Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) is moving to beta.SAM.gov starting on November 8, 2019.
What is FBO?
FBO (commonly known as FedBizOpps) is how contracting organizations across the federal government post notices on proposed contract actions (valued at more than $25,000). These notices, or “procurement opportunities,” include solicitations, pre-solicitations, sole source justifications, and other notices. Anyone interested in doing business with the government can use FBO (www.fbo.gov) to learn about available opportunities.
Each contract opportunity found on FBO provides the following information:
- The original notice date and any amendments
- An overview of the notice and contracting agency
- Any related attachments or external links
- Instructions on how to submit a response, offer or proposal
- The date on which responses are due
You can search for opportunities in FBO by entering a keyword, solicitation ID, or an agency name into the search field, and use filters to narrow your results. Currently, you don’t need a user account to view contract opportunities. However, in future releases you will be able to access additional capabilities—such as saving searches, adding yourself to an opportunity’s Interested Vendors List, and signing up to receive regular updates on opportunities—when logged in. The capability to create user accounts will become available in the upcoming months.
For now, FBO is your source for Federal Business Opportunities. However, once FBO has fully transitioned, you will be directed to beta.SAM.gov for all your contracting opportunities.
What is beta.SAM.gov?
The General Services Administration (GSA) is merging its current legacy sites into one system. GSA decided to use the term beta when naming beta.SAM.gov to distinguish it from the current legacy SAM.gov site. While parts of the site are official, others are demonstration only and continue to be supported on one of GSA’s original websites. The original websites will be gradually migrated to the beta site. When the functionality from an original site has been migrated, the site will be a candidate for retirement. The original sites will co-exist with beta.SAM.gov until they are retired.
Centre Law & Consulting will continue to monitor updates to beta.SAM.gov. Please contact our Consulting team if you have any questions.
About the Author: