SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- Digital Signatures & Intake Capabilites
- Notice Date
- 2/17/2005
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541990
— All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
- Contracting Office
- United States House of Representatives, Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, Office of Finance and Procurement, Room 359, Ford House Office Building, Washington, DC, 20515
- ZIP Code
- 20515
- Solicitation Number
- HIRQUR021705
- Response Due
- 4/22/2005
- Archive Date
- 4/26/2005
- Description
- Description REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY FOR PLANNING PURPOSES. THERE IS NO SOLICITATION PACKAGE AVAILABLE. The Government does not presently intend to award a contract, but wants to obtain information on commercially available products. Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. The United States House of Representatives (USHR) is soliciting industry for technology solutions to enable digital signatures and intake capabilities as they relate to Member offices facilitating casework for constituents. The focus of this solicitation is to enable the constituent to provide the congressional office with basic intake information and to electronically ?sign? the privacy release form. This solution would serve as the foundation for a comprehensive and scalable solution that would incorporate interactions with federal agency guidelines and systems and allow for the constituent to track casework status via a Web-based interface. USHR procured the services of the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) to conduct a detailed study for electronic casework. The type of casework congressional offices handle runs the entire gamut of federal agency services. In nearly every way that the federal government interacts with citizens, Members of Congress have intervened on behalf of their constituents. A plurality of these cases relate to immigration services (even for Members whose districts do not contain large immigrant populations), but many cases also involve: lost Social Security checks, disability claims, and requests for reassignment from military personnel. Most constituents who request assistance of a congressional office do so because they feel they have exhausted their other options. As a result, the constituents are often frustrated and/or desperate, and the requests are often time-sensitive. The congressional Caseworker ? or sometimes, the Member of Congress ? is placed in the position of serving as advocate for the constituent with the agency or as ombudsman between the constituent and the agency. The congressional Caseworker is simply inserting herself into an existing process, over which she has little control or authority beyond the imprimatur of the Member of Congress. In fact, congressional casework isn?t ?real? casework, since it is usually not the congressional office that solves the problem. The congressional office has complete discretion as to whether and how it pursues a request for assistance from a constituent. For a variety of reasons, both political and altruistic, Members of Congress feel that casework is an essential responsibility for their office. Depending upon how an office classifies a case, offices can receive between 500 and 1,500 cases each year. Nearly all of this work is handled through the district offices using a combination of manual and computer processes that each office customizes based on a variety of factors, including: priority of casework in the office; demands of constituents; and management structure of the office. Casework actually begins before a Member office ever becomes involved. There is always a pre-existing relationship ? sometimes a long-term pre-existing relationship ? between the constituent and the agency with which he or she is having difficulty. The Member usually becomes involved in that relationship because the constituent feels he has exhausted every other avenue he can identify for resolving the problem and finally turns to the Member?s office for assistance. Once constituents contact them to initiate a case, Member offices follow the same basic process for conducting casework: 1. The constituent contacts the office via phone, postal mail, fax, or e-mail to request assistance. 2. Information about the case is entered into the office?s correspondence management system (CMS) ? the databases offices use to track all interaction with their constituents ? and the case is assigned to a Caseworker. 3. The Caseworker either provides the service to the constituent (where no agency involvement is necessary) or provides a privacy release form for the constituent to sign (where agency involvement is necessary). Offices provide the privacy release form via postal mail, fax or a downloadable PDF file on the Member?s Web site. 4. The constituent returns the signed privacy release form to the office via postal mail or fax. The privacy release must be physically signed by the subject of the case, but it need not be notarized or witnessed. 5. The Caseworker either contacts the agency to initiate the case or contacts the constituent to collect more information, including any case-related documents, and then initiates the case with the agency. 6. The agency acknowledges receipt of the Member?s inquiry, usually by postal mail, and begins working on the case. 7. The Caseworker monitors the status of the case, interacting with the agency and constituent, as necessary. 8. The agency provides the service or information. Response times vary widely, and many offices have cases that have been open for more than one year, though those cases do not represent a large proportion of the cases offices handle. 