**Integrated Acquisition Environment**

**IAE Quarterly**

**November 2006**

WELCOME

Welcome to the Integrated Acquisition Environment (IAE) newsletter
"**IAE Quarterly"** - your source for information about the IAE E-Gov
initiative under the President's Management Agenda. It is the fifth
anniversary of this dynamic initiative that continues to streamline the
federal acquisition process. The growth of the past five years has
addressed challenges shared by government and industry, developed
innovative solutions, and built upon past successes and lessons learned.
This issue includes an article on the acquisition strategy that has made
this possible.

In October, 2006, the President's Management Council also commemorated
their five year anniversary. They published a report, "Giving the
American People More for their Money*,"* in which they describe their
successful efforts in making the government more efficient. One of these
efforts was to better utilize the government's \$60 billion in IT
resources. The report cited eSRS, IAE's newest system, as a successful
example:

*"The IAE initiative launched the new electronic Subcontractor Reporting
System (eSRS) in October2005. eSRS introduced higher visibility and
greater transparency into the process of gathering information on
federal subcontracting accomplishments. This internet-based tool
streamlines the process of reporting on subcontracting plans and
provides agencies with access to analytical data on subcontracting
performance."*

We invite comments and suggestions on the newsletter. E-mails and
contributions from readers are welcome. Please contact us at
[integrated.acquisition@gsa.gov]{.underline}.

FIVE YEARS LATER: IAE'S SUCCESSFUL ACQUISITION

STRATEGY

It is five years since President Bush's administration launched the
E-Gov initiative, a collection of 24 agency projects, including the
development of the IAE. At this five-year mark IAE is celebrating its
many accomplishments.

Based on the strategy "Adopt, Adapt, Acquire," IAE has made the
transition from concept and ideas to deployment. The coming years will
engender even more dramatic changes to the federal acquisition process.
Agencies have worked cooperatively to transition to the consolidated IAE
systems and they will continue to see improvements in the delivery of
services.

By its nature, IAE is a dynamic, robust, business ecosystem---constantly
expanding and contracting; changing and evolving to meet current
business needs and the mission demands of the federal community. The
early acquisition strategy of the environment required identifying
business needs and documenting the institutional business process,
demonstrating technology impartiality. Additionally, the IAE
responsibility is to ensure continuity, stability, and applicability in
the acquisition process as it is implemented across the enterprise.
Given these complexities, IAE chose to follow three strategies to
acquire supporting services to meet the growing business demands.

The first acquisition strategy employed is known as "Adopt." Consistent
with FAR 7.105(b)(1), once the business requirement footprint is
identified and documented, IAE will use the needs statement to review
existing government systems that could potentially solve current
requirements while leveraging already existing government IT
investments. However, the investment must be state-of-the-art or near
state-of-the-art, and robust enough to scale and support the entire
federal landscape, including the Department of Defense (DoD).

The second acquisition strategy employed is known as "Adapt." Similar to
the "Adopt" strategy, IAE will look to "Adapt" or leverage existing
government IT investments. It is understood that existing technology may
not meet the full government need and additional investment may be
required to evolve the existing service by adding capability, or
transforming the current service from agency-specific to governmentwide.

The third strategy employed is known as "Acquire." Once the business
requirement footprint is identified and documented, and after all
efforts have been exhausted to determine if the federal community has
invested in "adoptable" systems, the IAE will follow an "Acquire"
strategy. This strategy is considered to be the least advantageous, and
requires a greater degree of federal community participation, tapping
limited resources for support.

IAE is now beginning to add an additional acquisition strategy which
supports business process consolidations. This consolidation strategy
leverages existing business requirements and supports refinement of the
functional requirements to optimize legacy business operations. This
strategy requires the retooling of contractual approaches and carefully
monitoring existing contractual actions inventory against maturity
dates. Also required is reviewing functional requirements and promises
made in the maturing contractual actions by leveraging potential
business processes, infrastructure, and/or integration or data sharing.
The anticipated outcome is the implementation of a seamless process with
little or no impact on the institutional business process while ensuring
agencies will still be able to meet their mission. For example, IAE led
an interagency team to revise the Best Practices Guide and Federal
Acquisition Regulation regarding collection and use of contractor
performance data.

IAE has begun the process of realigning applications for future
transformational opportunities, which would include consolidation and
integration of services. By interfacing opportunities, redundant and
repetitive record-keeping can be further reduced. An example is the
FedBizOpps recompete. This acquisition is designed to leverage vendor
data from the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) to be used in
developing "Interested Vendor Lists" without requiring additional data
entry or upkeep. It will also consolidate and fully integrate the
Federal Technical Data Solutions (FedTeDS) into FedBizOps,thereby
decommissioning that legacy application. It also allows the potential to
expand FedBizOpps by requiring a "BidReturn Module" which would allow
vendors to return bids or proposals to a single government point in
FedBizOpps for pickup by the agency.

