70 -- NATIONAL DOCKETING/MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM

Notice Date

March 14, 2001

Contracting Office

Social Security Administration, Deputy Commissioner for Finance, Assessment and Management, Office of Acquisition and Grants, 1710 Gwynn Oak Avenue, Baltimore, MD, 21207-5279

ZIP Code

21207-5279

Solicitation Number

Reference-Number-NDMIS-01

Response Due

March 29, 2001

Point of Contact

Madeline Tims, Contract Specialist, Phone 410-965-9488, Fax 410-966-5982, Email madeline.tims@ssa.gov -- Wayne Mcdonald, Contract Specialist, Phone 4109659480, Fax 4109659560, Email wayne.mcdonald@ssa.gov

E-Mail Address

Madeline Tims (madeline.tims@ssa.gov)

Description

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is seeking commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software that will enable the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) to create and implement a National Docketing/Management Information System (NDMIS). SSA will act as its own integrator and will acquire hardware and database software independently. SSA will also configure the NDMIS software in-house. The COTS software shall require little of no customization of source code; SSA will consider changing business processes to implement and configure software without customization. The COTS vendor will be required to provide configuration training and some configuration assistance. The COTS architecture shall be a web-based design and not a client-server design with an added browser front-end. The COTS software must be fully integrated, requiring no third-party vendor software for the base system (i.e., Matter Management, Docketing and Calendaring, Event Tracking, Time Tracking and Budgeting, Document Management and Assembly, and Querying). The software must be able to interface with BrioQuery or Crystal Reports Professional for reporting. The web-based COTS must be generally available and in use by one or more customers. The COTS software must meet the business, functional, and technical requirements below. OGC is responsible for providing legal advice to SSA on a variety of issues including program litigation cases that involve benefit claims; general law matters that involve litigation and legal advice on a full range of personnel litigation and miscellaneous non-program business issues; and, various Social Security program policy and legislative matters. As part of the program litigation workload, OGC anticipates new federal court case filings of over 15,000 cases per year in addition to the pending workload of more than 20,000 open litigation cases. This anticipated workload is in addition to the workload for general law and policy and legislative matters, which numbers over 1500 new matters per year and is expected to increase. The NDMIS must be accessible and available to more than 500 users in all of OGC_s 12 offices, which include OGC Headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland; the Answer Unit in Falls Church, Virginia; and ten Regional offices across the country. The product(s) must be fully compatible with OGC_s current technical architecture environment. The client components include Intel Pentium 450 MHz+, 64 MB+, 2.0 GB+, Olicom 16 mbps Token Ring Card, Windows NT 4.0 SP6workstation, 17 inch monitors, resolution settings at 800 x 600 (small fonts), Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, and Microsoft Office 97. The server components include Intel Pentium 400-500 CPU (single or dual) processor, 260+ MB RAM, 9+ GB hard drive, Olicom Token Ring Network Card, Windows NT 4.0 SP6; UNIX, IIS 4.0 Web Server, Microsoft Exchange 5.5 SP2, Oracle (7.3, 8.0) on HPUX V10.20 or DB2 (mainframe). The network components include 56 kbps, T1, T3 WAN speed, and 16 mbps (local ring speed). The product must be compatible with TCP/IP and support ODBC connectivity. The product must be a 32-bit application. 1. The vendor must list each product name of the MATTER MANAGEMENT/DOCKETING family of products, current version release, and a brief description. List only generally available (GA) releases, not versions in development or testing. If more than one product, provide the following information separately for each product. 2. The vendor must identify the user-interface components of the product. Include GUI, Help, debugging, customization, font size and visual controls (e.g., zoom and scaling), and other features, as appropriate. 3. The vendor must describe the administrative facilities included in the product. These may include, but are not limited to, facilities for adding users, defining security levels for users, creating new windows and new fields within existing windows, updating _pick lists,_ and archiving records. 4. The vendor must describe the manner in which the Matter Management/Docketing product will meet the following requirements. If customization to the base product is required to achieve the process described below, identify the amount and level of effort of customization required (e.g., parameter modifications, code changes and recompilation, etc.). (a) Matter Management. OGC must track items of information specific to various legal matter types that it will maintain in the system. The number of distinct matter types and the approximate number of items of information per matter type are described below. In addition, the preferred number of screens per matter type is identified. i. OGC must track approximately 15 items of information for every matter in the system in addition to the number of items below for the specific matter types. ii. OGC must track approximately 70 additional items of information for the first matter type. OGC would prefer to track these 70 items in at least two separate screens_the first containing approximately 20 items, representing the most important items, and one to four additional screens containing the remaining approximately 50 items. iii. OGC must track approximately 50 additional items of information for the second matter type. iv. OGC must track approximately 40 additional items of information for the third matter type. v. OGC must track approximately 10 additional items of information for the fourth matter type. vi. OGC also must track at least three additional specialized matters. OGC must track up to 20 additional items of information for each additional specialized matter. (b) Docketing and Calendaring. OGC requires an automated method of tracking a legal matter_s upcoming events and due dates to ensure that it may timely respond to impending case deadlines and to facilitate workload balancing. Accordingly, OGC requires an automated docketing feature with the following characteristics that will track the upcoming events and due dates for a legal matter: i. OGC requires an automated event rule feature that