The Army plans to launch its new online training platform Friday after a nearly three-month delay.
The Army Learning Management System, or ALMS, was taken offline last week. It's set to be replaced with the Army Training Information System, or ATIS. The online portal is host to the service's most critical training programs, including the Distributed Leader Courses, or DLC, which are prerequisites for noncommissioned officer promotions.
The move to upgrade the Army's online training website is part of a larger service effort to modernize the systems soldiers interact with daily, much of which is on antiquated website designs. In many cases, the Army's online systems are so user unfriendly, accessing basic information can be very difficult and often requires long online or unit-written tutorials.
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"This technical refresh was necessary to replace the older [system] that was reaching its end of life," Tara Clements, an Army spokesperson, told Military.com in a statement, adding that a major goal with ATIS is better usability, as ALMS saw many complaints of usability issues and a poor user interface.
This week ahead of ATIS' launch, the service is moving 150 million records and other sets of data from ALMS, migrating some 20 million records per day during the brief offline period. Users who have used ALMS within the past year will have full access to their training records, but those who haven't will need to request records.
The system was originally supposed to launch on Jan. 4, but was delayed due to issues migrating data.
"Our team will be working throughout the weekend to monitor the system and address any critical issues," Clements said.
The Army has a generally poor track record of keeping its online systems functioning, especially when they're new.
The move to launch ATIS comes after years of back-to-back tech bungles for the Army, including the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army, or IPPS-A, which was set to streamline and handle many of the service's administrative tasks under a single entity.
That $600 million project has been marred by issues since its launch in January last year, including when it accidentally kicked 25,000 beneficiaries off of Tricare. The platform spent much of last year suffering from issues with basic administrative functions.
The service's platform for education benefits, Army IgnitED, spent roughly two years bogged down with functionality issues preventing soldiers from attending school -- forcing some to pay out of pocket. The Army has since reimbursed them.
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