SPOT-ES comprises five systems: unclassified and classified versions of the SPOT database, unclassified and classified versions of the Total Operational Picture Support System (TOPSS) analytic and reporting tool, and the JAMMS personnel-location tracking tool. Figure 1 illustrates the five systems. DOD guidance provides that, in applicable contingency operations, contractor visibility and accountability shall be maintained through a common joint database—SPOT, or its successor. The SPOT database contains information about contracts—such as company name, contract number, and task order if any—and information about contractor personnel, such as contact information and next of kin, blood type, and the government-furnished support to which they are entitled. Government contracting officers use the information in SPOT to generate letters of authorization, which contractor personnel must obtain and carry in order to process through a deployment center or to travel to, from, or within the designated operational area. The letter of authorization also identifies any additional authorizations, privileges, or government support that contractor personnel are entitled to under the contract. Examples of such services could include access to dining facilities, transportation, or medical care beyond emergency treatment. The letter of authorization also identifies contractor personnel whose contracts permit eligible personnel to carry weapons, although arming approval rests with the combatant command to which personnel deploy. DOD guidance indicates that the department intends to use SPOT to facilitate integration of contingency contractors and other personnel as directed by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics or the combatant commander, and to ensure that accountability, visibility, force protection, medical support, personnel recovery, and other related support can be accurately forecasted and provided. According to the guidance, SPOT data elements are intended to provide planners and combatant commanders an awareness of the nature, extent, and potential risks and capabilities associated with contracted support. TOPSS is the reporting and analysis component of SPOT-ES. This tool generates a variety of standard reports that provide information on users, accounting and compliance, specific contracts or task orders, contractor deployments, and specific individuals. In addition, this tool can provide summary-level data in geospatial format. The JAMMS movement tracker is an information technology application developed to capture movement and location information about contractor personnel in specified operational theaters. Also, this tracker can capture information about operating forces and government civilians. JAMMS data-collection points are established at locations such as: dining facilities, aerial ports of debarkation, and medical locations; and at U.S. embassies and other State locations. JAMMS terminals can scan a wide range of identification credentials, such as common access cards, SPOT- generated letters of authorization, and some driver’s licenses and passports. These credentials provide identity information about the cardholder, which is retained and made available to integration partners. GLAAS is USAID’s worldwide web-based procurement system that manages awards throughout USAID’s acquisition and assistance life cycle. GLAAS adapted commercial off-the-shelf software to accommodate USAID’s procurement-management needs. GLAAS integrates with the USAID financial-management system and other external government systems to provide reports to the Office of Management and Budget, Congress, and other stakeholders. GLAAS also provides data, such as award value and whether awards were competed, for reports to Congress on contract support for contingency operations outside the United States. GLAAS contained information on approximately 19,000 awards in fiscal year 2013, of which 382 contracts were related to contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. GLAAS is an independent system that does not interoperate with any DOD systems, including SPOT-ES. USAID has developed business rules and processes to explain to users how to operate GLAAS. The GLAAS user guides illustrate USAID’s acquisition and award process and instruct users on how to complete various tasks such as procurement planning, and creating and modifying purchase orders, solicitations, and assistance awards. USAID also supplements the GLAAS user guides with training sessions and other reference guides. The Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) provides a comprehensive web-based tool for agencies to report information related to contracts. Executive agencies are to use FPDS to maintain publicly available information about all unclassified contract actions exceeding certain monetary thresholds. Generally, contracting officers must submit complete and accurate contract information to FPDS within 3 business days after contract award. Agencies can report data to FPDS using either of two methods: an Internet web portal or by means of contract- writing systems. DOD, State, and USAID report to FPDS through their respective contract-writing systems—Standard Procurement System, Global Financial Management System, and GLAAS. According to DOD, the Data Services Environment (DSE) is DOD’s primary resource for registering, sharing, and publishing different types of metadata about systems, services, and data resources, such as authoritative data sources, to support DOD and the needs of all authorized users. DOD components, according