U.S. General Services Administration
GSA Awards Contract for Common Catalog Platform with Goal of Improving Catalog Management
Post filed in: Category Management
GSA recently awarded a contract to CGI Federal to develop the new Common Catalog Platform (CCP), a cornerstone of our modernization plan to streamline and improve management of our catalog data. The new CCP will ensure contractors and the GSA workforce have a modern platform to keep GSA Advantage and other catalogs up to date with reliable, accurate information about the more than 70-million products and services offered to the federal marketplace.
The new CCP will replace the desktop-based Schedule Input Program (SIP) and Contracting Officer Review System (CORS) with a modern, web-based application for managing catalog data that will:
- Address longstanding accessibility and usability issues,
- Integrate with contracting tools to streamline the offer and modification process,
- Reduce the administrative burden associated with working in disjointed platforms,
- Make it easier to keep catalogs up to date, and,
- Improve the quality of data collected for customer tools such as GSA Advantage and eLIbrary.
GSA is also improving the speed and quality of data delivered to customer tools through an internal modernization to the databases storing catalog information displayed on GSA Advantage
GSA’s Authoritative Catalog Repository (ACR) is our new home for catalog data. Reducing catalog processing time will result in improved time to market and enables customers to see catalog updates as quickly as possible. The ACR will also enable new quality control activities so that GSA can prevent fraudulent behavior and ensure customers have reliable catalog information.
In the long term, GSA intends to further improve catalog data by standardizing specifications for Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) products. By standardizing details such as manufacturer name, part number, item name, technical description, and image (when applicable), GSA will ensure customers see consistent, accurate information, and reduce the burden on contractors to individually report these details.
Ultimately, this modernization will ensure that contractors and the workforce can easily manage catalogs and that customers have access to reliable, up to date catalog information. This is a multiyear effort and stakeholders can view regular updates as well as see opportunities for user feedback and testing sessions on the Catalog Management Interact page.