As of May 8, 2015, the data elements below have been finalized and can be found here.

• North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) Code
• North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) Description

As of May 8, 2015, the data elements below have been finalized and can be found here.

• Appropriations Account
• Treasury Account Symbol (TAS) excluding sub-account
• Awarding Agency Name
• Awarding Agency Code

While financial systems record Interagency Agreements (IAAs), they are not provided in public information on government spend. It would be interesting to see IAA data, especially for shared services.

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements:

• Award Description
• Award ID
• Award Modification / Amendment Number
• Parent Award ID

The feedback period for these elements closes on 5/29/2015.

The proposed definition of the above elements: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/award-id-description/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

This is the place to leave feedback on v0.1 of the DATA Act Schema. You can read more about the schema here: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/data-exchange-standard/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

With regards to NAICS, http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/naics/, in a conversation with @catalinareyes, the concept that awards associated with different NAICS are aggregated into one NAICS. This is an artifact of bundling contracts where one big contract contains work across many different NAICS. Visibility into which NAICS / industries the spending occurs is lost. It would make sense to have contract awards segmented by NAICS, at a reasonable level of detail, for better transparency. By reasonable, something like segmentation for industries/NAICS performing more than 10% of the contract.

I've also found that the same work is put under different NAICS. For example, computer services being bundled under facilities management if it's relates somehow to a data center.

It is understood that an award is assigned a NAICS. This is what is used for determining size category for socioeconomic reasons. How is the NAICS for a particular contract determined? Is there any further breakdown of categories for large, bundled awards?

The website is designed to foster a national dialog around Federal Spending. (AWESOME)

However, it doesn't provide much in the way of generating interest from those that may be new to the concepts or efforts. There should be some sort of layman's language primer to the effort in an attempt to engage new citizens and stakeholders in the conversation. This thought occurred to me as I was reading the concept section of new data elements. There needs to be some sort of primer that ties everything together.

I thought of the below slide from the Treasury Town Hall.

It would be great to have a primer, perhaps building upon the above graphic, that would explain the full circle / lifecycle of the data and where each data element plays a part. This data is part of a story - start by telling the whole story for those that may not be as intimately familiar with the process. Highlighting areas for potential future improvement and areas covered under DATA and FFATA. The more I hear about how funding is established (lots of text and documents versus a system with orderly data), the more I cringe. This could be the starting point for an open dialog on potential future enhancements.

This is the place to leave feedback on v0.7 of the DATA Act Schema. You can read more about the schema here: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/data-exchange-standard/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

Missing include statement in the ussgl-cor-2006-10-25.xsd. Please add the following xsd:include statement that points to the referenced schema complexTypes (here: ../plt/case-ussgl-c/ussgl-cor-content-2006-10-25.xsd):

that should do it...

It is great that the government is seeking broad collaboration and discussion through Github as part of establishing data standards. However, establishing an initial standard, generally through paper and whiteboard exercises, is just a starting point. The real work and tough decisions come during implementation as "real" data is integrated and organizations work to these standards. While the two weeks of discussion time per element is great, other ideas will come up after the feedback period closes. (Or in my case, a comment to which I'd like to respond but couldn't.)

What is the plan for fostering a continuing dialog for future iterations of data standards and definitions that will accommodate the reality on the ground?

Broadly speaking, I'm asking about a government-wide data governance body for these elements. But without getting that grandiose, we do need a way to continue the conversation and a platform for everyone implementing to discuss data challenges so all can learn (beyond just federal government and system integrators - state/local implementations can learn too for when it is their turn).

I hope this conversation will continue.

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements, feedback period will close August 11, 2015:

• Primary Place of Performance Address
• Primary Place of Performance Congressional District
• Primary Place of Performance Country Code
• Primary Place of Performance Country Name

The proposed definition of the above elements: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/place-of-performance/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

As of May 8, 2015, the data element below has been finalized and can be found here.

• Outlay

This is the place to leave feedback on v0.6 of the DATA Act Schema. You can read more about the schema here: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/data-exchange-standard/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

When thinking about the traditional "Place of Performance" I see challenges in getting to one of the ideas behind this attribute - where was economic activity generated from these government dollars spent?

