Teammates,
As we hit the 5-month mark post Go-Live, I can sense that units are beginning to settle into some routines using IPPS-A. While there is still more work to do, the focused efforts on completing the separations backlogs, resolving the frustrated assignments, and working through CRM tickets are all helping to stabilize the system from a functional standpoint.
IPPS-A integrates many of our business processes, and connects the three components in a way that makes us dependent on each other to understand the implications of our actions. Please use care when working through actions that have direct ties to pay and benefits — notably temporary assignments coming from the various orders writing systems. As we continue to adopt IPPS-A as the system of record, we need to continue to move forward. We need to move away from comparing what we could do in our legacy systems to how we must do them in IPPS-A. Our legacy systems were not integrated. An action on a Soldier often had little to no impact on any other Soldier or any other action for that Soldier. This is simply not the case with IPPS-A. Actions have pay and benefits impacts and even the act of simply changing an arrival or departure date has impacts on those Soldiers filling that same position before or after. As you become more familiar with simply completing actions within the system, I challenge you to then understand how the pieces all fit together. Until we work through all the remaining assignments and get to the point where we aren’t working actions that previously happened, we will not truly reap the benefits of what IPPS-A has to offer. We will get there together. I appreciate all you are doing to learn, support our Soldiers and provide feedback to make the system even better.
System Latency
The latency seen over the past weeks has largely been resolved. Oracle and the IPPS-A infrastructure team continue to make refinements to the system. If you are still seeing latency, please ensure that you have cleared your cache or we suggest trying a different browser. Please pass on specific pages/tiles that you may still be seeing latency or bad gateway errors so that we can provide that information on to our infrastructure team.
Canceled Absences
The attached job aid assists in updating a canceled absence request for resubmission. In IPPS-A, Members cannot cancel an absence request and submit a new request for the same or overlapping ‘To’ and ‘From’ dates. IPPS-A includes the functionality to view, create, update, and cancel absences. Keep in mind that if users have several absence requests and the new absence request overlaps with multiple requests, users should change the dates of the canceled requests to eliminate the overlaps. Canceling an absence is a Self-Service activity. Please follow the steps in the job aid and share it across your organization.
MILPER 23-164: Soldier Actions Initiated Outside of IPPS-A
HRC recently published MILPER 23-164 https://www.hrc.army.mil/Milper/23-164. This MILPER provides a list of Soldier actions initiated outside of IPPS-A and their submission procedures, as well as a list of actions to submit via Personnel Action Request (PAR) in IPPS-A and their corresponding Unit Distribution List.
Assignment History and Base Name Changes
The new base names are populating the location tables in IPPS-A. Forts Barfoot, Novosel, Liberty and Gregg-Adams have all been added as locations and Soldiers’ current assignments are populating with the new names. Future base name changes are prepped for completion once the effective dates arrive. Historical assignment history currently remains unchanged. Although HR Professionals can update historical assignment history to reflect the new names, this is not a requirement at this time. If historical assignment history requires a future update, this can be done as a data fix at the IPPS-A program level after all base name changes are complete.
Email Addresses
IPPS-A receives email addresses from DMDC. Users also have the option to add personal email addresses to IPPS-A. IPPS-A requires a business email. If you are a user that uses something other than your army.mil email address, you must ensure that you have set that email to your business email. If you delete the army.mil email and it is set as your business email, your army.mil email will repopulate as the preferred email. Additionally, workflow currently exposes the contact information for users in the routing chain. If your personal email is set as your preferred notification method, your personal email will be exposed as part of the routing chain.
Duty Status Updates
We are aware of an issue where Soldiers’ duty statuses do not revert to PDY after events such as absence, TDY, hospitalization, etc. On 11 May, we did a fix to resolve some of the duty status issues, some issues were not resolved. The IPPS-A team is doing further analysis to resolve the issue completely. In the meantime, if you have Soldiers whose duty statuses have not reverted, please submit a CRM case and provide the case number to the IPPS-A team. In most cases, these actions take a data fix to resolve. In some cases the action, TDY or hospitalization specifically, can be refreshed, or removed and replaced to trigger the change.
Access De-Provisioning Linked to Job Data Updates
Last week, we enabled functionality to remove elevated access if a member executed a PCS or PCA. When users make changes to a Soldier’s job data in “correct history” mode, PeopleSoft adjusts all history after the correction is made. This can trigger the system to record the change as a PCS/PCA which terminates the user’s elevated access. A change request is currently working to adjust this logic to keep elevated users from reverting to self-service when job data is changed. The current release date is 25 May 23.
Auto De-Provisioning of POIs
As a reminder, elevated users must access IPPS-A at least every 60 days or their access will be reverted to self-service. We have recently seen an increasing number of posts regarding POIs losing their elevated access. In nearly every case, the POI had not accessed IPPS-A in the past 60 days. When an HR Pro submits a new access request on behalf of the POI, if the user does not access IPPS-A, their new access request will be reverted to self-service the next day since they have not accessed the system. Please ensure that your elevated users are logging in at least every 60 days. Additionally, even if their elevated access has been removed, they can still log in as a self-service user and their 60-day clock will restart. We suggest POIs do this before a new access is submitted on their behalf. As a separate note, please also ensure that your senior leaders, as appropriate, are also logging in at least every 60 days.
Known Issues & Release Updates
For updates on IPPS-A issues pertaining to promotions, benefits, assignments, onboarding, and more, please reference https://ipps-a.army.mil/ipps-a-known-issues. This resource includes updates on items we know matter to you, and offers answers to common questions we get from the field. Important release updates in May included the incorporation of the new DD Form 93 into IPPS-A and improved usability of the slotting tool. Remember that pending or in-process DD93s have been removed from the system and will need to be re-submitted in the new format. Signing DD93s requires users to CAC login into EAMS.
Military Personnel Division SmartBook
The attached is a starter template for an MPD SmartBook covering six main topics, including:
- casualty assistance
- personnel actions
- reassignments and permanent change of station
- records processing and member readiness
- mobilization/deployment
- transitions
We encourage MPDs to utilize the Word document version to continue to add to the SmartBook as they see opportunities to do so and share with their teammates. Please feel free to share this resource with the broader HR community.
Resources
We have a lot of great IPPS-A products created by units located on S1Net. On the left-hand side of the IPPS-A landing page, find the SUB-TOPICS column, and click “IPPS-A SOPs/Tools” underneath that. Please feel free to “donate” any IPPS-A SOPs and products that have worked for you team!
For additional information and resources, be sure to follow us on social media. You may also visit our website at https://ipps-a.army.mil/.
Thank you.
VR,
COL Eggers
Rebecca L. Eggers
COL, AG
IPPS-A FMD
To download PDF, https://ipps-a.army.mil/wp-content/uploads/IPPSA-Update_20230522.pdf