Military Command Software Center - MCS Personnel (Monitor MASS)

[Help Desk]

Are there 50,000 active current user accounts or 50,000 people who actually use it regularly? There is a big difference!

The average is between 10,000 to 12,000 distinct login/Users each day,  some  Users connect everyday while others only connect once a week or once a month, so you can't say that only 12,000 individuals use MM because it's not always the same people that login everyday.
Once connected you can find the stats by clicking on Help , Weblink and select MCS Personnel website.

 

[Carbon-14]

I like it. Its unwieldly, and looks like it was designed to operate on Windows 98 SE, but once I found all the stuff I needed and saved a workspace, I find it useful on a day to day basis. The single best feature is that career courses are placed in their 6 months out, so I can actually plan more than the 2 weeks "surprise, X is going on his PLQ" that normally happened.

It needs A LOT of work on functionality to be accepted CAF wide. I compare it to the CI: Signallers loved it, but everyone else thought it was a useless POS because it had way more information than the average person needed. MonitorMass looks like its trying desperately to duplicate everything HRMS does, and drop it down to the Sect Comd level. That's fine, but do we really need 2 separate systems that don't talk together properly?

I agree 100%.  I use MM alot and I'm quite comfortable with it.  The amount of data I can access has been extremely helpful in Ops at a Reserve Unit.  But there is way too much crammed into the interface.  The workspaces did go a long way to help, but to me it shows it probably should have been broken up into several applications.  The vast majority of people will have no need for most of the functionality and they're likely to get frustrated finding what they could actually use.

The on-line help is in desperate need of a search function.  I don't know what resolution the site was designed around but it looks terrible and its a pain to use

I think the problems mentioned with Activity Management show exactly how unfriendly the user experience is.  Activities disappearing without explanation with no real indication of how to retrieve them will completely turn off the user.  Once they've reached that state using the program is a chore and they'll likely turn other people off the program.

Very few of the clerks I've talked to use MM, the only one that I know of only uses it because I suggested it and helped her through it. 

Analytics holds a wealth of data but there's no explanation what the different Applications, Query Classes, and Query mean.  I generally just try a few different options until I find what I need.  Most people will not invest that kind of time.

Help Desk: Where can I submit bug reports to?

Why on earth can't I sort REOs by employment location??

 

[DAA]

The average is between 10,000 to 12,000 distinct login/Users each day,  some  Users connect everyday while others only connect once a week or once a month, so you can't say that only 12,000 individuals use MM because it's not always the same people that login everyday.

Which seems to coincide with the results of your "Survey" above which so far says that "20%" of the CF actually use MM.  60% don't or won't use it and the other 20% have no idea what it is.

 

[Help Desk]

I agree 100%.  I use MM alot and I'm quite comfortable with it.  The amount of data I can access has been extremely helpful in Ops at a Reserve Unit.  But there is way too much crammed into the interface.  The workspaces did go a long way to help, but to me it shows it probably should have been broken up into several applications.  The vast majority of people will have no need for most of the functionality and they're likely to get frustrated finding what they could actually use.

The on-line help is in desperate need of a search function.  I don't know what resolution the site was designed around but it looks terrible and its a pain to use

I think the problems mentioned with Activity Management show exactly how unfriendly the user experience is.  Activities disappearing without explanation with no real indication of how to retrieve them will completely turn off the user.  Once they've reached that state using the program is a chore and they'll likely turn other people off the program.

Very few of the clerks I've talked to use MM, the only one that I know of only uses it because I suggested it and helped her through it. 

Analytics holds a wealth of data but there's no explanation what the different Applications, Query Classes, and Query mean.  I generally just try a few different options until I find what I need.  Most people will not invest that kind of time.

Help Desk: Where can I submit bug reports to?

Why on earth can't I sort REOs by employment location??

