SOLICITATION NOTICE
D -- INTERACTIVE TUTORIAL TO ASSIST CLAIMANTS IN E-FILING:
- Notice Date
- 6/27/2007
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 541512
— Computer Systems Design Services
- Contracting Office
- U.S. Office of Special Counsel, Contracting Office, U.S. Office of Special Counsel, 1730 M. Street N.W. Suite 201, Washington, DC, 20036, UNITED STATES
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- OSC-RFQ-035-07-002
- Response Due
- 7/13/2007
- Archive Date
- 7/28/2007
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for a contractor to re-develop and enhance the user-friendliness of its E-Filing system prepared in accordance with the format in Federal Acquisition Regulation FAR Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; proposals are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. Solicitation OSC-RFQ- 035-07-002 is being issued as a Request for Quotation (RFQ) using Simplified Acquisition Procedures under FAR 13. The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-17 (15 May 2007) The North American Classification System Code (NAICS) is 541512 ? Computer Systems Design Services and the small business size standard of $21 million. This acquisition is set-aside 100% for small businesses. INTERACTIVE TUTORIAL TO ASSIST CLAIMANTS IN E-FILING: With the U.S. Office of Special Counsel Program Goals and Objectives The Office of Special Counsel is a small independent agency that investigates claims of prohibited personnel practices and other violations of the merit system in the federal government. Federal employees can file an online claim with OSC, alleging one or more of the 12 prohibited personnel practices, by filling out OSC Form 11 and submitting it. OSC wants to make the process easier and more ?customer friendly? by enhancing the interactivity of the online complaint filing process through development of an interface that would guide the complainant through the process, offering helpful hints and assistance along the way. OSC is soliciting help from a developer who can not only add explanatory text and possible oral explanations to the online complaint process, but can also enhance the current overall complaint filing process by making it smooth, interactive, and easy to use. The user should have a similar experience to using a product such as Turbo-Tax, which walks the user through a series of screens until all the desired information is captured. Note: The content of the screens should be easily modifiable by the OSC staff that will have responsibility to administer the tool and update content. The offeror will provide on-site training to OSC staff at the Washington DC offices of OSC. Portions of the work shall be performed at the offices of OSC; however the Contractor shall provide all needed equipment, telecommunications, and materials to complete the requirements of the contract. II. Evaluation: Offers will be evaluated in accordance with FAR 52.212-2. The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers: (1) contractor qualifications and technical capability, (2) past performance, and (3) price. Contractor qualifications/technical capability and past performance, when combined, are more important than price. The Government reserves the right to evaluate proposals and award a contract without discussions with Offerors. The Government plans to make an award to the responsible offeror whose offer conforms to the requirements herein and represents the greatest or best value to the Government. However, this request in no way obligates OSC to award a contract, nor does it commit OSC to pay any cost incurred in the preparation and submission of the quotes. Office of Special Counsel anticipates awarding a firm fixed price contract not to exceed the ceiling price of $40,000. If required by OSC, the Contractor shall provide the required services in individually negotiated fixed-price task orders. The scope of the task orders may include, but is not limited to, providing consultation, training, support, and other advisory activities as assigned by OSC. (FAR 16.105, FAR 52.216.1) If task orders are required, each task order associated with this contract will be individually negotiated as funds allow. III. STATEMENT OF WORK: III.IV. STATEMENT OF WORK: The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is seeking quotes from qualified organizations interested in providing the services described in the Statement of Work (SOW) below. INTERACTIVE INTERFACE TO ASSIST CLAIMANTS IN E-FILING: Introduction: OSC is seeking a contractor to re-develop and enhance the user-friendliness of its E-Filing system. This is the initial phase of a four part project. This initial phase includes but is not limited to the following: ?XBuild an overall user interface similar to the turbo-tax interface. As part of the first phase, migrate the content of Form 11 to this new turbo-tax style interface. ?XVisual Studio 2005 development suite will be used to develop this tutorial. ?XDevelopment language to be used is C#. ?XMicrosoft .NET framework 2.0 and ASP.NET 2.0 platforms will be used for the development of the interface. ?XThe tutorial will operate in an MS SQL 2000 and MS SQL 2005 environment. ?XAll displayable strings will be stored and read from a resource file. ?XIn-line code documentation will be included within each function in the source code to describe implementation logic. ?XThis tutorial will run on an application hosted on IIS 6.0 and on Windows 2003 Server operating system. ?XOSC?s Complaints Examining Unit will provide the text contents and logic for the screens. ?XIf audio is needed, audio recording file format will be in MP3. Create web-based user interface and utility for OSC to modify the contents of the displayed texts and possible audio recordings. ?XCreate User Manual and On-Line Context Sensitive Help ?XProvide instructions on recording/generating MP3 audio files 1. Requirements Analysis Activities 1.1 Perform Detailed Requirements Analysis: The Contractor will review the functional requirements provided by OSC?s Complaints Examining Unit (CEU) and detail them out to a level sufficient for the Analysis and Design activity. The resulting requirements may take the form of Use Cases, Specification documents, or some other form that provides the most benefit to the team. Deliverables ?PDetailed Requirements 1.2 Analysis and Design: 1.2.1 Define User Experience Prototypes and Models: The Contractor will develop story boards to describe the application user experience (component screens and navigation models) based upon the requirements gathered and documented by the Contractor lead Analyst, and including industry best practices for design. The user experience models will then be reviewed by CEU, and any modifications to the look and feel, navigation, or data elements, etc. will be captured at that time. Deliverables ?Component screens ?Navigation maps / models for areas with complex navigation ?Field validation and data element rules 1.2.2 Create Detailed Design: The Contractor Design Team will create the detailed design models. Using N-Tier Enterprise Web architecture, detailed design will be made for the developers to understand and implement the required functionality. The detailed design will also support the creation of the test plans and test cases that will be used during unit testing. Deliverables ?Design models which include all of the following: oStatic structure (class) diagrams oInteraction (sequence) diagrams oProcess flow diagrams 1.2.3 CEU Review & Signoff: OSC?s CEU is responsible for providing feedback for the Detailed Requirements Analysis and for reviewing the Analysis and Design artifacts to ensure the solution proposed meets their needs. On completion of this review CEU will sign off on the Requirements, Analysis and Design. After this sign off, development will start. All subsequent changes to the initial scope as defined here may require a Change Management review but will not increase the cost or scope of the work. Deliverables ?CEU Sign Off sheet 1.3 Development: Contractor staff will develop and will unit test the code written during this project. 1.3.1 .NET Development: The .NET development tool used will be Visual Studio .NET 2005. Other Microsoft development tools may be used as necessary. Contractor will document each component created using XML comments consistent with current Microsoft guidelines. In addition, each component documented shall also be delivered using the Microsoft Office suite of tools (for example, MS WORD, MS EXCEL, MS POWERPOINT, MS PROJECT, or MS ACCESS format). During development, standards will be followed and code reviewed as detailed in the ?Code / Design Reviews and Standards? section. Deliverables ?PCoded, documented, compiled, and tested modules or components ?PTesting modules and scripts 1.3.2 Code / Design Reviews and Standards: At the start of the project, Contractor Lead Developer will provide OSC development guidelines, and best practices applicable to the development effort. The Contractor Lead Developer (LD) will lead all informal code and design reviews. In order to minimize impact to the team, reviews will only involve those team members actually involved in that part of the coding. The Contractor LD will review the code and design to ensure user experience, naming, documentation, architecture and design standards are followed. 1.4 Stabilization Activities: 1.4.1 Functional Testing: Contractor will perform due diligence to ensure that all components are integration tested and functionally evaluated against the requirements documentation and pass the unit and functional tests. The Contractor Lead Analyst will lead the development of the test cases, as well as the execution of the tests themselves. 1.4.2 Test Case Testing: Contractor will also conduct Test Case testing of the complete tutorial after the components are tested and ensure that the integrated solution meets the requirements. In order to keep the project on schedule and moving along rapidly, fixes for issues found in Test Case Testing will be addressed immediately and retested by Contractor. 