System for Award Management | The Contracting Education Academy

August 27, 2020 By cs

FPDS reports will officially move to beta.SAM by mid-October

Users will no longer be able to run contract award reports through FPDS.gov, though that site will retain other capabilities.

As of October 17, federal vendors, contracting researchers and watchers and any other interested party, will no longer be able to run or access contract award data reports through the Federal Procurement Data System at FPDS.gov.

On that date, the General Services Administration expects to have completed the full migration of FDPS’s reporting functions—administrative, static, standard and ad hoc reports—to the beta.SAM.gov website under the Data Bank page.

“At that time, beta.SAM.gov will be the only place to create and run contract data reports and the reports module in FPDS.gov will be retired,” according to an update in GSA’s new beta.SAM.gov newsletter.

Originally, all of the reports functions were slated to transfer to beta.SAM.gov in March. However, GSA opted for a “soft launch” this spring, with an “agile iterative improvement process” set to conclude in October.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/08/fpds-reports-will-officially-move-betasam-mid-october/167685/

August 4, 2020 By cs

SBA looks to tighten up certification process for women-owned small businesses

Women-owned small businesses, take note: the Small Business Administration is changing the certification process for doing business with the federal government.

Following a 2015 mandate from Congress, SBA will end its self-certification process for women-owned small businesses on October 15. This comes after the agency’s inspector general found contract awards were going to vendors that didn’t meet the criteria for the program.

Business owners since last Wednesday have been able to submit their applications through the online platform, but SBA will only begin issuing decisions on those submitted applications on Oct. 15, the last day of the self-certification process.

Alisa Sheard, a program manager in SBA Women’s Contracting Office, said businesses already certified through the WOSB program must also go through the new certification process, requiring business owners to copy information found on their SAM.gov profile and transfer it to SBA’s online certification platform.

“Everyone will still need to submit answers to questions and upload documents because there’s no data migration. Those documents that were in the different system are not in this beta certified system, so they will have to upload all of those documents,” Sheard said in an interview.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/contracting/2020/07/sba-looks-to-tighten-up-certification-process-for-women-owned-small-businesses/

December 4, 2019 By cs

Complaints continue as GSA moves forward with beta.SAM.gov

The General Services Administration (GSA) is trying to address problems with the contract opportunity portion of the new beta.SAM.gov website and has added some functions that industry has been complaining about.

Complaining actually might be too weak a word. Howls from industry have been fierce since GSA shut down the old FBO.gov and migrated contract opportunity data to beta.SAM.gov.

Many functions and ease of use that FBO.gov offered have disappeared and users have been vocal about their displeasure.

GSA has addressed some of those. For example, users of beta.SAM.gov can now search by solicitation number. But other legacy functions are still missing, such as email alerts for tracked procurements.

GSA promises that email alerts are under development. No word yet on when it will be added.

Keep reading this article at: https://washingtontechnology.com/blogs/editors-notebook/2019/12/beta-sam-gsa-notes.aspx

See our earlier articles on this subject at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/?s=beta

See GSA memo regarding transition of FBO.gov to beta.sam.gov at: FBO Has Transitioned to Beta 2

Hints for using the new Contract Opportunities function in beta.SAM.gov are here: https://interact.gsa.gov/blog/helpful-hints-new-contract-opportunities-function-betasamgov-how-use-search-filters

October 8, 2019 By cs

R.I.P. PPIRS

First things first: sorry about the title of this article.

**How contractor past performance information used to flow from CPARS through PPIRS and into FAPIIS.**

The longer, alternate title would have been “Rest In Peace – the Past Performance Information Retrieval System Sleeps with the Fishes.” But that doesn’t have the same kind of obscure, punchy, epitaph-type quality that I’m aiming for. So instead, we give you get a garbled mess of an acronym to remind us that the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) – the system once used by the U.S. Government to house the final performance assessments for government contractors – is no more. As far as epitaphs go, most of us would agree that “R.I.P.” is just about what an acronym deserves.

There are various “past performance” reporting and accountability systems for contractors, including the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) (dating back to around 2007), PPIRS (first introduced around 2009), and the Federal Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) (finalized in early-2010). There is a neat little picture to help demonstrate how data flowed through the various governmental systems.

These systems continue to evolve, and PPIRS is officially no more – formally rolling into CPARS. And, in time, CPARS will be no more, eventually rolling into the multi-functional, highly integrated, federal System for Award Management (SAM), available at SAM.gov (and currently available in a semi-upgraded fashion at beta.SAM.gov).

Keep reading this article at: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/rip-ppirs

August 16, 2019 By AMK

Move away from ‘worst website in government’ delayed for fourth time

Do you remember the movie Major League and the way the baseball team’s skipper motivated his squad to win more games?

For every win, he removed a piece of paper on a poster that eventually revealed the team owner in a skimpy outfit.

Maybe it’s an approach the General Services Administration can use for its System for Award Management or SAM.gov site. While I don’t believe GSA employees need to be motivated by a revealing photo of any person, maybe the staff and senior leaders could use a similar tactic. Think about a countdown clock or maybe Alan Thomas, the Federal Acquisition Service’s commissioner, could offer to grow a mustache and Elvis side burns to give the group a little kick in the pants to decommission more of these legacy sites in favor of the beta.SAM.gov site more quickly.

A little more motivation is needed because of continued problems with SAM.gov and the news that the transition away from the WORST WEBSITE IN GOVERNMENT will be delayed for a fourth time to mid-November.

The latest problem with SAM.gov is around vendors getting or renewing a Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code. This is a five-digit number that only federal contractors need to do business with agencies. It provides a standardized method of identifying a given legal entity at a specific location.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2019/07/move-away-from-worst-website-in-government-delayed-for-fourth-time/

Users will no longer be able to run contract award reports through FPDS.gov, though that site will retain other capabilities.

Women-owned small businesses, take note: the Small Business Administration is changing the certification process for doing business with the federal government.

The General Services Administration (GSA) is trying to address problems with the contract opportunity portion of the new beta.SAM.gov website and has added some functions that industry has been complaining about.

First things first: sorry about the title of this article.

Do you remember the movie Major League and the way the baseball team’s skipper motivated his squad to win more games?

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