I'll use one example I recently heard, grant money was provided for a school system in a certain Congressional District in Florida. That money was tied to a place of performance in Florida. The school system used that money to order a fleet of new school buses - from a company based in Michigan. The economic activity, jobs created, from that money should have been attributed to the place in Michigan, not the place in Florida that just signed the contract and generated no local economic activity.

Another idea would be to require the reporting of detailed subcontract data all the way to the point where the money goes to a salary or delivers a product. I realize that requiring this level of detail may not be very practical; but the intent of this issue is to say that we need an element to track the place of economic activity versus the place of contract execution. Place of Performance should be where the economic activity was generated.

1.What are all the USSGL account numbers required to be included in the DATA Act reporting. A comprehensive list for each of the derived DATA Act elements is required in order for the agency to correctly extract all the data.
2.Why does the list of data elements not include the TAS SubAccountSymbol while the schema document (on page 5) does?
3.Please correct the links inside the schema document to link to the related entry. Almost all of the links are linking back to section 4.1. For example the link for USSGLentryHeader (on page 6) under 6.1 should link to section 6.1.1 but links to section 4.1 Agency.
4.The element appropriationAccount in Section 6.1.1 appears to be a duplicate of the TAS elements in section 4.2. Is this a concatenation of the TAS elements or something different?
5.The TAS element availabilityTypeCode (Proposed/Future) does not include clearing or cancelled accounts (F or C codes respectively). Is this intentional? This code is blank for annual or multi-year accounts in Component TAS for GTAS reporting. Please confirm this is intended for DATA Act reporting.
6.In section 6.1.1.2 is the accountDescription element the description of the USSGL account refered to in the element accountNumber? Would this be the name of the USSGL account from the USSGL listing? Each agency may have their own shorthand name for the USSGL account. Should the accountDescription be a look up element from the USSGL listing authoritative source (from Treasury)?
7.In Section 6.1 the period element is described as a two-digit number that has a leading zero for the period. The length characteristic states 1 and the example shown is a 6. This is inconsistent with the description. Which is correct?

As of May 8, 2015, the data elements below have been finalized and can be found here.

• Top 5 Highly Compensated Officer Names
• Top 5 Highly Compensated Officer Total Compensations

Providing the SF133 information via an API would aid in automation of data quality. They are currently posted here: https://max.omb.gov/maxportal/document/SF133/Budget/FY%202015%20-%20SF%20133%20Reports%20on%20Budget%20Execution%20and%20Budgetary%20Resources.html in several formats (pdf, excel, xml).

More detail about the proposed process, and details about which data fields need standardization (and what is being considered or needs to be developed), would be very helpful!

We are looking at using the data act 0.6 schemas to exchange award information between two offices in the same government agency. Did you consider having one container for multiple awards so that you can support bulk processing of awards?
That would mean an additional element Awards which can have 1 to unbounded Award child elements. Please let me know if it would be possible to add schema support for the Awards container element. I noticed that there is already an type that the Awards element can be derived from, namely the data:Awards_ComplexType but there is no concrete type Awards for it, in the same fashion as there is an Award of type data:Award_ComplexType.

Not really an issue, more of a connecting the dots idea for consideration.

I recently read with interest: https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/04/23/the-dat-team-talks-data-streams/

Essentially enablement of data mashups while maintaining data provenance. It occurred to me that this type of system would be interesting related to DATA Act data. External groups could append data to create a more meaningful data set. Technically, I'm wondering how this would be handled with large volumes of data. But conceptually, I like the idea. It may be worth some consideration.

This could perhaps be extended to enable crowdsourcing of data quality in some sort of feedback mechanism.

Update 8/22: Thank you for your feedback on Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance and Title. We will consider your feedback as we continually assess how we can improve data definitions. You may still contribute the discussion for other data elements.

Check http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/dataelements/ to find data elements with open feedback pages.

