The Solicitation Review Tool (SRT) was created to help agencies evaluate and improve the overall solicitation compliance with respect to accessibility, and in the future - cyber security, and other regulations and requirements.
The SRT was built using open source technology, uses artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, text mining, and machine learning algorithms to automatically identify whether new solicitations posted to “Contracting Opportunities” (beta.SAM.gov) are solicitations for Information and Communication Technology (ICT). For those that are considered ICT SRT tests if they contain sufficient compliance requirements for Section 508 Technical Requirements that will improve accessibility of federal IT.
The SRT scans the beta.SAM.gov every 24 hours, across all solicitations and delivers:
- A report on all the new ICT solicitations for the previous day
- A report of ICT solicitations flagged for manual review
- A portal for agency SMEs to perform manual reviews of flagged solicitations
- Trending data of flagged solicitations by agency and government-wide
Benefits of SRT
As federal acquisition staff needs to ensure that ICT solicitation documents include Section 508 requirements. The SRT will make it easier to find those solicitations that have been identified as either compliant or non-compliant by:
- Automating the review process
- Ensuring accessibility requirements are properly defined in ICT solicitations
- Influencing training offerings
- Supporting IT Accessibility PMs
- Improving GSA’s ability to support agencies
- Providing timely analytics
With SRT, agencies will have the information to inform decisions on which solicitations warrant additional Section 508 requirements, those that warrant amending the solicitations to add requirements before selection decisions are made by the agency.
How to Access SRT
The SRT is available to agency procurement officials and Section 508 Program Managers by sending a request to srt@gsa.gov. Once approved, you will be sent instructions on accessing SRT using your Office of Management and Budget MAX.gov account, which are available to federal employees with a .gov or .mil email address.
If you have questions while using the application or have tool improvement recommendations, use the Contact Us link at the top of the page to send a message to the system administrators.
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Reviewed/Updated: March 2022