The acquisition strategies described above will drive the next business
revolution in the IAE ecosystem ensuring increased visibility and
transparency across the enterprise. These acquisition strategies will
provide a secure business environment where buyers and sellers can
exchange goods and services efficiently.

BEST PRACTICES GUIDE FOR "CONTRACTOR PERFORMANCE IN THE ACQUISITION
PROCESS"

The IAE Program Management Office (PMO) is inviting public comments on
the Best Practices Guide for "Contractor Performance in the Acquisition
Process," published in the Federal Register , November 17, 2006. The
Guide and notice can be found at

[www.acquisition.gov]{.underline}. Written comments should be sent to:
[www.regulations.gov]{.underline}.

A working group re-visited current regulations, policies, and business
considerations associated with contractor performance information, and
made recommendations to clarify existing guidance. The working group
updated OFPP's "Best Practices for Collecting and Using Current and Past
Performance Information" (June 2002) and incorporated DoD's "A Guide to
Collection and Use of Past Performance Information" (Version 3, May
2003).

The Guide is designed to help agencies better understand their role in
addressing and using contractor performance information. It addresses
the types of performance information which exists, resources for finding
the data, and standards to employ. It discusses best use of performance
data throughout the acquisition process, from the pre-award and planning
phase, through source selection, and into contract evaluation.

The proposed FAR rule reflecting the findings of the performance working
group is under review by the FAR team and will be issued for comment at
a later date.

VALIDATON OF CCR REGISTRANTS' NAMES AND ADDRESSES

CCR pre-populates the following data fields from Dun & Bradstreet (D&B):
Legal Business Name, Doing Business Name (DBA), Physical Address, Postal
Code/ Zip+4, with data that was originally provided when registrants
applied for a Data Universal Numbering System (D-U-N-S). This is part of
an ongoing effort to ensure that all registration information is
standardized and easily shared across many government systems. It will
also reduce data entry by registrants. Registrants cannot alter this
date in CCR. When information needs to be changed or updated the
registrant can go to [http://fedgov.dnb.com/webform]{.underline} and
modify the information. For more details on making changes, go to:

www.ccr.govnewsdetail.asp?id=47&type=N.

EPLS: NEW RELEASE PROVIDES ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONALITY

The Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) at [www.epls.gov]{.underline}
continues to be 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 and the system of records
that contracting officers are required to check after receipt of bids
and proposals, and before making contract awards. The developer of EPLS,
Information Sciences Corporation, deployed version 3 into production on
September 26, 2006.

New features include:

 **Customized searches and reports.** Now allows the user the ability
to create ad hoc searches and reports. The previous version only
provided predefined search and report options and the user could not
tailor searches and reports to their specific need.

 **Enhanced report output.** Now includes the action date for returned
results.

 **Capability to retrieve name and address data from CCR** using CCR
XML transaction. This retrieval has been enhanced to pull all locations
for an entity. Use of the D-U-N-S number is now mandatory when entities
are added to the list to facilitate searches.

 **Incorporation of CAGE Codes**. Added to allow the user to perform a
search or report by CAGE Code.

 **Incorporation of a new "Resource" section.** The additions provided
in this section include a Search Help, a Public User's Manual and an
Acronyms list with definitions of all acronyms used throughout the EPLS.
The FAQs, News, and the Privacy Act Provisions are now located under
this section.

 **Print capability.** Added to allow users the ability to print search
and report results.

 **XML download capability.** Added to allow the user to download the
data and the computer to parse the data in the user's database.

 **Web Service capability.** Added to allow interactive
machine-to-machine interface with EPLS.

 **New "MyEPLS" feature.** Added to allow the user to save previous
searches and reports that they performed and set the preference for
displaying record results (i.e., a summary list or full record list, the
number of results to display per page and the results font size).

These features enhance and add to current capabilities to better serve
the user community.

IAE Article Featured in *Contract Management* Magazine

Look for a featured article on IAE in the November issue of the National
Contract Management Association's (NCMA's) "Contract Management"
magazine. "Then & Now: Integrating the Acquisition Environment" was
written by Judy Steele and Lisa Cliff of the OCAO's Office of
Acquisition Systems. The article discusses the history of the IAE
initiative and provides scenarios describing what life for contracting
officers was like before development of the ten IAE systems profiled,
and what it is like now. Over thirty project managers and users of the
systems were interviewed for this article. The article is posted at the
NCMA

website at www.ncmahq.org/publications/cm/.

