SOLICITATION NOTICE
D -- Expression of Interest - Proposal Management System
- Notice Date
- 2/16/2006
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 541519
— Other Computer Related Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory - UT Battelle LLC (DOE Contractor), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Bethel Valley Road P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831-6192
- ZIP Code
- 37831-6192
- Solicitation Number
- 3400068443
- Response Due
- 2/23/2006
- Archive Date
- 3/10/2006
- Description
- February 16, 2006 Expression of Interest ? NCCS Proposal Management System UT-Battelle LLC the managing and operating contractor for DOE?s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is seeking to purchase a proposal management system. We are seeking partes that may be interested in providing proposals for such a system. Note: Questions regarding the specific system requirements will not be taken at this time. The following will apply: Vendors will be expected to have experience creating and maintaining a such a system for an agency or organization similar to the NCCS. We are only interested in seeing proposals for proven and existing systems. The proposed system may be adapted to meet our specific needs. If you are interested in receiving the solicitation please send an email to the undersigned. besancenezwr@ornl.gov If there are any questions please send an email or phone at 865-576-1538. Sincerely, William R. Besancenez Subcontract Administrator UT-Battelle LLC NCCS Proposal Management System Requirements NCCS The National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory provides unique, world-class scientific computing resources to Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) researchers in national laboratories, universities, and industry. The DOE-SC seeks high priority, high payoff computationally intensive experiments, where the capability of the NCCS systems can enable new breakthroughs in science and enable the DOE-SC to be "first to market" with important scientific and technological capabilities, ideas, and software. Access to the NCCS resources is made available through a proposal process, whereby requests from scientists for accounts on existing projects, or, allocations of computer time for new projects, are submitted electronically and routed to the appropriate reviewers and staff members. Requests are received on a continuing basis, although specific calls-for-proposals (solicitations) are issued periodically. Management Software System Desired The NCCS seeks a web-based proposal management system to electronically manage requests from researchers for access to the NCCS resources, from solicitation to close out when the research is completed. The proposal management system should include the following functionality: 1- Integrated Problems-Solutions Database The system should support the storage and retrieval of data in a relational database. Open source databases such as MySQL are preferred; however, other third party databases such as Oracle will be considered. All data, including databases and login information, that is considered proprietary information should be designated as such by the owner of such data. Such designation should be such as to clearly convey to each individual accessing such data the proprietary nature of such data and the obligation of confidentiality associated with such access. The system?s security measures should have the ability to control access to the data of each owner in order to protect such data in all stages of its lifetime, including entry, storage and retrieval. The system and database will be hosted on a Unix based operating system. Data back up and system failover must be supported. The proposed software must interact with the local Resource Allocation and Management System infrastructure. This tool is a MySQL-based resource accounting system. Resources tracked include CPU-hours, memory, or disk usage. The system must have the ability to export data (i.e. flat files, .sql script files) that can be utilized by the Resource Allocation and Management System. The system should have the ability to meet these and other similar needs. 2- Proposal Solicitation: The system should have the ability to display online solicitations for proposals, and to send defined groups solicitations in the form of email via the system. Solicitations should be viewable to the general public via the web without the need to obtain an account on or log into the system. Solicitation emails and responses to these emails should be stored and logged. Solicitations for proposals will be announced at least once a year and will be modified to correspond with the current strategic direction of the facility. The system must include a web based interface (e.g. web site), where the following activities are supported, based on login roles: 3- Proposal Submission: The system should support role based login access restrictions. Researchers (internal and external to Oak Ridge National Laboratory) and NCCS staff should be able to log into the system using LDAP or SecurID for authentication. New researchers should be given the opportunity to create a new login account after providing the web site?s required information. Returning researchers should be allowed to login using the previously created login account. The system should also support the (re)setting of passwords. Upon successful login researchers should have the ability to initiate one or more new proposals, modify an existing proposal, or submit a completed proposal for review. Each proposal will be composed of discrete sections comprised of check boxes, radio buttons, pull down menus and text fields. The system