Key concepts
Workspace, assignments, scopes, authority, evidence lanes, versions, receipts and the synthetic profile — the vocabulary used on every screen.
All agency users
A handful of concepts repeat on almost every screen. Understanding them explains why buttons are disabled, why counts differ between people, and why the app keeps several separate statuses for what looks like one event.
Workspace and membership
- Agency workspace
- The tenant your identity is a member of (for example, *CBP demonstration workspace*). Records never cross workspaces; cross-tenant matching or linking is always rejected.
- Membership
- An approved binding of your verified identity to the workspace. Without it you see the *access pending* page even after a successful sign-in.
- App roles
- Capabilities such as *Agency Business User*, *User Access Admin* or *Data Connections Admin*. Roles decide which commands you may run.
- Data scopes
- Which records you can read, e.g.
public-market-dataorrestricted-acquisition. Every list, count, search and Scout answer is computed after scope filtering. - Authority assignments
- Legal authority that a role label cannot provide: a CO warrant (scope, dollar limit, effective dates) or a COR designation (named contract and appointment period). Checked for each decision.
- Persona / perspective
- Your active work lens (Contracting Officer, COR, Branch Chief…). Presentation only — see personas and perspectives.
Evidence, versions and receipts
- Evidence is versioned and immutable. Findings cite an exact evidence version, page and checksum. New source content creates a new version; it never silently replaces the one a finding cites.
- Packages are frozen when submitted. A review always binds to the exact package version and digest that was submitted. Editing afterwards creates a new draft.
- Receipts are separate per step. Transfer, validation, acceptance, filing and notification each have their own receipt. A download is not filing; provider acceptance of an email is not proof it was read.
- Unknown is not zero. Missing rates, unverified option terms, unavailable sources and restricted values are shown as unknown, unavailable or not demonstrated — never as zero or as a pass.
Evidence lanes in Contracts & Orders
| Lane | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Assigned work (synthetic lifecycle) | Fictional demonstration records with a full workflow (intake, team, deliverables, funding, packages). No legal effect; never evidence of a real award. |
| USAspending (public award) | Real public CBP award records from a USAspending snapshot. Read-only references: no transactions, documents or team assignments; published dates do not confirm active status. |
Synthetic, non-production profile
The demonstration runs on the nonproduction-demonstration profile. Identities come from a synthetic identity provider, warrants and designations reference synthetic evidence (e.g. synthetic-warrant-001), and every record marked SYNTHETIC is fictional. Preview modes use separate synthetic records and cannot perform live actions.
Optimistic versions and safe retries
Every save carries the version you started from. If someone else saved first, you get the review concurrent changes screen instead of overwriting their work. Multi-step operations report exactly which steps succeeded and retry only confirmed failures under the original operation identity, so nothing is applied twice.
Related guides
PDCC Agency App overview
The government-facing workspace for acquisition teams: one place for daily work, acquisitions, contracts, market research, evidence, Studio views, the Scout companion and delegated administration.
Personas and perspectives
How the active persona and work perspective shape menus, My Day and Scout — and why they never grant access or authority.
Glossary
Acquisition and app terms used across the PDCC Agency App.
Audit, receipts and governance rules
What the app records for every action, how receipts work, and the rules that apply everywhere.