9. The Caseworker notifies the constituent of the resolution via phone, fax, or postal mail. 10. The case is closed and the office retains records in electronic and paper formats. The speed and ease with which cases are pursued are influenced by a variety of factors, but the following are critical for expediting congressional casework: Getting privacy release forms signed and delivered promptly. Caseworkers expressed frustration with the delays in initiating a case due to their inability to get privacy release forms signed and delivered promptly. They noted that sometimes this is the fault of constituents, who procrastinate or lose interest in the process. Other times the delay is the result of distance (as with deployed military personnel and citizens abroad) or confusion. In matters that are time sensitive, any delay hinders the initiation of the case. Collecting relevant information and documents from the constituent. Many cases are complex and require extensive documentation, and many agencies are adamant about the specific information and documents they need to initiate a case. As a result, there are sometimes significant delays in the casework process because a constituent will fail to provide the congressional office relevant information and documents or because the Caseworker is not aware, at the beginning of the process, of the information and documents that are required by the agency. Having access to up-to-date online information that addresses common casework issues and questions. Caseworkers have noted that federal agency Web sites have been an unexpected asset in casework processing. As agencies increase the amount and usability of their online case information, Caseworkers can sometimes process simple constituent inquiries or educate themselves on federal procedures using agency Web sites. Information that once needed to be conveyed by an agency representative in a phone call or in writing can now be conveyed online, where it is convenient to all who need it. Working with constituents who are knowledgeable and ?professional.? Although Caseworkers provide services to any constituent who comes to them needing assistance, some of the most expedient casework is performed as a result of the knowledge, commitment and professionalism of the constituent. For example, Caseworkers noted that casework often goes most smoothly when it is performed for businesses, which often can devote experienced professionals or attorneys to expedite research and paperwork. Knowing which agency handles a case. Knowledge of federal agencies and their sub-agencies is very helpful for Caseworkers when initiating cases. New Caseworkers, especially those in freshman offices, often experience significant delays due to the need to educate themselves on the intricacies of the federal bureaucracy. Knowing whom at an agency to contact. Most agencies do not have central contact points for congressional casework. Or, if they do, the central contact point will act as a conduit to another agency contact. Congressional offices have reduced casework turn-around time by having experienced Caseworkers who have previously identified relevant agency contacts. Developing personal relationships with agency personnel. In focus groups CMF conducted for this project, Caseworkers noted that one of the most significant factors in quickly resolving a case was whether the Caseworker had a pre-existing relationship with agency personnel. As district offices frequently deal with federal agency regional offices, Caseworkers often seek to identify local agency representatives who can assist in the casework process ? eliminating the need for the Caseworker to move through the bureaucracy. Receiving responses and progress updates from agencies. In the focus groups and survey CMF conducted for this project, Caseworkers noted the benefit of receiving prompt acknowledgments of their inquiries and appreciated regular progress reports from agency personnel. Unfortunately, they also noted that they often do not receive prompt acknowledgments and progress updates. Having the ability to track the progress of an open case. Caseworkers also indicated that knowing how a case is progressing with an agency and having a sense of the time until resolution was extremely important to their success. In most cases, Caseworkers are dependent on agency personnel to provide them with periodic status reports or updates, which they do not always do. For this reason, many Caseworkers noted their satisfaction with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service?s (USCIS) Case Status Service Online system (https://egov.immigration.gov/cris/jsps/index.jsp), which enables them (and their constituents) to track the status of their requests for assistance. USCIS is the only federal agency providing this type of online tracking service at this time, but it seems to be a very helpful service for Caseworkers. In the following we describe the specific technical requirements of an e-casework system as they relate to these procedural requirements. 