AM Quick Start Guide

Get started

If you are new to the Appian Award Management solution and want to get started quickly using it to manage your acquisition life cycle, then the Award Management (AM) Quick Start Guide is for you!

This guide walks you through the most common views and actions you’ll use to manage your award processes and activities. It’s designed to get you up and running so that you can use AM to track all your award requirements and quickly execute your award tasks.

Review this guide to understand how to:

• Get started
  • Prerequisites for using Award Management
• Navigate Award Management
  • My Activities
  • Procurements
  • Reports
  • Vendors
  • Research
• Create a new award
• Manage award documents
• Create a new program
• Next steps

Prerequisites for using Award Management

• Role and permission assignment: You must be assigned to the appropriate role to view and edit the awards you manage. In AM 2.6 and later, User Access Management (UAM) manages role and permission assignments through the Acquisition Central interface. See Set Up UAM for how administrators assign roles, Roles and Permissions for the permission sets matrix, and Groups Reference for group types and their access levels.
• AM installation: Award Management must be installed and configured in your environment. See Install AM for installation instructions.

Navigate Award Management

The Award Management site comprises five pages allowing you to easily access the views and information for your awards: My Activities, Procurements, Reports, Vendors, and Research.

My Activities

The My Activities page is your personal workspace, it shows only the records assigned to you or your team. When you sign in to AM, this page displays by default so you can immediately see what needs your attention.

My Activities is organized into seven sub-pages: Requirements, Solicitations, Awards, Contracts, Checklist Items, Invoices, and Research. Use these pages to track the status of your assignments, take action on checklist items, and manage your day-to-day award workload.

Select the following pages under My Activities to:

• Requirements: View your requirements in Accepted or Procurement Created status. Search and filter the list, or create a solicitation or award from an available requirement.

• Solicitations: View your active solicitations. Search and filter the list or create a new solicitation.

• Awards: View your active awards with key metrics. Search and filter the list, create a new award, import awards, or take action on individual records such as updating or reassigning them.
  • Note: You can also perform bulk actions on your awards.
• Contracts: View your active contracts with key metrics. Search and filter the list, create a new contract, import contracts, or take action on individual records such as updating or reassigning them.

• Checklist Items: View all of your checklist items with links to their associated awards. Filter by Item Type and take action on items, such as marking them complete or reassigning them.
  • Note: You can also perform bulk actions on your checklist items.

• Invoices: View your invoices. Search and filter the list or create a new invoice.

• Research: View your research requests with key details. Search and filter by type or date, or submit a new research request.

Procurements

The Procurements page provides an organization-wide view of all procurement records, not just yours. While My Activities filters records to your personal assignments, Procurements shows every requirement, solicitation, award, contract, program, and invoice across your organization. Use this page when you need visibility into the full acquisition pipeline or want to manage records outside your direct assignments.

Select the following pages under Procurements to:

• Requirements: View all organizational requirements in Accepted or Procurement Created status. Search and filter the list, or create a solicitation or award from an available requirement.

• Solicitations: View all solicitations across your organization. Search and filter the list or create a new solicitation.

• Awards: View all awards across your organization. Search and filter the list, create a new award, import awards, or take action on individual records.

• Contracts: View all contracts across your organization. Search and filter the list, create a new contract, import contracts, or take action on individual records.

• Programs: View all programs. Programs group related awards under a shared initiative for consolidated tracking. Search and filter the list or create a new program.

• Invoices: View all invoices across your organization. Search and filter the list or create a new invoice.

Reports

The Reports page provides a list of all expiring awards with critical information about each award, such as award expiration date, amount, decision, risk, and more. This report can help you prioritize your work and make critical decisions about awards approaching their contract end date or their end option exercise deadline.

On the Reports page:

• View awards approaching their Expiry or End of Option for your organization and their expiration dates.
• Filter awards by Expiration Type, Award Decision, and Risk.
• Edit Award Decision and Risk.

Vendors

The Vendors page provides a complete list of vendor records to help determine which vendors are already registered with your organization. Search for and select a vendor record to view their profile summary.

On the Vendors page:

• View your organization's vendor list.
• Click Plus icon in a circle NEW VENDOR to create a new vendor record.
• Search and filter your organization's vendor list.
• Click Download Download icon to export the vendor list.

• Select a vendor to view the Summary view for detailed information; click UPDATE VENDOR to update the vendor details.

  

Research

The Research page lists all of the research requests across your organization.

Research requests run automated vendor research, including GSA schedule, SBA status, and Interagency Contract Directory (ICD) searches.

On the Research page:

• View the list and status of all research requests.
• Search and filter the research requests list.
• Click Plus icon in a circle SUBMIT RESEARCH REQUEST to submit a new research request.
• Click Download Download icon to export all research requests or a filtered list.
• Select a research request to view its Summary view for detailed information.

Create a new award

Award Management provides a guided experience that walks you through entering all award data, including dates, funding, and contracting personnel information.

To create a new award:

1. From My Activities > Awards, click Plus icon in a circle CREATE AWARD.
2. Complete the steps to enter your award details.
3. Click SAVE AND CLOSE.

After creating the award, the Award Confirmation dialog provides a link to the award Summary view to review the data you entered.

Manage award documents

The Contract Files tab on an award record is where you upload, create, review, and manage documents associated with your awards, such as award justification, determination, evaluation, and research documentation.

On the Contract Files tab:

• Click UPLOAD DOCUMENTS to upload documents to the award record.
• Click SUBMIT DOCUMENT FOR REVIEW to submit the document for review by Assigned Group.
• Select documents and click DELETE to delete them.
• Click Download Blue download icon to download a document.

On the Summary tab:

• Click more options Blue Horizontal Ellipsis icon and select Create Document from Template to create documents from templates related with checklist items.

Create a new program

A program groups related awards under a shared initiative so you can track them together. For example, you can group awards that support the same mission objective or budget line to consolidate reporting.

To create a new program:

1. From Procurements > Programs, click Plus icon in a circle CREATE PROGRAM.

   

2. Enter a Name for the program.
3. (Optional) If you want a shorter label for quick reference, enter a Nickname.
4. Enter a Description that summarizes the program's purpose.
5. Select the Status. The default is Active.
6. Select the Department responsible for the program. Out-of-the-box options are IT, Legal, and Policy.
7. Enter the Total Program Value.
8. Select the Execution Start Date and Execution End Date.

9. Click NEXT.

   

10. Search for and select the awards to associate with the program.

11. Click CREATE.

    

Next steps

Now that you have the basics, configure AM to match your organization's processes through the Award Management Settings site:

• Access AM Settings Site: Sign in to the settings site to manage your configurations.
• Configure Categories: Set up categories to organize checklist items by function or group.
• Configure Checklist Items: Create and manage the individual items that make up your checklists.
• Configure Checklists: Build checklists that assign default items for each award type.
• Configure File Folder Structure: Define the contract file folder structure for organizing award documents.

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