February 2007

LIST OF ARTICLES

WELCOME

Welcome to the February 2007 Integrated Acquisition Environment (IAE) newsletter, "IAE Quarterly," your source for information about the IAE E-Gov initiative. We hope you will enjoy our new electronic format! We think this format better represents the streamlined, ever changing environment that is IAE. Be sure to let us know what you think of the new format or how we can revise it to better meet your needs. We hope this issue is interesting reading and will update everyone on the events and achievements of IAE. One exciting report is that IAE has been selected as one of the finalists for the annual Industry Advisory Council Excellence.Gov awards program. The top 5 winners will be announced at an awards ceremony February 20. Also EPLS continues to get enhancements and new functionality as does FBO. There are several personnel changes and we hope you will have the opportunity to work with the new Project Managers. We invite e-mails, comments, suggestions and articles for the newsletter. Please contact us at integrated.acquisition@gsa.gov.

IAE is One of 20 Excellence.Gov Award Finalists for 2007

On January 8, the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) announced that IAE has been selected out of 115 entries as one of the "Top 20" candidates for the seventh annual Excellence.Gov awards program. Ms. Emily Murphy, GSA Chief Acquisition Officer, expressed her support and pride in the IAE program noting that this was the only GSA managed program in the "Top 20."

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FAI and IAE PMO Collaborate to Update DAU Online Courses

In September 2006, the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI) was invited by the IAE Program Management Office (PMO) to join a working group to improve Federal Procurement Data Systems-Next Generation (FPDS-NG) data quality. The purpose of these meetings was to determine if FPDS-NG data quality and accuracy could be improved by including more information on FPDS-NG in the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) curriculum.

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FBO Adds New Search Feature

The IAE Program Office and the FedBizOpps (FBO) support team are proud to announce the addition of a new search feature to FBO which will allow users to find information quicker by performing a "Quick Search" directly from the homepage. This is the first major change to FBO in three years. This robust, state-of-the-art search feature allows users to search over 3 terabytes of information.

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IAE Announces New Project Managers

The New Year is ushering in new roles and new faces to the IAE Project Management team. Stan Dubowski has taken a new opportunity at DOD's Business Transformation Agency (BTA) so Thuy Lindsey will be taking over the role of Project Manager (PM) for CCR and FedReg. Thuy has been the PM for ORCA since 2004 and currently works for BTA.

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Spotlight on Reverse Auctions

The concept of a "reverse auction" has been around for some time. However, until the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) was changed in 1997 to allow their use and web-based software applications were developed to facilitate their utility, reverse auctions were unavailable to the federal buyer.

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Intragovernmental Business Rules

On November 16, 2006 Mary Sally Matiella, Assistant Chief Financial Officer for Accounting, Department of Housing and Urban Development, reported that the Intragovernmental Business Rules that the Intragovernmental Subcommittee had been working on were published. TMS Bulletin No. 2007-03 revises requirements for resolving disputes involving program offices, accounting offices, contracting officers, and agency Chief financial Officers. Registration in FedReg for Federal Buyers and Sellers is still required. View the full memo (PDF).

More Updates for EPLS

The Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) is the governmentwide system of records that identifies parties who have been excluded from participating in federal procurement and non-procurement (financial or non-financial assistance and benefits) programs throughout the federal government. Contracting officers are required to check EPLS (www.epls.gov) after receipt of bids and proposals, and before making contract awards.

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IAE SYSTEM UPDATES

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2006 Marks Completion of Major Milestones for FPDS-NG

It has been a landmark year for the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG). The Department of Defense (DOD) is now integrated in real-time with FPDS-NG, ensuring that both the public and private sectors have visibility into federal spending.

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IAE's Strategic Partnership with Grants.gov

One of the promises of the E-Gov initiatives was to eliminate duplicative data processing. The IAE strategic partnership with the federal grants community is making good on that promise. A federal grant is an award of financial assistance from a federal agency to a recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by a law of the United States. All federal agencies are required to post competitive grant opportunities at Grants.gov, which was developed as part of the E-Grants Initiative (a part of the President's 2002 Management Agenda to improve government services to the public).

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