contract data | The Contracting Education Academy

April 10, 2017 By AMK

POGO: Contracts need to be posted online

The third week of March was Sunshine Week, the one week out of the year when there is a coordinated effort by experts to highlight topics related to federal and state open records laws, the public’s right to know, and freedom of the press.

There were numerous events around Washington, DC, as well as in cities and on college campuses around the country. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is a proud participant and works hard annually to bolster federal openness because “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

Sunshine Week, however, is not just about talking about open government and cool events. It’s also about action. Last week, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced the “Contractor Accountability and Transparency Act of 2017” (S. 651), which POGO and eight other bipartisan groups supported.

The bill will expand the contracting information available on USASpending.gov (which now only offers summaries of contracts), make the contract information more accessible and readable, and help reduce Freedom of Information Act backlogs.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.pogo.org/blog/2017/03/contracts-need-to-be-posted-online-mccaskill-sunshine-transparency.html

August 26, 2015 By AMK

Agencies rely on contractor tool to spot procurement errors

Does federal contract award data need a few good proofreaders?

According to Jeff Sopko, executive vice president of the Alexandria, Va.-based PotomacWave consulting firm, about 20 percent to 30 percent of records in the government’s procurement database contain errors. “They stem from frequent changes in policy and procedures that take time to be implemented in source contract writing, as well as human errors,” he said. “The errors get pushed from the contract writing system to [the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation] with few validation checks.”

To address that problem, PotomacWave in 2012 created a software tool called FedDataCheck.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2015/08/agencies-rely-contractor-tool-spot-procurement-errors/119376

April 2, 2014 By AMK

Agencies setting off into the next data frontier — procurement

Agencies are starting to grasp the real value of procurement data. Several agencies are asking the General Services Administration, NASA and others for more details on what they buy, how they buy it and how they could make better decisions.

NASA, for example, is working closely with the Veterans Affairs Department to provide them with an assortment of data points around energy efficiency, such as how VA’s IT products are rated for Energy Star or E-Peat. NASA also plans to provide VA with information about how their purchases meet the Trade Agreements Act and about their buying habits based on product classifications.

Joanne Woytek, the program manager for NASA SEWP governmentwide acquisition contract, said the fact that VA and other agencies are asking for and receiving this type of data is a sign of maturity for both the GWAC providers and the agencies in understanding what’s available and why the data matters.

“I’ve seen this happening more with our contracts and SEWP V. A lot of what we are putting into that is to make it a more mature model. We can’t just say, ‘we can do that,’ we will actually demonstrate the things we can do,” she said at the 2014 Acquisition Excellence conference in Washington Thursday sponsored by GSA, the Homeland Security Department and ACT-IAC. “We will be able to show agencies what they are buying. We’re going to be able to provide them with more information. We always said we could do that, but we actually are going to start doing that. I think that’s going to have a bigger effect on agencies who no longer will say ‘I don’t want to use you because I’m not sure you can give me that information. I’m not sure you can control what we’re purchasing.’ We can do that for them and we’ll actually start showing that. So I see us having a better impact on people now that we’ve gotten to this point.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=533&sid=3587330&pid=0&page=1

March 14, 2014 By AMK

GSA acquisition database integration pushed back to 2018

The General Services Administration (GSA) pushed back the planned completion date of an integrated acquisition database to 2018 because of development problems and cost overruns, GSA Assistant Commissioner Kevin Youel Page told a Senate panel March 6.

“We’ve suffered our own missteps,” Page said during a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee subcommittee on financial and contracting oversight.

Plans were made in 2001 to combine governmentwide acquisition databases into a single system called the Integrated Acquisition Environment.

But the project has been plagued with problems.

A March 2012 Government Accountability Office report says cost overruns, which grew by 89 percent, were largely due to mistakes GSA has made. GAO initially estimated it would cost about $95.7 million, but the 2012 estimate came in at $181.1 million.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/gsa-acquisition-database-integration-pushed-back-2018/2014-03-07

November 18, 2010 By AMK

GSA official touts progress on Data.gov

The General Services Administration is “very proud” of the work it has done with the federal government’s online clearinghouse of downloadable information, but challenges remain, a project manager said on Wednesday.

Data.gov has grown from hosting 47 data sets when it launched in May 2009 to offering more than 300,000 today, said Program Director Marion Royal, during the International Open Government Data Conference in Washington. Royal leads the team of federal employees and contractors working on the site.

GSA launched an open data community page within the site on Monday, according to Royal. The page aims to bring together policy makers, technologists, data owners and citizens, encouraging them to make recommendations on information that should be shared.

“[I’m] happy to finally open up . . . two-way communication on Data.gov,” he said. “New two-way communication is going to be helpful to not only us but the public as well.”

GSA also is working on hosting data sets that will be easier to view without downloading the entire file, Royal said, adding, this will be especially helpful for people using mobile devices.

“[The] tools we are looking at will allow us to do that kind of thing and allow us to [display] the data in a way the average person” will understand, he said.

Despite this progress, hurdles remain, according to Royal. “If we have additional funding, we could do additional things,” he said, though he did not elaborate on how much extra money would be necessary, or what he’d like to accomplish with it.

Royal has big plans for the site nonetheless. “I hope we can get around or over the roadblocks to achieve some really special things,” he said. “No matter how well we do at Data.gov, we [always have] to kick it up a notch.”

– by Brian Kalish – 11/18/2010 – NextGov.com

Does federal contract award data need a few good proofreaders?

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