You will be aware that NIFAIS, the Departments new IT system replacing APHIS, is planned to go live for cattle markets and exports on 4th September 2023. To facilitate data migration there will be a reduction in APHIS services over Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd September 2023.
We are currently planning to allow markets and tag suppliers access to APHIS up until 2pm on Saturday 2nd September. After this APHIS will be unavailable for cattle transactions until Sunday 3rd September when NIFAIS is planned to be launched. Cattle market moves from markets to herds, which occurred on Saturday, can be uploaded to NIFAIS once DAERA give the go-ahead.
APHIS will be unavailable for all species from 2.00 pm on Saturday 2nd September. We hope to have APHIS back operating, for sheep markets and exports, later on Saturday 2nd September and further communications will be issued nearer the time. There is likely to be a minimum 4 hours of downtime for APHIS from 2-6 pm and potentially longer.
For now all markets and exporters should be aware of the possibility of significant disruption over this weekend. We appreciate your co-operation and any queries can be returned to this mailbox, or further information can be sought on the DAERA NIFAIS Landing Page.