If you re a contract management organization in government,

Transcription

1 14 Contract Management April 2016

2 Contract Management April

3 PAPERLESS CONTRACTING: CONTRACT WRITING SYSTEM CONSIDERATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT ENTITIES TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE If you re a contract management organization in government, what system requirements should you bear in mind when developing requirements and conducting market research for a contract writing system (CWS)? This article provides several recommendations to consider in the search for a CWS that employs recent developments in state-of-the-art technologies and capabilities in data management in complex business processes and functions like contract management in the federal government sector. Let s also look into the future, five to 10 years from now, at the evolving and emerging technologies and capabilities such organizations should ensure they maintain access to when selecting and deploying a CWS. These recommendations and projections are based on my 18 years of experience at CACI managing the development and deployment of CACI s contract writing systems, such as the Procurement Desktop for Defense (PD2) at the Department of Defense; the COMPRIZON suite used in many civilian agencies; and most recently, Oracle s Contract Lifecycle Management for Public Sector (CLM). The government has been using contract writing and management systems of some form for at least 40 years. One of the earliest was the Customer Integrated Automated Purchasing System (CIAPS) deployed by the Air Force in This was one of the first attempts to automate the interface actions between the requirements generation system and the procurement organization. In the early 1990s, the U.S. Army deployed its Standard Automated Contracting System (SACONS) developed by CACI. The U.S. Air Force developed and used a system called Base Contracting Automated System (BCAS). These systems were replaced by PD2, also referred to as the Standard Procurement System (SPS), in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since the deployment of PD2, there has been a growing need for a CWS that: Provides enhanced data collection, management and analysis capabilities; Seamlessly interfaces with the information management systems of other functional areas such as financial management; and Supports productivity and efficiency improvements in the contract management function. The next generation of CWSs must support the collection and analyses of data generated throughout the contracting process to assist in workload management, performance measurement, business process improvement to reduce errors, and training to meet staffing and personnel turnover challenges. This last need is more critical today than ever before. Across the federal contracting domain, there is increased workforce turnover resulting from retirements and an increasingly younger workforce more inclined to change jobs and organizations. Diminishing personnel budgets in some organizations have resulted in a smaller, lessexperienced workforce while the contracting workload, both in dollars and actions, is either constant or increasing. Clearly, there is a need for a CWS that can help the contract management organization be more responsive, better manage its data, and provide increased management visibility into workload and efficiency. The good news is that some of the more advanced commercialoff-the-shelf (COTS) CWS packages those designed specifically for the federal government (i.e., for Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) compliance and more) have some or all of these capabilities. Using these systems will mean that more manual tasks can be automated, resulting in fewer errors and greater data visibility, allowing managers to monitor at the aggregate level while enabling users to quickly identify and solve contract-specific issues. These new systems also provide online collaboration tools that enable senior professionals to mentor more junior staff and deliver new methods of training, including just-in-time training. The systems can also provide system-generated metrics across a range of correlated performance indicators that help an agency or an entire department monitor its performance month to month, quarter to quarter, and year over year. CWSs are also configurable to an agency s specific needs and can be the primary tool for enforcing acquisition laws and regulations and implementing an agency s internal controls. CAPABILITY RECOMMENDATIONS There are several major capabilities an agency can and should expect from a modern COTS CWS built for deployment in the federal marketplace. These capabilities are based on the assumption that a robust CWS can handle basic contracting processes, such as the issuance or acceptance of a procurement request, award manage- 16 Contract Management April 2016