automatically will schedule due dates and upcoming events based on event rules specific to a matter type or jurisdiction and that will factor weekends and holidays into the automated due date/upcoming event calcualations. ii. OGC requires the ability to have an entered event trigger and docket (onto the appropriate calendars) other related events; and must be able to easily add, modify, and delete specific events and entire event triggering rules. iii. OGC requires that the docketing feature automatically maintain the upcoming events and due dates in a graphical calendar display. iv. A calendar must be maintained for each legal matter, each individual staff member, and other OGC-defined entities such as regions, branches, and departments. The calendars of all entities related to a matter must be updated with the ucpoming events and due dates that occur in the matter. v. OGC desires the capability for the system to automatically send _tickler_ reminders of upcoming events, e.g., via e-mail. (c) Event Tracking. OGC requires an automated method of tracking current events that occur with respect to a legal matter and to maintain a history of matter events. OGC requires the event tracking feature to have the following characteristics: i. OGC requires the ability to track incoming items (e.g., Complaints and Court Orders) and the dates on which they were received or filed; outgoing items (e.g., Court Briefs, Requests for Interrogatories, Legal Opinions) and the dates on which they were released from OGC; and communications (e.g., telephone calls, e-mail, facsimiles) between OGC and other entities. ii. OGC must have the ability to easily customize the list of events tracked. iii. OGC must have the ability to obtain an event history of a legal matter by, for example, viewing the events that have occurred in the legal matter. (d) Time Tracking and Budgeting. OGC requires the ability to track the time spent on legal matters for the purposes of reporting the effort expended on various tasks and to assist with workload and staffing projections. The product should permit OGC to specify and modify the activities to be tracked. (e) Document Management and Assembly. OGC desires the ability to electronically associate documents with their corresponding legal matters and to view those documents from within the software. This feature will enable any authorized user to view an OGC-created document from any workstation, even if the user is not physically proximate to the server on which the document is stored. In addition, OGC desires the ability to maintain boilerplate and fill-in-the-blank documents that may be used to produce finished documents when merged with information from the matter management database. (f) Querying and Reporting. OGC requires that the product provide management information reports concerning assignments, due dates, workload, and productivity. OGC must be able to query and use in reports any data element stored in the Matter Management/Docketing system. The product must provide a simple query interface and the ability to create an unlimited number of pre-defined, or canned, reports. The reports should be able to be created with features such as headers and footers; a variety of sorts or multi-level sorts; computed expressions; and user-defined break levels and groupings. 5. The vendor must provide a descriptive overview of the product architecture. Identify the programming languages in which the product is written and describe why those languages were selected. Provide a pictorial of the architecture and indicate where each product component fits within that architecture. Include a list of all platforms supported, system requirements, and network requirements. Identify any additional software required, such as drivers or middleware and whether those items are provided with your product or must be acquired separately. For any additional software, specify the release level and any other requirements. 6. The vendor must explain the security mechanisms within the product. Show how these mechanisms interact with database security facilities and systems security facilities. Identify specifically whether the product can interact with the Top Secret security facility for MVS, if applicable, and in which ways. Specify the same for the security features of DB2/MVS and Oracle on a server. State whether the product provides matter-level, window-level, record-level, and field-level security, and describe these security levels. 7. The vendor must describe each technical process the product performs, specifying where it is performed, how it is initiated, how it makes use of system resources, the network services required, and other factors related to operations. Include descriptions of the techniques that have been applied to optimize query processing or maximize performance, for example. 8. The vendor must describe an implementation of the product at a customer site with a high-volume, large database (>60,000 records) environment that is geographically diverse. Specify such items as the number of concurrent users, the amount of data transported between systems, and the size and frequency of loads and updates to databases. 9. The vendor must identify the number of installations of the product and the type and number of government customers for the product. State the company_s market shares, define the market to which it is referring, and specify the calculations used to arrive at the market share figure. State the number of years the company has been in business and the number of years it has been in the Matter Management/Docketing business. Also, provide company revenue totals for the past two years. Interested vendors able to provide the required software are invited to submit information in sufficient detail to demonstrate their ability to meet SSA_s requirements. Vendors responding should indicate whether the candidate products are available on the GSA schedule or other Government Wide Agency Contracts (GWAC). Cross-reference to previously submitted material is discouraged. Cost or pricing data may be submitted. This is not a request for proposals (RFP) and the Government does not intend to pay for information submitted. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the evaluation of the data received. No contract award will be made on the basis of responses received; however, this information will be used in SSA_s assessment of capable sources. Responses to this notice should be submitted in duplicate by March 29, 2001 and should refer to _National Docketing/Management Information System (NDMIS-01)._ Requests for copies of a solicitation will not be honored or acknowledged.

Web Link

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Record

Loren Data Corp. 20010316/70SOL005.HTM (D-073 SN50G2E4)