Teammates,
We are quickly approaching the two-year anniversary of IPPS-A going live for all Soldiers in all three components!
This time of year gives us a great opportunity to reflect upon the milestones we achieved throughout 2024. We could not have done this without the help of HR Pros and Soldiers in the field. Your engagement and enthusiasm for IPPS-A over the past two years is driving change in our Army.
Since Go-Live, we’ve processed more than 6.93 million pay impacting HR transactions. IPPS-A’s Agile development decreased the time between updates, incorporated user feedback, and increased value delivered to Soldiers — reaching over 1.03 million distinct users in the system. We’ve also maintained accountability to our fellow Soldiers — processing 627,000 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) cases since Go-Live.
Speaking of CRM cases, I want to give a special
thank you to the following Service Members who have resolved the most cases per COMPO for 2024:
- AC: SPC Pablo Navarro Pena, 106th Finance Battalion, Vicenza, Italy
- ARNG: SSG Kierra King, 1173rd Transportation Company, Virginia Beach, VA
- USAR: 1SG Alvah Lawson, B Company (RCPT), 3rd Battalion, 321st Regiment, Fort Jackson, SC
Thank you for providing outstanding service to your fellow Soldiers and making a difference in the lives of Soldiers and their Families!
Key updates:
Submitting a Permanent Change of Station (PCS) Event
In IPPS-A, the Pay-Absence-Incent-Ded (PAID) tile is used to submit a variety of absence requests, including those for PCS Absences. This functionality consolidates PCS actions (e.g., house hunting) via the Absence Entry Types.
Users
must select “Absence Type, 05-PCS Events” and choose the appropriate options to complete the request. If “05-PCS Events” is not selected, automation to support arrivals will not function as designed, causing Failure to Gain numbers to increase and Soldier Pay Issues.
Please refer to the
Submitting a PCS Event Quick Sheet. This product will help guide you through the process and provide you with additional training resources.
Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) Recertification Change Status
In October, IPPS-A’s PAID page began to feature a new Military Pay (MilPay) Action Requests function, allowing users to submit for BAH Recertification (DA 5960).
Reminder to HR Pros: forward requests to finance for action if the BAH changes. IPPS-A only sends DA 5960 to the Personnel Electronic Military Records System (iPERMS) as supporting documentation for Audit purposes.
Please note that when you submit your first entry for BAH Recertification in IPPS-A, the system will recognize and display it as a “Start” entry. This is not an error, IPPS-A did not convert previous BAH data, so the first BAH action in IPPS-A will record as the “start” entry. The status of “recertification” will change the following cycle when the dates are adjusted for the new period, and it is routed for approval.
For additional support, please refer to the BAH Recertification Job Aid here:
https://ipps-a.army.mil/Training/Training-Aids/.
Personnel Asset Inventory (PAI) Reconciliation
PAI Reconciliation
Phase 2 began 25 November.
HR Professionals and Leaders
must continue to prioritize PAI Reconciliation to (1) correct Failure to Lose/Failure to Gain (FTL/FTG) discrepancies in IPPS-A, (2) ensure current and future iterations of IPPS-A reflect accurate information and (3) Soldier pay and benefits can be negatively impacted if Soldiers are not properly arrived or departed.
For details, please see visit:
https://www.milsuite.mil/book/docs/DOC-1348927.
We encourage you to utilize our resources and job aids to assist with reaching 100% accountability and to leverage IPPS-A’s Service for Analytics and Business Intelligence Reports (SABIR) capabilities to forecast mission requirements.
The following job aids can help:
- SABIR FTG/FTL Job Aid
- Account for the Army Checklist
- Personnel Accountability & Strength Reporting (PASR)
- PAI FTL-FTG Supplemental Checklist
You may find all job aids here:
Resources,
S1Net, and the
Training Aids.
ACCESS Your Toolkit
Our “
ACCESS Your Toolkit” video explains how to access all the tools you need to get the most out of using IPPS-A. By knowing and understanding the system, you can capitalize on professional opportunities, improve your Army experience, enhance your unit's readiness and warfighting abilities, and take care of your Soldiers and Families.
DD 214 Accuracy
Next year, DD 214 (Active Duty) and DD 214-1 (Guard and Reserve Duty) are coming to IPPS-A. This will ensure Members (Self-Service) can review and initiate corrections to their DD 214 during the entire transition process and make it as seamless as possible.
For more information, please see our
Drive the Change: DD 214 resource page.
Resources
Join the
Drive the Change channel on MS Teams to get the latest updates as well as
New Release Training on Fridays (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.
We are still holding
virtual Over the Shoulder Support (OTSS) and
Reinforcement Training. For dates and times, please visit:
https://ipps-a.army.mil/Drive-the-Change/.
I want to thank you all for another significant and productive year of working together — I am truly excited to see what next year will bring. Warmest wishes for a joyful holiday season and a Happy New Year!
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