Setting up GSS

Introduction

Government Source Selection (GSS) is as flexible as any application developed on the Appian Platform. To ensure your application remains scalable and aligns with best practices, we have provided instructions to guide you through some of the most common changes.

After you have installed GSS, there are several configurations you will likely perform to customize the application for your organization’s processes.

This page outlines the order we recommend for configuring the default application to work for your organization after installing GSS. However, these instructions can be used to modify the application at any time.

Updates in Appian Designer should be done with caution by someone familiar with Appian development.

Step 1: Configure user groups and security

Configuring user groups and security is a good place to start.

You will need to know the following:

• If your organization has additional business roles not covered in the default business groups.
• What users should be members of each business group.

For more information on groups and security, see Groups Reference Page.

Step 2: Configure and set up an evaluation process

You can modify the solution to fit your organization's processes and data requirements by configuring fields, labels, and document templates.

Configure fields and UI text

Certain fields and UI text throughout the setup process may not precisely match your organization's terms. You can configure a number of them.

The following fields and UI text are configurable:

• Accept and Reject buttons.
• Contracting personnel labels.
• Tasks and Approach item labels.

Configure document templates

The solution provides an example document template that will not exactly match your organization's templates. You can add your own templates to GSS.

You will need to know the following:

• What templates are needed?
• What type of document is the template?

Each document template will need to be added to a knowledge center. Next, add each template to the document template reference table as described on the Reference Data Tables page.

Step 3: Create an evaluation approach

After configuring your application, you can create the evaluation approaches to be used during the evaluation process. The evaluation approach determines which tasks will be assigned by default for each new evaluation setup.

You will need to understand your organization's current evaluation processes, including:

• What phases of the evaluation can occur?
• The distinct types of evaluations that have a standard set of tasks.
• All of the tasks required to complete the various types of evaluations.
• What types of tasks will your organization need?
• Which business groups are responsible for each task.
• What tasks rely on other tasks to be completed first?
• What timeframe does the task start in the evaluation process?

When users create new tasks, they can choose from: Create Document from Template, Attach Document, Review, or Confirmation.

Step 4: Set up SAM.gov integration

Next, you will need to set up SAM.gov integration, which allows you to retrieve vendor data from SAM.gov.

For instructions on how to do this, see Setting Up SAM.gov.

Step 5: Set up Azure OpenAI integration

This is an optional step. You may want to take advantage of GSS's integration with Azure OpenAI which allows you to leverage AI to synthesize a combined response and final comments while completing a consensus report.

For instructions on how to do this, see Setting Up Azure OpenAI

Step 6: Set up Microsoft365 integration

After completing the initial setup, you may want to take advantage of GSS's integration with Microsoft Office 365.

The integration with Microsoft Office 365 allows end users to collaborate on documents during the source selection process.

For instructions on how to do this, see Setting Up Microsoft 365 page.

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