Government Agency: 65 Different Government Agencies

Solution or Platform Selected: Acquisition Solution's

1. The Government agency's challenge that led to the Cloud or SaaS adoption.
   The Federal Government's acquisition workforce is continually challenged to keep up-to-date on public law, individual Agency regulations and best practices across Government. The Virtual Acquisiton Office (VAO) application was developed to give the federal acquisition workforce an online resource that gives them a practical perspective on the sometimes complex statutes, Federal Acquistion Regulations, and agency supplements. The VAO web site was born from a news letter heritage that started to fill a demand ten years ago. Today, the VAO has expanded its utility by sumarizing daily trade and news articles, publishing research articles of topical interest and by publishing researched responses to smaller queries received from its subscribing agencies. It also provides easy to use guidance and analysis, along with a broad assortment of sample transaction documents. The subscriber base of individual account holders is growing, now approaching 4,000.



2. The solution that was chosen and why that particular solution was selected.
   The Virtual Acquisition Office platform is based on HTML, Java, ColdFusion and SQL Server components. The types of interaction with subscribers demanded a more capable solution set than HTML alone. This environment now allows the application to give each federal Agency its own view, configured to the customers specific needs. IT also enables a robust administrative capability to efficiently update content, configure subscriber views, and support indivuals currently online.



3. Results of the implementation. How did the vendor meet the agency's needs?
   The Virtual Acquisition Office has successfully supported a wide cross section of the federal acquistion workforce. It was used by DHS and FEMA after hurricane Katrina, and also elements of the Department of Defense and an assortment of Civilian agencies. This SaaS implementation was able to reach FEMA procurement officers in the field, with emergency contracting guidance when internet connectivity was challenging. VAO is configurable to be able to provide publication of an Agency's local policy and guidance to its own subscribers in an exclusinve 'view' to meet Agency needs in a focused way. The VAO continues to grow its subscriber base year over year, since 1999.