An umbrella program is an entity that is created to track the acquisition of specific goods and services together under a common program by federal agencies. The umbrella program encompasses all the IDVs and the orders off these IDVs created for the specific acquisition. Generally, in such situations, solicitations are created to source all the requirements of the umbrella program and the contracts (IDVs) are awarded to those multiple suppliers who can meet the specified requirements. Whenever the actual demand comes in, these individual needs are competed among the contract awardees to award the delivery/task orders to the winning supplier.
A notice of Fair Opportunity is a special type of informal solicitation that is used in the case of Multiple Award Contracts. Several suppliers are each awarded an IDV (the IDVs may or may not be part of an Umbrella Program) and then these selected set of suppliers compete for individual task/delivery orders referencing the IDV. A notice of Fair Opportunity does not need a full solicitation because clauses, and sometimes prices (labor categories) are already established in the IDV.
Suppliers respond to the Fair Opportunity Notice by providing relevant information. After offer evaluation, the delivery/task order is awarded to the selected supplier.
For more information on using Umbrella Programs and Fair Opportunity Notices, refer to the Oracle Contract Lifecycle Management for Public Sector Sourcing User Guide.
As a contracting officer/contracting professional, you need to create an Umbrella Program in CLM Purchasing. This program name can then be used to group solicitation outcome documents and Fair Opportunity Notices. For example, a buyer awards a solicitation to multiple suppliers, and the solicitation has an IDV outcome document type. Thus multiple IDVs are created as outcome documents of the solicitation and they are all linked to the same Umbrella Program.
In order to create an Umbrella Program, use the relevant CLM Purchasing responsibility to navigate to the Umbrella Programs menu item under the responsibility name on the Home page. Click the Umbrella Programs menu item link to open the Umbrella Program Administration page. Search for an existing Umbrella Program using the Simple Search page. Alternatively, you can create an Umbrella Program by clicking Create. The Create Umbrella Program page displays, enabling you to enter the Umbrella Program details.
The main region enables you to enter the name and description of the Umbrella Program. You could also enter a Start Date and End Date for the Umbrella Program. You will not be able to reference the Umbrella Program on IDVs or Fair Opportunity Notices if your Umbrella Program is not valid on the given date (this is determined by the Umbrella Program Start Date and End Date). The Currency and Ceiling Amount are used for reporting purposes only, and the system does not enforce any validations on these fields in any document creation processes.
Note: If you would like to store any additional attributes that qualify the Umbrella Program, you can use the Descriptive Flexfield on the Umbrella Program page.
The Attachment region enables you to search for an existing document and attach it to your Umbrella Program. You may want to attach a document that describes the Umbrella Program in detail. Or you may want to attach an approval or milestone report for the Umbrella Program.
Click Add Attachment to open the Add Attachment page and specify the kind of attachment to use: Desktop File/Text/URL or From Document Catalog.
File - specify a file name to upload. Enter the file location, or use the Browse button to locate the file.
URL - enter the URL for a Web page.
Text - Enter text that is less than 2000 characters. If the text you want to attach is more than 2000 characters, upload it in a file.
From the Document Catalog:
Use the Search regions to query existing documents.
Select the Document Name link to view a document before attaching it.
Select the document(s) to attach.
Click Apply.
Save your work in the Create Umbrella Program page. The attachments are not added until you save your work in the Create Umbrella Program page.
Return to the Umbrella Program Administration page to view the Umbrella Program you created. You can also update or delete the Umbrella Program(s) you created. Click Update to open the Update Umbrella Program page. Except for the Umbrella Program Name (that is a mandatory view-only field), you can go ahead and update any of the fields in this page. Save your changes to return to the Umbrella Program Administration page.
If you have one or more IDVs associated to an Umbrella Program to delete, an error message displays, telling you that you cannot delete the Umbrella Program because it is being referenced by one or more IDVs.
To delete an Umbrella Program that has no IDVs referencing it, a warning message displays, enabling you to proceed with the delete operation.
When you have created an Umbrella Program, you can use it in solicitations and purchase requests to associate IDVs to the documents.
See also: Multiple Awards and Umbrella Programs Scenarios.
Multiple Awards can be utilized with or without the use of Umbrella Programs. The following scenarios help you to understand how Multiple Awards can be used to meet your specific need.
A federal agency wants to plan and implement a mass-immunization program for a specific region. In order to successfully run such a program, the agency needs to procure medical equipment (immunization kits and so on) and the services of medical personnel. The process below may be followed by the agency:
The agency creates an Umbrella Program that outlines the procurement and implementation plan for the immunization program.
The agency then creates an RFQ (or an RFI, if needed) to arrive at a well-defined set of high-level requirements and identifies a set of suppliers that meet all necessary criteria for the program. For example, the agency identifies 4 suppliers who are capable of supplying the immunization kits, and 3 suppliers who can offer medical services to meet the needs of this program.
When a set of suppliers is identified, the suppliers are awarded contracts, which will be in the form of IDVs. All these IDVs are linked to the Umbrella Program created in the previous step. With this step, the agency has made all necessary preparations to meet the needs of the immunization program.
When the actual demand comes in, for example, a requisition for immunization kits, the agency creates a Fair Opportunity Notice to re-compete the actual demand among the closed set of suppliers. If the Fair Opportunity Notice is linked to the Umbrella Program, then the application permits you to invite only those suppliers that have IDVs referencing the same Umbrella Program.
Suppliers, when submitting quotes for the Fair Opportunity Notice, always refer to their specific IDV.
The agency reviews the offers received and identifies the winner(s), who will be asked to meet the specific demand outlined in Step 4 above. An order referencing the IDV is the outcome document that is created, and it refers to the same Umbrella Program.
Whenever additional demand comes in, Fair Opportunity Notices are created accordingly for the closed group in order to identify the best supplier(s) that meet the additional requirement.
A federal agency wants to plan and implement a mass-immunization program for a specific region. In order to successfully run such a program, the agency needs to procure medical equipment (immunization kits and so on) and the services of medical personnel. The process below may be followed by the agency:
The agency prepares the procurement and implementation plan for the immunization program.
The agency then creates an RFQ (or an RFI, if needed) to arrive at a well-defined set of high-level requirements and identifies a set of suppliers that meet all necessary criteria for the program. For example, the agency identifies 4 suppliers who are capable of supplying the immunization kits, and 3 suppliers who can offer medical services to meet the requirements.
IDVs are created for each supplier in the set, however, the IDVs are not associated with any Umbrella Program. Note that in some cases, IDVs are not created in the system, because they are maintained in an external system.
When the actual demand comes in, the agency creates a Fair Opportunity Notice to re-compete the actual demand between the closed set of suppliers. The Umbrella Program is not referenced here, therefore the system allows the user to invite any supplier. However, the buyer can select only those suppliers who are eligible to supply and have an Internal or External IDV with the agency.
Suppliers submit their offers, referencing either an internal IDV or an external IDV.
Offers are received and evaluated. The winner(s) are awarded the delivery award (Order referencing an IDV).