Improvements in the Wide Area Workflow System

For many seasoned government contractors dealing with the Department of Defense, the Wide Area Workflow (WAWF) system is already a familiar tool.  It may not be a well liked tool, opinions vary on this system, but many contractors are already using this tool.  The system is continually being refined so that it can do more things and, at the risk of sounding facetious, easier to use.   There were revisions to the system in 2013 (March 2013, version 5.4.0 & July 2013, version 5.4.1) and again this year (January 2014, version 5.5).  A lot of the changes in the last year are minor in nature but some are worth noting:

  • Provide an interface so that the “Prices to Web” CLIN pricing data may be incorporated when creating an Energy RR or Energy Invoice.

  • Provide a “Delete Attachment” option, available on saved documents, recalled (from rejection or original submission) and rejected documents.

  • Include a new Entitlement Status Update Indicator to reflect the expectation of receiving a status update transaction from the legacy or standard payment office.

  • Allow extended search capability by DoDAACs and Extensions in existing work / history folders for Government and Government Support Contractors.

  • Add to WAWF the functionality to separately and distinctly record the receipt of purchased goods at the contracted delivery point on the web and by external systems.

  • Take in the EDI 527R transaction for reporting receipt of items.

  • Modify the current user process such that a user who has not authenticated to the system within a parameterized period of time will be systematically deactivated.

  • When a new document is created it will carry the X12 Unit of Measure Code instead of the DoD Unit of Measure Code.

  • Expand the Misc. Pay Type Code functionality to provide a filtering capability based upon the payee (Vendor, Employee / Military).

  • Modify the current MOCAS PSS edit for Line Item Numbers (4 or 6 AN) such that only 4N, 4N2A, 1A3AN, “NONE” or “NONE”NN are permitted.

  • Enable acceptance via small, hand-held devices, either using live wireless connections or periodic updates.

Recently the Defense Logistics Agency has notified users of the "myInvoice" system that they will have to migrate to the WAWF as of August 1, 2014.  The notice also alerts contractors & vendors that they are now "strongly encouraged" to use the WAWF system.  This appears to be a move, by the Department of Defense anyway, to one system for processing invoices.  The system of choice is obviously the Wide Area Workflow.  The "myInvoice" system will run in "parallel" to the WAWF for 6 months prior to being discontinued.  For those contractors that have been using WAWF for some time, they are used to the system quirks and procedures and this is not a big deal.  For companies that have not used WAWF, this will be a frustrating change.  You may want to consider enlisting help on this one.

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