(This was sent to all IMAs and PIRRs 18 Jan 2022. If you did not receive it in your personal email, please log in to the vMPF and make sure you have a good personal email in that system.)

RIO Buzz                                                                                               Vol. 35

Hello!  I hope you all enjoyed the holidays. It’s time to kick off 2022 with the latest Buzz …

MAKE THE MOST OF MYPERS AND GET YOUR REQUEST TO THE RIGHT PLACE FASTER

We have been seeing an uptick of members submitting their pay, orders, travel, and IMA medical questions and submissions in myPers incorrectly, which results in longer wait time for those tickets to be processed.  For any of these issues, the RIO team has created dedicated links for submitting your tickets directly to the appropriate office.  You can find these by selecting the IMA Management section; you’ll see it in the list of links down the left-hand side of the myPers home page.  From there you can select Pay, Travel, Orders, and Medical, and be able to submit your question or paperwork directly to the technician who covers that topic. 

We ask you do not use the “E-mail Us” feature, as it delays the ticket actually reaching the right person.  Help us make it easier for you to serve and choose the IMA Management link for all IMA pay, orders, travel, and medical submissions.

REQUESTING ORDERS – HOW AND WHEN

Although the myPers orders request system has been in place for a while now, we are still seeing members trying to use AROWS-R to request.  This is a reminder that it’s mandatory to use myPers to request any type of orders.  Also remember that you need to request your orders 30 days prior to your start date, and all AT orders need to be requested no later than 31 May 2022. If you need assistance with a myPers orders request, use this quick guide.

UPDATE: UTAPS PAY ISSUE IDENTIFIED – MISSING PAY

Our RIO pay team has been working diligently over the last month to implement a fix for an identified issue with UTAPS that resulted in members not receiving pay for IDT days going back to May 2021.  The fix process has been completed, so you should have received the missing pay within the last few weeks. 

I recommend you go back to UTAPS and myPay and ensure that you’ve received pay for any days that are BLACK on the UTAPS calendar.  If you still identify days that haven’t been paid, submit a myPers ticket following these steps:

1. Get a color screen shot of your UTAPS calendar showing those days as BLACK

2. Get an automated 40A from UTAPS for those IDT periods

3. Submit BOTH of these via myPers as an RPO Request so our technicians can manually process the pay

(Instructions for these steps can be found on this quick guide.)

Here are some links you may need:

myPay

How to get to UTAPS

ARE YOU ASSIGNED TO A NON-DEPT OF THE AIR FORCE UNIT?

You may have received an email or heard about a change coming to those Air Force members assigned to non-Dept of the Air Force (non-DAF) unit when it comes to their ability to access their AFNET emails (us.af.mil).  While initially this change was to happen in mid-January, it’s now being pushed back at least two months, but it is coming.  Once it takes effect, members will only have access to the .mil email for the unit they’re assigned to, so those IMAs with COCOMs, defense agencies, etc., will no longer have an AFNET account and all files associated with those accounts will be deleted permanently.  Here is a public sharepoint (CAC required) site with much more information.  What I recommend is that you use the information there to determine if you’ll be affected, and start making plans for saving all your files now.

MORE ASSISTANCE FOR THE PAY AND TRAVEL OFFICES IS ON THE WAY

While our RIO Pay and Travel Offices continue to clear up the backlog of tickets from the beginning of this FY, more help will be arriving soon.  To expedite the progress and in anticipation of the summer travel surge, the JA career field is providing us with additional team members to help in these areas.  With this additional assistance, we should be able to get pay and travel fully back on track and keep it there.  Making sure you’re paid and reimbursed in a timely manner is one of our top priorities, so I’d like to give a huge THANK YOU to these members for their upcoming help and welcome them to the RIO team.

v/r

Col Edward “Chad” Segura, HQ RIO Commander