1.5 Deployment: Contractor will provide OSC?s Complaints Examining Unit the ability to access work in progress at the end of each one-week iteration. The form will be the code base and relevant artifacts (or other artifacts appropriate to the implementation) outlining the necessary steps required to get the feature up and running just as it does in the demo web site. Contractor will provide deployment & delivery mechanism for the final work product. 2. Configuration/Change Management OSC?s Contracting Officer and representatives from OSC?s Management and Budget Division and OSC?s Complaints Examining Unit and one representative from the Contractor will constitute a Configuration/Change Management Board. If during the Statement of Work execution, a requirement, feature, or other change is deemed necessary, the representatives will negotiate the alteration. Alterations may result in amendments to the accepted SOW. It is anticipated that minor changes may occur to the initial requirements as identified. This is considered normal fluctuation and should have no impact on this initial SOW. The Change Management process will take effect after the First Iteration deliverables are presented and OSC signs off on them. These deliverables will consist of detailed Analysis and Design artifacts based on the requirements. IV. QUOTE REQUIREMENTS: 1. Provide a narrative description of past experience with Web application development for government agencies and expertise in the fields of web development and training. Prior demonstrated familiarity with small agencies is preferred. However, past performance references are not restricted to federal government agencies. In addition, Offerors are required to submit at least 3 past performance client references from within the last 5 years, each reference able to verify contractor?s experience in providing web development/design consulting. Include the company names, contact persons, telephone numbers, and mailing addresses. 2. Proposal should include descriptions of similar services provided to other clients. If possible, include presentations, web design or other materials that show quality of product and demonstrate effectiveness of results. 3. The Offeror shall submit a technical proposal that addresses the requirements contained in the Statement of Work above. Contractor personnel working on web development/design production should have a minimum of 5 years experience in production. The technical proposal shall contain enough evidence to convince evaluators of the relevance of skills and objectives involved to ensure a successful completion of the tasks that are required to complete this contract. 4. The Offeror shall submit firm-fixed hourly rates for each of the following commercial items: programming, web development, and training services as per the Federal Acquisition Regulation. 5. Offerors? proposals shall be valid for a minimum of 30 days and this period of time should be stated in the proposal. 6. Oral presentations may be required. If oral presentations are required, Contractors who submit proposals may be required to discuss their proposal with OSC personnel via teleconference or in person at the Office of Special Counsel located at 1730 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036. Any travel costs are the responsibility of the proposing firm. The oral presentation, if needed, shall be presented by the proposed Contractor and shall address the Contractor?s knowledge of all aspects of the requirements contained herein. Pricing information shall not be included in any part of the oral presentation. The one-hour time limit will begin at the Government?s discretion and will be terminated immediately at the end of one hour, unless, at the end of the presentation, or one hour time limit, whichever comes first, the Government is asking questions of the presenter. V. ADDITIONAL CLAUSES/PROVISIONS/TERMS: Offerors shall include a completed copy of the provision at FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items, with their offers. The following clauses apply to this acquisition and are hereby incorporated by reference or full text, and are to remain in full force and effect in any resultant contract: Full text clauses and provisions are available at: http://arnet.gov/far. FAR 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions: Commercial Items with the following Addendum: FAR 52.202-1 Definitions; FAR 52.203-5 Covenant Against Contingent Fees; FAR 52.203-6 Restriction on Subcontractors Sales to the Government; FAR 52.203-7 Anti-Kickback Procedures; FAR 52.216-1 Type of Contract; FAR 52.216-24 Limitation of Government Liability; FAR 52.216-25 Contact Definitization; FAR 52.223-13 Certification of Toxic Chemical Release Reporting; FAR 52.223-14 Toxic Chemical Release Reporting; FAR 52.225-13 Restrictions on Certain Foreign Purchases; FAR 52.232-1 Payments; FAR 52.233-2 Service of Protest; FAR 52.233-3 Protest of Award; FAR 52.233-4 Applicable Law fro Breach of Contract Claim; FAR 52.244-6 Subcontracts for Commercial Items; FAR 52.219-11 Special 8 (a) Contract Conditions; FAR 52.219-12 Special 8 (a) Subcontract Conditions; FAR 52.219-17 Special 8 (a) Award; FAR 52.219-18 Notification of Competition