Begin by matching the form to your task. DA Form 1845 is titled SCHEDULE OF MANPOWER STUDIES/SURVEYS, and you reach for it when you need to schedule of manpower studies/surveys. Once that matches, check the date. The edition here is May 2000, published with the status not stated. After that, glance at the length: you will be working through 1 page(s) and somewhere near 200 fields.
Now decide who does the writing. Normally you enter your own particulars, then hand the sheet to the unit administrative office for review. If you work in that office, you enter what the individual brings you. From there the path is the same for everyone: DCS, G-1 is responsible for the form, and AR 570-4 tells you what triggers it and where it ends up. Look at the directive first whenever your case departs from the ordinary.
Begin with the first block and follow the printed order. You will enter your name first, exactly as your official records show it, followed by your identification number, your organisation, and the date of preparation. Resist the urge to jump to the substantive blocks and return to the header later. Those first entries are the index for the whole record, and an error there costs you the ability to retrieve it.
In the body of the form, tab from field to field instead of clicking around. The tab order follows how the form was constructed, which keeps you from missing a box. For check boxes and option buttons, click them. If you find a set where the choices are exclusive, expect your new selection to clear the previous one. Keep an eye on long entries as you type: fields built for one line will not wrap, and what overflows the width will print truncated even though your screen shows all of it. At that point move the text into remarks or onto a continuation. And when something does not apply to you, say so in the field — write the entry that means "none" rather than leaving white space a reviewer has to interpret.
Save the signature for last. Sign by hand, or by whatever electronic method your office accepts, and understand that until you do the document is a draft no matter how complete it looks. If the form calls for a reviewing official, an approving authority, or a witness, take those signatures in the order the blocks print, and have each signer date it on the day they sign rather than the day you prepared it. Before you hand it over, read it once more from the top. You are looking for three things in particular: a mandatory field you left empty, digits transposed in your identification number, and a date written with day and month the wrong way round. Check one more thing if you built this form from a copy you had lying around — old entries survive in a reused file, and they will go forward as though you meant them.
You will find a Privacy Act statement on the form wherever personal information is collected. Read it at that point rather than skipping past it, because it tells you the authority for the collection, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether answering is mandatory. After you fill the form, remember that your copy contains personal data. Store it and transmit it as your office requires for records of that kind.
Download the form
Next comes the download itself. The formats available are PDF, XFDL, and you decide between them by asking how you will enter the information. If you plan to type, take the fillable pdf: the boxes accept keyboard input and you can save the result. If you plan to write by hand, take the printable pdf and run it through your printer while it is still blank. Both show the same published page, so the decision affects your method and nothing else.
After you download, open the file the right way. Double-click a pdf and your browser may take it, which is fine for reading but risky for filling: some browser viewers show you the fields, let you type, and then lose the text when you close the tab. Save the file to your computer first, then open it in a full pdf reader, and check that your entries survive a save before you type the whole form. If you downloaded the xfdl file, do not try a pdf reader on it. That format is IBM Lotus Forms, and you need the Lotus Forms Viewer to open it at all.
Then simply download. There is no charge, no sign-up and no email to hand over, and the file that arrives is exactly what the publisher released.
What the form asks for
- COMMAND
- ContentArea1
- DATEPLAN
- DATEPLAN_1
- DATEPLAN_10
- DATEPLAN_11
- DATEPLAN_12
- DATEPLAN_13
- DATEPLAN_14
- DATEPLAN_15
- DATEPLAN_16
- DATEPLAN_17
- DATEPLAN_18
- DATEPLAN_19
- DATEPLAN_2
- DATEPLAN_20
- DATEPLAN_21
- DATEPLAN_22
- DATEPLAN_23
- DATEPLAN_3
- DATEPLAN_4
- DATEPLAN_5
- DATEPLAN_6
- DATEPLAN_7
With the form signed, send it where AR 570-4 tells you to send it — usually to the office it names, or through your unit administrative channel, or straight into your own record, depending on why you raised it. Keep a copy for yourself before it leaves your hands. How long the receiving office holds it is not your decision or theirs; the records schedule for the series settles that, and local habit does not override it.
When another document has to travel with this one, find it by series and number. Forms in the DA series sharing a proponent or a governing directive are commonly used in combination, and anything cited on the face of your form generally goes with it. Assemble continuation sheets, covers and transmittals before you send the package rather than in response to a query.
Before you reuse a saved copy, look at the edition date printed on it. The proponent revises the form from time to time, and your stored file will not tell you when that happens — you compare its date against the current edition yourself. If a revision has come out since you last filed one of these, leave the earlier submission alone; the change does not reach backwards.
Read this before you go. The file you download is a reproduction of a published Department of the Army document, offered as it was published. We are an independent site with no connection to the Department of the Army and no authority to issue anything, and we make no statement about whether your completed form will be accepted anywhere. Treat what you read here as information, not legal advice. Take real questions — about an entry, a requirement, or your eligibility — to DCS, G-1 or to your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 1845?
- SCHEDULE OF MANPOWER STUDIES/SURVEYS
- Which edition is current?
- May 2000
- Who is responsible for this form?
- DCS, G-1
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL