SPECIAL NOTICE
D -- System Hosting and Updates for the Forecast of Opportunities, Operations, and Maintenance
- Notice Date
- 3/20/2018
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 519190
— All Other Information Services
- Contracting Office
- Office of the Chief Procurement Officer, Washington, District of Columbia, 20528, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20528
- Solicitation Number
- DHS-18-001
- Archive Date
- 4/16/2018
- Point of Contact
- Nikolai Matoka, Phone: (202) 447-5426
- E-Mail Address
-
nikolai.matoka@hq.dhs.gov
(nikolai.matoka@hq.dhs.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Chief Procurement Officer (OCPO) Acquisition Systems Branch (ASB) Request for Information (RFI) Title: System Hosting and Updates for the Forecast of Opportunities, Operations, and Maintenance. SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE & REQUEST FOR INFORMATION. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is for planning purposes only and shall not be construed as an obligation on the part of the Government. This is NOT a Request for Quotation (RFQ) or Proposal (RFP). No solicitation documents exist, and a formal solicitation may or may not be issued by the Government as a result of the responses received to this RFI. The Government will not pay for any response or demonstration expenses. Any information received will become the property of the Government and will not be returned to the submitter. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in their response. The purpose of this RFI is to collect information from industry on specific commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products and services that can provide a forecast of small business opportunities maintained with current updated requirements for industry to access and review at any time. I. BACKGROUND Public Law 100-656, the Business Opportunity Development Reform Act of 1988, amended the Small Business Act to emphasize acquisition planning. The law requires agencies to compile and publish projections of contracting opportunities that small businesses may be able to perform. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Forecast of Opportunities includes projections of all anticipated contract actions above $150,000 that small businesses may be able to perform under direct contracts with DHS, or through subcontract arrangements with the Department's large business prime contractors. The Forecast of Opportunities is a COTS product and is accessible on any system platform, including smart phones, and works on Apple and Microsoft Windows computers. The site has two portals, one for government and one for industry, on the same web page, and is a software as a service (SaaS) hosted by the vendor. New DHS opportunities occur intermittently, which requires the Forecast of Opportunities to be available for updates as needed. The Forecast of Opportunities must be maintained and updated at all times for industry to access. The high level requirements are as follows: • Maintain a current forecast in a system; • System generated removal of outdated requirements; • Ability for the government to update requirements when needed; • A web portal for industry to access on different types of platforms; • PIV Card access for government users; • Provide different user roles and responsibilities; • Routing documents in the system between roles; • Documents can be shared by multiple users; • Publishing and removing requirements on the forecast any time when needed; • Connect the requirement to the award; and • Provide reports to track requirements and maintain the forecast. II. SCOPE In order to successfully execute the Forecast of Opportunities requirement, the contractor shall provide and maintain a COTS system to facilitate the communication of future acquisition opportunities from DHS to industry. III. REQUIREMENTS The Forecast of Opportunities program is comprised of the following requirements: 1. The system shall be offered as SaaS; 2. The system shall meet DHS security requirements; 3. The system shall have an industry portal to access, print, and download the forecast of opportunities; 4. The system shall provide the capability for industry to set up notifications for recently published or updated opportunities; 5. The system shall provide a way to remove requirements that will not be awarded; 6. The system shall route documents to different user roles; 7. The contractor shall make changes to the system as needed and have the capability to implement the changes during off-hours (e.g. 7:00 PM ET through 7:00 AM ET); 8. Course documentation (i.e. training guides) shall be provided and hosted on the web portal to support each user role and navigation of the system; 9. Reports shall manage the flow of requirements between user roles and offices; 10. Development, maintenance, revision, and updates of the system and hardware; 11. Conversion of paper-based materials to electronic formats and making electronic materials 508 compliant; 12. The system shall be hosted offsite in a DHS Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) certified facility; 13. The system shall have a public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate; 14. The system shall support at least 5000 users; 15. The system shall be accessible to government employees by User ID and Password and/or PIV card; 16. The contractor shall provide training for implementation of the COTS product; 17. The product shall have two separate access levels, one by industry and the other by government users. Each screen shall provide user functionality according to the type of user and role; 18. The contractor shall provide support to industry as needed; 19. The contractor shall provide system support, troubleshooting, and training on system functionality over the phone to the DHS system administrator when needed; 20. The contractor shall provide senior developer and testers to ensure implementation, maintenance, and all updates are implemented with little to no downtime; 21. Software, courseware, and other training products shall be developed and tested in accordance with the DHS Office of Accessible Systems & Technology (OAST) standards and test process guidelines, available from https://www.dhs.gov/compliance-test-processes. These include: • DHS Section 508 Compliance Test Process for Application and Fields; • All documentation and the system shall meet the 508 Conformance Test Process; and • DHS Section 508 PDF Document Accessibility Test Process. 