GSA unveils plan to allow TIC compliance for FedRAMP services

April 7, 2015
Issue # 30
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GSA unveils plan to allow TIC compliance for
FedRAMP services
The General Services Administration rolled out a draft template
on April 2 aimed at giving commercial cloud providers a faster
way to deliver secure Internet connections to federal agencies.
The Department of Homeland Security, collaborating with GSA's
Federal Risk Authorization Management Program, released a
draft overlay for the Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) that
meets FedRAMP requirements. The draft, said GSA, is the initial
step to update the TIC reference architecture to give agencies
more choices in adopting cloud services from commercial
providers.
"This overlay is the result of more than 18 months of
collaboration between the TIC Initiative and the FedRAMP
[Program Management Office] to find alternative solutions to
enable federal agencies to more easily and effectively comply
with both FedRAMP and TIC," FedRAMP Director Matthew
Goodrich wrote in an email to FCW.
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April 7, 2015
Issue # 30
GSA combines solar panel procurements into a single
RFP
The General Services Administration is looking for a developer to help
the agency boost its use of solar power, according to a request for
proposal released April 2.
The agency is looking for a power purchase agreement as part
of a new pilot project that combines several small and mid-size
solar panel installation opportunities into a single procurement.
The RFP is limited to sites in California and northern Nevada.
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Under a power purchase agreement the developer will install
and operate the solar panel systems and sell power back to the
agencies at set payments over time. The project is expected to
reduce electricity costs while simultaneously allowing agencies
to achieve renewable energy goals.
Agencies are under pressure to become more sustainable and
use more renewable energy under an executive order signed by
President Obama March 19. The order requires agencies to
increase the amount of renewable energy they use to 30
percent of overall energy use.
Kevin Kampshroer, GSA's acting senior sustainability officer,
said the agency has a responsibility to its agency tenants to lead
by example.
Read More
Source: SSQ data
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April 7, 2015
Issue # 30
GSA Names Professional Services Industry Liaison
Kathy Jocoy has just been appointed as GSA’s, professional
services industry liaison. Kathy has more than 30 years of
outstanding government contracting experience and was
recognized in 2014 with a Lifetime Acquisition Excellence Award
from The Coalition for Government Procurement. Kathy will
now serve as the primary point of contact for the professional
services industry as the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS)
realigns around category management—a strategic business
approach designed to enable the federal government to buy
smarter and more like a single enterprise.
NASA awards SEWP V
contracts to small businesses
NASA has awarded contracts to 118
small, disadvantaged companies
under its Solutions for EnterpriseWide Procurement (SEWP V)
contract, a multi-award GovernmentWide Acquisition Contract (GWAC)
vehicle focused on information
technology products and productbased services.
The contract announcement for
service-disabled, veteran-owned
small businesses (Group B) and other
small businesses (Group C) arrived
one week after NASA posted the
winners from its two other
categories — Group A and D. NASA
scheduled the governmentwide
acquisition contract to start in May
2015.
Of these SEWP V contracts, 14 went
to companies operating in
historically underutilized business
zones, 25 contracts were awarded to
business owned by service-disabled
veterans and 79 contracts were
awarded to other small businesses
Read More
Category management is designed to improve how FAS interacts
with industry, eliminating redundancy and duplication in the
procurement process. According to a blog post on GSA Interact,
the professional service category is committed to working
closely with industry to make sure that the best professional
service in the commercial market are also available to the
government. Watch the Professional Services Category
Community on GSA Interact for future posts from Kathy Jocoy.
Refreshed USASpending Website Irks Some
Transparency Advocates
The work-in-progress known as government transparency took a
new twist on April 1 when the Treasury Department unveiled
“improvements” to the USAspending.gov website aimed at
providing easy public access to data on federal contracts, grants
and financial assistance governmentwide.
David Lebryk, Treasury’s fiscal assistant secretary, in a blog post
described the change -- done in response to external feedback-as improving “navigation to allow users to more directly
summarize spending data” and to take advantage of a platform
borrowed from the award-winning Recovery.gov website used
to track spending on the 2009 stimulus legislation.
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April 7, 2015
Issue # 30
GSA CIO on leaving government, fixing federal IT
General Services Administration CIO Sonny Hashmi is leaving
government at the beginning of April to take over as managing
director of government for cloud platform provider Box. As he
exits the public sector, Hashmi reflected on his four years at GSA
— including program successes and failures — the
transformation going on in federal IT and what needs to happen
for that transition to continue. Below are edited excerpts from an
interview with Federal Times Senior Writer Aaron Boyd.
GSA Public Meeting on
Transactional Data Rule, April
17
On April 17th 2015, GSA will hold a
public meeting on its proposal to
amend the General Services
Administration Acquisition Regulation
(GSAR) to require contractors to
report transactional data from orders
and prices paid by ordering
activities. A summary of the rule
is here.
GSA estimates that the additional
reporting requirements will have
little impact on industry.
During the public meeting, Roger
Waldron will make a statement on
the public burden of the transactional
data reporting proposal based on our
member survey. The Coalition would
like to thank members who have
already taken the time to submit a
response to the survey, which closes
today, April 3rd.
What made you decide to leave the public space?
It is a very difficult decision for me. The work I have been doing
with GSA and the federal government over the last three or four
years now is accelerating, it is showing great promise, great
results. As you know the 18F program migrated over to the
cloud, reduced budget, improved performance. I have been very
fortunate to be part of this amazing team and there is a lot more
to do both at GSA and government wide.
I was not actively looking to leave GSA. I was very fortunate and
happy to serve the administration, serve the administrator, but
when [Box co-founder and CEO] Aaron [Levie] and I spoke a few
months ago and then continued the discussion through [senior
vice president of global alliances] Karen Appleton and others at
Box, I realized that smart companies like Box have an amazing
opportunity to help agencies rethink and change how services
can be provided to citizens. That has been my passion my entire
career. I have always been in the technology field and I have
always been in the government technology field.
I look at this as a continuation of my career, my journey because
my role at Box is going to be to find out ways to bring smart,
innovative technology, secure technology like the Box platform
and ecosystem partner technology to solve real government
challenges that help agencies solve those challenges.
Read More
The public meeting will be held at
GSA Central Office Auditorium at
1800 F Street NW, Washington DC,
2006. To register, visit
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202.999.4940
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April 7, 2015
Issue # 30
GSA’s Subcontracting Directory
The GSA Subcontracting Directory is published for small
business concerns seeking subcontracting opportunities with
General Services Administration (GSA) prime contractors. The
directory lists large business prime contractors who, by law,
are required to establish plans and goals for subcontracting
with small business firms.
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1990 M Street, NW
Suite 480
Washington, DC 20036


