Updated Feb. 2, 2026

Table of Contents 

• Feb. 1, 2026: MAPS Update 5
• Jan. 28, 2026: Army Releases Updated Draft RFP and Timeline
• What is MAPS?
• Fast Facts
• What’s Required for Submission (based on draft Sections L and M)
• What’s a Qualifying Project (QP)?
• Who Should Apply?

NEW UPDATES

Feb. 1, 2026: MAPS Update 5

Following an excellent Industry Day, the Government released another round of updates on MAPS. During the live Industry Day, they received over 200 questions, which doesn’t include the ones that industry sent in prior to the event. From the feedback, they on Feb. 1, they released Update 5 that announced that they anticipate making adjustments that include:

• The inclusion of criteria for “Emerging Large Business”
• Subcontract experience usage for qualifying projects
• Refinement of outcome-based service requirements for Commercial-Sector Vendors; and
• Refined Off-Ramp Terms.

They also noted that another draft will be issued before the final RFP within the next quarter. While we thought we had a timeline set in stone, MAPS continues to evolve based on industry feedback.

Jan. 23, 2026 Army Releases Updated Draft RFP and Timeline

On Jan. 23, 2026, the U.S. Army Program Executive Office (PEO) released an updated draft Marketplace for the Acquisition of Professional Services (MAPS) request for proposal (RFP), and there are some big changes. They followed this release with an informative industry day where they answered questions and heard feedback from industry. 

Here are the top changes we noticed:

• The minimum qualifying project is up to $2.5M from $2M
• Commercial-Sector Vendors
• CMMC Level 2 is a requirement
• Time to Fill Vacancy is now an evaluation criterion
• The point system has been reworked—mostly adding a lot of zeros to help adjust the relative worth of each of the evaluation sections.

Overall, these changes answer many of the questions we had about the previous drafts. The requirements they initially set forth made this difficult for small businesses to pursue. As it is, with CMMC 2.0 rather than 1.0, it’s still a heavy lift, but the changes should help small businesses compete with the larger businesses.

One important note in the changes: the Government has defined qualified offerors and adjusted their award intentions to to the top offerors. Keep in mind that companies may bid on multiple of the five domains and could potentially secure a position in each. We cannot overstate how essential compliance is to this opportunity. The government has even noted that if you make a mistake in your self-scoring submission, they will not adjust your score up. They’re happy to adjust your score down, though.

All the tables and charts below have been updated to reflect the changes in the new requirements!

Additionally, during the Jan. 28, 2026, Industry Day, PEO leadership also released a new tentative timeline for the RFP. See the updated schedule below:

PREVIOUS UPDATES

We’ve been tracking how the U.S. Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS) would proceed with updating its information technology acquisition program. This comes as both Information Technology Enterprise Solutions 3 (ITES-3S) and Responsive Strategic Sourcing for Services (RS3) -- ITES-3S and RS3 are set to expire simultaneously. We also tracked the ACG-APG's RS3 and Computer Hardware Enterprise Software Solutions (CHESS), now Product Lead (PL), updates when we attended AFCEA Fort Belvoir’s Industry Day in 2024. This consolidation of ITES-3S and RS3 has brought us to MAPS.  

What is MAPS? 

In August of 2025, the Army announced that MAPS would be the consolidated solution. This solution is intended for U.S. Army knowledge-based professional support services for the Army enterprise infrastructure and infostructure. 

This new opportunity will cover five domains: Technical Services; Management and Advisory Services; Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Services (RDT&E); Emerging IT Services; and Foundational IT Services. 

Based on the current draft information, the Army anticipates awarding 50 contracts per Domain. It plans to break those awards down to 15 Large Business awards, 25 Small Business awards, and 10 Commercial-Sector Vendor awards.

What’s a Commercial-Sector Vendor? This is one of the most exciting portions of MAPS, in my opinion, because we’ve spoken to many small businesses that don’t have federal experience, but have lots of commercial experience. This Commercial-Sector Vendor is specifically reserved for those companies that have yet to do business with the federal government, but are still registered in SAM.gov. We love to see it.