22. Contractors shall provide OAST-certified Trusted Testers to facilitate this requirement; 23. Contractors shall provide the Trusted Testers and not use government resources to accomplish 508 conformance. If Trusted Tester training and certification is needed, the vendor can complete several courses and final certification exam, a process that may take approximately 4-6 weeks to complete. More information can be obtained by sending an email to accessibility@hq.dhs.gov. IV. REQUEST FOR INFORMATION DHS requests the following information to determine potential sources: 1. Does your company already offer a solution for publishing agency requirements in the planning stages to make industry aware of potential work? 2. Are there proprietary aspects of any of your processes? 3. Describe your firm's pricing methodology. Please provide a brief estimate of the likely costs for the services you describe. Specifically, hardware, maintenance, system hosting, licenses, and helpdesk support for each user or SaaS for the COTS product included in your commercial pricing approach. 4. How frequently do you update system software, (i.e. upgrading hardware architecture to support increased memory and CPU requirements)? 5. Can your system process information from other systems' data provided by other applications and provide data to other applications for processing? 6. Do you have experience transitioning customers to your services from those of another provider, if so, can you provide a large-scale example, similar in scope to the government need? 7. Describe customer support capabilities. What channels do you use (self-service, assisted service)? 8. List any software required to use your system (i.e., web browsers, browser plug-ins, system extensions, databases, etc.). 9. Describe the levels of security to safeguard entity data and hosting facility. 10. What other concepts or processes should the government be considering? 11. What are creative/innovative ideas for how to segment/structure the Government's approach? 12. Provide an affirmative statement that you can comply with the following: Government owns all data associated with the DHS forecasting system and maintains it in perpetuity. 13. Provide an affirmative statement that you can adhere to security policies outlined in Management Directive MD 4300A (DHS IT security policy). Government expectations: 1. Government owns all data associated with the system and maintains it in perpetuity; and 2. All data fields, including any provider's identifier, are available for open use and reuse, by all Government agencies. V. RESPONSE INSTRUCTION We are requesting industry to provide a written Statement of Capability to this RFI that addresses the extent to which the requirements identified above can be met. Only electronic submissions will be accepted. Electronic files larger than 5 MB shall be broken down into multiple files with no single file exceeding 5 MB. Submissions shall not exceed 15 pages, excluding a cover page. Each electronic submission shall include: 1. The RFI number in the subject line; 2. The file number and total files being submitted (e.g., File 1 of 4, File 2 of 4, etc.); 3. A Point of Contact (POC), phone number and email address of the person (in the body of the email) to be contacted regarding any correspondence between the Government and the Vendor. The POC shall be capable of addressing questions or issues associated with the submission and content of the RFI; 4. A brief summary of email content, vendor name, vendor GSA Schedule Contract number (including Schedule number and GSA Schedule category number), and the firm's mailing address; 5. Primary NAICS code of the vendor and business size classification; and 6. Brief summary of the vendor organization (e.g. parent company, age, size, number of customers, offices, etc.) including ownership structure. Your response shall be delivered via e-mail to Nikolai Matoka (Nikolai.Matoka@hq.dhs.gov). The due date of submissions is 12:00 PM Eastern Time (ET) on Friday, April 13, 2018. Responses and inquiries will not be addressed after this due date. Any information submitted that is determined to be proprietary or confidential shall be marked accordingly. Please be advised that all submissions become the property of the Federal Government, and will not be returned. Responses to this RFI may be reviewed by Government technical experts drawn from staff within DHS and other Federal agencies. The Government may use selected support contractor personnel to assist in the review. These support contractors will be bound by appropriate non-disclosure agreements. This action will be governed under DHS law enforcement sensitive guidelines. Questions and requests for clarifications on this RFI shall be sent via e-mail to Nikolai Matoka (Nikolai.Matoka@hq.dhs.gov) as soon as possible, but no later than 12:00 PM ET on Tuesday, March 27, 2018. Responses to questions will be posted for all to see as a modification to the FBO.gov post. NOTE: This RFI is released pursuant to FAR Part 15.201(e), Exchanges with Industry, and all interested parties are encouraged to respond. This request is for information purposes only and shall not be considered as a request for proposal or as an obligation. This is not a solicitation; no award will be made as a result of this request. The government will not pay for information and materials received in response to this synopsis. Responses to this notice are not an offer and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. All responses become the property of the Government and will not be returned to the submitter.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DHS/OCPO/DHS-OCPO/DHS-18-001/listing.html)
- Record
- SN04860434-W 20180322/180320231114-91867a5d254a0a7d55e5622fe1048bb2 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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