Air Force announces launch of improved myDecs

New year, new myDec.

Airmen and parents can now try out an improved version of myDecorations, the Department of the Air Force’s online hub for processing award nominations, the department announced in a release Thursday.

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For airmen and guardians seeking recognition for good deeds that will help them climb the career ladder, countless technical flaws and an unfriendly user interface have turned a seemingly simple process into an abhorrent chore. The new features aim to solve these issues and make myDecs a seamless portal for nominating troops for several service-level and joint awards and adding them to a service member’s official military record. .

The review is part of a broader effort to streamline more than 100 software apps across the Air Force and Space Force human resources enterprise that store soldiers’ personal data and record their professional lives.

“Our goal is to make the system more intuitive and create a smoother process for users,” Lt. Gen. Caroline Miller, the Air Force’s chief of uniformed human resources, said in the release.

The redesigned software, called “myDecs Reimagined,” will allow troops to submit decoration requests through a single screen instead of the previous multi-page process. This interface is handled by Salesforce, the same business IT contractor that hosts the Air Force’s myEval performance review system.

Now, service members will be able to route their applications to anyone on myFSS, the Air Force’s comprehensive human resources platform, and recommenders will be able to choose who will approve their decorations when drafting their applications.

Decorations can be edited until they are signed, and users can add comments throughout the process. Once approved, the award is added directly to the person’s official military record.

The previous software made it difficult for members of different departments to collaborate on award nominations, and also did not allow users to correct mistakes after a draft was submitted. Airmen are also having trouble getting myDec to save draft changes and having trouble retracting submitted requests.

“If you build your plane using the myFSS, myEval, myDecs methods [were] If it had been built, our pilots would have died,” one person said in an anonymous post on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page in November 2022.

The update also automates steps in the process that were previously handled by a local team known as Military Flight. Airmen complain that routing requests through human resources personnel causes delays that can negatively impact promotion chances.

The Air Force said in a statement that eliminating the practice of requiring human resources personnel to review each nomination after approval “strengthens their advisory and auditing role” and allows them to focus on strengthening “recognition programs.” He said it would be.

“Trust and responsibility is now shifted back to the approving authority and records are now automatically updated upon signing,” Miller said.

There’s also bad news. Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve candidates who were on standby before the new myDec went live will not transition to the new system and will have to resubmit, the Air Reserve Officers and Personnel Center warned in a memo last November. It’s unclear whether active-duty military members will need to resubmit their requests as well.

Airmen and parents now use myDec to request recognition for awards such as the Aerospace Achievement Medal, Aerospace Commendation Medal, Aerospace Achievement Medal, Air Achievement Medal, Military Volunteer Distinguished Service Medal, and Combat Readiness Medal. can do. medal.

The Department of the Air Force said as the program matures, it may give soldiers the ability to request additional honors.