SIDPERS

Standard Installation and Division Personnel Reporting System (SIDPERS) was the main database or, rather, databases for personnel accounting by the United States Army. The Active Army, US Army Reserve, and Army National Guard each had separate, largely incompatible databases, each bearing the name SIDPERS or a variation thereof. RC-SIDPERS was nominally designed for both reserve components (Army Reserve and Army National Guard), but was further adapted for use by the National Guard, to create NG-SIDPERS.

Until 1988, RC-SIDPERS was not accessible at the unit level, and unit administrators would mail database correction documents up their chain of command to their respective general officer command in order to update and/or correct SIDPERS. A separate, unconnected database, Unit Level Application System (ULAS, pronounced "you-lass") was available for unit administrators to maintain local personnel information. A PC-based application, built in PC-FOCUS, was fielded for beta testing in late 1988 within the 63rd Army Reserve Command and was expanded USAR-wide the following year. A bridge connected each unit's PC-SIDPERS database with its respective Center Level Application System (CLAS, pronounced "class") database. CLAS, also built in PC-FOCUS, was the successor to ULAS, and offered extensive additional data categories beyond that centrally maintained by RC-SIDPERS, including training data, weapon serial number assignment, protective mask tag number assignment, OER/NCOER rating chain, inter alia.

YouTube Encyclopedic

1/3
Views:
447 910
161 982
5 883

Transcription

I am Commander Cathy Macer. I am the commanding officer of the Boston Military Entrance Processing Station. MEPS is the place where applicants come to process into the Armed Forces, and we are responsible for ensuring quality accessions into the Armed Forces during both peacetime and during times of mobilization. Well, the day starts, given that the applicant has stayed at a contract hotel overnight, they are given a wakeup call at 4:00 in the morning. Breakfast there at the hotel, and then so they're here at the MEPS shortly after 5:00 in the morning. My name is Staff Sgt. Michael Lyle. I am the MEPS liason when it comes to anybody for the Air Force. The applicant comes in in the morning and sits down with the liasons, and we will go over what their day is going to entale and what they should expect and, yeah, normally at about 5:15, 5:30 when they do show up, we are the first face that they get to see in the morning. Long gone are the days where applicants are herded into various, you know, large rooms and impersonally treated. We have moved into a red carpet treatment for our applicants where they are treated with dignity and respect. Good morning, everybody. I'm Sgt. 1st Class Kethum. I'm operations NCRC here at the Boston MEPS. we reassure them throughout the day all the time. I mean, yeah, they they first come up on the floor, you know, they come very early in the morning. Once we get them signed into the MEPS, we get them all in one area, and we give them the morning brief. Once we get done here, you're going to go to the medical, folks. You're going to get a medical briefing, and you're going to run through that process, okay? Once the briefing is done, you're going to get an exam. You're going to meet with the physicians, okay? And you're going to go through that. Once you're done with the medical, you're going to go down to your service liaisons. You're going to sit down with a counselor, and you guys are going to negotiate a job. Once that's complete, you'll come over to the processing section. ll right, we'll do what we have to do over there, get you ready to swear in, take the Oath of Enlistment and then we'll set up the transportation to take you home. When they do understand the entire process, then we try to make sure that everybody is on the same page, and that if there are any concerns, hopefully then the individual feels comfortable enough to raise them before we get started on the day. That way, they have a nice smooth process. They know where they're going, where they're coming from, and then when they come back to see us, they're in a good mood because they know one more spot is done. I've tried going to school, I've tried regular jobs and just nothing excited me. I've always wanted to join the Military. I went through college, and the, you know, the economy is not the greatest thing right now, but I've always wanted to join. Family full of Marines. My uncle did 32, my father did 23 and it'll be awesome to join as well, become a part of a brotherhood. And you know, I found some opportunities that can be used with my degree, all that kind of stuff, and they offer a lot of gainful things for what I want to do in the future. We are privileged to have them come into the Military. This is a voluntary service. This is not a draft era, and so it is uh... important to us and to each of my staff to treat those who are interested in serving their country with the utmost respect that they deserve.

Platform

SIDPERS had two basic platform flavors in the mid 1980s and through most of the 1990s. The first was a standalone TACCS (Tactical Army Combat Computer System) and the second was a sort of mainframe/dumb terminal flavor. Generally, TDA units received the "dumb terminal" version, since they did not generally deploy) and TO&E units received the deployable "TACCS boxes" as they were referred to. As late as 1993, the Army commands at some TDA locations were still using punch cards to run their daily reports. Installation MILPO's held local commands to a strict code of accuracy. Both MILPO and unit level SIDPERS clerks had to maintain accuracy percentages. Most installations required 95 percent Transaction accuracy percentages.

With the advent of SIPERS-3, the Army moved to using SCO UNIX servers in place of both TACCS and mainframes. The underlying database was INFORMIX. The SIDPERS-3 project was hailed as both a success and a failure.^[1] Primary reasons for rating the software poorly were related to the software's inability to improve accurate or processing speed. Primary reasons for citing the success of the software were related to the way the software developed, remaining mute on the subject of the ability of the software to successfully solve the problems it was intended to solve.^[2]

SIDPERS-3 was worked on from 1982 until 1994.^[3]

At its end, SIDPERS' platform was a Microsoft SQL Server database.

Interfacing applications

Other applications that directly interfaced with the SIDPERS database:

iPERMS

AITS Applications which include:

MILPO Orders
UPS/CMS
MPDV II
IDV Personnel
SOH
ETrans Manager
OER Application
NCOER Application
2-1 Application
MILPO Admin

Successors

SIDPERS' successor, Regional-Level Application System (RLAS, pronounced "are-lass"), is theoretically a Total-Army system, and essentially meshes with DEERS.

RLAS is, itself, one of more than seventy obsolete and redundant systems slated for replacement by the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System (DIMHRS, pronounced "dime-hurz"), beginning in 2009. RLAS has been updated to RLAS8 due to DIMHRS being shelved. Various functions of it have been removed however, such as recording APFT and HT/WT Data. In 2022-2023, RLAS was largely replaced by IPPS-A

References

This page was last edited on 4 November 2023, at 21:12

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia