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Electronic performance report routing now standardized

  • Published
  • By Maj. Beth Kelley Horine
  • Air Force Personnel Center Public Affairs
RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) --  An Air Force Enterprise Information Management initiative to process officer and enlisted performance reports electronically became reality Oct. 1 when Air Force Personnel Center officials endorsed the first of three phases of AF Electronic Workflow Processing, or AF e-WP, thanks to a partnership between AFPC, Pacific Air Forces and Air Education and Training Command's communication directorates.

"The major benefit of this effort is to reduce the workload associated with preparing officer and enlisted performance reports by providing availability of a standard process Air Force-wide," said Chief Master Sgt. Charles Spase, AFPC's EIM program manager.

"If you remember how we used to route EPRs -- hand-carrying around a hard copy report in those Air Force blue folders -- electronic workflow processing now gives us an 'electronic blue folder' capability," the chief said.

Chief Spase also explained the AF-e WP program provides an electronic site picture through SharePoint, the system all major commands now work with, of a unit's activities by sharing information at all levels and receiving immediate feedback.

"It allows a visible, standardized action plan to achieve suspenses, manage tasks and track metrics efficiently and effectively for everyone in the chain of command," the chief said.

"Feedback from the field was that we said, 'Here! We made an electronic form, use it,' but we never developed guidance on a standardized process," said Col. Glenn Rattell, AFPC's director of personnel data systems. "So, thanks to the support of AETC's communication directorate, we were able to roll out a standardized electronic process to give back to the field."

As the phases of AF e-WP progress, the entire Air Force soon will have the same capabilities, said Chief Spase. Personnelists in other major commands, including Air Force Space Command, Air Mobility Command and U.S. Air Forces in Europe, helped develop other EIM processes and are applying SharePoint to other actions, such as awards and decorations and task management.

"While developing Phase I of AF e-WP at Hickam Air Force Base," said Capt. Reid Novotny, a Headquarters PACAF communications action officer, "we quickly realized changing culture was more of a challenge than creating a technical solution. We're all proud PACAF was able to super-charge an effort to give time back to Airmen and develop the final product with the rest of the Air Force."

Through collaboration among all major command communication directorates, EIM capabilities will be implemented across the entire Air Force, according to Col. Theresa Giorlando, AETC director of communications.

"With the leadership of Air Force Communications Agency, we're combining the efforts of all the major commands to apply successes and lessons learned to standardize this electronic performance report process," Colonel Giorlando said. "The benefit is that if you go from Goodfellow AFB (Texas) to Sheppard AFB (Texas), or PACAF to AETC, you'll soon always have the same process for writing, submitting and processing your EPR or OPR."

Another benefit of AF e-WP is it saves money.

Phase I estimated savings are about $10 million a year in manpower and opportunity costs, with an additional $7.9 million per year for Phase II and III, according to Colonel Rattell.

"This doesn't include the additional development cost savings for doing one solution Air Force-wide versus multiple solutions being developed and implemented at each different base or MAJCOM," Colonel Rattell said.

"I applaud the initiatives of the communications community to improve the routing capability of electronic personnel documents," said Maj. Gen. KC McClain, Air Force Personnel Center commander. "This initiative is a great example of how we're partnering to improve Airmen's time."

But what does this mean for the supervisor who needs to write an EPR on his or her Airman?

"It's simple," Chief Spase said. "Your EPR shell will be posted on SharePoint, triggering an automatic notification to your e-mail directing you to a link. The link takes you to the electronic form to fill out in SharePoint and provides automatic routing of the report. Ultimately, the EPR is never lost since everyone views and updates from the same form electronically."

Phases II and III for AF e-WP will continue to improve the process, driving to the end state of automatic generation of EPR/OPR shells and notifications, and will allow real-time correction of duty titles, senior rater IDs, as well as automatic uploading of the final signed report to AFPC.

"Your orderly room or military personnel flight won't even need to pull the shell anymore to start the workflow," said Chief Spase. "It will be initiated automatically as we synchronize the data systems of the MAJCOMs and AFPC."

Details on the roll out of AF e-WP are available from MAJCOM communications directorates. Airmen also can visit their MAJCOM EIM-SharePoint Intranet site for more information.