FPDS-NG CAR "Number of Offers Received" answer for Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Awards

[aordway]

I am curious what you all think is the appropriate answer to the FPDS-NG CAR question "Number of Offers Received" for awards off of a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) [FAR 35.016].  Although a BAA proposal submitted to the publicized broad topic is unique in and of itself, an answer of "1" does not seem entirely accurate because there can in fact be multiple proposals submitted and awarded off of that same topic (both before and after the instant award being made), not to mention countless others on other topics under that same BAA solicitation.   Our office in the past has put an answer of "999" to both symbolize that the question is somewhat not applicable/irrelevant for BAA awards, and also so that a BAA award can easily be identified based on its CAR data (since no other CAR question specifically references BAAs, so there is no way to filter CAR data to otherwise only list BAA awards, but it can be done if we put a standard answer across the board like "999"). It has been suggested to us by a higher-up Army office that we instead find out what the estimated number of total offers will be under that overall BAA solicitation by the time it closes (based on past data and future projections) and list that number in each CAR, and update that number periodically (such as when a BAA closes and a new one comes out, and we have new data to base the estimate on). I find this suggestion to be less helpful that the previous two answer possibilities I discussed.   I am curious what everyone else thinks.

[C Culham]

May not help yet here is what DoD says.....https://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/dars/pgi/pgi_htm/PGI204_6.htm 

 (M)  Number of Offers.

 

                            (1)  Enter the specific number of offers received in response to the solicitation. In the case of contracts awarded as a result of a Broad Agency Announcement, enter the number of proposals received under the specific announcement. In the case of orders under a multiple-award contract (including Federal Supply Schedules and GWACs), BOAs, and BPAs, enter the number of offers received for the specific order.

 

                            (2)  Note that the “Number of Offers Received” is collected on the original award. In the case of a task or delivery order being reported, the user will see the number of offers from the original contract in the “IDV Number of Offers” data element. The “Number of Offers Source” data element is system generated to indicate whether the data in the “Number of Offers Received” data element was entered on the specific CAR being viewed or if it was pre-populated from the original contract award.

 

[aordway]

Quote

 ...In the case of contracts awarded as a result of a Broad Agency Announcement, enter the number of proposals received under the specific announcement...

Thanks, I'm glad they thought to address it somewhere. However that sentence still makes little sense, and I still don't know what number to put based on that sentence. The total number of proposals received thus far under that overall BAA solicitation? If that is the case, the answer we put literally means nothing. If there are 35 proposal submitted thus far on that BAA solicitation, if we put 35 as the answer, on face value it would look like there were 35 proposals we could have awarded on, but we chose 1 specific offeror to award to, when in reality the other 34 proposals have nothing to do with the proposal we are awarding, because the proposal we are awarding on is the unique and specific idea of the offeror, and award to that offeror does not preclude award to those other 34 proposals as well (they are each judged for possible award on their own individual merit, irregardless of each other).  So that answer is misleading to someone viewing the CAR, hence our preference for "999" to dissuade someone form drawing inaccurate conclusions from that single data point. It does feel like they wrote the PGI reference you posted without really thinking about it or what it actually means in practice. Thanks for providing that reference nonetheless.