Members of I Corps and their direct reporting units tag teamed with the Washington Army National Guard to attack IPPS-A New Equipment Training Feb 20-21, 2020 at Joint Base Lewis McChord. The training provided attendees first-hand experience with the Army’s new 21st Century Human Resources system, the Integrated Personnel and Pay System – Army (IPPS-A).
The Army National Guard migrated from Standard Installation and Division Personnel Reporting System (SIDPERS) to IPPS-A over the last fifteen months, completing the migration on March 24th. Release Three, the fielding for Active and Reserve Soldiers, will take place in December 2021.
“The efficiency provided by IPPS-A is outstanding,” said Warrant Officer 1 Julissa Riley, Human Resources Technician with the 42nd Military Police Brigade; one of I Corps supporting units. “The use of a 21st Century, highly customizable interface will overcome the existing legacy systems at a 1990s level of functionality. I’m excited for the self-service capabilities of the system…no more paperwork.”
Riley’s biggest concern regarding IPPS-A is whether or not she’d be able to do queries. This question was answered during the training. As a Human Resources Technician, it’s extremely important for Riley to conduct queries to quickly find information.
“Part of my job is to resolve situations as quickly as possible,” said Riley. “Doing queries in IPPS-A is much easier than our legacy systems, which will allow me to find answers for Soldiers much quicker.”
Riley attended the training along with Heather Wooden, Joint Base Lewis-McChord eMILPO Personnel Automation Section (PAS) Chief. Both Wooden and Riley had limited experience with IPPS-A prior to the training. Though Wooden had participated in stakeholder meetings, and even participated in a training on PeopleSoft, she did not have any first-hand experience with IPPS-A.
PeopleSoft is the software used to run IPPS-A. Wooden likes that IPPS-A only accepts data from other authoritative data sources. An example of why this matters is with military education records.
“As long as a military education code is accepted in eMILPO it goes on the Soldiers record regardless of whether or not it’s the right information,” said Wooden. With IPPS-A, unless the info comes directly from ATRRS it won’t be accepted.”
As someone who participated in stakeholders meetings regarding the system, Wooden is pleased to learn the system has most of the capabilities discussed in those meetings.
“I knew about the custom tiles and other aspects of the system due to my participation in stakeholder meetings,” said Wooden. “To see these and other capabilities in the system after all the meetings we conducted is nice. It provides a feeling of accomplishment.”
IPPS-A will fill the capability gaps in personnel, pay, and managing talent and data for the total Army. Currently, there are approx. 200 HR and pay systems and over 650 interface and data exchanges between internal and external systems. IPPS-A will subsume 30+ systems, eliminate 300+ interfaces and provide essential capabilities to the Army. IPPS-A will modernize Army HR and develop a system for managing talent, reduce IT and military pay costs, and improve Soldiers' lives through transparency and mobile capabilities. To learn more, follow IPPS-A on social media:
IPPS-A Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/armyippsa
IPPS-A YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/IPPSA
IPPS-A Instagram: @usarmy_ippsa
| Date Taken: | 04.10.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 04.10.2020 14:52 |
| Story ID: | 367136 |
| Location: | ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 78 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Active, Guard Soldiers Train Together on High Tech Army HR System, by Justin Creech, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
