AF officials plan for scheduled downtime to upgrade MilPDS

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas — The Air Force Personnel Operations Agency here is upgrading and transferring the Military Personnel Data System to the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Defense Enterprise Computing Center later this year. The upgrade project is scheduled to take 23 days to complete. During this period, MilPDS will not be available.

Upgrades to MilPDS have not been accomplished because the system was scheduled to be replaced in 2008 by a new Department of Defense military personnel system. When the DOD program was cancelled, Air Force officials made the decision to bring MilPDS up-to-date in order to reduce risks.

“The Air Force is upgrading MilPDS to address security, reliability and sustainability risks,” said Lt. Gen. Darrell D. Jones, Air Force deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services. “We will have processes in place to ensure personnel and pay service providers are able to work critical transactions for their customers during the upgrade.”

Total Force Service Center representatives at San Antonio and Denver will work with Air Force component headquarters agencies and base-level personnel and pay service providers to develop procedures to accomplish critical functions for Regular Air Force, Guard, Reserve and civilians during the MilPDS upgrade. Critical personnel and pay processes related to accessions, reenlistments, Guard and Reserve unit training assemblies, mobilization/activation, casualty and immediate separations will continue to function during the scheduled system downtime.

All personnel and pay processes are being evaluated and those not identified as critical functions will not be accomplished during this period.

“Our interface partners are fully aware of the upgrade and we’ve been working with them to continue to provide and receive the same information in the same formats they do today,” said Anthony Delgado, AFPOA’s MilPDS R12 functional manager. “We will continue to engage with our total force partners to discuss testing and implementation.”

AFPOA is also partnering with other DOD and Air Force agencies to minimize the impact the MilPDS upgrade will have on total force customers. Some of the major organizations involved in the upgrade effort include DISA, Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Defense Travel Office, Defense Casualty Office, National Guard Bureau Manpower, Personnel and Services, Air Force Surgeon General, Air Force Financial Management, Air Force Air and Space Operations Center and Air Education and Training Command.

In the coming months, Air Force officials will release additional information and guidance to the Air Force’s manpower, personnel, services and pay communities and total force Airmen to educate them on how the service will perform personnel and pay tasks during the upgrade and scheduled system outage.

For more information on personnel services and self-service applications, visit the Air Force Personnel Services website at https://gum-crm.csd.disa.mil.