4 HPAPERLESS CONTRACTING: CONTRACT WRITING SYSTEM CONSIDERATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT ENTITIES TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE ment, post-award contract administration, and contract closeout. The capabilities discussed below are in three key areas of interest that from a system integrator s perspective must be in a CWS built for the federal sector: compliance and data integrity, enterprise integration, and business process adaptability/configurability. One Size Does Not Fit All Depending on the volume and complexity of an organization s acquisitions, a lessrobust, less-costly CWS can be sufficient especially when the majority of acquisitions tend to be straightforward procurements of commoditized goods or services. The first step a contracting organization must take in its requirements definition is to analyze its workload content and customer base. Those analyses then become the basis for its market research and determination of the capabilities it needs in a CWS. Compliance Compliance capabilities require that user actions, system transactions, and electronic output adhere to the following using the system features and not just business processes: Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) or DoD Business Enterprise Architecture (BEA) inherent system workflow and architecture is in alignment with enterprise-level standards; Regulatory and statutory guidance including appropriation law, the FAR, Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), and other applicable laws; Agency-specific procedures and guidance including local clause supplements; Agency data standards, such as DoD s Procurement Data Standard (PDS) and Purchase Request Data Standard (PRDS) procurement transactions with financial impacts (purchase requests, awards, and their modifications) are electronically output according to these required standards. In addition, compliance includes system logic and validations that enforce the mandated federal business processes along with agency and local-level guidance. This includes validations such as only allowing pricing information at the parent or sub-line level for a particular line and not both levels, requiring an authenticated FPDS-NG contract action report prior to final approval for applicable contracts, and many others. The extent to which these validations can be easily updated, new ones added, or local logic maintained independently from the baseline logic reflects the degree of compliance support capability in the COTS CWS. Data Integrity Data integrity capabilities include application controls that ensure each representation of data the user interface, database values, generated output, and electronic transmission files are all identical. Calculations should be consistent throughout the transaction lifecycle, with no rounding or other differences from one transaction record to the next. The extent to which additional data elements can be captured and the level of flexibility for baseline data elements should be considered. Especially important for procurement applications is the treatment of clause data. Clauses must be accurate, up to date with the latest revision, edited Contract Management April

5 PAPERLESS CONTRACTING: CONTRACT WRITING SYSTEM CONSIDERATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT ENTITIES TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE EXTERNAL SYSTEM Electronic Data Access (EDA) DoD Only DPAP Clause Logic Service (CLS) DoD Only FPDS-NG SAM Entity (Vendor, formerly CCR, EPLS, and ORCA) FedBizOpps WDOL INTEGRATION DESCRIPTION Award and modification information PDS XML, flat file (CSV), and portable document format (pdf)/ postscript (ps) file formats Secure file transport protocol (SFTP) and hypertext transfer protocol-secure (HTTPS) Clause data for solicitations and awards Hypertext transfer protocol-secure (HTTPS) Award and modification information XML file format and HTTPS Detailed vendor information and representations and certifications XML file format and HTTPS Sources sought, solicitation, pre-award, and award information XML file format and HTTPS Wage determination information XML file format and HTTPS FIGURE 1. only when allowed by regulation, and able to be understood by both parties without ambiguity. When clauses are treated as text versus data or when they do not capture an appropriate amount of metadata to assess their accuracy, they introduce data integrity vulnerabilities. Similarly, if clauses on transactions or within the application s repository can be updated automatically, the possibility for human error decreases. The more of these capabilities a COTS CWS has, the better it can ensure the integrity of contracting data. Integration Benefits Any New CWS Should Provide Integrating a CWS into the fabric of an agency s business operations is vital to meeting the internal goals and federal mandates common in the modern federal acquisition landscape. This makes it more important than ever for agencies to select a CWS that provides robust integration capabilities based on modern, open standards when purchasing a new acquisition solution. When evaluating the integration capabilities of a COTS CWS, all tools should provide a set of general capabilities and benefits in several key areas to ensure the product will serve the current and future integration needs of an agency. Flexibility and Interoperability: Out-ofthe-box interoperability with core acquisition partner systems and common integration technologies to exchange data via XML, flat files, etc. Standard Data Definitions: Enhanced compatibility with current and future systems through the use of standardized business objects such as, for DoD, the Procurement Data Standard (PDS) and Purchase Request Data Standard (PRDS). Standard Business Processes: Use of standardized business processes and objects that enable partner systems to be changed or replaced without impacts to core business practices. System/Integration Scalability: Full integration transaction scalability to support future loads and peak processing times, such as the end of the fiscal year. Support for Integration, Workflow, and Inter-Application Process Orchestration: Provide configurable transaction routing and monitoring capabilities allowing for the orchestration of complex business processes involving interactions between the CWS and other integrating systems. Without these integration capabilities and benefits, any agency deploying a new CWS will incur significant additional costs as it purchases and deploys integration middleware tools, develops one-off point-to-point interfaces, and maintains separate integration servers and processes over the life of the system. Standard Out-of-the-Box Integrations Beyond general integration capabilities, there are external system integrations any modern CWS should provide in its set of standard capabilities. These include the Integrated Award Environment (IAE) capabilities hosted by GSA, as well as DoD systems that centralize key contracting capabilities. They are described in FIGURE 1 above. 18 Contract Management April 2016

