Teammates,
We’ve had an incredibly productive month, and I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for your ongoing support in bringing important issues to our attention for resolution. The collaboration between our dedicated HR Professionals and the hardworking Soldiers in the field is truly invaluable to our success.
Your engagement and enthusiasm for IPPS-A has been truly inspiring!
As we continue to make progress, I want to share with you some crucial updates, guidance, and resources:
Assignment Dashboard Improvements
To address the timing out issue with the Assignment Dashboard and delivery of blank results, the team got to work on enhancements.
Improvements to the Assignment Dashboard include:
- Assignment Data search parameters can filter by a minimum of one day to a maximum of 180 days to view assignment details.
- Assignment Summary data can filter by a minimum of one checkbox to a maximum of 10 checkbox selection criteria in order to better track and manage assignments in various statuses.
This enhancement went into production on 25 July, so please send us feedback! We want to know if the improvements are useful.
Supervisor Role/Responsibilities
When it comes to Access Requests, Supervisors should understand what access they are approving, and be familiar with the corresponding roles within each subcategory.
Before approving an Access Request, a Supervisor should know the requestor’s job, their duties and responsibilities, and what level of access that individual may need. If you are an approver but not the Member’s supervisor, obtaining this information may require engaging the Member’s Direct Supervisor; the Supervisor should have a say in what access the Member should have.
It is the responsibility of
everyone in the supervisory chain to understand what we are approving.
Please refer to the
IPPS-A Subcategory InfoGraphic and the Role Matrix, Chapter 3, of the
IPPS-A User Manual for more detailed information.
Personnel Action Request (PAR) Pushback Capability
Currently, the PAR pushback capability is working as intended. “Restart” sends the PAR back to the S1 Pool, and “Pushback” sends the PAR back to any member in an established routing chain.
In a future release, we will add functionality to allow users in the routing chain to Pushback PARs to the originator. In the meantime, PAR changes/updates can be made in the S1 Pool or by cancelling and resubmitting the PAR.
For more info, visit
https://www.milsuite.mil/book/docs/DOC-1329266 (see
here).
New Promotion, Demotion, Lateral Appointment PAR
IPPS-A has updated the promotion, demotion, and lateral appointment PAR types to function and feel like all the others. This update provides flexibility for future customization of the promotion, demotion, and lateral appointment PAR types.
All Promotion PARs currently in the system, and not approved prior to 3 August 2024 at 1600 ET, must be resubmitted.
Human Resources Command (HRC)/United States Army Reserve Command (USARC)/State Joint Force Headquarters (JFHQ) continue to complete all pending Promotion PARs. Any PAR not completed by 3 August at 1600 ET will be cancelled and must be resubmitted by your S1.
This does NOT impact any other types of PARs.
Self Service Member Add Absence Workflow
To give each user more options in routing their absence for approval, IPPS-A has restricted the addition of a Supervisor ID on the
PAID Absences landing page.
As of 26 July 2024, users may enter all absence information in the
PAID Absences landing page, except Supervisor ID. Users will select "
Submit" and a set of options will display:
Approver (Approve/Deny),
User List,
Template. Users may add selected field, using applicable criterion, select "
Insert" and submit the absence for routing.
Permanent Change of Station (PCS) Absence Issue
As some may know, there was an issue in IPPS-A when a Member, HR Pro, or Commander attempts to “Cancel” an 05-PCS EVENTS / 01-PCS Entries Absence Type/Reason when the related Assignment is blank. The Cancel action did not only cancel the 05-PCS EVENTS Absences, but also canceled other (unrelated) Absences on the Member’s record.
The IPPS-A Team put in a fix on 19 July 2024. However, absences already in the system on 19 July 2024 could still potentially experience this issue. The attached screenshot is an example of what to look for before cancelling an 05-PCS EVENTS Absence.
Thank you for your patience as we continue to work to improve the system.
IPPS-A User Manual
We are working on the next version of the IPPS-A User Manual. As always, we welcome any contributions from the field.
The cutoff date to submit comments for the next version is 19 August 2024. You may add to the IPPS-A User Manual Comment Tracker at
R3 IPPS-A Resources.
Resources
HR Pros should join the
Drive the Change channel on MS Teams to get the latest updates as well as New Release Training every Friday following a release. You may access the channel here:
https://dod.teams.microsoft.us/l/channel/19%3adod%3a1fc38b9ba1714261a5e2e78bddbb92d3%40thread.tacv2/1.%2520Drive%2520the%2520Change?groupId=a0f79218-9101-4c6c-863b-84c8c14309e9&tenantId=fae6d70f-954b-4811-92b6-0530d6f84c43. If you missed a release update, please visit the
Drive the Change page for links to recordings and slides.
The IPPS-A Team is still conducting
virtual Over the Shoulder Support (OTSS) and
Reinforcement Training. For more information, including dates and times, please visit:
https://ipps-a.army.mil/Drive-the-Change/.
Listen in to the IPPS-A Podcast to hear from our Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and learn what’s going on with the program. In our
latest episode, I chat with CPT Taylor Vladic, Assignments Product Team Lead, and CPT Patrick Hill, SABIR/BI Data Analyst, about the In-Transit Grid (ITG) and Leader’s Dashboard. You may find the IPPS-A Podcast on
YouTube,
Apple, Spotify, and Castbox.
Also, check out our IPPS-A Coffee Tawk series, where IPPS-A subject matter experts respond to your questions and comments — it is casual, concise, and full of facts. You may find these posted to our website, YouTube and social media pages.
For additional information and resources, you may visit our website at
https://ipps-a.army.mil/.
Keep driving the change we need in our Army!
v/r,
Becky
Rebekah S. Lust
COL, AG
IPPS-A FMD Director
IPPS-A website:
https://ipps-a.army.mil/
IPPS-A Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/armyippsa/
IPPS-A YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/c/IPPSA
IPPS-A Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/usarmy_ippsa/
IPPS-A S1Net:
https://www.milsuite.mil/book/community/spaces/apf/s1net/ipps-a