1. Preserve existing functional relationships among the participants in the process. There are three distinct parties involved in the necessary transactions and communications that comprise the casework process: the constituent, the congressional Caseworker, and the agency representative. The congressional Caseworker is the conduit between the other two, except in rare cases where the agency representative contacts the constituent directly. There is a need to preserve this ?Caseworker as conduit? dynamic in the online world as well. In order to do this, the system must: Enable the constituent to initiate the contact at the Web site of his or her Representative; Enable the Caseworker to respond to, and interact with, the constituent online or off line, as the Caseworker deems appropriate; Enable the Caseworker to initiate the case and interact with the agency online or off line, as the Caseworker deems appropriate; and Enable the Caseworker to preserve and transmit documents both online and off line. Additionally, there is a need to ensure that the privacy release form is functionally similar to the current, paper-based form. In other words, the form must be provided by the congressional office; signed by the constituent and returned to the Caseworker; stored by the Caseworker for future reference and use; and, if necessary, transmitted to agency personnel for reference and use. 2. Integrate with existing workflow processes and software. All but a few House Member offices rely on correspondence management systems (CMS) to manage their communications with constituents. There are two vendors that, combined, provide CMS products to most House offices: Lockheed Martin Information Technology (LMIT) and InterAmerica. LMIT produces and supports Intranet Quorum (IQ) and InterAmerica produces and supports Capitol Correspond. These are both basically client/server-based customer relationship management (CRM) products geared toward the specific needs of a congressional office, and offices are completely dependent upon them. Any new e-casework system must be able to share data with these products, rather than requiring Caseworkers to operate two systems or to hand-enter data into their CMS databases. This can be accomplished by using the existing House standard XML tags recognized by the CMS products, and will probably necessitate that new tags be created for additional casework-specific data fields. Currently, IQ has the ability to read some casework-specific tags in addition to the House standard XML tags, and it enables additional tags to be incorporated through user-definable fields in the casework workflow system. In the future, however, the House should consider applying standards that are both specific to casework and which look to agencies? individual standards to make interoperability with agency systems easier. There will also need to be several changes to the CMS software, including the issuance of digital credentials that may be stored locally or on a device or card carried by the staffer. 3. Enable agencies to determine whether and how to integrate the system with their systems. If XML tags are integrated into the e-casework system, those same tags can be developed and applied in ways that will enable agencies to integrate the electronic data sent by Caseworkers into their own databases or into those that are created based on agencies? existing XML standards. However, this would require agencies to develop capabilities and systems on their own to process the data. Agencies must not be required to develop such capabilities to use the information sent by congressional offices. The e-casework system must provide electronic information in such a way as to be accessible through standard e-mail or through customized solutions that may be developed by individual agencies. To enable agencies to create the capabilities on their own, the House should issue documentation for the messaging standard. If the House wanted to create a system without requiring a proprietary standard, it might be worth integrating a SOAP or Web services capability to ?package? the information in a format that can be accepted by a range of systems, even if those systems have not integrated proprietary XML tags. 4. Apply information standards, when practicable. To make information sharing as smooth and user-friendly as possible for all parties, the e-casework system must apply relevant information standards whenever possible. Some of the standards that must be considered include: Messages should be in formats that are generally accepted. Digital credentialing should be in commonly used and issued formats. Digital documents, especially forms and transactions, should be captured and preserved using accepted standards (leaning toward XML standards as considered or adopted by the World Wide Web Consortium, OPEN/OASIS and other reputable standards organizations). Online information should be accessible via standard Web browsers (with digital certificate capabilities) and Internet connectivity. Any additional functionality (e.g. form viewer plug-ins) must be at no cost to the user, transparent to the user, and easy for a novice user to obtain. Online information should conform to the requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 in order to be accessible to citizens with disabilities. User interfaces ? for constituents, Caseworkers, and agency personnel ? should apply common usability practices so they can be quickly and easily understood and used by any novice user (including using obvious terminology and analogies to current, paper-based processes). 