EARL WARRINGTON PRESENTS IAE'S BENEFITS TO U.S. HISPANIC CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE CONFERENCE

Earl Warrington participated in the "Technology and Procurement Town
Hall Session" of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce 27th Annual
National Convention and Business Expo in Philadelphia, which was held
September 20-23, 2006. This was a record-breaking conference with over
4,000 participants and close to 200 exhibitors from all over the U.S.,
Mexico, Dominican Republic, Panama, Venezuela and Latin America. This is
the largest gathering of Hispanic businesses and entrepreneurs in the
country.

Earl participated in a panel discussion of "Technology and its Impact on
your Procurement Bottom Line; Enhancing your Opportunity to Secure More
Business." The panel addressed how technology can serve as a critical
tool expanding procurement opportunities in business-to-business,
federal government, and international sourcing. Earl presented an
overview of IAE, explaining how each of the systems that makes up IAE
benefits business owners from the beginning to the end of the federal
acquisition lifecycle. He explained how attendees can use technology as
a tool in expanding their procurement opportunities with the federal
government and how the GSA acquisition tools can help them grow their
business.

Speaking about the success of the Convention, Chamber of Commerce
President Michael Berrera commented, "Convention participants enjoyed
quality workshops, training seminars, and the opportunity to network and
do business with top representatives and officials from government and
corporate America."

ACT EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council
sponsored the 2006 Executive Leadership Conference, "Measuring Results:
Dialog for Success," held October 29-31 in Williamsburg, Virginia. The
theme of the conference was to address critical challenges shared by
both government and industry such as setting and achieving goals for
improved citizen services, how to build on past successes, and lessons
learned for increased efficiency. Teresa Sorrenti participated in a
panel on "Leveraging Collaboration for Transforming the Business of the
Federal Government." The panel discussed how to achieve collaborative
partnerships with the federal government; establish measurable results
and use resources efficiently to transform the federal government with
E-Gov initiatives, lines of business and leveraging efforts associated
with large-scale IT projects. Teresa's experience with IAE provided many
real life examples and lessons learned.

Additionally, in another session, "Understanding the Challenge and What
Needs to be Accomplished," Earl Pederson, from SI International noted
that IAE, with its collaborative management structure and successful
governance model, is emerging as a best practice in cross-organization
governance.

THE ABC's OF IAE

**ART** - Acquisition Requirements Team

**CCR** - Central Contractor Registration

**EPLS** - Excluded Parties List System

**eSRS** - Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System

**FBO** - Federal Business Opportunities (Fedbizopps)

**FedReg** - Federal Agency Registration

**FedTeDS** - Federal Technical Data Solutions

**FPDS-NG** - Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation

ORCA - Online Representations and Certifications Application

**PPIRS** - Past Performance Information Retrieval System

**WDOL** - Wage Determinations Online

IAE ON COURSE AT AMERICAN UNIVERSITY'S KEY EXECUTIVE PROGRAM

In the next five years, half of all federal government employees will be
eligible to retire. Agencies are trying to find ways to offset the
impending "brain drain" which will result from the loss of experienced
senior management. One way to address this problem is to encourage "up
and coming" leaders to participate in advanced management training such
as that provided by the Key Executive Master of Public Administration
(MPA) Program at American University. The Key Executive Program's
mission is to foster better government by educating professionals and
managers to become effective, top-quality team and executive leaders.
The Key Executive MPA is a 36-credit graduate degree program designed
for professionals (GS-13 and above) which is taught on weekends.

In the next five years, half of all federal government employees will be
eligible to retire. Agencies are trying to find ways to offset the
impending "brain drain" which will result from the loss of experienced
senior management. One way to address this problem is to encourage "up
and coming" leaders to participate in advanced management training such
as that provided by the Key Executive Master of Public Administration
(MPA) Program at American University. The Key Executive Program's
mission is to foster better government by educating professionals and
managers to become effective, top-quality team and executive leaders.
The Key Executive MPA is a 36-credit graduate degree program designed
for professionals (GS-13 and above) which is taught on weekends.

Part of the curriculum of the Program is a 3-day class on Acquisition
Management, "By the Book and Outside the Box," taught by Ed Girovasi. Ed
has over 32 years experience as an acquisition professional, but sought
an opportunity to become more involved in HUD's core business and in
February 2006, joined HUD's Office of Field Policy and Management as a
Field Management Officer. He was HUD's representative on the Chief
Acquisition Officers' Council, and served as a member of the Federal
Procurement Data System Policy Advisory Board, and now represents HUD on
the Acquisition Requirements Team.

