In November 2022, the Data Liberation Project sent the Department of Agriculture a request for data from — and documentation of — the agency’s Web Based Supply Chain Management System (WBSCM), which it uses for coordinating the purchase and distribution of federal food and commodity orders.
In conversations with the Data Liberation Project, the agency said it was unable to export the data records requested; the Data Liberation Project agreed to re-focus the request on the documentation records. The agency initially refused to provide those records, citing FOIA exemptions 3 and 7(E). After the Data Liberation Project appealed this decision (with the assistance of the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic), the USDA has begun to provide the records.
On April 19, 2024, the USDA provided a “first supplemental response” of 356 pages of records:
- Part 1A_Redacted.pdf (59 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated August 2018, March 2022, July 2022, March 2023, April 2023, September 2023, and October 2023. Topics include WBSCM support requests, account management, and WBSCM help resources.
- Part 1B_Redacted.pdf (70 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated October 2017, March 2022, September 2023, and January 2024. Topics include user registration, WBSCM portal navigation, user role assignment, and recent upgrades. Includes a list of WBSCM document types (pp. 2–4), list of user roles (pp. 36–40), and glossary (pp. 41–49).
- Part 2_Redacted.pdf (110 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated November 2019, October 2020, November 2021, July 2022, March 2023, June 2023, September 2023, and February 2024. Topics include recent upgrades, user accessibility, user management, e-invoices, and claim letters. Includes a glossary (pp. 30–34) and definitions of various status codes (pp. 82–88).
- Part 3A_Redacted.pdf (57 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated December 2016, June 2017, August 2017, June 2019, October 2019, September 2020, May 2021, September 2021, September 2021, October 2022, December 2023, and March 2024. Topics include requisition approvals, national warehouse complaint management, and notification management. Includes definitions of complaint statuses and resolutions (pp. 3-5), purchase requisition statuses (p. 25), domestic fulfillment processes and terms (pp. 26–39), and national warehouse movement types (pp. 40–42).
- Part 3B_Redacted.pdf (60 pages). Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated July 2014, December 2016, and December 2021. Topics include international complaint management, requisition approvals, entitlement budgeting, and third-party barter orders. Also includes an short XML file definition of unknown provenance (p. 56).
On June 28, 2024, the USDA provided 📄 a “second supplemental response” of 757 pages of records:
- Part 1_Redacted.pdf (66 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated November 2023, December 2023, and February 2024. Topics include shipment cancellations, order consolidations, and co-op organizations.
- Part 2_Redacted.pdf (85 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated April 2019, December 2022, January 2024. Topics include domestic requisitions, complaint procedures, and multi-food orders.
- Part 3_Redacted.pdf (52 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated May 2019, September 2023, and February 2024. Topics include user management, agency management, and multi-food orders.
- Part 4_Redacted.pdf (59 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated March 2021, December 2022, July 2023, and September 2023. Topics include user management, delivery documents, requisition display, entitlement balances, and complaint display.
- Part 5_Redacted.pdf (80 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated September 2020, March 2021, March 2022, November 2023, and December 2023. Topics include catalog maintenance, catalog downloads, purchase order data downloads, sales order data downloads, recalls, and shipment receipts.
- Part 6_Redacted.pdf (60 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated June 2020, March 2021, June 2023, December 2023, and February 2024. Topics include transaction reports, multi-food order data exports, organization management, multi-destination deliveries, and national warehouse delivery calendars.
- Part 7_Redacted.pdf (52 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated March 2021, April 2021, March 2023, and February 2024. Topics include delivery scheduling, entitlement maintenance, recall notification management, and organization management.
- Part 8_Redacted.pdf (61 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated April 2021, July 2022, January 2023, and February 2024. Topics include delivery scheduling, user profiles, catalog management, discussion forums, and address management.
- Part 9_Redacted.pdf (80 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated March 2021, December 2023, January 2024, February 2024, and March 2024. Topics include requisition modification, returned orders, organization management, and shipment receipt management.
- Part 10_Redacted.pdf (87 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated March 2021, March 2022, December 2023, and February 2024. Topics include inventory reconciliation, order quantity redistribution, price support orders, requisition declinations, order status reports, processing status reports, requisition status reports, and entitlement management.
- Part 11_Redacted.pdf (75 pages): Materials from various WBSCM user trainings dated March 2021, March 2022, May 2022, and February 2024. Topics include delivery scheduling, recall surveys, bills of lading, shipment receipts, national warehouse batches, organization management, and sales order uploading.
The agency says it is reviewing additional records for disclosure.