Following a Solicitation on SAM.gov? Why That’s Not Enough Anymore

Let’s talk about something that isn’t getting enough attention: If you’re relying on SAM.gov’s “Follow” button to stay up-to-date on a solicitation, there’s a real chance you’re missing updates.

You think you’re tracking an opportunity. You trust that the alerts will come.
But lately? They don’t. Or worse, they do—but only some of them.

And in this business, missing one amendment, one attachment, or one deadline change can mean the difference between submitting a winning proposal and not submitting at all.

What’s the real issue?

Simply put, SAM.gov requires extra diligence to work effectively.

Following a notice doesn’t guarantee you’ll see everything tied to that opportunity. We’ve seen contractors waiting for an amendment that never arrives, only to find out—days later—it was posted… in a completely new notice.

So even though you’re “following,” you may not be following where the action is.

This isn’t a one-off glitch. It’s becoming a pattern. And it’s putting serious pressure on contractors who rely on SAM’s workflows to run capture and proposal timelines. This means you could miss an amendment or update that significantly affects your proposal, whether it changes the scope of work, deadline, or both. Imagine how much time and money you’d waste if you didn’t find out about a change until a week or more has passed? What if you had already submitted your proposal?

Why this is happening (and why it’s getting worse)

To be fair—SAM.gov has always had its quirks. It replaced FBO with more structure, more fields, and more complexity. And most of that complexity happens on the government user side.

The system asks Contracting Specialists to manually fill in very specific fields when adding or editing opportunities. Editing an opportunity might sound straightforward, but it requires training and familiarity with the system (just picking one wrong option from a drop-down list can cause major implications for bidders.) With the recent changes in the government workforce, we need to spend extra time on capture activities to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

PIEE & SAM

Another shift we’ve noticed is that SAM.gov no longer consistently reflects updates for solicitations managed through PIEE. In the past, any changes made in PIEE were also made in SAM. Now, more solicitations are handled entirely in PIEE, and updates like amendments or Q&As don’t always get posted back to SAM. If you’re only watching SAM, you could easily miss something important. It adds another step to the process and increases the chance of missing opportunities if you’re not checking both systems regularly.

But here’s the important part: it’s not intentional.
 It’s not sabotage. It’s a gap in system design, training, and visibility between how they input data—and how we consume it.

What contractors need to do differently

Here’s the bottom line: the “Follow” button is not enough.

If you’re pursuing federal contracts, you need to own your tracking process. That means:

• Searching manually, even for opportunities you’re already following.
• Using full solicitation numbers in your search, both with and without dashes (W912DY-25-R-0001, W912DY25R0001).
• Using the “Inactive” status in your search filter to check for archived or reposted versions of the same opportunity.
• Checking for duplicates or “Special Notices” if you see an opportunity that appears like it is missing information.


And if you’re ever wondering, “Where’s that amendment?”—Don’t wait. Go search.

In this climate, it’s not enough to trust the system. You have to trust your process and make sure it’s built to catch what SAM won’t. You don’t need to subscribe to a different site to get around SAM, you just need to be diligent.