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements:

• Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance Number
• Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance Title

The proposed definition of the above elements:
http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/cfdaprogramnumber-title/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

Got the following error when trying to run a local copy of the Federal Spending Transparency collaboration space using Ruby 2.2.0. Forcing a safe_yaml update to 1.0.4 fixed the problem, but wanted to document this here in case anyone else is having a similar issue:

/Users/bsweger/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.0/gems/safe_yaml-1.0.3/lib/safe_yaml/load.rb:43:in `<module:SafeYAML>': undefined method `tagged_classes' for Psych:Module (NoMethodError)
    from /Users/bsweger/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.0/gems/safe_yaml-1.0.3/lib/safe_yaml/load.rb:26:in `<top (required)>'
    from /Users/bsweger/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.0/gems/jekyll-2.3.0/lib/jekyll.rb:26:in `require'
    from /Users/bsweger/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.0/gems/jekyll-2.3.0/lib/jekyll.rb:26:in `<top (required)>'
    from /Users/bsweger/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.0/gems/jekyll-2.3.0/bin/jekyll:6:in `require'
    from /Users/bsweger/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.0/gems/jekyll-2.3.0/bin/jekyll:6:in `<top (required)>'
    from /Users/bsweger/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.0/bin/jekyll:23:in `load'
    from /Users/bsweger/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.0/bin/jekyll:23:in `<main>'
    from /Users/bsweger/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.0/bin/ruby_executable_hooks:15:in `eval'
    from /Users/bsweger/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.0/bin/ruby_executable_hooks:15:in `<main>'

Update 8/17: Thank you for your feedback on Action Date, Period of Performance, and Ordering Period End Date. We will consider your feedback as we continually assess how we can improve data definitions. You may still contribute the discussion for other data elements. Check http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/dataelements/ to find data elements with open feedback pages.

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements:

• Action Date
• Period of Performance Start Date
• Period of Performance Current End Date
• Period of Performance Potential End Date
• Ordering Period End Date

The proposed definition of the above elements:
http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/period-of-performance/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

Getting 404's when clicking links for Intelligent Data Pilot for example

Update 8/17: Thank you for your feedback on Business Type. We will consider your feedback as we continually assess how we can improve data definitions. You may still contribute the discussion for other data elements. Check http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/dataelements/ to find data elements with open feedback pages.

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements:

• Business Types

The proposed definition of the above elements: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/business-type/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements:

• Entity Legal Business Address
• Entity Legal Business Congressional District
• Entity Legal Business Country Code
• Entity Legal Business Country Name

The feedback period for these elements closes on 5/29/2015.

The proposed definition of the above elements: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/entity-address/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

As of May 8, 2015, the data elements below have been finalized and can be found here.

• Budget Authority Appropriated
• Other Budgetary Resources

As of May 8, 2015, the data element below has been finalized and can be found here.

• Program Activity

As of May 8, 2015, the data element below has been finalized and can be found here.

• Unobligated Balance

A list of categorized data elements is published http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/dataelements/

Please post a list of proposed definitions / descriptions for these elements and any additional metadata that would provide some context.

On a related topic, is there documentation of the government hierarchies likely embedded within the data? E.g., the drill down from US Government to agency and on down to the point where money leaves the government? Like Commerce -> NOAA -> National Weather Service -> etc.

I'm co-leading an effort through ACT-IAC - DATA Act - Transparency in Federal Financials, https://actiac.org/project/data-act-transparency-federal-financials-project. As part of our effort a key point was raised by the team regarding Time. I'm adding this thought for consideration as the concept is very important for longitudinal analysis.

Not so much a data element, but it will be important for DATA Act to design its reporting system with the dimension of time taken into consideration. For instance, users want to be able to observe government spending data for a contract that was awarded in 2011 to ABC Company. They then want to see what that entity looks like today. This was repeatedly attempted in the USAspending.gov implementation but never fully achieved.

Update 8/17: Thank you for your feedback on Type of Transaction Code. We will consider your feedback as we continually assess how we can improve data definitions. You may still contribute the discussion for other data elements. Check http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/dataelements/ to find data elements with open feedback pages.

