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Solicitation Issue Date

The date on which NASA issued the solicitation for the award action. It records when the solicitation was released to potential offerors, not when the award was made or when the solicitation closed.

Family: Award
Category: General
Data Type: string
Semantic Type: attribute
Mapping: flattened_fpds_xml_field
AI Confidence: high

Variable Overview

FPDS Query Variable
content__award__agencySpecificAwardElements__NASASpecificAwardElements__solicitationIssueDate
Title
Solicitation Issue Date
FPDS Path
award/agencySpecificAwardElements/NASASpecificAwardElements/solicitationIssueDate
Description
The date on which NASA issued the solicitation for the award action. It records when the solicitation was released to potential offerors, not when the award was made or when the solicitation closed.
Business Meaning
This field supports timeline analysis of NASA procurements, including competition windows, procurement cycle timing, and alignment between solicitation release and downstream award activity. Analysts use it to measure lead time, compare solicitation timing across programs, and reconstruct acquisition milestones.
Example Value
2023-10-26 00:00:00
Observed Non-Null Count
20,277

FPDS Compare

FPDS Query Variable
content__award__agencySpecificAwardElements__NASASpecificAwardElements__solicitationIssueDate
FPDS XML Path
award/agencySpecificAwardElements/NASASpecificAwardElements/solicitationIssueDate
Mapping Type
flattened_fpds_xml_field
Comparison Summary
FPDS Query flattens the original nested FPDS XML path 'award/agencySpecificAwardElements/NASASpecificAwardElements/solicitationIssueDate' into the SQL-ready variable 'content__award__agencySpecificAwardElements__NASASpecificAwardElements__solicitationIssueDate'.

Use Cases

  • Dictionary lookup and field explanation
  • SQL filtering and grouping
  • Analytical reporting and reusable query building

Common Usage

  • calculate time from solicitation issuance to award
  • group awards by solicitation issuance period
  • analyze procurement cycle duration and seasonality

Common Mistakes

  • using it as the award date
  • assuming it exists for all agencies or all awards

Query Guidance

Cast or truncate to DATE when doing monthly or annual summaries, e.g. DATE(solicitationIssueDate), and use range predicates for period filters. Join or compare it with award date, notice date, and response/close dates to compute elapsed time; do not sort procurement lifecycle events solely on this field without confirming the relevant event sequence.

SQL Examples

Preview values

SELECT
    content__award__agencySpecificAwardElements__NASASpecificAwardElements__solicitationIssueDate AS solicitation_issue_date
FROM fpds.data
WHERE content__award__agencySpecificAwardElements__NASASpecificAwardElements__solicitationIssueDate IS NOT NULL
LIMIT 25

Top values

SELECT
    content__award__agencySpecificAwardElements__NASASpecificAwardElements__solicitationIssueDate AS value,
    count() AS record_count
FROM fpds.data
WHERE content__award__agencySpecificAwardElements__NASASpecificAwardElements__solicitationIssueDate IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY value
ORDER BY record_count DESC
LIMIT 25

Each dictionary item includes SQL-ready examples generated alongside the variable metadata, allowing immediate use in FPDS Query for filtering, aggregation, and analysis.