And if JPA Fails??
 

Hi Gang;

So when we all get back after lunch on Tuesday, if we are not all still AWOL after not being able to put in a simple leave pass.....

Will we be able to log-on to JPA without wasting too many heartbeats and thumping of monitors??
Will we get paid...and will it be correct???
Will we get our expenses paid??

If JPA is proven to be a failure...(pre or post BOCS...tht's another broom handle!!)...will we switch SAMA back on as we have not disposed of the terminals...or have we???

In our office, we still have a leave book and a leave pass system that works thus;
1. Check book for availability and avoiding others already booked
2. Fill in leave pass
3. Give to Boss...who checks book.(!)
4. Get leave pass returned (approved or not approved)
5. Then & ONLY then...do battle with JPA.

6. And then we still put it on our perspex wall board....how quaint!!!

If JPA is taking each person approx 1 hour to sort (eg a leave pass), then that is 12.5% of their productive day wasted. How long did it take to do a F295A from getting it from the drawer to handing to the Adj/Clerk???

Progress Gentlemen,,, Progress!!!

More LAter;
'J' Bloke!!:cool:

J Bloke,

History has shown we adopt a Cortezian approach to the new world and burn all our boats when we land ashore. JPA will have to work because a very senior bloke will have said so. I would expect it will improve to some degree and then we will just have to live with the fixes we can't afford. You may need to adjust your practices to accommodate the computer's shortfalls, but in statistical and RAF News terms it will be a roaring success and another knighthood tick.

Slightly further down the food chain I'm sure a few career-minded 'yes men' will gulp a few more times yet and glance at the burning hulks of SAMA and the other working vessels sunk before her...

Has it not already failed ? One third of the RAF can't log on due to not having passwords etc, the rest find it unusable, two weeks after going live. I'm sure some very senior officers have already been commneded on their work with JPA, and moved on before it hit the streets. The usual way !

S_H

ay, we are having fun with it at brize.

beside the fact that it doesnt recognise shift workers and weekends without some messing around, and the fact that it slows to a crawl during the day, the other main problem we have is the admin staff who have been trained on the internals of jpa are all leaving or are still away on courses, thus leaving us workers in the lurch.

Our process at the moment is to just fill in paper leave passes then let the flight spend the rest of the night trying to organise it while we get on with work.

Our process is slightly different but works fine. Dont bother with the paper leave pass and just have the time off. If they cant put together a working system why should we worry about it.:)

Well whilst we're JPA-bashing, I (we) got a collective e-mail from OC PMS saying how naughty some people were for daring to phone the JPA "help" desk when they CLEARLY hadn't completed the JPA self learning package.
Just in case OC Paperclips and Hi-Lighter Pens is reading....
It took 45 minutes just to be allowed to "learn" how to input my name and address when I tried the learning package. Does anyone know how long the whole bloody thing takes? :hmm:

approx 45 seconds if you mark the complete box. I found that out after 1hr, and only getting to putting my name in!!!


The poor people at the JPA help desk are not helped either by the fact that it is on a Microsoft platform. :{ Only the Spams and some geek in MIT know how to make that work!!:confused: I rang up to change my address, as I no longer live in the mess, but the lovely computer says I do. There is no remove address button, and it won't let me change it. The unit staff don't have access, and the help desk haven't had the proper training, so it gets logged as a 'job to do'!! Progress. I am off to do a stint in the sand,:yuk: if you want to all it that, wonder if the terminal is faster out there??:ok:

hahaha, i taught that trick to every person on my shift. Think im gonna be getting the blame for no-one having a clue what to do.

actually did the learning package, takes about an hour if you rush through it, over 2 if you actually read everything properly.

Rougedent

Think yourself lucky.. I'm OOA at the moment. No JPA and no plans to get it at my location. Haven't got a clue whether I'll be paid this month, any of my details are correct- nothing.
Won't be able to check anything till I get back end of next month- after what I've heard of it back in UK, me and most of the people I work with are rather concerned, helps morale enormously!!

Oh you silly people. JPA has already been lauded a success - it has been rolled out to the RAF. It says so in the JPA bumf. I bet that was a milestone in the contract, whether linked to penalty clauses or not. All they are now doing is 'managing a few teething problems' in project speak.
Despite the above, I support the view that this is a crock. Nice idea, shocking execution.

