SPECIAL NOTICE
99 -- RFI: Defense Travel System Tier 1, 2, & 3 Help Desk and Sustainment Training Procurements
- Notice Date
- 12/16/2005
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541513
— Computer Facilities Management Services
- Contracting Office
- ACA, ITEC4, Directorate of Contracting , 2461 Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, VA 22331-0700
- ZIP Code
- 22331-0700
- Solicitation Number
- USA-SNOTE-051216-002
- Archive Date
- 2/14/2006
- Description
- RFI: Defense Travel System Tier 1, 2 & 3 Help Desk and Sustainment Training procurements Introduction: This is a Request for Information (RFI) from interested sources by the Program Management Office Defense Travel System (PMO-DTS) regarding commercial best practices and commercial capabilities and operations for both Help Desk support and Sustainment Tra ining. PMO-DTS does not intend to award any type of award instrument based on responses to this RFI, or otherwise provide compensation for the information solicited. Any information submitted in response to this RFI is provided voluntarily. Respondents are advi sed that PMO-DTS is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of information received, or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted under this Request for Information (RFI). This RFI is open to all sources and qualified small businesses are encouraged to participate. Performance based procedures will be used to acquire and manage vendor performance. The Program Management Office - Defense Travel System (PMO-DTS) intends to competitively award a contract in the Fiscal Year 2006 timeframe to provide Help Desk Services as well as Sustainment Training for the DTS. These may be independent actions or one combined action. Key Milestones (Projected): Second Quarter FY 2006 Issue Final RFP/Receive Proposals Third Quarter FY 2006 Conduct proposal evaluations/make vendor selection Fourth Quarter FY2006 Award/Begin Ramp-Up Background: The Defense Travel System (DTS) is an electronic system that provides a capability to Department of Defense (DoD) employees in support of Temporary Duty (TDY) travel, enabling them to determine availability of transportation and lodging alternatives, make reservations, obtain necessary approvals and get tickets, prepare and submit vouchers, and receive reimbursement for authorized out-of-pocket expenses. DTS also processes financial transactions associated with travel arrangements and disbursements. Aid f or DTS users in the current operation is provided by a three-tier Help Desk system. Currently, training is provided to DTS users at the time of system rollout planned through FY06. It is envisioned that sustainment training will be offered after full operating capability is reached. This sustainment training might include but is not limit ed to classroom training for users, specialized classroom training for targeted roles (Authorizing Official, Defense Travel Administrators, Centrally Billed Account Executives, etc), web based training, reference guides, and user manuals. The DTS will eventually be deployed to approximately 11,000 Department of Defense (DoD) worldwide sites. By October 2006, there are expected to be 3.2 million users with an estimated 5.6 million DTS transactions (yearly). Approximately, 10% of the total workload is generated outside the continental United States (OCONUS). The following documents are available at http://www.dtstravelcenter.dod.mil/ for additional information: 1. Current Training Plan 2. List of Current Classroom Training 3. Help Desk Guide 4. Helpdesk Process and Tier Structure 5. DTS Help Desk Tier Structure Diagram 6. DTS Help Desk Process Flow 7. DTS Trouble Ticket Forecast Graphs 8. DTS Trouble Ticket Forecasted Growth Trend 9. Trend of DTS Travel Documents and Help Desk Tickets per Document The written responses are requested not later than close of business January 13, 2006. All interested parties who intend to submit a proposal in response to the upcoming Request for Proposal (RFP) as a prime contractor, team, or potential subcontractor are strongly encouraged to submit a response to this RFI. All RFI elements identified at Sections 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 should be addressed to the maximum extent possible and in a format consistent with the format established in this RFI. The PMO-DTS will hold optional meetings with interested companies who would like to present thei r written response document to the Government. The Government will not be providing information during the sessions and no discussions will take place. The Government will be in a receiving mode for information the contractors have that directly relate to their written submission. The contractor is asked to follow the written format at Sections 1 through 5 below for their oral presentation of the data. Meetings will be held in two hour increments from 1-3 and 3-5 on the following days: - Tuesday January 17, 2006 - Thursday January 19, 2006 - Tuesday January 24, 2006 - Thursday January 26, 2006 Meetings can be scheduled through the http://www.dtstravelcenter.dod.mil/dtshelpdeskrfi/ website. These meetings are first come first serve. If we have not received your written response to this RFI by COB on January 13, 2006, your meeting will automatica lly be cancelled. Request for Information: The PMO-DTS is requesting industry input and comment on the DTS Help Desk Support and Sustainment Training Services in regards to commercial best practices and emerging techniques outlined as follows. Responses on company letterhead are requested for submission electronically not later than the date specified above to peggy.butler@itec4.army.mil , Stephen.Alkire@itec4.army/mil and HelpDeskRFI@osd.pentagon.mil. Point of Contact is Peggy Butler, Contract ing Officer or Steve Alkire, Contract Specialist. Please note that any response to this RFI will be at your companys expense. The PMO-DTS considers a response to include any and all outputs from efforts to respond to