A key tool for the Army's online training apparatus will be taken offline next month in favor of an updated website, according to the service.
The Army Learning Management System, or ALMS, will be taken down at 5 p.m. EST on Jan. 4. Its successor, the Army Training Information System, or ATIS, will launch at 8 a.m. EST on Jan. 19.
That two-week gap of time means soldiers will not be able to conduct much of the Army's critical online training. ALMS hosts the service's mandatory certifications and the online training that is a prerequisite for noncommissioned officers to get promoted.
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The service did not widely communicate ALMS being taken offline, but did note on the site itself that soldiers should finish any courses they are currently taking or they will need to restart with the launch of the new site. Some courses can take multiple workdays to complete.
The new site, ATIS, promises to be less clunky than the current online training portal, according to a memo for the force reviewed by Military.com. Army planners aim for ATIS to have an upgraded user interface and a better search function to find courses.
ALMS is widely seen across the force as being user-unfriendly, clunky and difficult to navigate. It also has a reputation for frequent crashes, drawing the ire of soldiers who have to restart an hourslong training module.
It's unclear whether the Army expects a bumpy launch for ATIS, but the service has a poor track record when it comes to online platforms.
It took two years for the service to get its education portal, Army IgnitED, in a steady state. That platform, which handles education benefits, was plagued with glitches stretching back to 2021 and had soldiers unable to use their benefits, raising concerns across the rank and file and on Capitol Hill.
Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army, or IPPS-A, has also seen a bevy of problems since its servicewide launch in January -- the most notable being when some 25,000 Tricare beneficiaries were accidentally removed from the health insurance system. The system was meant to consolidate much of the Army's human resources management under one tool.
The Army National Guard's Incentive Management System, or GIMS, handles enlistment bonuses for guardsmen and it crashed in 2021, being inoperable for nearly 10 months. GIMs also crashed in 2018 and was down for nearly a year, but that was due to a server fire, according to reporting by Army Times.
The two blunders have resulted in at least 9,000 guardsmen who have not been paid their bonuses, and an additional 3,900 may have completed their entire service contracts without getting their enlistment bonus. The issue has prompted lawmakers to demand answers from the National Guard.
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