Research Support Profile
This document details the operational profile, key responsibilities, and compliance criteria for the myDRE Research Support (RS) role. Acting as decentralized tenant administrators, RS personnel fulfill critical frontline data management obligations supporting *SO 27001:2023 (A.06.08 - Information Security Roles and Responsibilities) and NIS 2 (Governance & Human Resources Security).
This framework undergoes mandatory evaluation and optimization annually.
1. Role Overview & Philosophy
The Research Support position serves as the operational bridge between anDREa and the Tenant’s research ecosystem. By managing localized environments within pre-validated tenant boundaries, RS personnel deliver reliable first-line support that satisfies myDRE’s core philosophy: Unburden and Empower.
RS teams enable self-service computing flexibility for scientists while maintaining a rigorous, demonstrably compliant data handling boundary.
2. Key Responsibilities & Capabilities
Operational & Infrastructure Management
- First-Line Triage: Function as the primary point of contact for myDRE end-users registered under your corporate Tenant subscription.
- Workspace Lifecycle Orchestration: Manage, support, and monitor tenant-specific workspace configurations and active Azure cloud subscriptions.
- Identity Management Ingestion: Request new platform user accounts via administrative channels and guide researchers through official onboarding procedures.
- Software Environment Provisioning: Configure, install, and catalog localized software applications. This includes linking VMs to corporate volume license servers, curating specialized VM templates, maintaining central software shares, and authoring end-user installation guides.
SLA Maintenance & Feedback Escalation
- Ticket Governance: Maintain, document, and update support tickets within the Zoho Desk infrastructure, adhering strictly to contractually agreed service level agreement (SLA) windows.
- Root-Cause Monitoring: Analyze recurring technical issues, document platform friction points, and propose structural workflow improvements.
- Structured Escalation: Route complex or out-of-mandate system behavior to anDREa Support. All escalations must include full technical context and triage diagnostic notes.
- Community Advocacy: Gather ongoing end-user feedback to drive myDRE platform optimizations and future feature development.
3. Skills, Collaboration, & Communication Cadence
Technical Competency Matrix
- Strong technical aptitude navigating cloud-native platforms and virtualized infrastructure.
- Proactive commitment to mastering core myDRE functional updates and underlying security features.
- Demonstrated clarity in drafting technical user documentation and clear, concise ticket communication notes.
- Functional familiarity with the Microsoft Azure resource management plane is highly desirable.
Structured Inter-Organizational Alignment
To ensure teamwork and continuous alignment, RS teams participate in three mandatory communication cadences:
- Bi-Weekly Sync Framework: Attendance at the cross-tenant Research Support alignment meeting. This meeting is dedicated to peer learning, feedback collection, feature request logging, and discussing system updates.
- Monthly 1:1 In-Depth Audits: A dedicated monthly session with anDREa Support to analyze tenant-specific compliance trends, infrastructure bottlenecks, and specialized ticket metrics.
- SLA Compliance: Professional operation within the designated ticket routing channels, ensuring complex anomalies are thoroughly investigated and prepared before escalating.
4. Training & Compliance Requirements
Onboarding & Educational Paths
Before administrative privileges are unlocked at admin.mydre.org, RS candidates must be trained by anDREa Support. This includes:
- Comprehensive instruction on core myDRE functionality, architectural principles, and compliance foundations.
- Unrestricted access to the secure administrative sections of the myDRE Knowledge Base.
- Ongoing delta training covering new platform features, patch notes, and security enhancements.
Mandatory Compliance Thresholds
- Research Support Agreement: Fulfilling this role requires executing a formal Research Support Agreement. This contract provides verifiable evidence to auditors that the individual understands and agrees to operate according to anDREa's security policies (including ISO 27001 and GDPR rules).
- Team Redundancy Mandate: Tenants must organize sufficient team coverage to maintain a cumulative capacity equal to 1.0 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) across their support department. This structure ensures continuity during planned absences, sickness, or peak resource deployment periods.
5. Explicit Out-of-Scope Operational Boundaries
To enforce a strict segregation of duties and maintain platform security, the following actions are exclusively handled by anDREa Support and are completely blocked for local RS personnel:
- Platform-level Microsoft Entra ID administration (including direct manual user creation, core structural editing, account removal, and directory group assignments).
- Executive security overrides, platform MFA resets, and detailed Entra ID sign-in log forensic investigations.
- Direct assignment of privileged roles or entitlements on mandate.
- Core codebase bug reporting and translation to the primary anDREa development squad.
- Global system management, automation rules, and layout configurations of the Zoho Desk architecture.