this RFI including but not limited to documents, presentations, demonstrations, speeches etc. The PMO-DTS will not provide any financial compensation in return for submitted responses to this RFI. We highly recommend you not submit any information you deem competition sensitive or proprietary. If you chose to do so, recommend you appropriately mark the sensitive information to ensure proper safeguarding such as Corporate Proprietary Information and state the appropriate restrictions in the evaluation and use of the information provided. Responses should be as concise as possible although page limitations are not specified. Preclude inclusion of strictly advertising or marketing type information. P MO-DTS appreciates your participation in this RFI as your responses are extremely important to us in developing an optimal acquisition strategy for Help Desk Support and Sustainment Training Services. Please respond to this RFI in the following section structure. Section 1 Company Information a. Company Name, Address, telephone, fax, designated representative(s) name(s), POC to include phone numbers and email address. b. Please identify whether currently designated as a Small Business as defined in the Federal Acquisition Regulation FAR Part 19.1 and appropriate category, i.e. Small Business (SB), Small disadvantaged business (SDB), Historically Underutilized Business Z one (HubZone), 8(a) program, service disabled veteran-owned, veteran-owned, and woman-owned small business concerns. Small business size standards are published by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and may be found at www.sba.gov/size/sizetable2 002.html. The small businesss size standard for this action is 541513. Section 2 Help Desk a. PMO-DTS requests information on how you would address DTS Help Desk requirements. Please see the attached documents for a description of said requirements. All Help Desk systems and software must be accessible by both all DTS users and the PMO-DTS. b. Based on your experiences, request information on how you would improve service to DTS administrators and other users, in terms of quicker response and problem resolution. This may include information for improved Help Desk organization to better utiliz e personnel, better technology (such as Automatic Call Distribution or ticket management software), or troubleshooting aids. c. Based on your experiences, request information on how you would lower or maintain administrative costs of Help Desk implementation. This may include information for improved efficiency in utilization of personnel (such as re-organization of responsibilities) or o ther ideas for reduced administrative costs. d. Based on your experiences, request information on what support and interaction is required from the system Operations & Maintenance contractor to support the Help Desk contractor. Provide information on how you would interface with the O&M contractor a nd the level of support needed. Include information on how you would troubleshoot and report system problems. e. Based on your experiences, request information on the interaction and relationship between the Help Desk contractor and the DTS Training contractor to provide the greatest efficiency for the Government. For example, describe how the Help Desk contractor can suggest improvements to system training to reduce the number of information requests to the Help Desk and improve the training in general to reduce problems requiring Help Desk contractor troubleshooting that are caused by improper use of the system. f. Based on your experiences, request information on how you would envision interfacing with DTS users and PMO-DTS personnel. g. Based on your experiences, request information on how you would structure the Help Desk. For example, is it appropriate to restructure the three-tier Help Desk system to a more efficiently organized approach? For any Help Desk structure proposals, cont ributors are also asked to present thoughts on transition plans from the current approach to a new approach, with a clear explanation of what benefits could be expected from the change. h. If your suggestion is to allow all DTS Travelers to call the Help Desk, request information on how you would scale the Help Desk to support the following user levels: 1. 500,000 users to 1 million users 2. 1 million users to 1.5 million users 3. 1.5 million users to 2 million users 4. 2 million users to 2.5 million users 5. 2.5 million users to 3 million users 6. 3 million users to 3.5 million users i. Based on your experiences, request information on how you would train the Help Desk staff. j. Based on your experiences, request information on how you would incorporate Help Desk Software tools into your service package. Examples are: 1. Incident Management 2. Call Tracking 3. Knowledge Management 4. Ticket Management 5. Multiple Channel Management 6. Ticket Routing and Assignment 7. Ticket Escalations 8. Unlimited Customer Notes 9. Ticket Resolution Section 3 Sustainment Training a. Based on your experiences, request information on how you would incorporate feedback from the Help Desk into the training materials or increase training in a certain area based on number of calls received. b. Based on your experiences, request information on how you would lower or maintain administrative costs of Sustainment Training implementation. This may include information for improved efficiency in utilization of personnel (such as re-organization of responsibilities) or other ideas for reduced administrative costs. c. Based on your experiences, request information on what support and interaction is required from the system Operations & Maintenance contractor to support the Sustainment Training contractor. Provide information on how you would interface with the O&M c ontractor and the level of support needed; include information on how you would troubleshoot and report on system problems. d. Based on your experiences, request information on how you envision interfacing with DTS