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Month: December 2017

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GSA Reopening the Office Supply Schedule with New (and improved?) SINs

GSA is opening Schedule 75 to new offers after a number of years, and they’ve added a new Special Item Number (SIN), called Office Supplies Fourth Generation (OS4).

SIN 75-200 for Office Products  have updated requirements, including a demonstrated ability to meet all environmental reporting and green product requirements, a system to comply with the Trade Agreements Act, and updated Letter of Supply requirements. Overhauled  Letters of Supply will also be required for 75-85 (Restroom Products) and SIN 75-210 (Office Services).

The optional requirements for all above SINs are AbilityOne-Certifications and Transactional Data Reporting. OS4 includes SIN 75-220 for Office Products and Services as well as SIN 75-280 for Overseas Office Products and Services. There is no deadline to submit an offer for these SINs.

Read more and leave comments here.

A web conference discussing these changes and answering questions will be held on January 9 at 1:30 Eastern Standard Time. Tune in here.

 

The Contract-Gift that keeps on giving

GSA offers continuous contracts to successful MAS contractors

With so many of our current clients approaching the sunset of their 20-year contract Schedule periods, we are pleased that GSA has finally released an official rule to help with ongoing Blank Purchase Agreements (BPAs).

In the past, the end of the Schedule options meant contractors had to perform a juggling act with their government clients to keep BPAs from becoming inactive or going to a competitor. When BPAs extend past the expiration date of their underlying MAS contracts, orders can be placed until the last day of the schedule contract, but no option periods can be used after the Schedule contract expires.

GSA has finally allowed contractors to maintain overlapping or continuous contracts. These contracts are essentially duplicate MAS contracts for different periods of performance. Holding two contracts is not mandatory, and for many contractors, would be unnecessary. But for others, it can be a business-saver.

For those that do need it, continuous contracts will allow contractors to complete work under BPAs, while simultaneously seeking new  business opportunities. Contractors should be aware that this may result in extra reporting burdens, but will be happy to know that MAS now has a streamlined process and revised requirements for previously successful contractors submitting offers for new contracts under the same schedule.

Readiness assessments, financial statements, corporate experience, open ratings report, and relevant project experience requirements have all been eliminated or greatly reduced for successful MAS contractors. To qualify, contractors must propose the same Special Item Numbers as those awarded under existing contracts, meet the minimum sales requirement under the existing contract, and demonstrate a pattern of satisfactory past performance.

For more information, check the vendor support center or contact us here at EZGSA (301-913-5000).

Schedule 736: Enhancement Proposal

GSA Region 2 FAS Intends to Re-organize 736 for Usability

GSA has proposed enhancements to Schedule 736 to make it more customer-friendly and offer greater visibility to occupations and categories under the schedule. The Schedule will be streamlined to two SINs, one for Wage-Grade Occupations (736-1) and one for Professional Labor Categories (736-5).

Vendors under 736-2 through 736-4 will be consolidated under the two primary SINs based on current offerings. The three redundant SINs will be deleted after the migration. The solicitation will be updated to reflect current regulations regarding temp help. It will also include a new ordering guide for customers.

Vendors who offer both Wage-Grade Occupations and Professional Labor Categories will be required to separate out their offerings, as well as create and submit a new pricelist to facilitate the changes. This can be done through eMod. Prices and labor categories should not change at this time.

The SIN descriptions will be enhanced to show the entire List of Occupational Categories based on the DOL Occupations Directory.

The goal is to increase schedule use in a time when full time hiring is greatly decreased.

What do you think of the changes?

Done With DUNS?

GSA issues RFI for alternative to Dun & Bradstreet’s legal identifiers

GSA has issued a RFI and a draft performance work statement in pursuit of an alternative to the current legal identifiers supplied by Dun & Bradstreet. GSA is “exploring all viable means of continuing to meet its ongoing need for entity identification and validation services after the contract’s expiration.” The new RFI builds upon an earlier request from February, and primarily seeks feedback on the statement of work.

The draft states that GSA aims to fill both technical and business needs. They highlight the need to “Determine entity uniqueness, which could include the assignment and/or use of a unique entity identifier in perpetuity, validation of certain entity data, and associated services,” as well as a method of understanding the hierarchy of entities,  and “a method to determine relevant information about an entity that is being excluded from doing business with the government.”

Technical objectives include real-time data for validation services, machine-readable formatting that doesn’t require custom software, and transfer and resting data encryption. The RFI has been widely welcomed by Dun & Bradstreet, as well as other industry partners. The contract expires in 2018, so be ready for changes.

GSA issues RFI to reevaluate schedule 70

It may be “Soft”ware but GSA is coming hard

In late October, GSA issued a Request for Information (RFI) about a proposal to change the way agencies buy software under IT Schedule 70. The proposal would support compliance with the MEGABYTE Act of 2015, and improve federal management of $6 billion worth of software.

The proposed changes mostly impact term licenses, perpetual licenses, and software maintenance. Term software licenses would be “Redefined so that they are only applicable to software that is provisioned and executed from the ‘user’s servers, computing end-points, or other designated computing devices where the user has the right to load or deploy software,’” GSA stated. “Additionally, the requirement to convert term licenses into perpetual licenses has been modified so that it is only required when an offeror offers the same conversions to their commercial customers.”

There will be two pathways towards perpetual licenses: “Option 1 contemplates software vendors that will embed software identification tags in their software products that are consistent with the ISO/IEC 19970-2 standard,” the RFI states. “Option 2 contemplates software vendors that will allow incumbent software licensees a right to transfer or move perpetual licenses to a new licensee for a previously negotiated fee. It is intended that these new asset management rights and features are voluntary, meaning that software vendors who wish to offer them may optionally include them on their schedule contract.”

And there might be a new SIN for software maintenance! “Software maintenance-as-a-product, henceforth, will be the maintenance that software vendors charge for on an annual basis…Under the current software maintenance SIN structures, it is impossible to differentiate a software purchase from an annual software maintenance purchase. Providing software maintenance-as-a-product with its own SIN identifier allows the federal government to better manage software as an asset and appropriately track categories of spend by differentiating between software licenses and software maintenance.”

Exciting! If you have any questions or worries about your Schedule 70 products, feel free to call your EZGSA proposal specialist or anyone at our office at 301-913-5000.