Beginning with his first class in April of 2006, Ed asked Earl
Warrington and Teresa Sorrenti to teach a 90-minute session on the
Integrated Acquisition Environment (IAE) as part of his course. To
ensure future leaders are familiar with systems that are critical to
successful performance of their jobs, Ed wanted to include a session on
IAE to "make leaders aware of the terrific suite of desktop applications
that can support their acquisition challenges." Ed added, "In today's
federal environment, acquisition touches virtually everyone. We've
become a 'government by network,' delivering services and programs
through contractors, grantees and other third-party providers." IAE will
be featured in upcoming courses.

The Acquisition Management course, with its focus on today's key issues
like IAE, has already paid tangible dividends to its participants. One
student interviewed for this article is a Drug Enforcement Agency
program manager with 8 years of federal service. He found the course
immediately helpful; by applying information learned from the course
when buying equipment for his lab, he saved \$100,000. He stated, "The
course provided great information and I actually keep the IAE brochure
on my desk as a quick reference."

Participating in the Key Executive Program is one of the ways the IAE
Program Office reaches out to

acquisition leaders. For more information on the AU Program, go to
http:/spa.american.eduexecutivempa/key[.]{.underline}

HAIL AND FAREWELL TO LINDA ADAMS

Please join us in wishing "Hail and Farewell" to Linda Adams, who is
retiring January 3, 2007, after 36 years of federal government service,
all with DoD. For the past three years Linda has worked onsite with IAE
as DoD's "Federal Lead for E-Gov." Her role has been to represent DoD's
interests to the IAE Program Office (PMO) and to ensure DoD requirements
are implemented accordingly. Linda has been involved in program
management and configuration management her entire career, helping to
form partnership arrangements, at one point serving as a U.S.
Representative to NATO in a policy role. She worked for the Office of
the Secretary of Defense for 10 years before relocating to the Defense
Information Security Agency (DISA), and most recently DoD's Business
Transformation Agency (BTA).

Asked how she has seen priorities shift in IAE over the past three
years, Linda stated that the emphasis is now on consolidating current
systems, saving costs while continuing to share data and provide a
streamlined process for government buyers and sellers. She sees an
increased interest within the BTA to continue to grow this partnership
and share in future successes. Linda feels she has represented DoD's
needs while considering the entire federal community. It's been a
win-win relationship for everyone.

Linda will travel a lot in her retirement, including frequent visits to
her "camp" in New York on Lake Ontario and will spend more time with
family, including 3 grandchildren. She has already planted 3,500 bulbs
and is eager to do more! Organizing and accomplishing challenging tasks
is the norm for this very accomplished woman and we wish her the best in
her future endeavors.

SYSTEM UPDATES

ACQUISITION REQUIREMENTS TEAM

• IAE reconvening team to resolve 1259 agency comments to send document
out for public comment via Federal Register

CCR AND FEDREG

• Name and address validation with D&B implemented

• D&B updates to add prior D-U-N-S

• 423,143 active vendors

• 400,000 businesses registered

EPLS

• New web site launched incorporating use of D-U-N-S and interface with
CCR to eliminate re-entry

• 7,926,467 hits in November

ESRS

• Angela Terry, SBA, named new Project Manager

• NASA legacy data loaded

• New reports capability implemented

• 11,089 vendor reports filed

FBO

• Awaiting protest resolution

• 863,431 vendors registered to receive e-mail notifications re:
procurement opportunities that match their profiles

• 27,165 registered buyers

• 35,588 active opportunities (synopses, solicitations and combined
synopses)

FedTeDS

• Final rule mandating use issued 4/19/06

• Now over 3,919 Government Users and over 33,000 Vendor Users

• 11,462 documents

FPDS-NG

• Final batch of FY 06 DoD data submitted; DoD's FY 07 data will be
real-time

• Conversion of reports using Informatica solutions ahead of schedule

• Expanded place of manufacture field per FAR guidelines effective 10/1

• 4,695,902 federal contract actions (will increase as DoD data
migration continues)

ORCA

• Finalized requirements for DFARS provisions

• Incorporated change from FAC 13

• 2,384 companies have

submitted SF 330 on ORCA

• 54,983 records

PERFORMANCE DATA

• Draft Guide for "Contractor Performance in the Acquisition Process"
posted on Acquisition.gov with notice published in Federal Register
soliciting comments

WDOL

• Implemented XML interface

for Contract Writing Systems

• 1,005,048 records

• 1,754,475 hits in November

PLANNED SYSTEM UPDATES

• Available at http://acquisition.gov/config_mgmt.cfm

IAE RELATED POLICY CHANGES

• Available at http://acquisition.gov//policy.cfm

IAE ANNOUNCES

• In the past year, all TINs

have been validated by IRS