Who's in the directory:
Large prime contractors who have received federal contracts,
other than construction, valued at over $650,000
Large prime contractors who have received federal contracts
for construction valued at over $1.5 million
Source GSA
www.gormgroup.com
[email protected]
Discussion | Standard Configurations for Executive
Office Furniture


Submitted by FSSI Furniture ... on Monday, April 6, 2015 - 3:26
PM
Strategic Sourcing’s Demand Management approach is inward
facing, focused on optimizing internal practices, processes, and
policies aimed at reducing the overall usage of goods and
services, thereby improving the total cost of ownership (TCO).
A sound Demand Management strategy can assist with
achieving savings through a better understanding of the cost
trade off for a product based on various options or features
and the rationalization of specifications or requirements. In
this regard, demand management helps discern between
“needs” and “wants”, matching requirements or plans to
market capabilities. For example, buying a different color table
may decrease costs, so weighting and pricing out different
options is very important.


The Furniture Commodity Team has developed the following
standard configurations for Executive Office Furniture. At this
time we are soliciting industry comments/feedback to
determine that the standard configurations are clear, concise
and competitive in the market place.
Read More
1990 M Street NW, Suite 480, Washington DC, 20036
202.999.4940
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April 7, 2015
Issue # 30
Maintaining Your Schedule Contract - Mass
Modifications
Upcoming CGP Events
April 9 – 7.30 – 11.00
Breakfast Forum on Indirect
Contracting with the Federal
Government
Registration
April 28, 2015 CGP Spring Training
Conference titled The Business of
Government view draft agenda
To see more scheduled CGP
events visit
website
May 27 and 28 - R7 Greater
Southwest Acquisition Center
Industry Days for Schedules 56 and
73.
To register
Mass Modifications are government-initiated modifications
issued by GSA. It occurs when there have been uniform
changes across the Schedule Solicitation. The purpose is to
ensure that all contractors’ GSA contracts contain the same
contract clauses. This type of modification is considered
bilateral. Therefore, your response to the modification is
required in order to update the terms and conditions of your
GSA/VA Schedule contract(s).
Recently, many of the solicitations have been refreshed. Your
company contract administrator should have received
notification delivered via email to review and accept the Mass
Modification. This email contains a unique PIN (password)
that allows you to access and accept the modification and a
direct hyperlink into the Vendor Support Center (VSC)
website, where the Mass Modification can be found. At the
website, you can review and accept the modification. Upon
execution of the modification, you will be asked to enter your
contract number and PIN to accept or decline the
modification. If you have an offer pending, you may have
received notification to go into the eMod/eOffer System to
except the latest refresh.
GSA has been very proactive to ensure that Mass
Modifications are accepted. You must accept any pending
Mass Modification(s) before GSA will approve previous or
newly submitted modification request for additions,
deletions, EPA, administrative, etc. Some contracting officers
have rejected newly submitted modification(s) indicating the
Mass Modification must be accepted prior to submission of
any new modification requests. Failure to respond to a Mass
Modification could result in the cancellation of your contract.
Contact your TGG consultant if you have any questions
about on-going management of your schedule contract or
whether it is time for an in depth analysis of your schedule
contract compliance processes and procedures.
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202.999.4940
www.gormgroup.com