How to Fill Out the NCOER Support Form: Duty, Counseling, Bullets

DA Form 2166-9-1A, the NCOER Support Form for Sergeants and Corporals, is completed inside the Evaluation Entry System (EES) starting at initial counseling within 30 days of the rating period. You and your rater use it to set performance goals, log accomplishments across the year, and generate the data that later populates the final NCO Evaluation Report. AR 623-3, updated 14 February 2025, governs the process end to end.¹ Corporals use the same support form even though no formal NCOER is prepared at that grade.

Where You Actually Do the Work

EES is the only Army platform authorized for creating, editing, and submitting support forms and evaluations. Log in with your Common Access Card and click “Create Support Form” on the homepage to start a new DA Form 2166-9-1A.² Either the rated NCO or anyone in the rating chain can create and edit the form. Administrative data you enter here auto-populates the NCOER when it’s later generated from the same support form, so accuracy at this stage saves rework later.³

Parts I and II: Administrative Data and the Rating Chain

Part I identifies the rated NCO. Enter full legal name, DOD ID Number (the primary identifier; use SSN only if no DOD ID is available), rank, date of rank, branch, and unit designation including the Unit Identification Code.⁴ EES pulls some fields from DMDC, and email addresses default to uppercase but can be corrected manually.² Verify the UIC; a wrong code causes routing problems downstream. Part I also records whether the NCO has met Structured Self-Development and NCOES requirements for the next grade.

Part II captures the rater, senior rater, and supplementary reviewer if one is required. Names and ranks must match the published rating scheme exactly. If the rater also serves as senior rater, EES lets you click “Yes” to copy the rater block into the senior rater block.²

When You Need a Supplementary Reviewer

A supplementary reviewer is required when the senior rater is a 2LT through 1LT, WO1 through CW2, or SFC through 1SG/MSG; when no uniformed Army-designated rating official at the rank of CSM/SGM, CW3–CW5, or Captain and above appears anywhere in the rating chain; or when the report is a Relief for Cause directed by the senior rater or someone outside the rating chain. The supplementary reviewer must outrank the senior rater and hold the rank of CSM/SGM, CW3–CW5, or Captain and above, and must be named on the published rating scheme at the start of the evaluation period.⁵

Part III: Duty Description

Part III has five blocks, and it sets the frame for everything downstream. The duty description carries over to the final NCOER unless the duty changes mid-cycle.³

Block a, Principal Duty Title. Should match the MTOE or TDA, though a title closer to the actual duties performed is acceptable if the two differ.
Block b, Duty MOSC. At least five characters, no more than nine. If the NCO fills an officer position, enter the enlisted MOSC that best matches.
Block c, Daily Duties and Scope. Describe the most important routine duties. Write phrases starting with action words, separate them with semicolons, close with a period, and stay in present tense.
Block d, Areas of Special Emphasis. Tasks that carried top priority during the period, such as Soldier Readiness Processing or Unit Prevention Leader duties. Same semicolon format.
Block e, Appointed Duties. Duties assigned outside the normal duty description. Same format.

A vague or boilerplate description here makes it harder to write meaningful objectives in Part IV and harder for the rater to justify high marks later. Spend the time to get the scope right.

Part IV: Performance Goals and Expectations

Part IV is the working heart of the form. During initial counseling, the rated NCO and rater agree on specific objectives tied to the Army Leadership Requirements Model. EES prompts you to enter goals under Character, Intellect, Leads, self-development, and Achievements.² Across the rating period, you return to these same blocks to log contributions and accomplishments against each objective.

Write objectives concrete enough to measure. “Maintain physical fitness” is vague. “Pass the record fitness test with a score above 500 and ensure all squad members meet body composition standards” gives the rater something real to evaluate. Tie each objective to the unit mission so the rater can later show how your performance contributed to organizational results.

The senior rater also provides input through Part VI, offering broader organizational goals and expectations. That guidance should line up with your Part IV objectives. If there’s a disconnect, raise it at counseling rather than discovering the gap at the end of the year.

Part V: Attributes and Competencies

Part V maps directly to ADP 6-22 and covers three attributes and three competencies:⁴

Character. Army Values, empathy, warrior ethos/service ethos, discipline, and adherence to SHARP/EO/EEO standards.
Presence. Military and professional bearing, fitness, confidence, and resilience.
Intellect. Mental agility, sound judgment, innovation, interpersonal tact, and expertise.
Leads. Leading others, building trust, extending influence beyond the chain of command, leading by example, and communicating.
Develops. Creating a positive environment, fostering esprit de corps, preparing yourself, developing others, and stewarding the profession.
Achieves. Getting results.

On the support form, these categories establish the behavioral standards the NCO will be measured against. During counseling, the rater clarifies what right looks like in each category, and the rated NCO acknowledges the expectation. The same categories reappear on the NCOER itself when actual performance is scored.