5. Protect identities and information. There are inherent security risks in moving any business process to a networked environment, and they must be carefully managed in any e-casework system. Security has not been an issue in the current, paper-based system, but moving casework online necessitates that security be built in from the beginning, especially in light of concerns about the relative ease with which privacy violations and identity and data theft can occur in an insecure online environment. Also, because the process involves both bureaucratic and political considerations, it will be especially important to protect identities and information so that the system does not compromise agencies? legal and statutory privacy requirements or congressional offices? political reputations or relationships with their constituents. Requirements the e-casework system will have for providing protection include ensuring that: The system is configured to route data directly, and without fail, to the appropriate congressional office. The system is configured to allow data to pass through a central server without residing on it, so that constituent information is only captured and preserved by the appropriate office. All personal data that is transmitted over the Internet is encrypted. Individual offices? databases are insulated from unauthorized entry through the e-casework system. The system conforms to agencies? Privacy Act requirements for responding to congressional inquiries. The Caseworker has clear, user-friendly, and transparent control over what information is shared with constituents and with agency personnel. 6. Ensure that online transactions occur in a secure environment. The very act of enabling casework transactions to occur electronically will fundamentally change those transactions by making them easier and more open. That ease and openness must not come with a security risk. Any transaction that occurs over a network must be secure so that the data is not compromised en route and can be trusted by the receiver of the information. Constituents must be able to trust that the information they send will be accessed and viewed only by the congressional office and the agency. Caseworkers must be able to trust that they control the information and who may access and view it. Agencies must be able to trust that the information was sent by a congressional office and that future electronic communications will be received by the appropriate office. In this type of system, which often involves sensitive personal information about constituents, it will also be very important that the security throughout the system be transparent. Each user interface should make it explicit and obvious how the data will be protected. 7. Ensure that the requirements of the Privacy Act, as they relate to congressional offices, are met. The disclosure of personal information about citizens by federal agencies is governed by the Privacy Act of 1974, which is why many of them require constituents to sign a privacy release before they will share case information with congressional offices. Although the Privacy Act does not apply to Congress, any system created by the House should take into account agencies? requirements under the Privacy Act. Most agencies have included congressional offices in their ?routine use? exemption to the Privacy Act, which is what enables them to share case data with nothing more than a signed privacy release form. However, agencies may, in an electronic environment, opt to require additional security and authentication measures before sharing case information with congressional offices. Congress is not, and cannot become, an authenticating authority on behalf of agencies, but agencies may, in the future, require congressional offices to collect information, data, or files that will enable them to authenticate constituents? identities. For this reason, the system will need to be flexible enough to accommodate changing agency requirements over time. USHR is located in downtown Washington, DC. The facilities housing USHR consist of 4 main office buildings, the United States Capitol building, and other smaller buildings clustered in an urban area encompassing an area of 0.8 square miles. Approximately 13,500 employees work for the USHR within these facilities. Requested information must be submitted NO LATER THAN April 22, 2005 to Jim Tiani Office of Procurement, 359 Ford House Office Building Washington, DC. 20515 james.tiani@mail.house.gov . There is no specific limitation on overall maximum volume/size of submittals. Submittals should include examples of systems currently available to support the above specified operations, to include known locations where they are in use. Multiple systems may be proposed to meet the various needs specified, if appropriate. For currently available systems, proposals should include an estimate of lifecycle costs to include separate specification of purchase, implementation and maintenance costs. New design efforts to meet the needs may be submitted; however, currently available systems are preferred. A formal solicitation MAY NOT BE ISSUED as a result of this RFI. Information provided may or may not be included in a formal solicitation. The USHR will not release any information ? marked with a Proprietary legend ? received in response to this RFI to any firms, agencies, or individuals outside the Legislative Branch of the Government without written permission in accordance with the legend. Submission Requirements Please provide an Executive Summary to be no more than 6 pages in length. The entire submission should be no longet that 30 pages in length. Point of Contact Jim Tiani Office of Procurement 359 Ford House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 James.Tiani@mail.house.gov 202-225-7158
- Place of Performance
- Address: U.S. House of Representatives, 359 Ford House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, , United States House of Representatives, Washington DC,
- Zip Code: 20515
- Country: United States
- Zip Code: 20515
- Record
- SN00753932-W 20050219/050217212417 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
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