to DOD guidance, must register all authoritative data sources, information technology services, and required metadata in the DSE. DOD guidance also provides policy that data will be made visible and trusted, among other things, for all authorized users. According to the guidance, data is made visible by creating and associating metadata. Data is considered trusted when there is sufficient pedigree (source and lineage) and descriptive metadata for users to rely on it as an authoritative data source. According to the DOD DSE Concept of Operations, once a system is registered in the DSE, the appropriate authoritative body is to review the data source and either approve or not approve the source as an authoritative data source. The DSE is linked to DOD’s broader efforts for managing data in a net- centric environment, the key attributes of which include ensuring that data are visible, among others things; associating all data with metadata; and posting all data to shared space to provide access to users except when limited by security, policy, or regulation. Section 2222 of Title 10, U.S. Code, contains provisions regarding DOD development of a defense Business Enterprise Architecture (BEA), associated enterprise transition plan, and investment management structures and review processes. Among other requirements, section 2222 prohibits DOD from obligating funds for a defense business system program with a total cost in excess of $1 million over the period of the future years defense program unless the precertification authority certifies that the defense business system meets specified conditions. Specifically, the appropriate precertification authority must determine that the defense business system program is in compliance with the defense BEA and that appropriate business process reengineering efforts have been undertaken. For fiscal years 2013 through 2015, the precertification authority for SPOT-ES determined that the system was in compliance with the BEA and that appropriate business process reengineering efforts were undertaken. Subsequent Office of the Deputy Chief Management Officer investment decision memorandums from the Defense Business Systems Management Committee certified SPOT-ES funds. We have previously reported on the need to improve the quality of BEA compliance assertions. In May 2013, we found that compliance assertions continued to lack adequate validation; we recommended that DOD implement and use the BEA compliance assessments more effectively to support organizational transformation efforts by, among other things, establishing milestones by which selected validations of BEA compliance assertions are to be completed. DOD partially agreed with this recommendation. In our follow-up report in May 2014, we found that DOD needed to continue working to ensure the quality of the BEA assessments, as we had previously recommended. We have issued several recent reports about systems that DOD, State, and USAID use to manage information regarding contracts and contractor personnel and to prepare statutorily required reports on contracts, assistance instruments, and related personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. In September 2012, we found that although SPOT was designated as the common database for the statutorily required information, officials from DOD, State, and USAID generally relied on other data sources they regarded as more reliable to prepare the 2011 joint report to congressional committees. We also found that the agencies generally did not use SPOT to help manage, oversee, and coordinate contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, we found that the agencies primarily used the system to generate authorizations for contractor personnel to use U.S. government services. We recommended that the Secretaries of Defense and State and the Administrator of USAID work together to standardize the methodologies used to obtain and present information contained in the annual joint report on contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan to the greatest extent possible. The agencies agreed with our recommendation and indicated they would work together to implement it. Additionally, in February 2014, we reported that State and USAID had taken, or were planning to take, a number of actions to better track the number of contracts and contractor personnel in contingency environments. For example, we reported that, according to State officials, State developed additional guidance in fall 2012 that outlined the process of inputting contracts, how contractors should enter contractor personnel, how to request letters of authorization and approvals, and how to enter data through the contract close-out. We reported that, according to the department, State also established a new office that will be responsible for overseeing contractors’ input of Iraq contractors’ data into SPOT. We also reported that USAID was in the early stages of developing a proposal to use SPOT solely as a tool to track contractor personnel in contingency environments rather than the number and value of contracts. USAID officials stated that other data systems, such as FPDS-NG and GLAAS, provided more reliable information on the number and value of contracts. We recommended that the Secretary of State develop plans to assess whether planned initiatives are achieving their intended objectives and that the Administrator of USAID ensure that its nonpermissive working group consider procedures and practices developed by missions and offices with contingency-related responsibilities.