Fitness Test and Body Composition

Every evaluation requires a record fitness test status. As of June 2025, the Army Fitness Test replaced the ACFT, though EES may still display ACFT-era labels. You can manually adjust “ACFT” to “AFT” where applicable.² In the support form, select “No APFT” in the fitness block (the legacy APFT option remains as a selection artifact) and then record the current status and date in the comment section in this exact format:

ACFT: [STATUS] [YYYYMMDD]

Valid status entries are PASS, FAIL, PROFILE, or NO ACFT. A passing result must come from a record test administered within 12 months of the report’s THRU date. Diagnostic results cannot be entered. A passing numerical score can be included in the comments, but only the status and date are required.⁶ A FAIL status obligates the rater to explain the failure and the Soldier’s progress toward standard in the narrative space. Enter PROFILE for Soldiers on a physical profile. Pregnant or postpartum Soldiers are exempt from both the fitness entry and the height and weight requirement, and EES auto-populates the appropriate comments.

For body composition, the rater enters height and weight, then selects “Yes” or “No” under “Within Standards” to indicate compliance with AR 600-9.⁶ A “No” flags the Soldier as enrolled in the Army Body Composition Program and needs to be addressed in the rater’s narrative comments.

Bullet Comment Formatting Rules

AR 623-3 requires bullet format on DA Form 2166-9-1 (the SGT NCOER) and DA Form 2166-9-2 (SSG through 1SG/MSG). The regulation defines a bullet comment as a “short, concise, to-the-point” statement starting with an action verb or the possessive pronoun “their.”¹ Each bullet runs no more than two lines (one is preferred), and only one bullet per line.

You cannot use:

Underlining, bold, or italics
Excessive capital letters or unnecessary quotation marks
Repeated exclamation points
Wide spacing between words, bullets, or sentences, including double spacing within or between paragraphs
Compressed type or spacing
Handwritten comments or exaggerated margins

Start each bullet with an action verb or “their,” not with “he” or “she” (personal pronouns can appear later in the bullet). Use past tense. The strongest bullets pair an action with a measurable result: “trained 14 Soldiers on convoy operations; section achieved 100% qualification rate during gunnery” tells a board more than “performed duties in an outstanding manner.” Quantify wherever possible: percentages, dollar value of equipment, number of Soldiers trained, improvement over a baseline.

The Counseling Timeline

AR 623-3 requires initial counseling within 30 days of the start of the rating period, with quarterly follow-ups after that.¹ The support form is mandatory at each session, and both the rated Soldier and the rater initial it to verify that face-to-face counseling occurred.

Initial counseling walks through the full form: administrative data, duty description, performance objectives, and attribute and competency expectations. Quarterly sessions are where you update accomplishments, adjust objectives if the mission has shifted, and address any shortfalls before they become surprises on the final report. If no counseling dates appear on the support form, the senior rater must explain the missing counseling in Part V of the NCOER itself. Documentation matters most when a Soldier is not meeting standards; the support form then serves as the source document that can redirect performance and, if necessary, justify a below-standard evaluation later.¹

Logging Accomplishments as They Happen

The support form in EES stays editable through the rating period. Use it. NCOs with strong evaluations don’t reconstruct a year of work from memory the week before the report closes; they update Part IV between counseling sessions as things happen.

Focus on impact, not activity. “Conducted weekly maintenance checks” describes a task. “Identified and corrected a Class III leak during weekly maintenance, preventing $12,000 in potential damage to the M1151” describes impact. Boards can tell the difference. Track the metrics already built into your job: qualification rates, equipment readiness percentages, number of Soldiers trained, improvements from one assessment to the next. When you take on something outside the normal duty description (Unit Prevention Leader, range NCOIC, unit event coordinator), record dates and outcomes. Those entries feed the “areas of special emphasis” and “appointed duties” conversations at quarterly counseling, and they become the raw material for the rater’s bullets.

How the Form Becomes the NCOER

When the rater creates the evaluation report in EES from an existing support form, administrative data carries over automatically, and the duty description matches unless changes occurred mid-cycle.³ Your logged accomplishments become the source for bullet comments. Raters comment only on performance during the rating period; potential is reserved for the senior rater.⁵

The support form travels with the rater’s evaluation to the senior rater, giving the rating chain the rated Soldier’s own perspective.¹ Once every party signs electronically, EES locks the support form and the finalized NCOER goes to the Soldier’s permanent record.

1
Department of the Army. Army Regulation 623-3 – Evaluation Reporting System
2
U.S. Army Human Resources Command. Evaluation Entry System Users Guide
3
U.S. Army Human Resources Command. DA Form 2166-9 Series Module 3 NCOER Support Form and Grade Plate NCOERs
4
U.S. Army Human Resources Command. DA Form 2166-9 Series Module 3 NCOER Support Form and Grade Plate NCOERs
5
U.S. Army Human Resources Command. Module 2 Policy Updates
6
U.S. Army Human Resources Command. Army Combat Fitness Test on Evaluation Reports