Teammates,
Greetings from Team IPPS-A! We can’t thank you enough for continuing to navigate the system and quickly bring issues to our attention for resolution. We could not do this without the help of HR Professionals and Soldiers in the field.
Engagement from the field has been monumental, and I appreciate those of you who joined us for the IPPS-A virtual Soldier town hall event 23 February 2023. This was a great opportunity for Team IPPS-A to provide updates and answer your questions in real time. Slides and shared job aids are available on S1Net at https://www.milsuite.mil/book/docs/DOC-1231734.
I’d like to provide you with some updates and guidance on items we are seeing as we continue to focus on system stability and accountability:
DEERS Dependent Data Re-Seeding Complete
We completed re-seeding of DEERS dependent data over this past weekend. Soldiers who had outdated dependent data should re-check their dependent data for accuracy. We are in the process of verifying Married Army Couples Program auto-enrollment with the re-seed of the data. Keep in mind that DEERS is the authoritative source for dependent data and any updates must be made in DEERS. Please submit a CRM ticket if your data is incorrect in IPPS-A, but correct in DEERS. The DEERS inbound interface runs on a production schedule. To assist in real-time data necessary for DD93 updates, we have a final enhancement scheduled that will allow the data to refresh for a Soldier upon update on the DEERS website. We will provide the date on our Known Issues slide once we have a solid delivery date.
Monitor Approvals Update
We heard your comments regarding Monitor Approvals and appreciate you bringing the issues to our attention quickly. First, it is always our intent to let you know when changes are made that drastically change functionality. In this case, since the changes were made to enhance performance, the functional team was not consulted regarding impacts to end users. We have addressed this with the team. The developers are always looking for options to help improve performance and we thank them for that. However, in this case, there was a clear communication gap.
We expect to restore Monitor Approvals functionality with our release on Thursday. As a note, the developers are currently testing performance tied to limited row results. The goal is to limit the results to 5K. However, based on what performance issues we see, it could be less. This is an interim solution as we work towards a more permanent solution to allow the field to monitor/track all actions pending approval/approved.
DNS Error When Loading Website
We have gotten several concerns that when users are attempting to access the IPPS-A website or attempting to log in, they are experiencing an error message indicating “This site can’t be reached.” This is a Domain Name System (DNS) issue and not necessarily an issue with the website itself. Please see the DNS notes for resolution of the issue.
Date of Estimated Return from Overseas (DEROS) Design and Implementation
We are bringing DEROS back! In legacy systems, DEROS was manually-updated with limited automation. The IPPS-A design set the DEROS as the end date of a member’s OCONUS assignment to pull this data automatically and minimize manual updates. However, prior to Go-Live, we noted that since Positions and Departments (UICs) have end dates based on Force Management Identification (FMID) changes and unit reorganization, using an end date from the FMID conflicted with HRC sending members overseas to positions and departments that were inactivating, even if the position/department had a year or more left and we had no viable workaround. As a result, IPPS-A made several changes immediately and we have a path to move forward. Please reference the IPPS-A DEROS Design and Implementation information paper for additional details and the way forward.
Member Elections
Some Soldiers have not completed their Member Elections because they cannot see the corresponding tab in the system. S1s who have Soldiers experiencing this issue must log in to HR Pro (https://hr.ippsa.army.mil) and reset the Member Elections.
Please see Member Elections job aid to assist S1s in re-initiating a Member’s Assignment Elections. This function is necessary to correct or simply change a Member’s Entitlements.
USAR Non-Participation Letters
It was identified that erroneous non-participation letters were generated by IPPS-A and automatically sent to the Interactive Personnel Records Management System (iPERMS) and Soldiers. This occurred due to inconsistencies in Soldier records that caused the automated process to incorrectly identify some Soldiers as a non-participant. The automated process is being disabled and these erroneous letters will be removed from the Soldiers’ iPERMS.
Moving forward, HRC will manually produce these letters based on a report from IPPS-A on who appears to be in a non-participant status. Expected resolution is 16 March 2023.
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) Improvement
We request your assistance in validating OBIEE data! It’s important that we all work to ensure accuracy and quality of data within IPPS-A. Every day, Soldiers and HR Professionals in the field currently focused on R3 transactional capabilities can help accelerate data improvement in adhoc OBIEE reporting. Please refer to the OBIEE information paper which outlines suggested actions across all levels that can help the Army gain ground in this effort. Also review the OBIEE job aid to help with navigating the AdHoc Reporting – OBIEE tile. This provides an alternate path in replacing legacy reports from legacy systems (reports similar to: AWOLs – AAA-160, Unit Personnel Accountability – AAA-165, Unit Soldier Readiness Report – AAA-167, Unit Soldier Medical Report – AAA-168, and Alert Roster).
Cross-Compo Transfer Reminder
I want to remind users to be deliberate about handling transfers across components. We have seen instances already where ARNG members were erroneously separated from Active Duty rather than transferred back to their State and members transferred into the IRR when they should have gone to the ARNG or AC. What/How we processed transfers between the components with our legacy systems was a stove-piped process. That is not the case with IPPS-A. As we continue to process the separations/transfers in order to gain accountability across the force, I just want to emphasize that we must also be cautious as there are pay and benefit impacts.
ACFT Data
ACFT data is not currently populated in IPPS-A. Scores are scheduled to begin populating 16 March 2023 in order to support the date the ACFT begins being used to award promotion points.
Known Issues
For the latest 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. The entire team is on hand to work through these issues with you, so please continue to pass the issues you are finding to us.
Thank you.
VR,
COL Eggers
Rebecca L. Eggers
COL, AG
IPPS-A FMD