users and PMO-DTS personnel. e. Functionality training materials must be created that will allow users to learn new or significantly changed DTS functionality. Functionality training must be of sufficient length to allow students to become familiar with and comfortable using the new o r enhanced functionality. Traini ng materials must be easily understood, engaging, and comprehensive. The training materials must be developed for presentation in either a classroom or distance learning environment. You may be sending instructors to various sites to execute the functional ity training. How will you approach the development and execution of functionality training? f. Sustainment training materials must be updated and/or created to train new users how to use DTS, and to train existing users who are moved into new roles. Sustainment training must be of sufficient length to allow students to become familiar with and co mfortable in their new role (roles currently include Traveler, Non-DTS Entry Agent, Routing Official, Authorizing Official, Organizational Defense Travel Administrator (DTA), Lead DTA, Finance DTA, Debt Management Monitor, and Transportation Officer). Trai ning materials must be easily understood, engaging, and comprehensive. The training materials must be developed for presentation in either a classroom or distance learning environment. How will you approach the maintenance of existing sustainment training and the development of new to teach new DTS users or old users serving in new roles? g. Based on your experiences, what innovative approaches to developing training as required will you bring to the table? h. Our current web-based training (WBT) can be accessed via the DTS Travel Center at http://www.dtstravelcenter.dod.mil/Training/Training_Main.cfm. Based on your experiences, how would you improve this WBT to encourage more student use? i. DTS currently has a mirror training system the Enterprise Web Training System. Currently, training documents are stored in a database which is swept once per week. There will eventually be more than 11,000 sites that require certificates to access the system. These certificates expire every three years. Based on your experiences, how would you maintain and possibly improve this system? j. We currently have Captivate demonstrations illustrating various DTS functions (create authorization, create voucher, etc.). These can be accessed via the DTS Travel Center at http://www.dtstravelcenter.dod.mil/Training/Training_Main.cfm. Based on your e xperiences, how would you improve this type of training? k. Based on your experiences, how would you create (if not currently existing), update, improve, and store various DTS support materials? Please see the attached documents for additional information on the below items. a. Reference materials found in the Travel Center document library (http://www.dtstravelcenter.dod.mil/Secs/Document_Library.cfm) b. CDs containing information for: i. Debt Management Monitor ii. DTA - These CDs contain all the documents and training materials specific to each role that are required when learning how to perform in the role. An example of what might be found on a Debt Management Monitor CD is (these documents are available at http://www .dtstravelcenter.dod.mil/) : o Debt Management Monitor Version 1.0 o Debt Management Monitor Roles and Responsibilities, Version 1.1 o Debt Management Monitor Roles and Responsibilities, Appendix A - Manual Accounting Transactions c. Downloadable desktop guides for various roles (same roles as listed in Section 3f. above) d. Downloadable pocket-sized cards for travelers to carry that will show how to create an authorization and voucher. e. Downloadable templates that will allow local authorities to enter contact information for the Commercial Travel Office, Authorizing Official, Tier 2 Help Desk. l. Based on your experiences, request information on how you would scale the Sustainment Training to support the following user levels: 1. 500,000 users to 1 million users 2. 1 million users to 1.5 million users 3. 1.5 million users to 2 million users 4. 2 million users to 2.5 million users 5. 2.5 million users to 3 million users 6. 3 million users to 3.5 million users Section 4 Commercial Best Practices a. What c ommercial pricing structure would you recommend for PMO-DTS Help Desk Support? Sustainment Training Services? b. Incentive provisions - Describe what type of incentive provisions would most likely motivate performance commensurate with the goals outlined for the Help Desk Support and Sustainment Training Services and what criteria would apply c. Performance metrics. Identify key performance metrics you envision under Help Desk Support and Sustainment Training Services and methods for measurement. Section 5 Timelines a. Transition or ramp-up timelines. Based on your experiences, describe your concerns with the transition from the current DTS Help Desk Support and Sustainment Training processes to any approaches you describe in your response. Outline risks, potential mitigators, and timelines for transition. b. Timeline information. Based on your experiences, how much time is typically needed for training, coordination, business process changes and other non-IT system work prior to accepting the first Help Desk phone call or to conducting the first Sustainmen t Training class? The PMO-DTS appreciates your time, effort, and expense in responding to this RFI. Request your response be submitted in accordance with the instructions provided above and within the timeframe given. We look forward to your participation in this importan t initiative. ALL ATTACHMENTS AND REFERENCED DOCUMENTS (INCLUDING A FORMATTED VERSION OF THIS NOTICE) ARE AVAILABLE AT: http://www.dtstravelcenter.dod.mil/
- Web Link
-
Program Management Office DTS website
(http://www.dtstravelcenter.dod.mil/)
- Record
- SN00953759-W 20051218/051216212138 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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