6 Managing Contracts Just Got Easier! Contract Insight by CobbleStone Systems Contract Lifecycle Management and Contract Writing Software Key Features p Centralized document repository p Unlimited custom felds p Document templates and drafting p Confgurable workfow approvals p Key task and date alerts p FAR + DFAR clause management p Custom dashboards and reporting p Cloud-based or client-deployed options p 3rd-party integration options p Suite of add-on functionality Schedule a demo today! (866) Contract Insight is an End-to-End Contract Lifecycle Management and Contract Writing Software. It is built upon the latest web-enabled technologies so it can be deployed faster and supported easier, thus reducing your total cost of ownership and accelerating your return on investment. CobbleStone Systems Contract Lifecycle Management strategy provides comprehensive solutions for automating and centralizing your organization s contract, agreement, committal or obligation management lifecycle processes from cradle to grave. CobbleStone s contract lifecycle solution leverages your existing processes, integrates seamlessly with other mission critical applications, and provides a user-friendly interface; ensuring ease of use, smooth transitions with high adoption rates, and rapid time-to-value.

7 PAPERLESS CONTRACTING: CONTRACT WRITING SYSTEM CONSIDERATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT ENTITIES TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE EXTERNAL SYSTEM Inbound Purchase Requests Outbound Commitments Outbound Funds Verification Request Outbound Obligations Inbound Contract Status INTEGRATION DESCRIPTION Receipt of purchase request documents created in another system Include attachment information for the full PR package Support PR amendments to support changes Commitment of funds in the agency financial system Purchase Request data Support for de-commitments or negative commitments Verification that available committed funds are still sufficient to cover the expected obligation amount on the draft award Typically a preliminary step performed prior to the release of an award Contract, order, and modification data Obligation of funds in the agency financial system Typically the final step before the contracting officer releases an award Contract, order, and modification data Update contract/order with a status on the receipt and invoicing FIGURE 2. Support for Open Standards and Technologies In addition to standard, pre-defined integrations, most agencies will need to integrate their CWS with their financial management systems to properly track and manage award data. Many legacy contract writing systems provide only closed, inflexible interfaces that require third-party middleware tools and/or custom development efforts to deliver even basic financial system integrations. To avoid these pitfalls, agencies searching for a new CWS should look for products that provide open application programming interfaces based on modern integration methodologies, such as web services and XML schemas. These APIs should be well documented and provide out-of-thebox support for any standards-compliant XML generating/consuming tool to readily integrate with the CWS under consideration. These open APIs, at a minimum, should support the acquisitions transaction sets found in FIGURE 2 above. Business Process Adaptability/ Configurability The ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances is a significant consideration in selecting a new system. Adaptability impacts the performance of the agency s future contract writing capability in the following ways: It reduces the length of time between the identification of a need and production implementation. For example, today this process takes more than 12 months for most changes for DoD s SPS, due to both the development and testing process and the deployment model. This is a major frustration within this DoD legacy system. It allows various communities within the agency to tailor the system to their needs. The system can be easier to train and use, and can provide greater insight for decision-makers, when it is easily modifiable for the needs of the user community. It reduces the total cost of ownership by making both initial implementation configurations and future required changes less costly. The ability of each considered solution to be configured without software enhancements or customizations would include dealing with any or all of the following: New or changed fields on documents; New or changed printed procurement forms; Agency-specific clauses or standard text; Approval rules, hierarchy, thresholds; Alerts and notifications; Workflow configuration (escalation, validation, defaulting, process automation); Document behavior; 20 Contract Management April 2016