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements:

• Award Type
• Record Type
• Action Type

The proposed definition of the above elements: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/type-transaction-code/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

#1 Providing a link to this site prominently on the Treasury, OMB, and GAO website to obtain a broader selection of comments would be extremely helpful. Even knowing that this site existed, it was still very difficult to find. Most people are not even aware that it exists so don't know to even look for it.
#2 There are a number of documents and attachments that recipients must provide when applying for a federal grant or contract. For those who may submit more than one application a year, it would seem easier for everyone involved if those standard documents could be upload to a single location, such as grants.gov and held in a repository to be used by any federal awarding agency rather than the applicant having to prepare them for each application submission. It would be the applicants responsibility to keep them up to date, but they would only need to submit them once at which point they are always available to any federal awarding agency that needs them.

Update 8/28/2015: Thank you for your feedback on the data elements Funding Sub Tier Agency Name/Code And Funding Office Name/Code. We will consider your feedback as we continually assess how we can improve data definitions.

You may still contribute the discussion for other data elements. Check http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/dataelements/ to find data elements with open feedback pages.

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements:

• Funding Sub Tier Agency Name
• Funding Sub Tier Agency Code
• Funding Office Name
• Funding Office Code

The proposed definition of the above elements: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/sub-tier-agency/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

To recap an issue raised in the Treasury/OMB considerations thread: Oxfam USA supports the comments submitted by Publish What You Fund and the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network regarding the need for separate data element that designates spending as foreign assistance:

Publish What You Fund and the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network submitted comments to the DATA Act consultation last November.
Please see: http://publishwhatyoufund.org/files/2014/11/MFAN-PWYF-response-to-Federal-Register-Notice-on-DATA-Act.pdf

Our main concern remains "tagging" information. Tagging allows different types of information to be easily identified. For example domestic versus foreign assistance spending.

All foreign assistance information should be tagged so that it can be easily consumed by others including the Foreign Assistance Dashboard if needed/wanted. The tagging system used by the DATA Act appears to be the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). From the NAICS we would recommend all foreign assistance information to be tagged as: 928120 International Affairs.

As of May 8, 2015, the data element below has been finalized and can be found here.

• Obligation

I would like to recommend that groups such as FDP or COGR participate in evaluating other data elements, including grant pre and post award data. Most universities are submitting applications and managing federal funds from multiple agencies. We see data elements that are the same, but agencies think they are different (we also went through this with R&R formset). We would welcome the opportunity to provide the DATA Act PMO and OMB feedback to harmonize the data even further.

Update 8/17: Thank you for your feedback on Award Amount Information. We will consider your feedback as we continually assess how we can improve data definitions. You may still contribute the discussion for other data elements. Check http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/dataelements/ to find data elements with open feedback pages.

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements:

• Amount of Award
• Non-Federal Funding Amount
• Federal Action Obligation
• Current Total Value of Award
• Potential Total Value of Award

The proposed definition of the above elements:
http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/amount/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

As of May 8, 2015, the data element below has been finalized and can be found here.

• Object Class

This is the place to leave feedback on v0.1 of the DATA Act Schema. You can read more about the schema here:
http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/data-exchange-standard/
Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

Thank you for your feedback on the data element Awardee/Recipient Unique Identifier and Legal Business Name. We will consider your feedback as we continually assess how we can improve data definitions. You may still contribute the discussion for other data elements. Check http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/dataelements/ to find data elements with open feedback pages.

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements:

• Awardee/Recipient Unique Identifier
• Awardee/Recipient Legal Business Name
• Ultimate Parent Unique Identifier
• Ultimate Parent Legal Business Name

The feedback period for these elements closes on 5/15/2015.
The proposed definition of the above elements: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/unique-id-business-name/
Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

