Social Security Administration, Office of Acquisition and Grants, 1710 Gwynn Oak Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21207-0696

D -- UNIVERSAL FLAT DATA TABLE METHODOLOGY, SOFTWARE SUPPORT AND CONSULTING SERVICES POC Wayne McDonald Tel: 410-966-1323 The validation of the Reengineered Disability System (RDS) is the first major application to be run on a client-server platform. New software tools are being developed by SSA and other tools available in the marketplace must be purchased to help with constructing, managing and reporting on RDS validation cases. Some of these tools are commercially available data capture and scripting tools which automate the construction of test cases, test case execution, cloning, save-restore and an ORACLE database case comparison utility. Validation planning has lead to the identification of over 21,000 conditions in the SSA-developed Validation Transaction Tracking System. In order to automate the execution of these cases, the utilities listed above will need to be efficient enough to allow the current staff to routinely validate the entire RDS application. Automated testing involves making best use of data capture and scripting tools for initial acceptance of software releases and ongoing regression testing of each release to guarantee continued correctness. IMI Systems, Inc. has developed techniques which allow programmers to generalize the scripts they write using the Automated Test Facility (ATF) tool from Softbridge, Inc. IMI calls this the Universal Flat Data Table (UFDT) Methodology. Instead of creating a script for each scenario, they ''map'' the application screen by screen; this allows an analyst to use all of the controls in that screen, without having to communicate the content or sequence of use to the programmer. This approach allows the analyst to create spreadsheets which hold the data which will navigate through each RDS screen. This allows the programmers to concentrate on bringing successively larger parts of the application under test and frees up the analysts to create matching spreadsheets for that new functionality. The ATF tool was selected as a result of market analysis performed on behalf of SSA by The Gartner Group. ATF was identified as the only tool that would operate both with the ENFIN developmental environment and with the OS/2 operating system. The UFDT methodology was identified in turn by Softbridge, Inc., as the only licensable methodology that would provide data driven scripting in conjunction with ATF. The Social Security Administration proposes to contract for the support for software and methods developed and marketed by three different companies: IMI Systems, Inc., the owner and licensor of the UFDT methodology; Softbridge, Inc., the developer of the ATF scripting tool software; and, V-Mark Software, developer of the ENFIN programming environment. Marketing research has identified only one source which maintains a contractor-subcontractor relationship with all three companies, specifically, Praxis, Inc. Praxis is the single source for support and consultation for all three products through subcontracts with the individual companies under its non-mandatory GSA contract. Firms having the capability to provide the required software support through subcontracts with the aforemention companies should submit complete details. The responses must clearly state the ability to provide the required software product support through subcontracts with IMI Systems, Softbridge and V-Mark Software. Interested parties must respond to this notice within 30 calendar days from the date of this publication. Responses must be addressed to the procuring office Social Security Administration, Office of Acquisition and Grants, 1710 Gwynn Oak Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21207. Responses should refer to Synopsis Number WMC0722.CBD. The information respondents provide shall pertain to the synopsis only: cross referencing to material previously submitted is not recommended and will not be evaluated. No contract award will be made on the basis of responses received to this announcement. However, this information will be used in SSA's assessment of capable sources. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the evaluation of the source data received. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. Requests for copies of a solicitation will not be honored or acknowledged. The Government does not intend to pay for information solicited or received. No cost or pricing data is required or requested. (0207)

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