Team,
This will be a lengthy message but is intended to give you as many details and information as possible to help you continue to navigate the system while also answer questions from the field as they arise. First and foremost, I appreciate your patience as we continue to fix the data discrepancies we/you are uncovering. What we have done is no small feat. Transferring the data from multiple legacy systems into a single system most certainly never goes smoothly. With that being said, I want to provide some context and assurances.
We have not lost any data from the legacy systems. If some Soldiers appear to be missing their entire file, it is likely because there was a conflict between two of our legacy systems and the record was converted from the wrong system based on the logic applied. However, when we identify these Soldiers, we can reconvert their record from the right source. We may have some clean up to do, but the record will not be blank. If you notice Soldiers missing or demoted in your units, please put in a CRM case immediately so we can quickly rectify the record.
Where we have known issues tied to the Promotions Point Worksheet (PPW), we are working closely with HRC to ensure that if a Soldier’s points are not reflected correctly based on a discrepancy in IPPS-A, and this results in them not meeting cutoff, there is a process in place to ensure we correct this. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that any impact to pay or promotions is swiftly rectified.
In previous messages, I announced that we planned to bring all users onto IPPS-A R3 on 9 January but we remained conditions-based. Well, the conditions are such that we are delaying all user access until 17 January 2023. We have shifted this date to allow HR Professionals additional time to complete essential tasks, work through access requests, and to resolve some of the pay impacting data discrepancies before bringing all users on the system.
Listed below are known issues that we are addressing:
PPW Issues
Weapons Qualification – The weapons qualification appears in the Soldier’s Person Profile, but no points are awarded on the PPW. For IPPS-A to award points, the qualification must be on the Soldier’s primary weapon. Check the Soldier’s Qualification in Person Profile to ensure it has “Yes” under Primary. If not, Soldiers should verify this information is accurate in the Army Training Management System (ATMS) and update if required.
Correspondence Courses – Course duration information required for calculation of points for correspondence courses was not required in legacy systems. IPPS-A logic would not apply points without the duration. We will employ a data fix this week that should resolve this issue. We acknowledge that these items, if not resolved could affect February and possibly March promotions and have coordinated closely with HRC on the process to ensure Soldiers are promoted accordingly.
APFT – ATMS sends IPPS-A raw APFT scores with no indication that a Soldier is waived for one of the events. We are applying a data fix (likely early next week) to resolve this issue.
Promotion Eligibility – MEL/MES completion information is incorrect. In some cases, Soldiers who graduated from school are reflecting as ENROLLED in that school in IPPS-A. School data is an inbound interface from ATRRS. If IPPS-A is reflecting a Soldier as enrolled, please check ATRRS to ensure the school has been closed out as graduated.
Soldier Talent Profile (STP) missing tour counts
In some cases, the tour counts for Overseas, Short, Long, Contingency, etc. are missing from the STP. We already have a defect logged for this issue. To ensure that the counts appear correctly once the defect is resolved, S1s can check the Soldiers assignments now and make any appropriate corrections. Go to Navigator > Workforce Administration > Assignment Tracking > Manage Converted Assignments to check the Soldiers converted assignments. Temporary assignments have a value over 0. As a note – users cannot view this information on themselves, so an HR Pro must review for them.
Retirement Points/Retirement Eligibility Date
We are tracking an issue with Soldiers seeing erroneous Retirement Eligibility Dates. We are looking into this more closely but believe this is a conversion issue that will require a data fix. To see how the eligibility date is being calculated, go to the View Retirements Points page. Under the “Periods” tab, you’ll see how each period was converted. In some cases, Soldiers who have been Active Duty for their entire career, are seeing these periods as “Delayed Entry” or something other than Active Duty which results in incorrect eligibility dates.
Assignment Amendments
As part of the catch-up of assignments, we must match those Soldiers that are on assignment or have an RFO to a job opening in IPPS-A. In some cases, we have found that the job opening that Soldiers are being placed against is to a different location than their original order. This creates an amendment that is sent to the Soldier’s IPERMS. The hard copy order that the Soldier has in hand, in that the MPD provides for Soldiers that had an RFO but no hard copy orders yet, is the source document. We will attempt to clean this up; however, please understand that changing items will also generate an amendment. Please assure Soldiers that the orders they have in hand are valid orders for PCS. These discrepancies are a direct result of the catch-up in assignments. Once complete, the job opening will generate the assignment and these discrepancies will not exist.
Notifications
IPPS-A has been sending notifications to Soldiers. We have turned off some notifications that have proven alarming to the field. If you have Soldiers that receive notifications that they believe to be erroneous, please contact us immediately. We are doing a full-scale review of all notifications to ensure we do not cause alarm moving forward.
Erroneous Dependent Information
We have taken note of comments and posts noting that their former spouse was showing up in Dependent data as their current spouse and their current spouse as their former spouse. We are researching the issue and our inbound interface from DEERS and will get information back out to the field as soon as we can once this is resolved.
Tips and Hints
Navigation – As you become more familiar with the system, you will quickly find you are navigating to similar places. These are the tiles you should include on your homepage. We do encourage users to take the time to click through the Navigation Bar and all the sections to become familiar with what is included in each section. This will allow you to assist your commanders and leaders who may not have these items saved on their homepages yet.
User Manual – Many of the questions we have seen on social media can easily be answered by referring to the User Manual. We encourage you to refer to this resource first as it provides comprehensive steps on how to complete actions. If you still cannot find the answer you need, please reach out. You can access the User Manual here: https://hr.ippsa.army.mil/upk/onl_help/Publishing%20Content/PlayerPackage/data/tpc/e5b546bc-74bf-446e-85bb-1f7e06bab80f/Parts/IPPS-A%20User%20Manual%20Final_v5.1.pdf or you can also find it on our S1Net page.
Join the IPPS-A Go-Live Cutover Support MS Teams channel to link in with other units and as a method to get quick assistance. These channels are the fastest way to get your questions answered as they are constantly monitored. We do our best to respond quickly to questions on social media; however, this channel is extremely responsive as well. Please let us know if you are having issues with access to the channel.
Our IPPS-A group on Facebook is another a great place to connect with your peers and access real-time updates, dialogue, and answers to your questions. To join, visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/875398305999928.
We are experiencing a high volume of traffic on our webpage. That’s not a bad thing, thanks for visiting!! However, if you are an HR Professional, please use this direct link to access IPPS-A. https://hr.ippsa.army.mil/
We strongly encourage users to begin using terminology associated with IPPS-A. This helps avoid confusion and sets us all on a path to common understanding. For instance, IPPS-A does not have a Soldier Record Brief (SRB) and the Soldier Talent Profile (STP), at this point, is not the replacement for the legacy SRB for boards. The STP is generated from the data in IPPS-A, but there is a lag from the time something is updated in IPPS-A until it reflects on the STP. To validate information in IPPS-A, we encourage Soldiers to review the sections of their profile and not rely on the STP.
While we acknowledge we have work to do, very little of what we are seeing are issues with functionality of the system and are items requiring clean up from conversion. We are committed to working through the issues with you and the entire team is on hand to do that. Please continue to pass the issues you are finding to us. The questions and comments we see posted give us a good indication on how you are adapting to the system. We can see your progression! Please stick with us.
I truly appreciate your patience and diligence.
VR,
COL Eggers
Rebecca L. Eggers
COL, AG
IPPS-A FMD