News for the Acquisition Workforce

The deadline for the 2023 Acquisition, Program Management, Small Business and Procurement Equity, and Sustainable Acquisition Excellence Awards has been extended until August 20! Take advantage of this new deadline and submit your nomination(s) to help highlight acquisition professionals who contribute to outstanding improvements in acquisition throughout the federal government. Submit nominations and read the official announcement here.

GSA will be modernizing its IT servers between July 21 and 23, causing an outage at FAI.gov. During this time, you will be able to access FAI CSOD, but you will not be able to do so through the FAI.gov website.

You can use this direct FAI CSOD link instead: https://dau.csod.com/. We recommend you bookmark it!

This work has been planned for the weekend to minimize disruptions during core business hours. There will be two periods where applications are intermittently unavailable:

Friday, July 21, 9:00 p.m.–12:30 a.m. (ET)
Saturday, July 22, 9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. (ET)

The FAC-C (Professional) contracting exam is now available in FAI CSOD. CON 3990V Contracting Certification Exam is only for workforce members who are seeking the FAC-C (Professional). The exam is NOT available to workforce members who already hold a FAC-C (Professional). FAI has received many questions about the exam and has developed a new FAC-C (Professional) Exam FAQs video to assist the contracting workforce. In addition to this new video, FAI.gov has all of the FAQs and more!  

DOI University is excited to announce the new cohort of the Digital IT Acquisition Professional Program (DITAP), a specialized training program that helps government professionals understand how to craft acquisitions to buy digital services and design innovative, flexible procurements for services like human-centered design, iterative development and more. This virtual program runs from Nov. 6, 2023 to June 5, 2024. Registration and tuition: FCN 500 (MC) - DITAP Foundations - Management Concepts. For questions regarding registration and tuition, see: https://doiu.doi.gov/node/236 or contact Shae Locke at shae_locke@ios.doi.gov.

Small businesses play a critical role in providing professional services to federal agencies and help promote diversity, competition and innovation. Join GSA to learn about how multiple award contracts (MAC), OASIS and HCaTS, can help your agency meet small business goals, specifically 8(a). Each of these MACs has two 100% 8(a) small business set-aside contracts and each associated unrestricted contract has a substantial number of small business contractors that can be awarded credit toward your small business goals. Learn more about each offering and earn one CLP.

Participants will gain a confident understanding of facilitation and their own ability to effectively facilitate sessions for others. The course will include practical exercises and engaging, interactive instruction. The course will provide foundational principles and skills of facilitation, demonstrated techniques, engagement strategies, plans for different meetings and facilitation types, and how to manage dysfunctional behavior. Register today!

Acquisition Training for the Real World is a two-week program of daily virtual training sessions on GSA’s tools and digital services and the latest information on federal marketplace initiatives. It is open exclusively to federal agency personnel. Earn up to 11 CLPs. Register today!

Check out the latest PILCast Travel Edition to hear about how your team can create unique evaluation criteria from a unique travel destination (Everglades National Park). You can find all of the DHS PILCast episodes on the Procurement Innovation Lab's YouTube channel. Find more information about how teams have created unique evaluation criteria using mission-focused evaluation and more innovative procurement techniques by reading the 2022 PIL Yearbook.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is hosting the National Human Trafficking Prevention Summit, August 3-4, in Arlington, VA. HHS invites all interested members of the federal acquisition workforce to register and attend. The HHS-hosted summit will bring together leaders across federal, state, tribal, local, and territorial governments; business, industry, and other private sector entities; nonprofits and non-governmental organizations; and philanthropic, faith-based, and research organizations to inspire and galvanize a collective effort to prevent human trafficking. Please click here for registration and other information!

FAI's fiscal year 2024 FAC-C, FAC-COR, credential, and continuous learning virtual instructor-led training will be available in September 2023. As soon as the training sessions become available, FAI will notify the workforce and they will also be listed on FAI.gov. Seats will be first come, first serve, and, as always, there will be no tuition cost to students or their agencies.

Are there courses you need, or know you want to take in fiscal year 2024? We encourage you to use the “Indicate Interest in a Future Session” feature in FAI CSOD. By using this feature, you will receive an immediate notification from FAI CSOD that a new session is available. To use this feature, follow the steps outlined on pages 51 and 52 of the Federal Employee Task Aid.