Treasury Dept. | The Contracting Education Academy

February 14, 2020 By cs

Federal contracting community shreds FBO replacement site in letter to GSA

“If this had the same notoriety as Healthcare.gov, people would have been fired.”

The transition of the federal contracting opportunities website from Federal Business Opportunities, better known as FedBizOpps or FBO, to the Contracting Opportunities page of beta.SAM.gov caused concern ahead of the migration and frustration after the move. Three months after the transition finished, the government contracting community’s anger has yet to be assuaged.

Last week, the Professional Services Council — an industry group representing 400 federal contractors — sent a letter to the General Services Administration detailing its members’ concerns and asking for immediate action.

“It was … with consternation and concern that PSC watched the dissolution of GSA’s FedBizOps portal and the difficult transition to beta.Sam.gov as its replacement,” PSC Executive Vice President and Counsel Alan Chvotkin wrote in the letter to Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Julie Dunne. “Regrettably, initial ‘bumps in the road’ have continued beyond the functionality that GSA announced would not be carried over from the old system, and our members asked that we bring their views to your attention.”

PSC members decried the new site, with many telling GSA they would prefer to see the old FBO site recommissioned.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/02/federal-contracting-community-shreds-fbo-replacement-site-letter-gsa/163076/

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

February 13, 2020 By cs

Procurement reporting tool is moving to SAM, but FPDS.gov isn’t going anywhere

GSA is moving the central reporting function of the Federal Procurement Data System to beta.SAM while Treasury works to improve the quality of data reported through the site.

As the General Services Administration continues to develop a one-stop website for all federal contracting at beta.SAM.gov, the main reporting functions of the Federal Procurement Data System, or FPDS, will be added to the site in March. However, the current FPDS website, fpds.gov, isn’t going anywhere any time soon and is slated for an upgrade.

Several procurement websites and apps have already been migrated to beta.SAM.gov, including Wage Determination Online, or WDOL, the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, or CFDA, and the government’s main contract opportunities site Federal Business Opportunities, better known as FedBizOpps or FBO.

FPDS is next on deck, with the four main reporting functions—administrative, static, standard and ad hoc—prepped to migrate to SAM by March 16. But for the time being, fpds.gov will remain.

“All other functions—search, agency contract award data entry, data extracts—will remain at fpds.gov as the site is not retiring at this time,” a GSA spokesperson told Nextgov.

That said, users will no longer be able to run any reports on fpds.gov.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/02/procurement-reporting-tool-moving-sam-fpdsgov-isnt-going-anywhere/162904/

June 18, 2019 By AMK

RPA takes hold in agency procurement

Robotics process automation “is exploding” across government, according to Joanie Newhart, associate administrator of acquisition workforce programs in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Cybersecurity experts have a new tool in the fight against hackers – a decoy robot. Researchers at Georgia Tech built the “HoneyBot” to lure hackers into thinking they had taken control of a robot, but instead the robot gathers valuable information about the bad actors, helping businesses better protect themselves from future attacks.

Speaking at the Shared Services Leadership Coalition RPA conference, Newhart said OFPP is monitoring how agencies are using RPA, especially when it comes to procurement. The Department of Health and Human Services is piloting RPA for the closeout phase of acquisitions, and the General Services Administration is using it to smooth out some of its internal processes such as sifting through data to find unpaid invoices. At the Department of Treasury, RPA is facilitating background reviews of contractor performance to help its contracting officers with their due diligence in awarding contracts, she said.

Those kinds of RPA applications could transform federal acquisition in only a few years, as they take over repetitive internal tasks, according to Newhart. OFPP, she said, plans share some of its observations on RPA with agencies soon.

Keep reading article at: https://gcn.com/articles/2019/05/30/rpa-procurement.aspx

May 23, 2019 By AMK

What OMB’s new ‘shared services’ policy will mean for modernization

The Trump administration wants to make a concerted effort toward establishing a sustainable shared services ecosystem to lower costs and ensure best practices and modern infrastructure pervade government—something past administrations have tried before.

Later today, Office of Management and Budget acting Director Russell Vought will be issuing a memo, “Centralized Mission Support Capabilities for the Federal Government,” which replaces all previous shared services policies. The new policy creates a system for assessing which agency functions—such as payroll or cybersecurity—have consistent standards across government and which specific departments would be best positioned to act as leaders in those areas.

The memo also includes a mandate for the rest of government to follow those agencies and puts a hiatus on new projects once functional areas are identified.

“In the past, agencies took steps to consolidate common mission-support functions internally, and in some cases, to leverage common technology or services offered by other agencies,” Vought wrote in the memo obtained by Nextgov. “The government endeavors to utilize lessons from previous successes and failures to provide a new, enhanced strategic blueprint for sharing quality services within the federal enterprise.”

Keep reading article at: https://www.nextgov.com/policy/2019/04/exclusive-what-ombs-new-shared-services-policy-will-mean-modernization/156562/

December 19, 2018 By AMK

USASpending.gov needs better search and better data, watchdog says

The Treasury Department needs to build more search functionality into its online government spending database and do a better job highlighting what data might be inaccurate, according to a congressional watchdog.

The department must do more to secure the site and comply with federal open data policies, the Government Accountability Office said in a report published last Thursday.

Treasury is mandated by Congress to report quarterly agency expenditures on USASpending.gov, which offers the public a detailed breakdown of the more than $4 trillion the government spends every year. While publishing spending data promotes government transparency and oversight, auditors found the site lacks a number of features that would give citizens greater insight into how taxpayer dollars are being spent.

The site doesn’t provide structured, machine-readable metadata on agency contracts and obligations, going against recommendations from the Office of Management and Budget, the report said.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/12/usaspendinggov-needs-better-search-and-better-data-watchdog-says/153561/

“If this had the same notoriety as Healthcare.gov, people would have been fired.”

GSA is moving the central reporting function of the Federal Procurement Data System to beta.SAM while Treasury works to improve the quality of data reported through the site.

Robotics process automation “is exploding” across government, according to Joanie Newhart, associate administrator of acquisition workforce programs in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

The Trump administration wants to make a concerted effort toward establishing a sustainable shared services ecosystem to lower costs and ensure best practices and modern infrastructure pervade government—something past administrations have tried before.

The Treasury Department needs to build more search functionality into its online government spending database and do a better job highlighting what data might be inaccurate, according to a congressional watchdog.

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