Key Links
The Case Description and Case Notes should follow standardized administrative guidelines to provide clear and consistent communication to all parties reviewing the LOA.
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Terminology: The use of consistent terminology throughout the document is necessary to avoid confusion for the customer or U.S. Government personnel reviewing an LOA document. To the extent possible, the terminology used should be adopted from the DSAMS fields and/or the LOA column headings, and utilize the limited character spacing in certain DSAMS fields.
Do Use Don't Use Months of Service (MOS)
Period of Performance (PoP) / Availability/ Lead-time / Performance Period / Dates of Service
Source Code (SC)
Source of Supply (SOS) Code (SC)
U.S. Government
USG
Purchaser (FMS)
Benefitting Country (BPC)Customer
Materiel (military materials and equipment)
Material (substance or substances of which a thing is made or composed; crude or raw matter)
Case Description
Preamble
Line
Line Item
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Capitalization:A specific title or name should always be capitalized.
Example: Correct Incorrect Line 001
vs
line 001
References to titles of position (Wing Commander), specific documents or lines, organizations (Department of Defense), military units (AFLCMC/WI), and acronyms (i.e. Letter of Request (LOR)).
Specific columns or sections of the document which are being affected such as Delivery Term Code (DTC), Offer Release Code (ORC), etc.
Refer to Section 3 (Case Description) for further details and exceptions.
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Punctuation: Use proper punctuation to make sentences and paragraphs easy to read. Character space is limited in many of the online entries for case documents. When listing a series of consecutive numbers a dash (-) is used, with no spaces, to simplify and save character space.
Example: Correct Incorrect Lines 001-005
vs
Lines 001, 002, 003, 004, and 005
Sublines 001a-c
vs
Sublines 001a, 001b, and 001c
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Grammar: Apply proper grammar in a way that clearly communicates intent.
Present Tense: Describe actions using present tense such as: “are” vs. “were” or “has been”; “is” vs. “was”, etc.
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Acronyms: Acronyms must be spelled out the first time they are used in the Case Description, each Line Description and in each Case Note, capitalizing the first letter of each word, followed by the acronym in parentheses. An acronym is spelled out in the note title and the 1st occurrence within the note text.
Example Military Articles and Services List (MASL)
EXCEPTION: In the DSAMS Customer Reference field, the customer’s reference does not need to be spelled out. It can be reflected as an acronym because the customer is already familiar with their own organizational acronyms.
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Date Format: Dates must be reflected in the Day/Month/Year format. The month should always be spelled out.
Example 17 March 2020
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Proofread: Proofread and ensure all documentation is free of spelling and grammatical errors throughout all phases of LOA development. As noted above, everyone involved in the LOA development process is responsible for ensuring the highest quality at each phase to avoid unnecessary processing delays.
SUGGESTION: Build LOA verbiage within Microsoft Word, use the “Spelling and Grammar” function, then cut and paste into DSAMS. Due to conversion issues between Microsoft Word and DSAMS, adjust any spacing and character errors accordingly.