New online ID card renewal process for dependents, retirees slashes wait time

  • Published
  • By Robert Goetz
  • 502nd Air Base Wing Public Affairs
JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO, Texas --  

An ID card renewal process for military dependents and retirees that originated three years ago at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, is gaining traction in the Air Force and is already up and running at Joint Base San Antonio.

The new online process, which replaces scheduling an appointment through the Real Time Automated Personnel Identification System, also known as RAPIDS, slashes the time dependents and retirees have to wait before they receive their renewal ID cards.

“By doing this online process, waiting times for dependent and retiree renewals will go from seven weeks for an appointment to seven business days,” said 1st Lt. Anne Herrmann, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland Military Personnel Section chief.

Long waiting periods for ID card appointments have been the norm in recent months because of Air Force-wide Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System computer outages, higher demand during permanent-change-of-station season and an overall greater number of customers during the summer months, Herrmann said. DEERS is the system used to process ID cards for dependents, retirees and active-duty members.

“We have been grappling with DEERS issues for most of April-June,” she said. “This has created a problem since a lot of the appointments that were made were unable to be completed during that time. The system has been functioning well for the last few weeks, but we are still experiencing a high volume of customers at this time and there is almost a seven-week wait for appointments.” 

However, the new online process for dependent and retiree renewals should help the situation, Herrmann said, freeing up other appointments for active-duty members, civilian employees and contractors seeking to renew their common access cards and those who are receiving ID cards for the first time.

Patrick AFB’s online ID card process provided a blueprint for JBSA, said Fran Santiago, JBSA-Lackland MPS ID Card Section lead.

“We had many complaints about the amount of time it takes to make an appointment for an ID card, so to try to expedite the process, we looked at ways to innovate and came up with the online ID card process, based on Patrick Air Force Base’s success,” she said. “They did an initiative to try to reduce the amount of wait time and we piggy-backed on them, asking for information and getting pointers from them.”


Dependents and retirees can renew their ID cards online by going to the JBSA website at http://www.jbsa.mil,

clicking on the “ID Cards Online” link on the right side of the home page and completing the three steps on the page titled “Dependent and Retiree ID Card Renewal Online.” All documents and photos are uploaded online and sent to the MPS through the website.

“We made a web page for it so it would be more convenient for our customers,” said Airman 1st Class Dillan Barker, JBSA-Lackland MPS customer support technician. “With the new feature, they can easily go to the site and then we’ll get a notification in our in-box to create the ID card. It’s 100 percent more efficient.”

To better serve their customers, JBSA’s military and personnel sections have already expanded their hours; they are now open from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays and will be open the first Saturday in August for walk-in customers, with updates posted on the JBSA Facebook page, the 502nd Force Support Squadron website and JBSA Twitter accounts. In addition, each location sets aside a block of time each week for new civilian employees.

Another innovation on the horizon is the use of kiosks at MPS locations that will enable customers to sign in online without being in the facility for all services, such as outbound assignments, passports, re-enlistments, ID cards, separations, retirements and customer service, Herrmann said.

“This kiosk will enable customers to see the current wait time for that section,” she said. “It will send them a text notification when they are next in line.”

In addition, more online options may be available in the future, Herrmann said.

 

“The online ID card process for renewals is the only online option at the moment, but we will be introducing more online capabilities over the next year in phases,” she said.