SAM.gov | The Contracting Education Academy

November 12, 2019 By cs

FBO no mo’

Today, beta.SAM.gov became the official source for federal business opportunities, replacing FBO.gov.

**This is the message visitors now see at FBO.gov.**

FBO, which stood for Federal Business Opportunities (or the shortened term FedBizOpps), contained a list of virtually every federal contract valued at more than $25,000. These contracts can now be found in the “Contract Opportunities” section of beta.SAM.gov.

The General Services Administration (GSA) is in charge of beta.SAM.gov. GSA’s vision for the merged databases is “a ‘family tree’ that organizes federal government users and establishes relationships between each department/independent agency’s sub-tiers and its offices.”

Visitors who attempt to go to FBO.gov are automatically rerouted to fbohome.sam.gov which provides notice that FBO has moved.

In visiting the new site today, we encountered long delays in connecting to beta.SAM.gov as well as to its Contract Opportunities page at beta.sam.gov/help/contract-opportunities. Users encountered similar delays when GSA last month moved the FARSite operated since 1996 by Hill Air Force Base to GSA-managed Acquisition.gov. Because of high traffic, GSA had to delay the transition from Oct. 1 to Oct. 21.

Links on beta.SAM.gov appear to be working, but users will experience delays in moving from one page to another and in downloading documents. Notably, we had to make multiple attempts to open the “FBO Transition Guide for Federal Administrators.” The Guide provides instructions to federal officials on how to post contract opportunities and related information to beta.SAM.gov. We encountered similar delays when trying to open various “Quick Start” guides.

The shift of FBO.gov to beta.SAM.gov is part of a larger merger of many legacy systems into one database. Previously, “Wage Determinations Online” and the “Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance” were shifted into beta.SAM.gov.

August 15, 2019 By cs

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

June 12, 2017 By AMK

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

November 23, 2015 By AMK

GSA settles discrimination suit with blind contractors

Three blind federal contractors who sued the General Services Administration (GSA) over a website that they said was not accessible to the visually impaired have settled with the agency.

A lawyer representing the contractors announced the settlement on Nov. 12.

“This is an excellent result not only for our clients, but for the blind community as a whole,” said Lewis Wiener, co-chair of Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and partner at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, in a statement.

The 18-month lawsuit began when the contractors found that one of GSA’s websites, the System for Award Management or SAM.gov, was not accessible for the visually impaired and prevented the trio from maintaining their contractor status.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/acquisition/gsa-gwac/2015/11/12/gsa-settles-discrimination-suit-blind-contractors/75645622/

May 2, 2014 By AMK

Lawsuit says GSA discriminates against blind contractors

A group of blind federal contractors filed a lawsuit against the General Services Administration last week over a contractor website they say shuts out the visually impaired.

The System for Award Management website, SAM.gov, contains numerous buttons, checkboxes, drop-down menus and “mouseovers” that federal contractors must navigate each year in order to keep their contractor status current. Those bells and whistles make it difficult or impossible for screen reading software that blind people use to navigate the Internet to decode the site, the suit claims.

GSA phone-in help desk employees are also not sufficiently trained in disability issues, the suit claims, making it even more difficult for blind contractors to complete their registrations.

The suit was filed as a class action by the American Council for the Blind and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The groups claim GSA violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which, among other things, bars discrimination against federal contractors and grantees based solely on a disability.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2014/04/lawsuit-says-gsa-discriminates-against-blind-contractors/83179/

Today, beta.SAM.gov became the official source for federal business opportunities, replacing FBO.gov.

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.

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

Three blind federal contractors who sued the General Services Administration (GSA) over a website that they said was not accessible to the visually impaired have settled with the agency.

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