It is understood that OMB/Treasury plan to continue use of DUNS as the unique identifier. DUNS Numbers are currently used so this makes sense from an ease of implementation viewpoint. The DUNS number has a few drawbacks related to use as an identifier for enabling non-government consumption and use. One is poor data quality, especially when it comes to understanding relationships. I know this first hand in managing a small business trying to interact with D&B (and the very unfortunately named Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp which targets these new companies with hard-sell $1500 "credit builder" services to build a profile to sell to the same government that required them to get a DUNS Number; it is a for-profit business and number). Another drawback is the fact that DUNS is proprietary; it's use is governed by hefty licenses with Dun and Bradstreet. This seems contrary to enabling transparency since the government is essentially enabling a private business to benefit from it's selection of DUNS as the unique identifier. Will I have to pay D&B every time I download and use a DUNS number to produce and report analysis of government spending? The drawbacks of DUNS have been mentioned many times in different forums hosted by OMB/Treasury and from my own personal experience. Finally, speaking from personal international data experience, DUNS doesn't work on a global level. So many entities today are global in nature. We want to see these global relationships.

The Global LEI is being adopted around the world in many industries and as the standard by many governments. Adoption in the US is of course slow; change takes time. We lead in so many ways, but in so many ways we are behind the global pack in this arena. However, it is coming. It's use is spreading across industries around the world. It makes sense to plan for this now.

Ideally, the government can use it's data quality plans and data integration sources as well as it's relationship with D&B to enable the population of the Global LEI for companies that have one. Make room for this in your data model. Plan for it's eventual use.

I am not proposing exclusive use of Global LEI over DUNS; I'm proposing mutual use. DUNS does more than provide a unique identifier. It is my expectation that the Global LEI will naturally take over if D&B doesn't address the deficiencies in DUNS as stakeholders find Global LEI a superior solution to enable analysis. Perhaps having both with enable greater data quality as D&B can use the royalty-free Global LEI to improve the quality of DUNS data. Having an extensible model means we have to plan for the future.

[All comments are my personal opinion unless otherwise noted.]

Update 8/28/2015: Thank you for your feedback on the data elements Awarding Sub Tier Agency Name/Code And Awarding Office Name/Code We will consider your feedback as we continually assess how we can improve data definitions.

You may still contribute the discussion for other data elements. Check http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/dataelements/ to find data elements with open feedback pages.

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements:

• Awarding Sub Tier Agency Name
• Awarding Sub Tier Agency Code
• Awarding Office Name
• Awarding Office Code

The proposed definition of the above elements:
http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/awarding-sub-tier-agency/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

This is the place to leave your feedback and questions about the following data elements, feedback will close on August 11, 2015:

• Funding Agency Name
• Funding Agency Code

The proposed definition of the above elements:
http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/whitepapers/fundingagency/

Federal Spending Collaboration home page: http://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/

The current elements list goes a long way towards establishing organizational accountability and transparency, but individuals involved in the process may avoid scrutiny.

1. contracting officer (and attributes such as tenure, career history, training received, etc)
2. cotr and associated attributes
3. government executive sponsor and attributes

Even if the identities were preserved, the attribute information could provide details into training deficiencies and/or evidence of bias towards favored contractors.

This effort at transparency in spending will ultimately tell us where our federal tax dollars are spent, when they were spent, to whom they were paid and very generally for what (NAICS). Transparency gets cloudy when you try to delver deeper into "for what" because that data isn't readily available. Perhaps there is one line in FPDS-NG. Perhaps the source documents are on FBO. A great number of times this information is not readily available to the public. FOIA requests would have to be issued to obtain this information. An example is agency's fondness for creating BPAs that most companies do not have access to compete on. Often times the high level BPA or IDIQ contract is available - but not the tasks that people are actually bidding to perform.

Technology exists (natural language processing/big data/etc.) to easily delve deeper in what tax money was spent to procure with the data (documents) we have available today. This information exists in statements of work or whatever documents were used to solicit bids. This could be made more precise through structure, but using the documents as a start is also good. This is how structure may be divined. Methods for storing and retrieving this data are trivial today. The source documents (like Section C, SOW as an example standard) for an award should be uploaded and made publicly available for any award at the contract or task order level.

Similarly, contracts that result from a grant should also be uploaded. The example of the grant to Florida that went to buy busses made in Michigan is an example that could be derived.

Linking the source documents to the awards is a simple step that would enable an array of analytics.