Acquisition councils settle data elements for GWAC directory

• By Jason Miller
• Jul 25, 2003

Civilian and Defense Department acquisition councils yesterday set the data elements that agencies will use in a new governmentwide acquisition contract online directory.

They also extended the micropurchase threshold for Section 508 purchases for another year.

The councils said the final rule for the GWAC database, published in the Federal Register, will ease access and allow more informed acquisition planning and market research. The GWAC database is part of the Integrated Acquisition Environment project for e-government, managed by the General Services Administration.

The rule standardizes data elements in three categories:

General information about a procurement

Information about placing orders

Information about the servicing agency.

The councils set 17 data fields for each contract. They also added search capabilities for more fields, including vendors' socioeconomic information and Data Universal Numbering System identification.

In the final 508 rule, the councils said agencies can continue to use micropurchase cards until Oct. 1, 2004, to buy IT products worth $2,500 or less that do not meet 508 standards.