Introduction
In November 2023, the White House announced its governmentwide Better Contracting Initiative (BCI) to ensure the federal government is getting better terms and prices when purchasing goods and services. A key component of the BCI is leveraging data across federal agencies to increase transparency and achieve better buying outcomes.
Through our Transactional Data Reporting (TDR) Pilot Program, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) has been recognized by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as an agency leader in this effort. To further align with BCI goals and continue our modernization of the MAS Program, FAS is taking action to improve the quality and usage of TDR data enterprise-wide, while leaving the size of the TDR Pilot Program currently unchanged.
Partnership
GSA recognizes the importance of collaborating with our industry partners and customers and continues to work closely with OMB, customer agencies, and Category Managers to ensure the data we collect meets their needs. In the longer term, FAS envisions sharing TDR-derived insights with our industry partners to the maximum extent possible – in the same way demand data is currently shared for products.
Data Validation & Feedback Enhancements
FAS is implementing new data validations and contractor feedback mechanisms. Two major feedback enhancements are planned for Quarter 3:
- New controls for TDR submissions in the FAS Sales Reporting Portal (SRP) will enable real-time validation of Manufacturer Name, Manufacturer Part Number, Unit of Measure, and Unit Price fields against each contractor’s catalog. Upon initial rollout of these validations, MAS contractors will receive remediation emails when transactions are flagged for potential errors while still being allowed to submit their transactional data into SRP. After a suitable acclimation period, certain field errors will trigger hard rejects to prevent faulty data from entering GSA’s systems and tools.
- New recurring contractor feedback reports will provide MAS industry partners with a more holistic view of their TDR data quality performance. Contractor-specific reports will include month-over-month summary statistics, rolling counts of issue-based flags, and a view of comparative data quality performance based on SRP data. FAS is rolling out these reports in phases, starting with a small group of industry partners in Quarter 2.
As FAS continues to prioritize TDR data maturation and MAS program modernization, MAS contractors can look forward to more timely, automated feedback.
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