should also support importing documents of various types (ex. Plain text, Microsoft Word, PDF, JPG, TIFF). Select staff should have the ability to edit the proposal forms. Researchers should have the ability to save an incomplete proposal and return at a later time to complete the proposal. An edit and creation timeframe window can be set for each proposal. The researcher will not have the ability to edit an existing proposal or create a new proposal outside of this timeframe. The multiple groups of staff and researchers, and their roles in terms of level of access, should be definable and modifiable by NCCS staff members. The system should have the ability to automatically and manually notify varying groups of predefined staff and researchers throughout the proposal?s lifecycle. Notification may be done through email and by flagging an account. The notification email?s subject and body should be definable and have the ability to contain all or a subset of a proposal. The system should support multiple definitions of predefined notification emails. Automatic notifications to selected groups should occur upon action, at defined times, or at a set limit of inaction throughout the proposal?s lifecycle. Notifications will be dynamic reminders of actions needed or pre-set report/data distribution. Proposal lifecycle actions may include, saving of a proposal, submitting a proposal, proposal review, or denying or approving a proposal. 4- Review and Selection: Once a proposal has been submitted it will go through a series of review stages conducted by multiple groups. The proposal system should automatically notify predefined review groups that a proposal is awaiting their review. The review groups may change at various stages in the proposal?s review life cycle. Each reviewer should have the ability to log into the proposal system and review proposals for which they have been given permission to review. Reviewers should only be able to view proposals for which they have been given permission. Each proposal will go through multiple review stages. Review stages may be independent of or dependant on other review stages. Multiple simultaneous review stages should be supported as well as the ability to lock the review process to a single review stage for set stages. Each review stage will be composed of multiple forms. Each form will be comprised of check boxes, radio buttons, pull down menus and text boxes as well as numeric ranking for multiple sections. The proposal system should have the ability to produce a report for each review stage and for the review as a whole. The report should include calculated rankings based on the given numeric rankings and concatenated text comments. 5- Negotiation and Award: Upon completion of the review process the proposal will be approved or denied by a single role that has the appropriate approve/deny role permissions. The approve/deny role may consist of one staff member or a committee and may vary based on proposal solicitation type. If the proposal is denied the system should notify the researcher and select staff groups. No further action is required. If approved, the system should have the ability to store allocation and access data. This data should be emailed to the researcher and select staff groups. The system should also create a text file including the allocation, access, and researcher data gathered during the account creation. 6- Administration: Select NCCS staff members will have the ability to access and edit all areas of the system including the database and all comprising forms, email templates, and code. Staff members shall only edit the system database by making: (1) non-substantive format and organizational changes to the system database or (2) substantive changes to those third-party databases incorporated and contained within the system database as expressly requested by the respective owners of such third-party databases. 7- Closeout and Reports: The system should allow the researcher to log in and enter a research summary or lists of publications resulting from their research. At set periods throughout the fiscal year the system should request a summary from the researcher via email. The system should track each request and response including times. Predefined groups should be notified each time a notification was sent or received. The system should have the ability to create numerical and graphical reports. Reports may be obtained by logging into the system or via email. The system should also have the ability to automatically generate reports at set times. Select groups should also have the ability to pull raw data in a format that may be imported into a reporting tool. Examples of reports may include, but are not limited to: hours allocated by proposal and by system, and researcher notification times and response times. At-a-glance reports showing status of proposals within their lifecycle would also be desirable. Access to each report should be limited based on researcher and staff roles. NCCS staff must be able to create new report types within a 24-hour time frame. 8- Post-Closeout: Once the researcher has completed the closeout the system should automatically notify via email predefined staff groups. After review, selected staff members should have the ability to move the proposal from an active state to an inactive closed state.
- Place of Performance
- Address: UT-Battelle LLC, c/o Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1 Behtel Valley Road, Oak Ridge, TN 37830
- Zip Code: 37830
- Country: US
- Zip Code: 37830
- Record
- SN00989542-W 20060218/060216211918 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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