8 PAPERLESS CONTRACTING: CONTRACT WRITING SYSTEM CONSIDERATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT ENTITIES TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE Reference data; FPDS-NG prefill data; Rendering of contract and modification data; User interface configuration (modifying views, setting favorite locations and defaults, etc.); and Security configuration responsibilities, permissions, organization hierarchy. MAINTAINING THE ABILITY TO LEVERAGE FUTURE CAPABILITIES THAT CAN TRANSFORM CONTRACT MANAGEMENT COTS contract writing systems currently being deployed are much more capable of integrating with other acquisition, program, and financial management systems than previous generation systems. It is highly likely, if not a certainty, that this capability will increase exponentially in the next five years. The expanding ability to share and analyze information and data from many different systems in near real time (think big data for contracts management) opens the doors to identifying and implementing efficiencies in business processes and procedures that could transform the way a contract management office operates in five to 10 years. Here are some examples of what might be done if the acquired CWS can grow into a full lifecycle management system that can track discrete work tasks and manage and analyze the data to identify inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and redundancies. Many tasks that contracting professionals accomplish take place outside of the contract writing or other management systems in use. Examples of these tasks include work on rate agreements, protests, FOIA requests, and claims. Information and data on the operation of these tasks that take place outside the contracting system may be captured in other systems but not in the contract writing system. With the data integration capability that will very likely be available in the next five to 10 years, it may be possible to identify and The expanding ability to share and analyze information and data from many different systems in near real time opens the doors to identifying and implementing efficiencies in business processes and procedures that could transform the way a contract management office operates in five to 10 years. measure these tasks, and then by combining the information in other systems, use business process modeling to identify efficiency gains that modify and streamline of local regulations, processes, and organizational and staffing structures. Once those efficiencies are implemented, an organization can continuously measure the results and identify new opportunities to improve mission accomplishment and save resources. Routine contract management activities could be identified and automated using the integration of CWS capabilities with other management systems employed by organizations that interface with the contract management organization. Program offices or even vendors could propose contractual changes that could result in contract modifications without any data re-entry. Simple contracts could be closed out automatically by a CWS integrated with financial and vendor systems. Routine orders could be processed through integration with requirements systems. Funding requests could be generated by the CWS sending tasks to program and financial management offices to commit funds based on known contract timelines such as option exercises or spending levels rather than waiting for program offices to initiate funding actions. Accessibility of the CWS through remote access will almost certainly have to be expanded in the next few years. Near-term future systems must be able to support remote usage to accommodate the demands of the talented workforce that will be in place in five to ten years. The system must be built to support a growth in telework options and collaboration without the need for co-location. This will require a system that is scalable to manage heavy concurrent user load during surge times at the end of a quarter or the end of a fiscal year. SUMMARY There are many COTS solutions out there to choose from, so there is no compelling reason why an agency wanting to make a change and improve their contract management operations needs to start from scratch. Keeping the capabilities and considerations discussed in this article at the forefront of market surveys and source selections will enhance ROI in meeting agency-specific objectives. As agencies move to next-generation capabilities of emerging COTS CWSs, they should also ensure that whatever they decide to go with, the technologies and the systems integration services they acquire don t leave them thinking This is as good as it s going to get. As a contracts professional, you want your maintenance dollars going to something more than bug fixes. You want a vendor that is constantly improving the underlying technology, adding new and better features, so that the system you bought is a long-term investment that continually enhances your business instead of a one-time step-up that goes right into sustainment and can t significantly improve again. COTS vendors should demonstrate to the buyer s satisfaction that a steady flow of new capabilities, reflecting the technology trends at large, will come from a steady, robust R&D investment by the vendor to the benefit of a growing base of customers. CM ABOUT THE AUTHOR JESSE MATHESON is the director of Acquisition Systems Integration for CACI International. Learn more at Send comments about this article to [email protected]. Contract Management April