Thanks for your feedback, it is much appreciated. You should submit your bug report through your Division/Wing MM OPIs by clicking on Help , Email the Help desk, if you Org does not have an OPI you can send it to us directly by selecting email the Main Help Desk

Thanks, we will fix the sort on the employment location

 

[Carbon-14]

Thanks for your feedback, it is much appreciated. You should submit your bug report through your Division/Wing MM OPIs by clicking on Help , Email the Help desk, if you Org does not have an OPI you can send it to us directly by selecting email the Main Help Desk

Thanks, we will fix the sort on the employment location

Help Desk, thanks, I will try submitting them through the appropriate OPI.  And for clarification, I meant you can't sort by employment location on the REO website.  I believe this woks correctly in MM.

 

[Sf2]

Maybe the one singular function that we are all REQUIRED to use could be more obvious than a little party favor icon (some of my guys are convinced its a palm tree - but to suggest we all go south while on leave would be ludicrous).

 

[Help Desk]

CFTPO - Canadian Forces Taskings, Plans and Operations... can be used for course nominations in addition to MITE, but CFTPO is most often used for equipment/vehicles, taskings (i.e. augmentee), and major exercises...

Thanks for your reply, you forgot to mention Operations and Naval Deployment. Every time a Ship goes at Sea bulk nominations are entered in CFTPO from Monitor Mass and Sea days are automatically capture for each members. The Sea days module was build in Sept 2011 eliminating the need for the Navy to maintain an access database which was very labor intensive.

 

[Nfld Sapper]

Thanks for your reply, you forgot to mention Operations and Naval Deployment. Every time a Ship goes at Sea bulk nominations are entered in CFTPO from Monitor Mass and Sea days are automatically capture for each members. The Sea days module was build in Sept 2011 eliminating the need for the Navy to maintain an access database which was very labor intensive.

I didn't forget, I didn't know about that part...

 

[brihard]

As the Ops/Trg NCO / Man of Many Hats / RSM's bitch at my reserve unit a couple years back, I was quite likely the only person who found MM useful. And actually I found it quite useful- I was one of our trainers and god users' for the regiment, and it was excellent for tracking where all of our troops were in terms of career courses, or quickly generating a list of who was qualified for x, y, or z. But I was one of 150 people, and probably the only one who used it regularly or found it worth the effort. I'm also quite computer savvy and can just start friggin with a new piece of software and have it all figured out within an hour. And I would usually take the data I could quickly access in MM, and spend some time turning it into Excel charts/displays that the bosses could simply look at and immediately 'get'.

I can speak only to my experience as one guy doing random ops work, course nominations, etc, but I very much perceived that I was the only guy in the unit who found it worth the time. Very useful software for a small minority of us, pain in the ass imposition for the rest. Just my opinion, but I'll damned well stand by it.

 

[McG]

The MM parade state gives PCAT, TCAT and med chit.  Unfortunately, people can overlap in more than one of these and there is no aggregating column to indicate the true total (ie. filtering for duplicates).

 

[CountDC]

I like monitor mass, use it almost every day and we have been generating access for more members every month right down to the section commanders as they are asking for it.  We just gave all MCpls and above access so they can view their members and add them to activities.  I use it to generate most reports and the clerks have found it great as I no longer hassle them for information everytime I need to generate a report as I simply get the information out of mm.

PERs - we have been directed to use it for Reg F only.  No idea why we are not using the Reserve part.  Quite happy to let the system generate the 728s. 

UI - haven't checked but use to be able to set your own layouts with unique names so you didn't have a bunch of useless to you stuff. Can you still do that? 

My biggest complaints are:

Forms are not always up to date so can not be used.

for Reserve Force Members I can not generate a paysheet that will have all the members on one, instead it prints a seperate paysheet for each member.  I did submit this to the help desk and the reply was to do exactly what I stated I was doing which didnt work.

as the MM Admin I can not give my clerks restrictive access to the unit as a whole and then give them different access to the sub-units.  For example I want them to have view access to the entire regiment and then be able to change mbrs information only for those within the sub-unit they are assigned to.  System gives in error message "You cannot create a Login Organization within an existing Login Organization".  I can accomplish my goal only if I set each sub-unit including the RHQ and Admin seperately.  Oh - and if I am the Admin how can someone else in the unit have higher access rights than me??

SPEED - real slow when you have a CO looking for some info needed now and you are staring at a little spinner while the system takes minutes for every action.

i agree with prior post - what is that symbol for the leave??