OASIS+: Eight Questions GSA Has Already Answered

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GSA has published several rounds of official questions and answers on the OASIS+ solicitations. They are worth reading, but they run to hundreds of entries across dense PDFs, and the useful material is scattered.

These are the ones that come up most often with clients, and the ones where the answer tends to surprise people.

1) How many domains can I bid?

As many as you qualify for. Each domain is scored separately against its own matrix, and each carries its own dollar thresholds.

That is an argument for casting a wider net than feels natural. Every additional domain widens the pool of task orders you can compete for later, and the marginal effort of adding a second or third domain is usually far less than the effort of the first.

2) Can I use the same project in more than one place?

Yes, with one hard limit.

You may submit the same Qualifying Project across different solicitations, small business and HUBZone for example, and across different domains within the same solicitation. That is explicitly allowed.

What you cannot do is use the same project twice within the same domain and the same solicitation. If GSA finds a duplicate there, the project is removed from every proposal it appears in, including anyone else's. Not reduced. Removed.

3) We were the subcontractor. Does that count?

For Qualifying Projects, yes. Subcontracts are allowable, and prime and subcontractor are treated as unique projects, each able to claim credit for its own portion of the work.

For Federal Experience Projects, no. Those must be prime awards between you and the federal government.

One trap worth knowing: if you and your subcontractor bid together as a contractor teaming arrangement, you cannot both claim your portions of the same project as two separate entries in that proposal. Bidding separately as primes, you each can.

4) What counts as a different federal customer?

The Funding Agency ID on the FPDS report. Not the office, not the program, not the contracting activity.

Two projects both funded by GSA count as one customer. One GSA project and one Army project count as two. Earning credit for three or more distinct federal customers requires three distinct funding agency IDs, and the project has to have actually been funded. An IDIQ showing only its minimum guarantee will not be considered.

5) Do I have to use CPARS, or can I have my customer fill out a form?

If a finalized CPARS rating exists, you must use it. The Past Performance Rating Form is only an option when CPARS has nothing.

GSA is explicit that checking this is your responsibility. If you submit a rating form and evaluators find a CPARS rating for that project, they reserve the right to use the CPARS rating instead, whatever it says. Check the database before you build the proposal, not after.

If no final rating exists, the most current finalized interim rating is used. An Incomplete-Rated CPARS is acceptable so long as it carries the assessing official's name, title, and date signed.

6) Our contract documents do not break out the value of the relevant work. Now what?

Use the Project Verification Form, Attachment J.P-3. GSA confirmed that a statement certified by the customer, attesting that the relevant work meets or exceeds the domain's minimum average annual value, is sufficient.

This matters more than it sounds. CLIN structures rarely map cleanly onto domain scope, and plenty of companies write off a strong project because they cannot isolate the number. One signed form solves it, and the same form can document relevance for up to eight domains at once.

7) What are the two tiers in the scale criteria?

Each domain scorecard lists two scale thresholds, and they stack.

Technical and Engineering under the small business solicitations, for example, awards one credit for a project at $1 million average annual value or 5 full-time employees, and an additional credit at $4 million or 20 FTEs. A project meeting the second tier earns both credits, not just the higher one.

Proteges get a break here: projects submitted in a protege's name need only meet 50 percent of these values. That reduction does not apply to projects submitted in the name of the joint venture itself.

8) Should I submit a cover letter?

It's not required, although there a place to upload a cover letter within Symphony. GSA's position is that it is entirely your call.

My advice is to include a simple cover letter that includes the solicitation number, domain(s), and lists your teaming partners, if applicable. If something about your submission genuinely needs explaining to a contracting officer, a cover letter is a reasonable place to do it.

The theme running through all of these:

Almost every one of these answers points the same direction: the rules reward preparation and punish assumption.

The offerors who struggle are rarely the ones lacking experience. They are the ones who assumed a project qualified, assumed a rating existed, assumed a document said what they remembered it saying.

Read the Q&As. Then check your files against them.

Want a quick read on where you stand before you dig into your files?

Take the free 10-question OASIS+ eligibility assessment