For those companies who tried to participate in the GSA conference on Alliant 2 (A2SB) on the 12th but could not get in (all booked up), GSA is now offering a third conference. This will be a virtual conference and will be held on Monday, July 18, 2016, at 1:00 PM CDT. To participate, dial 1-888-566-6345 and use passcode 9194299.

Being virtual, there is no limit on the number of companies that can attend unless their conferencing system has some limitation. Try to dial in early to make sure you get in.

Some questions that companies have put to me and I think we should get definitive answers from GSA (either clarifications or request to change) are:

  1. Many companies don’t have their accounting system audited by DCMA or other government agencies. Can GSA change its requirement so that if they are audited by a credible CPA company, that is acceptable? This brings 5,500 points to many companies missing this.
  2. The RFP language is vague for situations in which a company’s FPDS report is not complete and needs to get a signature from the CO/COR. Can a company get the scores for L.5.2.2.3 (Multiple Federal Government Customers), L.5.2.2.4 (Cost-Reimbursement Projects), and L.5.2.2.5 (Task orders against MA/IDIQ)? The language of the RFP says that the process for getting signatures from the CO/COR does not work for these and only FPDS can substantiate these scores. What if the FPDS reports states that the contract is cost reimbursement but the PSC code is wrong and we need to get a signature from CO/COR. The language is vague here.
  3. Many contracts have work associated with them done OCONUS but that is not mentioned in the SOW. How is a company supposed to substantiate the work done OCONUS?
  4. ….

The bad thing about this conference as compared to the previous conferences is that you can’t meet the other attendees face to face. The July 12th conferences were the best place to network and possibly create teaming arrangements. Here you can’t do that.

Nonetheless, work on all and every question that you can think of and make a list of them beforehand and make sure that you ask them all. Try to send your questions on Alliant 2 to GSA ([email protected]) well in advance – now – so that they will have an answer for you in the conference and can’t postpone answering to the future. Also if you feel the answers you get are outside the scope of the RFP, make sure to ask them to issue a new amendment on it.

By all means, don’t miss this one!