance procedure for code testing and migration.
• Coordinate application integrations, data exchanges, reporting dependencies, and interoperability needs in partnership with technical, data, and vendor resources.
• Partner with reporting and analytics resources to define and validate application data requirements, resolve source-system data issues, and support reporting outputs that meet agreed business requirements.
• Coordinate user guidance, training resources, and knowledge transfer with business owners, vendors, and support teams to support application adoption and ongoing use.
• Manage application vendor and technology partner relationships, deliverables, and support commitments; participate in contract reviews, price negotiations, budgeting, renewals, service evaluations, and support escalations.
• Maintain current application inventory and licensing information; review vendor licensing models, license utilization, version currency, and support status to inform budgeting, renewals, and lifecycle decisions.
• Ensure assigned applications have documented intake, triage, and prioritization processes; clear support ownership and escalation paths; and administration procedures and monitoring requirements to sustain reliable day-to-day operations.
• Ensure monitoring and response coverage for critical application alerts, scheduled processes, and exceptions; coordinate escalation and resolution with appropriate resources.
• Coordinate issue resolution and ensure application issues, root causes, resolutions, and follow-up actions are documented through the Help Desk solution.
• Be available 24/7 for any critical application system related problems that may arise.
• Partner with Infrastructure, Security, vendors, and business owners to document application recovery requirements, dependencies, and procedures and participate in continuity planning and recovery exercises.
• Review operational KPIs, support trends, user feedback, and application risks; partner with business owners to evaluate whether application improvements achieve agreed outcomes, including adoption, workflow efficiency, and reduced administrative effort, and drive appropriate follow-up.
• Demonstrate effective time management through prioritization, follow-through, and adherence to project, release, and support timelines.
• Must be able to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical co-workers.
• Perform other essential functions as assigned.

Skills Preferred:

• Experience leading application-enabled process improvements and evaluating results through measures such as reduced manual effort, duplicate entry, turnaround time, error rates, and improved user adoption.
• Experience evaluating application portfolios and developing modernization recommendations that address platform reuse, application consolidation, technical debt, scalability, and retirement of redundant or unsupported solutions.
• Experience leading AI enablement and adoption, including prioritizing practical application and workflow use cases, evaluating AI-enabled solutions, coaching teams, assessing pilot outcomes, and transitioning successful solutions into supported use within organizational privacy, security, and governance requirements.
• Experience designing and implementing workflow automation and self-service capabilities using application configuration, integrations, and low-code/no-code platforms, with attention to access controls, maintainability, and ongoing support.
• Experience evaluating application and integration designs across SaaS, cloud, and on-premises environments, including APIs, authentication, data flows, scalability, maintainability, and support requirements.
• Experience delivering application improvements incrementally through prioritized backlogs, phased implementation, and user feedback, balancing early business value with security, quality, and supportability.
• Working knowledge of application monitoring and production automation support, including logs, operational metrics, actionable alerts, scheduled jobs, automated data exchanges, and exception handling and recovery.
• Experience supporting application resilience and recovery planning, including critical dependencies, recovery priorities, vendor recovery capabilities, documented recovery procedures, and participation in recovery exercises.
• Preferred experience with enterprise applications, EHR administration and optimization, including clinical documentation, service workflows, and billing interfaces, SaaS systems, SQL/reporting tools, integration concepts, APIs, workflow automation tools, application security/access management, and Microsoft 365/Power Platform or comparable technologies.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Information Systems, Computer Science, Healthcare Administration, or related field; equivalent combinations of education and relevant experience may be considered.
• Three (3) years of experience leading application teams or cross-functional technology initiatives preferred, including responsibility for work coordination, delivery commitments, and stakeholder management; direct supervisory experience preferred.
• Minimum of five (5) years of experience within the past ten (10) years, supporting, implementing, administering, or managing enterprise applications, software platforms, technology-enabled business processes, or related systems in a complex organizational environment.
• Experience with application lifecycle management, vendor relationship management, system implementation, business process analysis, change management, application support, documentation, testing coordination, and stakeholder engagement preferred.
• Working knowledge of reporting concepts, SQL/database concepts, system integrations, data quality, application security, role-based access, and healthcare or human-services technology environments preferred.