A Change in SAM.gov will Affect Access for Some Entity Administrators

All SAM.gov users have specified roles, with each type of role offering different levels of ability to interact with the system. Beginning March 3, 2023, Entity Administrator roles can only be held by employees, officers, or board members of the organization. A comprehensive role with elevated responsibilities, this change to the Entity Administrator role ensures the entity is in control of and accountable for who can update their registration in SAM.gov, while allowing entities to continue to use service providers to manage their entity registration, if they wish.

If you use an outside service to manage your registration, or if you provide registration management services to other organizations, this change to SAM.gov roles may impact you. The outside service and/or the entity may need to take action to ensure entities can manage access to their entities.     

Effective March 3, 2023, when you register an entity or update  an entity registration, you must attest to your affiliation with the entity. If you are not an employee, officer, or board member of the entity, you will no longer be able to hold the Entity Administrator role. Instead, you will be given the Data Entry role.  With that role, you can continue to register new entities, manage updates, and renew entity registrations, but you can't manage user roles.

Entities assigning Entity Administrator roles using an Entity Administrator Appointment Letter, (sometimes known as the notarized letter process) will no longer be able to assign the Entity Administrator role to a non-employee. 

 

My entity currently uses outside Entity Administrator support to manage SAM.gov registrations. What are the next steps? 

If you use a non-employee from an outside service to assist with managing your SAM.gov registration, you will need to have an Entity Administrator who holds a position (i.e. employee, office, or board member) within your entity. Entities need to establish an employee, officer, or board member as an Entity Administrator if they don’t have one already. There are two ways to do this.

1. Send an Entity Administrator Appointment Letter to the Federal Service Desk (FSD) appointing an administrator, or

2. Ask your outside Entity Administrator to assign the role to someone in your entity before March 3, 2023. 

Once you have an Entity Administrator who is an employee, officer, or board member of your organization, they should assign at least one additional administrator as a backup.

I manage registrations for other organizations. What should I do?

First, rest assured that you can continue to create and manage registrations on behalf of entities with the Data Entry role. 

Before you complete the next registration update for your client, help them out by requesting who they would like to serve as the Entity Administrator role. Once you have assigned an Entity Administrator role for the entity, you can proceed with your update. View the steps to assign a role in SAM.gov here. This will save your client the task of having to submit a letter to appoint someone.  If you do not designate a new Entity Administrator from the entity organization prior to an update, the entity will need to send an Entity Administrator Appointment Letter to FSD.gov to assign a new Entity Administrator. 

Read more about what you can do with a Data Entry role here. There are only two things you won’t be able to do with the Data Entry role: assign roles to others and deactivate the entity’s registration.

 

My entity has an employee, officer or board member currently serving as an Entity Administrator. What are the next steps?

Entities that already have an employee, officer or board member as the Entity Administrator managing their SAM.gov registration are not affected by this change. Remember, it is 100% free to useSAM.gov. You do not need to pay a fee to register your entity or to keep your entity registration active. SAM.gov does not endorse any registration management services.

To view your current roles, sign in to SAM.gov and go to your Workspace. Locate your Profile and then select “My Roles”. Roles are assigned by entity for each SAM.gov domain. Read this guide for more about SAM.gov roles and permissions. If you have any troubles making the change, reach out to FSD.gov.

We strongly encourage all entities to have at least one backup employee Entity Administrator assigned in case of staff changes or absences.