By Global Services on Friday, December 19, 2019

In October 2019, GSA released Phase I of the long-anticipated MAS Consolidation, which combined the 24 separate legacy Schedules into one, overarching Schedule. Overall, the transition to the new Consolidated Schedule Solicitation has been remarkably smooth, even in the face of logistical challenges such as the decommissioning of FedBizOpps, which required moving all of the Solicitation documents to their new home on beta.SAM.gov.

With any major change, though, some challenges are all but inevitable. On December 18, GSA’s MAS Blog addressed one such issue: how offerors will be able to demonstrate successful Past Performance for their GSA Schedule proposals, given the discontinuation of Open Ratings Reports.

Under the legacy solicitations, offerors were required to demonstrate successful past performance by purchasing an Open Ratings Report. The report summarized survey data taken from the offeror’s customers and showed the summary in an easily interpretable graphic format.

Under the new Consolidated Schedule solicitation, the report is just one of three allowable ways to demonstrate past performance: CPARs, Open Ratings Reports, or a Past Performance Narrative.

As of December 6, however, ORI has stopped accepting orders for new Open Ratings Reports. What this means for the MAS program is that:

1. Offerors who have at least three CPARs that meet Solicitation requirements must use those to demonstrate Past Performance.
2. Offerors who do not have at least three CPARs, but who purchased an Open Ratings Report prior to their discontinuation may use it, as long as it is dated within one year of the date of offer.
3. For offerors who do not have at least three CPARs and who do not have an Open Ratings Report, a Past Performance Narrative is required. This narrative provides brief project descriptions and points of contact, from whom GSA will request Past Performance Questionnaires.

In future Refreshes of the Solicitation, once enough time has passed that all existing reports fall outside the 12-month validity period, the option for Open Ratings Reports will presumably be removed altogether.

Questions about what these changes mean for your company? Contact Global Services today!