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FedBizOpps to merge with SAM.gov before year’s end

The General Services Administration (GSA) has announced that FedBizOpps.gov will migrate to a new SAM.gov site as early as the first quarter of FY20.

All totalled, as many as 10 GSA-managed websites are expected to be merged into SAM.gov by the end of 2019.

In addition to FedBizOpps and the existing SAM site, the other websites to be consolidated are: the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA), Wage Determinations Online (WDOL), Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System (eSRS), the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA), and contractor past performance databases Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS), Contractor Performance Assessment Reports System (CPARS), and the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS).

Once made a part of SAM.gov, FedBizOpps will be identified as “Contract Opportunities.”  A full description of the changes to be made to FedBizOpps, including new features to be introduced once the transition to SAM.gov is complete, appears in a fact sheet issued by GSA.  The fact sheet can be found here: FedBizOpps To Become ‘Contract Opportunities’ in SAM.gov

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DHS building a contract to manage all its cybersecurity operations centers

The single contract will likely have multiple awardees, each capable of managing the entirety of operations at each of the department’s 17 security centers.

The Homeland Security Department is building a contract vehicle of vendors able to manage its 17 unclassified security operations centers—the cybersecurity hubs for the government’s central cybersecurity agency.

The agency issued a request for information Aug. 7th outlining its tentative acquisition strategy and asking for feedback from industry on capabilities and approach to spinning up additional resources in times of crisis, such as during a large-scale cyberattack.

“The Department of Homeland Security has a complex and demanding mission,” the notice on FedBizOpps reads. “To assist in meeting that mission, DHS needs robust and effective information systems. It also needs to protect those systems from cyber threats posed by nation-states and criminal enterprises.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/08/dhs-building-contract-manage-all-its-cybersecurity-operations-centers/159032/

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Don’t panic, FedBizOpps is working — it just has a new IP

Federal employees, vendors, researchers and reporters, alike, rely on the FedBizOpps website as a repository of all things federal contracting. But some more security-minded users might have trouble accessing the site lately.

FBO.gov was recently switched to a new hosting environment by the contractor that manages the site, Symplicity Corporation. The General Services Administration directed questions on why the change was necessary to the company, which did not return requests for comment.

Users with strong security measures that restrict access to only a handful of known websites—a practice known as whitelisting—might not be able to get to the site until the new IP address is added to the approved list.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/05/dont-panic-fedbizopps-working-it-just-has-new-ip/147980/

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Changes coming to SAM.gov

The General Services Administration (GSA) is planning to test a new version of the System for Award Management (SAM). 

At present, SAM.gov is the federal database where vendors register to do business with the government.   When it went live in mid-2012, SAM was introduced as portal where, over time, several different government databases would be consolidated.  Federal Agency Registration (FedReg), the Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA), and the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) were among the systems to be first consolidated under the SAM umbrella.

The 2012 introduction of SAM initially was delayed and, once launched, many access problems were encountered by vendors and government agencies alike.  Since then, SAM experienced a data breach in 2013 and periodic difficulties with the interface with SBA’s small business database.

GSA now plans to resume work on the original vision for SAM – the consolidation of as many as 10 websites.

A new test site, at beta.sam.gov, reportedly is to launch between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2017.

The objective of the consolidated web site is to reduce the federal contracting burden on contractors and federal officials alike by creating a single place to access a range of data, including contractor registration information, award data for prime and subcontractors, and information about companies excluded from government work.

Eventually, the functions of 10 existing sites — including SAM.gov, the Federal Procurement Data System (fpds.gov); Federal Business Opportunities (fbo.gov), the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act Subaward Reporting System (fsrs.gov), and the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (fapiis.go) — will become a part of the SAM beta site.  Once testing is completed, all of the added functionality will become a part of a new SAM.gov site.  The sites that were merged into SAM.gov then will be retired.

Improvements, such as search features, will continue to be made to existing sites as the new site is being tested, GSA says.

Vendors are reminded that there is no cost to use SAM.  Vendors may use SAM.gov free-of-charge to:

  • Register to do business with the U.S. government
  • Update or renew registrations
  • Check status of an entity registration
  • Search for entity registration and exclusion records

 

 

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Federal agencies sometimes struggle with creating postings on FedBizOpps

The Ides of March came early — at least for one employee of the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command contracting office.

While March 15 is known as a rather notorious day in history, March 1, 2017 may now take on special significance as well (at least among federal employees) as the day that a contracting official in Seattle apparently couldn’t figure out how to delete a posting from FedBizOpps (FBO), the website where virtually all federal contracts valued at $25,000 or more are posted daily.

Unable to delete a contract posting, the contracting official simply titled it, in all caps: “DON’T KNOW HOW TO DELETE THESE.”

This is a screenshot of the FedBizOpps posting created on Mar. 1, 2017 by the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command.

The words “DON’T KNOW HOW TO DELETE THESE” appear in the place where the title of a solicitation or contract award normally appears.  In this case, the posting indicates that the contract was awarded on December 2, 2013, and it was a sole source award.

The FBO notice also indicates that the contract was for architectural and engineering services, and that the contract number is HSCG50-14-R-PKUGH1.

In fairness, the contracting office at the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command isn’t the only contracting office that sometimes struggles with FBO postings.  Last August, the Denver-based National Park Service contracts office of the U.S. Department of Interior advertised a contract opportunity for “ASSES & DEVELOP LEADERSHIP TRAINING RDI.”

Presumably, the National Park Service wanted an assessment of their leadership training program performed when they created this FedBizOpps posting on Aug, 29, 2016.

The Coast Guard’s FBO posting can be seen at: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=97fab27175e8c6b4216141611cbfce48&tab=core&_cview=0.

The National Park Service’s FBO posting is at: https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=5fbc373ae5c98756189e3c2277541fbb&tab=core&_cview=1.

 

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