GSA/DOD RELEASE FINAL ELECTRONIC COMMERCE ACQUISITION GUIDELINES Contact: Mary Glasser, (703) 681-0364. Fulfilling President Clinton's goal to push for government-wide electronic commerce capability, the Interagency Electronic Commerce for Acquisition program Management Office (ECA-PMO) has released its final guidelines specifying how Government and industry will exchange Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) transactions for procurement. The ECA-PMO, co-chaired by the U.S. General Service Administration and the Department of Defense, is an outgrowth of the Clinton Administration's National Performance Review and President Clinton's memorandum to all agencies on October 26, 1993, directing the establishment of full electronic commerce capability by January 1997. The EDI system is also a key component of the pending procurement reform legislation (currently out of conference) which would expand the small purchase threshold to $100,000, thereby increasing the volume of transactions that can easily be processed electronically. In June of this year, the ECA-PMO issued a set of ``draft'' guide-lines which were developed by analyzing input from all major agencies' procurement, finance, and IRM staffs. The draft was then provided to industry for public comment through Internet, CBD announcements and the American National Standards Institute's (ANSI) American Standards Committee (ASC) X12, which is the organization responsible for the development of the industry standards used throughout the guideline. The final version considers all comments received. The ECA-PMO developed these guidelines to specify how the federal Government will use the existing industry standard for EDI. The federal Government's use of the guidelines is a critical feature of the promised ``single face to industry,'' which is designed to facilitate and simplify industry's efforts to do business with the Government electronically. Implementation conventions included in the guidelines cover vendor registration, request for quotation, response to request for quotation, purchase order, invoice, and payment order/remittance advice. There are also several additional transaction sets that were not in the draft guidelines: purchase order acknowledgment, notice of award, text message and application advice. Comments on these four draft guidelines should be sent on Internet to the ecat@postoffice.fed.gov, by FAX to ECA-PMO on 703-681-0362, or by mail to the Federal Electronic Acquisition Program Management Office, Skyline 4, Suite 400, 5113 Leasburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041. The final guidelines are available via Internet for review and comment. The information is organized in separate parts and each part is a separate file. Refer to the Appendix for specific information on updates and changes from the previous draft. The files are available at the host ``ds.internic.net''. Below are instructions for anonymous ftp and E-Mail access. The files can also be access via telnet, Gopher, and World Wide Web. For assistance accessing files, contact GSA's Electronic Support Services Environment at ``Help@library.fed.gov'' or call (202) 501-1337. ANONYMOUS FTP FTP to ``ds.internic.net''. Log in with the user name ``anonymous'' and the password ``guest''. You will need to change the Pub directory, then to the ecat.library directory, then to the fed.oc directory. Entercd.pub/ecat.library/fed.ic/''. To receive the readme.txt file which describes the library contents enter: ``get readme.txt (Enter)''. There ar two subdirectories under fed.ic, acrobat.pdf and postscript.*. Each contains the file type of its name. Change the directory name of the desired file type. ``cd acrobat.pdf (Enter)'' or ``cd postscript (Enter)''. (*The postscript version of the report will be available at a later time.) To receive a list of files in a directory, enter ls (Enter)''. To receive a file, enter ``get file name''. For example, to receive the acrobat PDF copy, enter ``get part-1.pdf''. NOTE: (Enter) represents the Enter or Return key on your keyboard. ELECTRONIC MAIL Send requests to ``mailserv@ds.internic.net'' and include the appropriate command in the message body. Commands must be entered in lower case letters. To receive the Readme.txt file, send the following command in the message body: ``file/pub/ecat.library/fed.ic/readme.txt''. To receive one of the files from the acrobat.pdf subdirectory, send the following command in the message body: ``file/pub/ecat.library/fed.ic/acrobat.pdf/file name. Change ``acrobat.pdf'' to ``post-script'' in the command line to receive the postscript report files. HARD COPY A limited number of hardcopies are available from ECA-PMO. Fax your name/address to (703) 681-0362 or 0363. The document is over 800 pages.

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