And is it just a coincidence that my boarding school allowance (sorry continuity of education allowance) has not yet been paid for next term? The Bursar will have a wobbly if this the same for all the service kids at school.

My BSA hasn't been paid either, although a colleague at the same unit has received his.

As I don't have a password yet, I can't log on to the system - when I phoned the JPAC they said they couldn't help me as my account would not be 'live' enough for them to interrogate until I logged on!!!!!!
I want to know who the hell is responsible for this piece of s**t and who is going to be held accountable for the immense and almighty c*ck-up, in particular the bright spark that decided to shut down SAMA prior to bringing JPA on-line.

Did it not occur to them to conduct an end-to-end systems trial? And don't start me on capped actuals....

Pitiful, and an absolute disgrace.

SBG:mad:

BSA/CEA
 

We all received an email from the Chief Clerk saying our BSA/CEA had been paid-in on Tuesday 11 Apr 06. I checked and am pleased to say it has been received. My understanding is that the CEA was to be done as a separate run, that should have included all entitled.

Check your bank accounts, then go see the Chief Clerk on Tuesday morning bright and early - assuming you aren't taking the kids back to school like I will be.

STH

My bank has been credited with my BSA/CEA (although still waiting for a realistic amount!!) however I am yet to receive the pay slip or in fact last month's salary pay slip.

I do hope you have an understanding bursar!
Disgraceful! Questions should be asked in the house.

On BSA/CEA I spoke to my clerks last week and they were assured that it would be paid on 13 Apr (normal date 6 Apr) well as I bank on-line I checked and guess what? No dosh! No 1 son then admits to taking a phone message from some dude called CEA who said it would be in the bank next Wednesday 19 Apr and they'd pay any bank charges or interest incurred from late payment of fees.

Bit of an act of faith required as I write out another large cheque and send it to school on Wednesday night!!!

We have another twist on the whole JPA thing. My unit is Joint and European based. Our bearer system for JPA and other stuff is the Army equivalent of RAFCCIS or whatever. But to get on you need an Army issued account and password and then you use your JPA account/password. Guess what the G6 response to a whole bunch of Crabs seeking access to the Army network was??

Ho hum - the pay's the same (if only I could be sure it would turn up!)

I thought you were off on Tuesday?

Metaphorically, dear Ratty!!!:8

Congratulations to anyone who's even been able to embark on the learning package. Given the fact that the JPA behemoth has been hoving into view for over a year, I find it incredible that "Small Systems" (what was IT Flt) STILL haven't loaded Flash software on to my computer at work, rendering me unable to use the learning package.

Well, I suppose it's only our personal leave, next of kin information and salaries. Why should that be a priority?

:mad:

tablet_eraser, thanks for that. We have a dedicated JPA terminal (installed and running in Dec 05) and a second that could accept JPA (installed Jun 05). We got passwords week before last. No JPA passwords though.

Now I see we don't need JPA passwords as we don't have the Flash Software and pound to a pinch of sh!t the local IT guys don't have the admin passwords as they did not provide the machines.:}

Boy, I'm glad I'm out! Nobody in power at the top will admit that this country does not have the capability or the capacity to create a fully functional nationwide computer system - there just isn't a company big enough, so the job is split up into sub-contracting [=farcical organisation].

The NHS is doing the same - the national computer system being built at the moment is a farce of monumental design and financial proportions, but those at the top are hailing it as an on-time success story. Then there was the big refinary fire [which burned out the adjacent company responsible for part of the system] and many of the computer functions disappeared. No problem, you say, the remote backup site should kick in. What remote backup site? There was none, and as far as I am aware, there still isnt. It took several months for functionality to return.

At a base I served at for my final tour, they introduced a station LAN. I asked just that question, about the backup mirror site. I was told there wasn't one, that 'servers don't crash in this day and age - they are completely reliable'. Furthermore, they set up each workstation to store everything on the server - you had no choice. Unless you knew how to reset the 'save to' automatics, which you couldn't do without admin rights. The techies were so snowed under that they gave me those rights so that I could look after the half dozen workstations for which I was responsible. I therefore kept everything on my C drive, with a daily auto-backup to the server. Guess what? The inevitable happened and when the crash occurred, the station ground to a halt, with no-one able to access their work documents. For 2 days. Good, eh?

Where is the JPA server remote backup site? That is a question you should be seriously asking your bosses. Because if the central servers crash, you will be up the creek without the proverbial paddle.

Think it through...