GSA Schedule and OASIS Digital Tool Series – Market Research, Pricing, and Opportunities

GSA’s Professional Services Category created six short, informational videos about the Acquisition Gateway and a range of digital tools including:

• Introduction to the Acquisition Gateway
• The Solutions Finder (found on the Acquisition Gateway)
• The Statement of Work Library (found on the Acquisition Gateway)
• OASIS Discovery
• OASIS Dashboard, and
• The Contract-Awarded Labor Category (CALC)

GSA describes the Professional Services and Human Capital (PSHC) Digital Tool Series as “designed to assist the federal acquisition community use the digital tools to efficiently navigate purchasing channels and effectively manage cost by assisting in smart buying decisions.” However, the topics and information presented are beneficial for GSA Schedule and OASIS contract holders as well for market research, pricing, and opportunities search purposes.

One resource applicable to GSA and OASIS contract holders is the Acquisition Gateway, which contains category-specific “hallways,” including the Professional Services Hallway. The Acquisition Gateway videos provide a quick demonstration of all the tools residing in the Gateway. The Gateway is designed to help federal government buyers; however, some functionality is also available to non-federal government and public users. Public users can access useful resources including a Forecast of Contract Opportunities.

GSA provides a fact sheet describing the Professional Services Schedule (PSS) and One Acquisition Solutions for Integrated Services (OASIS) –two contract vehicles offered under the Professional Services Category to meet simple or complex professional services requirements. The OASIS Discovery and OASIS Dashboard videos describe tools available and useful to both federal customers and OASIS contract holders including market research and potential teaming partners.

Also among the digital tools and videos shared is information on the Contract-Awarded Labor Category (CALC) Database. GSA addresses one of the thorniest pricing issues in government, evaluating rates for professional services, with the CALC database. The video demonstrates the CALC Tool, which allows users to search awarded ceiling rates for labor categories. Consolidating rate information from thousands of Schedule contracts for professional services, CALC provides a statistical analysis of the pricing offered for a particular labor category.

Users can refine their CALC results by applying parameters such as minimum education, required experience, business size, and work site. Based on this input, CALC will extrapolate a bell curve and give you the median rate and the rates one standard deviation from the median. While targeted at federal buyers (contracting officers and contract specialists), the CALC tool is public-facing and open for use by anyone looking to do competitive price analysis.