In the aftermath of the shift to Beta.Sam.gov from FBO.gov (i.e. the FedBizOpps replacement), it’s become apparent that 3rd-party solutions like Capture2Proposal (C2P) are even more critical for the GovCon community to use for finding, tracking and managing Federal government contract opportunities. Initial reactions to Beta.Sam cite its less useful interface and services, search limitations and data-linking — Beta.Sam.gov needs a lot of work. Fortunately, tools like Capture2Proposal already provide a user-friendly interface and contain all of the Beta.Sam opportunities as well as additional procurement database sources, all integrated into an automated procurement/capture management and CRM pipeline workflow.
Besides the technical, UX and API feed glitches, other limitations may take quite a while to improve. Some, like the loss of saved searches and followed opportunities under FBO.gov, will not be corrected – per this memo from GSA on beta.sam.gov status.
The new format makes it harder to compare updates on opportunities over time – the history section of the Beta.Sam opportunities is awkwardly placed, and provides no information on more recent updates to the opportunity. Reviewing all of the notices related to an opportunity could be done with relative ease in FBO, but requires multiple page loads in Beta.Sam. In C2P, the analyst update section always shows a chronological review of all of the updates to the opportunity, all in one place. Clicking between links should not be a requirement for a holistic view of the updates.
Searching for some awarded opportunities in Beta.Sam will only return pages for the awardees, without disclosing old RFPs and other information useful when competing for a follow-on. Knowing the terms of the original contract and the award timeline is essential when crafting a follow-on bid.
The search filter design and placement is also puzzling. The options are listed down the left pane on the screen and require a lot of scrolling through large format options and dead space to find the fields you want to use. Then, the data shown on the opportunity in the results is a lot more limited than it was in FBO, making it harder to determine if what’s been returned matches your search intention.
Within the results, there are notice update dates, but not time stamps. On November 12th, the opportunity T4NG revealed multiple contract updates. The results showed two updates on that day, with a number indicating how many previous updates had been made to the opportunity, but no other indication of which was the most current. Additionally, these numbers were three apart, but both date stamped on the same day, meaning that some updates didn’t show up at all. Having trust in a system to show the most up-to-date information is critical when you’re building your proposal and the government requirements change. C2P search results provide the single opportunity with the most current information, with C2P Analyst updates for historical progress – zero confusion.
Overall, this FedBizOpps transition may certainly be a step in the right direction towards improved user interaction and consolidation of data services and secure access for the federal government. However, it does not provide the GovCon BD, sales and capture community with the true range, granularity and integrated perspective of procurement data they need to most efficiently pursue Federal contracts through BD & Sales, to capture, proposal management and ultimately a win for the team. Capture2Proposal provides a far more effective and informed Federal contract opportunity search, BD intelligence and CRM platform, leveraging AI-infused procurement data and insight from more sources – including Beta.Sam.gov – than any other.
- Find what you need quickly – custom opportunities with blazing-fast search tools and AI-infused relevance
- Make more intelligent bid/no-bid decisions – comprehensive, situational awareness of your target market, developing opportunities and best teaming partners
- Prime the pipeline and pursuit, before your competitors – find more opportunities, earlier, with far better relevance
Contact us today to find out more, to help overcome the GovCon BD, search, sales and capture management limitations posed by limited features of Beta.Sam.gov and other less helpful solutions. #GovConwin for #GovCon #BD professionals!