Within the 25 small business awards, the government anticipates awarding 5 to Small Businesses, 4 to Women-Owned Small Businesses, 3 Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses, 3 Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZone) businesses, 5 Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDV), and 5 8(a) Small Businesses.

The pool of awardees will be based on scorecard point ranking – only the 50 highest-scoring proposals in each domain will receive an award, so every point matters.

Fast Facts 

What’s Required for Submission

(based on January 2026 draft Sections L & M and Industry Day)

This is a strict compliance-based proposal with Gate Criteria, to be evaluated on a pass/fail basis. If your team does not clear the initial Gate Criteria, the rest of your proposal will not be evaluated. Once you’re clear of the following Criteria, the proposal is evaluated against a scorecard. 

Based on the draft Sections L & M and Industry Day, you must submit all of the below items for your final submission: 

• Volume I – Cover Letter
• Volume II – Self-Scoring Gate Criteria and Scorecard
• Volume III – Systems, Agreements, & Certifications
• Volume IV – Past Performance
• Volume V – Cost (note: The government is still working on this evaluation criteria)
• (Large Businesses only) Volume VI – Small Business Subcontracting Plan

As it currently stands, you submit all of these with your proposal. We strongly encourage you to review the Gate Criteria and walk through questions before you prepare the rest of your volumes.

The Government will evaluate for award in four Phases. If your proposal does not clear a Phase, it will not be evaluated after that point.

• Phase 1: Initial Ranking based on Self-Score
• Phase 2: Verification Review and Downward Adjustments
• Phase 3: Preliminary Assessment
• Phase 4: Final Review and Award

Scorecard Evaluation

Section 1: Gate Criteria

The following Gate Criteria are the first step for evaluation for all businesses. If Offerors fail to meet these requirements, the rest of their submission will not be evaluated.

Section 2: Scorecard Evaluation

If you meet the gate criteria, the next portion of your proposal is a scorecard-based evaluation that will review your Government Approved Systems, Agreements, and Certification and award additional points for Approved Rate Agreements, Acceptable Purchasing Systems, Acceptable Accounting Systems, Acceptable Estimating Systems, Acceptable Property Management Systems, and Acceptable Earned Value Management Systems. If a company has an Active Top Secret Facility Clearance or an ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Certification, it receives additional points for each.

Within the Past Performance Section of the Scorecard, your company will earn points per QP in Recency, Relevancy, NAICS Alignment, Performance Quality, Dollar Value, Vacancy Rate, and Time to Fill Rate.

Recency requires a QP to have occurred within the last four years but with at least a year of performance. If any of the QPs have a Period of Performance within the last two years, they will receive 1,000 additional recency points.

Relevance is the demonstrated technical capabilities for each domain being proposed.  Each Project will be evaluated against the domain’s technical capabilities and assigned a percentage score that translates into points based on how the provided QP aligns with the domain's technical capabilities.

NAICS Alignment earns an additional 1,000 points if the QP aligns with the proposed Domain NAICS.

Dollar Value points may be earned if your average total contract value exceeds $25M, $25-50M, and $50M.

Performance Quality is evaluated based on CPARS/PPQ elements with points for your overall rating. No points are awarded if any part of the evaluation is “Unsatisfactory.”

Vacancy Rate is evaluated within the last full year of performance based on the formula within the RFP. The Vacancy Rate determines additional points awarded.

Time to Fill Rate is evaluated with the formula within the RFP, calculated based on the average time to fill any job vacancy on the QP within the last full year of performance.

After the scorecard, the top 50 offerors in each domain will be evaluated by the Determination of Responsibility Assistant (DORA) bot to determine contractor responsibility.

Large Businesses will then have their Small Business Plan evaluated.

What is a Qualifying Project (QP)? 

Reminder: This is based on the January 2026 draft Sections L and M. Always read the final RFP or latest Amendment for the final requirement.  

