Pre JPA systems

[northern]

Can anyone help me please? what system was used prior to the arrival of JPA to administer the RAF? I am in the process of writing a dissertation and would like to have some background knowledge on the systems that were previously used.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Downsizer]

Wasn't it SAMA? Station Administration Management Aid? I'm sure a clerk will be along soon to correct me...

 

[Stevienics]

Hell, you are right and I had almost forgeotten that. In the early 90s it was a non-interactive thing where (as I recall), you could just about investigate how much leave and how many travel warrants you had left.........and all in that pretty green lettering (aka any 80s movie involving hacking).

Sorry, this doesn't help much.

 

[Reformed Scribbly]

SAMA it was.

 

[Lamptramp]

I had a little book I used to write down the shift names and their leave and 48 hr passes ~ deductions made and balance calculeted, QED!

Used to note TOIL in the same book ;0)

Seemed to work as well!

 

[Belle and Sebastian]

Yep, before JPA we had the relaible pen and paper...............and probably a cardex system.

 

[northern]

Many thanks for the quick replies, very much appreciated

 

[True Blue Jack]

Before JPA we used a shedload of bespoke systems across the 3 Services. SAMA was the database the RAF used at Station level for personnel administration from the early 90s until JPA rollout but that was only ever the shop window. Behind or alongside SAMA we had PSSL (pay), OMIS (operational manpower), OCMIS (officers' career management), PACMIS (airmen's drafting), SPA (allowances and public accounting), to name just a few of the systems used by the RAF. The other services had their own systems, about 200 in total I seem to remember being told; almost none of the systems in use were able to talk to each other.

To be honest for the purposes of a dissertation I think goaters are likely to provide more additional questions than answers unless you are able to narrow down the criteria for us. Between us we have a lot of corporate knowledge of many of the various systems we used to use but mostly from the end-user perspective which may not help as much as you hope.

 

[Stevienics]

Amen to that

 

[northern]

True Blue,

Your answer is closest to what I require. My enquiry is to build up background material for my introduction chapter. The proposed dissertation is something like below;

An investigation into the impact of Personnel Administration using a Human Computer interface on the British Armed Forces​

I have go over to both ARRSE and Rum Ration for similar feedback and to be honest even though I am Army my knowledge is limited to Unicom and Pampas prior to JPA so info is required from my own lot.

The idea is to show how each service was administered prior to the arrival of JPA. For the army the previous systems were admin office led and the footsoldiers didn't do any self administration other than submitting paper leave passes.

Any further help any of you have would be gratefully recieved. The dissertation is 25000 words so I have plenty of room to set the scene.

 

[tommo9999]

OCMIS & PACMIS were relatively late arrivals, prior to them EMSS was in use in PMC, and paper records prior to that.

 

[northern]

Again,

Many thanks.

My next request is that you break down the acronyms cos Google has never heard of the vast majority of them.

Cheers,

 

[True Blue Jack]

OK, let's see what we can come up with here. I'm not sure Google will be much help even with the acronyms explained because almost everything we used was designed to be used specifically by us.

SAMA, as noted earlier, stood for Station Administration Management Aid. It started life as little more than an electronic leave record which made ration accounting much easier than the manual system we had before. Over the 15 years or so that we used it, it developed into something much more but it still required clerks to input and manage data. Unicom did a similar job but SAMA was streets ahead (although still a long way behind the private sector).

From the late 90s onwards we also used BI-Query alongside SAMA. BI-Query (originally called GQL - General Queries List) was an interrogation tool which allowed clerks to write and execute all manner of reports to manage personnel records and answer the neverending stream of random questions that bosses seemed to spend their lives dreaming up. We are now much more limited in the kinds of reports we can run without recourse to higher authority, not because we don't have the information available to us but because our capacity for writing one-off queries has been greatly reduced.

Inputs to SAMA did not have a direct effect on pay, which was managed by a system called PSSL (no idea what it stood for, sorry). PSSL was a very simple but effective program written in a language close to machine code on an early era mainframe. Very good if you knew how to use it well but almost the only people who did were stereotypical long-haired, unshaven, sandal-wearing nerds (Humble Scribe is probably going to kill me for that!).

SPA (Station Public Accounts) was another simple but effective program used for recording the payment of allowances and bills. The RN ripped it off us because it did its job very well although I believe the Army preferred to maintain manual ledgers, at least that's what we all had to use at SHAPE.

OMIS (Operational Manpower Information System) was another great little program for monitoring who we had, employed in which posts, in operational locations. We were forced to abandon it in favour of using 'RYAN' which I'm sure you know is/was a glorified MS Access database and was a total pain to use. God bless the Joint (Army) environment!!

I'm sure others can elaborate on what I've said and can talk about some of the other systems that they know better than I do.

 

[ForgottenName]

OK, let's see what we can come up with here. I'm not sure Google will be much help even with the acronyms explained because almost everything we used was designed to be used specifically by us.

SAMA, as noted earlier, stood for Station Administration Management Aid. It started life as little more than an electronic leave record which made ration accounting much easier than the manual system we had before. Over the 15 years or so that we used it, it developed into something much more but it still required clerks to input and manage data. Unicom did a similar job but SAMA was streets ahead (although still a long way behind the private sector).

