Every contract you can cite, ready for the next Section L
Section L asks for recent, relevant contracts, each with somebody in the government who will speak to the work, and Section M scores them. Past performance keeps each contract as a record, with its customer, value, period, references and ratings, and reads it against every notice and pursuit for how relevant it is, with the reasons.
The contract, its customer, and where every fact came from
Past performance is under Proposal in the menu. Each record is one contract: its number, the task or delivery order and the vehicle it was ordered under, the department, component and buying office, the program, your role and the prime when you were not the prime, the contract type, the value of the whole contract and your share, the period with its options, the NAICS and product codes, the place of performance, and whether it is active, complete or terminated.
Beside the facts are the scope in your words, its size, the work it shows, the key personnel who did it, and the narratives from your library. Add a record by hand, from your contract ledger with Add from my contracts, or from your company's awards on the federal record with Add from my awards on the record. A fact that came from the ledger or the record says so beside it.
- Your role: prime, subcontractor, joint venture member or teaming partner
- Terminated for the government's convenience, for default or for cause, recorded as such
- Adding from the record needs your company matched on Your company
- Up to 10,000 records on one account
UEI, CAGE, then normalized name
The people who will speak to the work
Each record keeps its references: the name, title and organization; who they are, from the contracting officer, the contracting officer's representative and the program manager to the prime's manager; whether they may be contacted; their email and phone; and the day they last confirmed they will speak to the work. A confirmation within the last year counts as confirmed, and an older one, or none, is marked.
References are people, so their names and details are shown on the record's page and nowhere else: not in the register's rows, not in the relevance reading, and not in the account's history. Excel with the references is a file of its own, for a person whose role takes files out and who is not a viewer.
- May be contacted, ask first, or do not contact
- A reference marked do not contact cannot be picked for a questionnaire
- The register counts the records with a reference you may call, and those with none
printed on every notice, never searchable until now
Ratings, by the factors of FAR 42.1503(b)(2)
| What is kept | How |
|---|---|
| What it is | A CPARS evaluation, a questionnaire returned, a customer letter, or an award fee result, with the period it covers and the day it was rated. |
| The factors | Technical (quality of product or service), cost control, schedule/timeliness, management or business relations, small business subcontracting, and other: the factors FAR 42.1503(b)(2) names for every evaluation. Cost control is not rated on a firm-fixed-price or fixed-price with economic price adjustment contract. |
| The ratings | Exceptional, Very Good, Satisfactory, Marginal and Unsatisfactory, the five of FAR 42.1503(b)(4) and Table 42-1. |
| The words | What you may quote from the narrative, and the document from your library. |
| Comments | The day you were told a CPARS evaluation was ready for comment. FAR 42.1503(d) gives up to 14 calendar days from that day, and the last day is on the calendar as a guide. |
The register shows each record's latest rating as its lowest factor. The day a CPARS evaluation period ends is on the calendar too, because FAR 42.1502(a) has evaluations prepared at least annually and when the work is completed.
Sent, tracked, and due on the calendar
A past performance questionnaire is recorded for a pursuit or a proposal, to one of the record's references. Each says where it stands (to send, sent, reminded, returned to the government, confirmed received, or declined), the day it went, and the day it is due. The due day starts as the pursuit's response date or the proposal's due date.
An open questionnaire past its day is marked late, each one is on the calendar as Questionnaire due, and recording one puts the record forward on that pursuit or proposal. A record keeps up to a hundred references, a hundred ratings and a hundred questionnaires.
- Send a questionnaire from the record, from the Relevant past performance card, or from a proposal's Past performance tab
- The register counts the questionnaires still open
next buy expected Dec 14, window Nov 28 to Jan 9
How relevant each record is
| Factor | Weight | What it reads |
|---|---|---|
| Recency | 25 | How long ago the work was done, against the years the solicitation asks for. |
| Size | 20 | Its value against what this work is worth. |
| Scope | 25 | Its codes, its contract type and the words of its scope against the work. |
| Customer | 15 | The same buying office, component or department. |
| Role | 5 | Whether you did it as the prime. |
| Ratings | 10 | The latest evaluation, questionnaire or letter on file. |
Each factor is said as a sentence about a figure on file, and the score is out of 100. A factor with nothing on file is left out of the weighting rather than given a middle mark. A record read on under half the weight is marked read on little and ranked after the others, and a record with none of recency, size, scope or customer on file has no score.
Recent means what the solicitation says
Recency is read against the years the solicitation itself asks for, quoted on the screen, when a sentence near the words past performance says something like "within the past three years". When it states none, recent means within three years, the period of FAR 42.1503(g), or six for construction and architect-engineer work, and work that ended within five years (eight for that work) counts for part. The screen says that is a guide and not a rule of this solicitation.
Size counts in full when the record's value, or your share of it, is within half to twice what the work is worth. FAR 15.305(a)(2) is quoted beside the reading: the currency and relevance of the information are considered, and an offeror without relevant past performance may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably.
The records that fit this notice, with the reasons
A notice and a pursuit each carry a card called Relevant past performance: the five records most relevant to it, each with its score out of 100, the reasons that moved it most, the references you may call, and the buttons to send a questionnaire and to put the record forward on the pursuit. It is read against the work's codes, its customer, what it is worth, the words of its scope, and the role you would play.
On a proposal, the Past performance tab reads the eight most relevant against its pursuit, its notice or its customer, and its value. It lists the records put forward on it and the questionnaires sent for it and for its pursuit, with when each is due.
- A notice you have not put on your pipeline asks you to, before a questionnaire is recorded for it
- Every record on the card opens its own page
closer = ends sooner, bigger = larger last award
Which proposal used which record
Every record has a list called Put forward on: each pursuit and each proposal it was put forward on, the day, and who did it. Each proposal's Past performance tab lists the records put forward on it, with their relevance to it. And a requirement on a proposal's compliance matrix can carry a past performance record as its evidence.
The register
The register lists every record with its customer, role, value, period, how recently the work ended, its latest rating and its references. Filter by words, customer, NAICS, product code, role, status, latest rating, how recent it is, references, or the work it shows. At the top it counts the records, how many are active, how many are within three years, how many are rated, how many have a reference you may call and how many have none, and the questionnaires still open. It downloads as an Excel workbook.
Where it stops
Past performance comes with every paid plan, and a role can close it for a person. It keeps the records your company enters or brings in from its ledger and its awards. It does not connect to CPARS: a rating is what you record from the evaluation. Recording a questionnaire keeps when it went and when it is due, and the questionnaire itself goes out from you. The FAR rules beside the ratings and the recency reading are a guide, not legal advice, and relevance is a reading of what is on file, not how an evaluator will judge it.
Where it is in the app
Past performance, under Proposal in the menu, and the Past performance tab of each proposal. Proposal is the part of LastAwarded that builds the response, one of the eight parts.
Related
- Proposals NewThe proposal a record is put forward on.
- Key personnel NewThe people who did the work, against the next position.
- Compliance matrix NewThe requirement a record is evidence for.
- Contract ledger NewWhere Add from my contracts reads from.
- Your own companyWhere your company is matched to its awards on the record.
See who was last awarded in your NAICS
Every code, every buying office, every vendor and every recompete, organized from the federal record and read nightly. Open it with a plan.