Offerors may submit a maximum of three projects per proposed domain. A QP must: 

• Be a single contract (prime or commercial); a single Task Order (TO) under an IDIQ, BPA, or BOA; a TO under a Federal Supply Schedule; or an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) Agreement (note: it cannot be a subcontract)
• Have a $2.5M minimum total value, 
• Have a minimum of one year of performance
• Must have occurred within the last four years from the final date of solicitation, 
• The QP’s assigned NAICS must be the same as one of the five specific Domains and technical capabilities described in L.2.2.2.2.1.

What must bidders provide with each QP? 

Bidders must provide the following information for each QP (again, no more than three QPs per domain are allowed, but you can use a QP for multiple domains):

• Performance Work Statement (PWS) or Statement of Work (SOW)
• A copy of the Agreement if not a Federal Contract
• If no CPARs, PPQ Attachment 006 

What are the Technical Capabilities for Relevance?  

The table below lists the technical capabilities in the draft Sections L and M. Each QP will be evaluated against this list for relevance.

Who Should Apply? 

If your company meets the initial gate criteria, this may be a fantastic opportunity to expand into support for the U.S. Army and its subsidiary commands.

We say it every time and emphasize this point, especially with MAPS. Part of the reason for the consolidation of ITES-3S and RS3 is that the Army is hoping to ensure that Task Orders are awarded out of a competitive environment. Because of this, MAPS has a participation requirement. If your team has the resources to compete and win task orders on this contract, then MAPS is a great opportunity for your company. The initial bid is only a small piece of the puzzle, as you will need to allocate additional resources, time, and effort toward the task orders once you’re awarded a contract. So, before you set to tallying your points in this strict compliance scorecard proposal, ask yourself: 

• Can you manage the administrative demands with your current infrastructure? 
• Are you able to meet the participation requirement that comes with the win? 

The Government desires engaged contract holders, and will hold Contractors to a 50% bid rate after that initial year. Once that year is up, if your company isn’t bidding, you will be off-ramped. They've also established several off-ramping thresholds to keep the contract filled with quality contractors.

• Contractor-induced Cost Overrun on awarded TOs
• Any Unsatisfactory CPARs on awarded TOs
• Average Vacancy Rate of 10% or more
• Average Time to Fill over 60 days or more
• Small Business Participation commitments within 5% have not been met
• Failure to receive the required CMMC assessment within the timeframes

The government intends to on-ramp in the future. So, continue working on those requirements and explore the on-ramp when it comes around, if now is not the ideal time to pursue this opportunity.

Additionally, scorecards offer you an opportunity to scope your business development. With the scorecard in hand, you can evaluate bid options over the next year or so to pursue opportunities that can help you round out your submission for programs like MAPS. You can explore contracts that meet the QP requirements and build out your past performance experience. You may find OASIS+ is a great contract vehicle to help you build out those Task Orders, and with OASIS+ Phase II open continuously, now is the time to begin evaluating your own experience to see if you are a good fit. We can help with that!

Next Steps 

Review the Scorecard and answer all the questions. If you can meet the draft Gate Criteria or if you need help determining your eligibility, contact Trident. Make sure you subscribe and follow to stay in the loop with industry updates, changes to the solicitation, and Trident support packages for this exciting opportunity. Subscribing to MAPS via SAM.gov can also ensure you receive the most up-to-date information. You’ll also need access to the Submission Portal. SAM.gov has instructions on how to access that portal.

We’ve been active in the industry this year, and all of the conversations have held a central theme: the Government wants you to participate. Respond to industry feedback requests, ask questions, and stay engaged to help shape acquisitions. If you’re ready to pursue MAPS, don’t hesitate to reach out to Trident today.

Written by Kiley Stewart

Kiley is a capture and proposal manager at Trident. She brings her proposal management, technical editor, competitor analysis, and resume development skills to clients. She is also the voice of the Trident Short podcasts and one of the team members you’ll talk to when you reach out. A U.S. Navy veteran and military spouse based on the East Coast, she supports clients around the world as part of our globally dispersed team.