August 3, 2020 Update: The migration of the reports functionality of FPDS to beta.SAM.gov is now scheduled to be complete on October 17, 2020. See the GSA Interact posting here.
May 21, 2020 Update: The reports functionality of FPDS was supposed to be decommissioned on May 16th, however this date has been extended. The new, final transition date will be determined later this year.
If you use the Federal Procurement Data System – Next Generation, or FPDS for short, you should know changes are fast-approaching. FPDS contains data on unclassified contract awards valued at over the micro-purchase threshold. The data is input by government agencies and available to view by the public. Government contractors can use FPDS to conduct market research, analyze competitor awards, and identify contract expiration dates. GSA contractors can also use FPDS to check if their GSA sales reporting aligns with what customer agencies are reporting.
What is Changing in FPDS?
FPDS contract data reports were added to beta.SAM in March. On May 16, 2020 Later this year, the report functionality will be removed from FPDS and beta.SAM.gov will become the authoritative source for these reports. However, the FPDS website will remain operational after the transition for the other functionality it provides, including the ability to conduct simple searches and enter contract award data.
Improvements were added when FPDS reports moved to beta.SAM, including the ability to:
- Pull reports spanning 12 years instead of 5
- Pull reports with up to 150,000 rows instead of 30,000
- Easily share report structure (i.e. attributes & metrics)
- View additional reportable Data Fields
- Use a new report creation wizard
What are Contract Data Reports?
FPDS created four different types of reports for accessing contract award data.
- Static Reports – these are reports that prepared each fiscal year and include the Top 100 Contractors Report and Small Business Goaling Reports.
- Standard Reports – there are currently 34 standard reports that provide information on the who, what, where, when, and how of contract awards. To view these reports, users must first select specific criteria, which may include a date range, organization, contracting office region, or vendor among other options.
- Ad Hoc Reports – these are custom reports that can be built by selecting filters and data fields. We should note, the creation of Ad Hoc reports is not intuitive and typically requires training.
- Administrative Reports – there are 8 Administrative Reports available to federal users with an Administrator Role for Contract Data.
Contract Data Reports – beta.SAM Resources
You can you can view Static, Standard, Administrative, and Ad Hoc reports in the Data Bank section of beta.SAM.gov. As we noted above, Administrative reports are only available to federal users. Similar to FPDS, while any visitor can view Static reports, you will need to sign in to your beta.SAM account to access any Standard or Ad Hoc reports.
Below are a few resources from beta.SAM to help you get started.
- Reference Guide – Static Reports
- Reference Guide – Standard Reports
- Reference Guide – Ad Hoc Reports
- FPDS Contract Data Reports – Before & After beta.SAM Transition
- Training Video – Static, Standard, & Administrative Reports
- Training Video – Basic Ad Hoc Reports
An Alternative to FPDS
USASpending.gov pulls contract award data from FPDS on a daily basis. Depending upon the information you’re searching, you may find USASpending.gov is a more user-friendly and visually appealing platform.
The transition of FPDS contract data reports to beta.SAM.gov is part of a long-term plan to merge several government websites into one uniform platform. Read more in our posts here: beta.SAM and FBO beta.SAM Update.