From the late 90s onwards we also used BI-Query alongside SAMA. BI-Query (originally called GQL - General Queries List) was an interrogation tool which allowed clerks to write and execute all manner of reports to manage personnel records and answer the neverending stream of random questions that bosses seemed to spend their lives dreaming up. We are now much more limited in the kinds of reports we can run without recourse to higher authority, not because we don't have the information available to us but because our capacity for writing one-off queries has been greatly reduced.

Inputs to SAMA did not have a direct effect on pay, which was managed by a system called PSSL (no idea what it stood for, sorry). PSSL was a very simple but effective program written in a language close to machine code on an early era mainframe. Very good if you knew how to use it well but almost the only people who did were stereotypical long-haired, unshaven, sandal-wearing nerds (Humble Scribe is probably going to kill me for that!).

SPA (Station Public Accounts) was another simple but effective program used for recording the payment of allowances and bills. The RN ripped it off us because it did its job very well although I believe the Army preferred to maintain manual ledgers, at least that's what we all had to use at SHAPE.

OMIS (Operational Manpower Information System) was another great little program for monitoring who we had, employed in which posts, in operational locations. We were forced to abandon it in favour of using 'RYAN' which I'm sure you know is/was a glorified MS Access database and was a total pain to use. God bless the Joint (Army) environment!!

I'm sure others can elaborate on what I've said and can talk about some of the other systems that they know better than I do.

I think that you will find that GQL stood for Graphic Query Langauge as it put SQL (Sequential Query Language) into graphical form. GQL and SQL were just methods of querying the database; albeit Units were restricted to being able to query only their own database.

SAMA was originally based on the cold war scenario as each unit had its own database. Initially, inputs to the mainframe in Gloucester were still done through manual hard copy, then as technology developed, it was done through the passage of disks in the post. Eventually, systems were connected and information was passed electronically using the SAMA system at Innsworth. But right up until SAMA was switched off there was still an air gap between SAMA and the mainframe, which I believe was a UNIX database system.

 

[True Blue Jack]

I think that you will find that GQL stood for Graphic Query Langauge as it put SQL (Sequential Query Language) into graphical form. GQL and SQL were just methods of querying the database; albeit Units were restricted to being able to query only their own database.

That makes more sense. DT_Xtremez_35:

 

[KingGuin]

Not forgetting troops had to complete F1771, F295A, C and D alongside a host of other allowance related applications.

 

[ForgottenName]

True Blue,

Your answer is closest to what I require. My enquiry is to build up background material for my introduction chapter. The proposed dissertation is something like below;

An investigation into the impact of Personnel Administration using a Human Computer interface on the British Armed Forces​

I have go over to both ARRSE and Rum Ration for similar feedback and to be honest even though I am Army my knowledge is limited to Unicom and Pampas prior to JPA so info is required from my own lot.

The idea is to show how each service was administered prior to the arrival of JPA. For the army the previous systems were admin office led and the footsoldiers didn't do any self administration other than submitting paper leave passes.

Any further help any of you have would be gratefully recieved. The dissertation is 25000 words so I have plenty of room to set the scene.

To be honest mate, if I was writing such a dissertation, I wouldn't use E-Goat as a reliable source of information. I have seen so many inaccuracies on here, that I suggest that you should check any information gleaned from here before you commit to paper.

If you want any particular question answering, PM me. I am sure that with 35 yrs experience as in the RAF in the Personnel world I might be able to point you in the right direction.

 

[The Masked Geek]

I think that you will find that GQL stood for Graphic Query Langauge as it put SQL (Sequential Query Language) into graphical form.

I think that you will find that SQL stands for Structured Query Language.

Originaly called SEQUEL; hence the oft used name.

If we're going to split hairs...DT_Xtremez_14:

 

[busby1971]

To be honest mate, if I was writing such a dissertation, I wouldn't use E-Goat as a reliable source of information. I have seen so many inaccuracies on here, that I suggest that you should check any information gleaned from here before you commit to paper.

If you want any particular question answering, PM me. I am sure that with 35 yrs experience as in the RAF in the Personnel world I might be able to point you in the right direction.

The chances of the examining body having any information on the systems over and above what they can read on here is very unlikely, as its only going to be used in the introduction or as a scene setter the gen on here is good so far.

Although I think its very nice that you have volunteered to proof read his writings.

Northern

Good luck with the 25,000, this time next year I'll be doing one myself.

 

[CC]

Northern,

As a few posts have alluded to; pre JPA, the RAF personnel system was very much paper based. There was no self service capability.

For example, we used to carry out almost annual checks of Next Of Kin details, as all SAMA inputs were carried out by a Personnel Administrator.

Allowances/Expenses were also paper based. Every Allowance claim submitted was checked by the Allowances section; whereas today people can literally submit any Allowance they wish, via JPA Expenses with only a small % being called for Audit.

Compared to JPA, SAMA was extremely quick (scary I know). For example, if I wanted to check a Service Number, I could have logged onto SAMA and checked the service number in about 10 seconds. With JPA, I'd probably have only just logged on in 10 seconds.

As an Ex SAMA Ops Manager, (of nearly 10 years) I'd be more than happy to assist you with your dissertation.

Just PM me if you wish. DT_Xtremez_14: