FORT MEADE, Md. (March 7, 2013) -- Soldier Record Briefs will be available online this fall with debut of the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army.
Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army, or IPPS-A, has been in the works for three years. When fully implemented, it will replace 54 legacy systems while combining pay and personnel processes, said Col. Edward Prem, chief of the Functional Management Division, G-1. He's been working on IPPS-A for the past 18 months.
"I'm very excited about Release One," Prem said about the first incremental fielding of IPPS-A which will take place by October. "Once it's fielded, we'll be able to build upon its success."
IPPS-A will be delivered to the Army in five releases over the next six years, he said. Its fourth release will enable the Army to process its own pay, he explained, instead of relying on the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.
IPPS-A is an enterprise resource planning system, Prem said, designed to save the Army money through consolidation and replacement of multiple older systems.
The first incremental release of IPPS-A in October will feature the new Soldier Record Briefs, or SRBs, and populate nine multi-component reports for commanders and Human Resource professionals.
"We're pouring the foundation," Prem said, explaining that the first release of IPPS-A will pull in information from 15 legacy systems and set up the structure for the rest of the functions to work.
The new SRBs will eventually replace the Enlisted Record Briefs and Officer Record Briefs available through Army Knowledge Online. The SRBs will resemble current ORBs, Prem said, and be standard for all ranks and components, including the Army Reserve and National Guard.
It will be important for Soldiers to check their new SRBs online, Prem said, because if the information is wrong, that means current databases have inaccurate data. Eventually that could affect pay, he said.
In October, Soldiers from any component should be able to log onto AKO and view their SRB.
Soldiers who need to make changes to their SRB will need to do that through the legacy systems at first, Prem said. That's because the first release of IPPS-A won't actually replace the 15 legacy systems, he said, it will simply draw data from them. Release Two will begin replacement or what he called the "sunset" of systems.
Familiarization training for IPPS-A Release One will be available through distance learning in the Army Learning Management System, known as ALMS. The training will consist of 13 self-paced modules which cover each section of the SRB. Another nine training modules will be available to cover the nine reports generated by IPPS-A.
The nine reports generated by increment one of IPPS-A will be:
-- Personnel Management Report
-- Assigned Duty Title Report
-- Certification & Qualification Report
-- Member Availability & Restrictions Report
-- Overseas & Deployment Report
-- Promotion Information Report
-- Annual Records Review Report
-- Service Data Report
-- Demographics Information Report
Information for the reports will compile through interfacing with systems such as SIDPERS, eMILP, the Total Army Personnel Database, TAPDB-Reserve, and TAPDB-Guard, Prem said.
The second release of IPPS-A in 2015 will replace what Prem said is oldest of the Army's Human Resource legacy systems, SIDPERS-ARNG.
"We want to get rid of that one first," Prem said, not just because it's the oldest.
"We're reducing our risk by going with the Guard, because they're compartmentalized," Prem said, explaining that because the Army National Guard is organized into 50 states, the District of Columbia and three territories, only one area would likely be affected if there's a problem, instead of the entire Army.
Releases 2 and 3 of IPPS-A will enable a "continuum of service," Prem said, by allowing National Guard and Reserve Soldiers to transition on and off active duty while maintaining benefits, personnel information and training in the same database. He said IPPS-A will streamline transition between the components.
Release 3 of IPPS-A in fiscal year 2016 will "sunset" dozens of field personnel systems, Prem said. Release 4 in FY 2017 will provide pay services and "off ramp" DIMS.
The final release of IPPS-A is scheduled to take place in fiscal year 2018.
Related Documents:
Soldier Record Brief [PDF]
Related Links:
Army.mil: Inside the Army news
STAND-TO!: Soldier Record Brief
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