Limited to Eligible 8 (a) Concerns; FAR 52.204-6, Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) Number, FAR 52.204-7, Central Contractor Registration; FAR 52.217-8, Option to Extend Services; FAR 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders? Commercial Items including the following clauses in paragraph (b): FAR 52.203-6, Restrictions on Subcontractor Sales to the Government; FAR 52.219-6, Notice of Total Small Business Set-Aside; FAR 52.219-8, Utilization of Small Business Concerns; FAR 52.219-14, Limitations on Subcontracting; FAR 52.222-3, Convict Labor; FAR 52.222-21, Prohibition of Segregated Facilities; FAR 52.222-26, Equal Opportunity; FAR 52.222-35, Equal Opportunity for Special Disabled Veterans, Veterans of the Vietnam Era, and Other Eligible Veterans; FAR 52.222-36, Affirmative Action for Worker with Disabilities; FAR 52.222-37, Employment Reports on Special Disabled Veterans, Veterans of the Vietnam Era, and Other Eligible Veterans; Affirmative Action for Workers with Disabilities; FAR 52.222-39, Notification of Employee Rights Concerning Payment of Union Dues or Fees; FAR 52.225-13, Restriction on Certain Foreign Purchases; FAR 52.232-33, Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer. Offerors must have electronic funds transfer (EFT) capability. FAR 52.232-36 Payment by Third Party FAR 52.204-7, Central Contractor Registration; The Offerors must be registered on the Central Contractor Registration database (CCR). Information concerning CCR requirements may be viewed via the Internet at http://www.ccr.gov or by calling the CCR Registration Centers at 1-888-227-2423. Only contractors who are registered in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) can be awarded a contract. VI. SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: A written notice of award or acceptance of an offer, mailed or otherwise furnished to the successful offeror within the time for acceptance specified in the offer, shall result in a binding contract without further action by either party. Before the offer?s specified expiration time, the Government may accept an offer (or part of an offer), whether or not there are negotiations after its receipt, unless a written notice of withdrawal is received before award. If you decide to submit a quote, it must be submitted to the Office of Special Counsel contracting office no later than the date and time indicated below. Offers must be received by 4:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time on July 13, 2007. No solicitation document is available; and a request for a solicitation document will not be considered responsive. Any questions on this solicitation should be submitted in writing to Douglas Stickler, Contract Officer, through e-mail to dstickler@osc.gov no later than July 9, 2007. Questions received after the deadline may not be answered. OSC assumes no responsibility for receipt of a quote; but, you may call or email for confirmation. Mr. Stickler can be reached via e-mail at dstickler@osc.gov or via facsimile at (202) 653-8939. Receipt of this RFQ through the internet must be confirmed by written notification to Mr. Stickler if the Offeror wishes to be notified of any amendments to the solicitation. Offerors should retain for their records copies of any and all enclosures which accompany their proposals. The Offeror assumes full responsibility for ensuring electronic offers are formatted in accordance with OSC security requirements. The following file extensions are not allowable and application materials/data submitted with these extensions cannot be considered: bat, cmd, com, exe, pif, rar, scr, vbs, hta, cpl, and zip files. Microsoft Office compatible documents are acceptable. If the Offeror determines other formats are necessary, it is the Offeror?s responsibility to verify with OSC that formats are acceptable. Offer materials with unacceptable or unreadable formats may be found to be non-responsive. When offers are hand-carried or sent by courier service, the address for offers is the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, 1730 M Street NW, Suite 218 Washington, D.C. 20036-4542 For offers sent via US Mail, FedEx, or similar methods, the address is: U.S. Office of Special Counsel, 1730 M Street NW, Suite 218 Washington, D.C. 20036-4542 Interested offerors may email dstickler@osc.gov to receive notification when any amendments are issued and available for downloading. Please note that the Office of Special Counsel provides the notification service as a convenience and does not guarantee that notifications will be received by all persons on the mailing list. Therefore, we recommend that you monitor the U.S. Office of Special Counsel web site for all information relevant to acquisitions.
- Place of Performance
- Address: U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) 1730 M Street NW, Suite 201 Washington, D.C.
- Zip Code: 20036-4542
- Country: UNITED STATES
- Zip Code: 20036-4542
- Record
- SN01329580-W 20070629/070628032049 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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