Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY ISSUE OF NOVEMBER 19, 2005 FBO #1454
SOURCES SOUGHT

70 -- Request For Information - Meeting Facilitation Tool

Notice Date

11/17/2005
 

Notice Type

Sources Sought
 

NAICS

511210 — Software Publishers
 

Contracting Office

Social Security Administration, Deputy Commissioner for Finance, Assessment and Management, Office of Acquisition and Grants, 1st Floor, Rear Entrance 7111 Security Blvd., Baltimore, MD, 21244
 

ZIP Code

21244
 

Solicitation Number

Reference-Number-SSA-RFI-06-1004
 

Response Due

12/2/2005
 

Archive Date

12/17/2005
 

Description

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is seeking vendors who can provide a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Meeting Facilitation Tool (MFT). The MFT that SSA requires is a web-based software package that will assist meeting participants (i.e., meeting planners, facilitators and other participants) in brainstorming, problem solving, consensus decision making and action planning on the issues for which a meeting is being held. It will enable meeting participants who are sitting in a meeting room (or other work locations) at stations with PC access (desktop or laptop) to SSA?s Intranet to interact with a meeting session by using the web browser on the PC at their station. The following specifications are mandatory requirements - (1)The vendor?s MFT must provide the capability for meeting planners to: 1. Prepare an agenda for a meeting to define subjects, issues, etc. that will be addressed during a meeting session; 2. Send an e-mail invitation to selected meeting participants identifying the date/time of the meeting session and the timeframe for all participant responses; and 3. Set access permissions for individuals to control the ability to add, retrieve, modify and delete the information stored in the MFT's database. (2)The vendor?s MFT must provide the capability for meeting participants to: 1. Join/ access a meeting session via the Internet browser on their PC by clicking on the link in the e-mail invitation; 2. Interact with a meeting session in real-time or at some other time (within a specified time period) when their schedule allows; 3. Revisit a meeting session (within a specified time period) to add additional input to a discussion topic; 4. View the meeting session?s agenda on the screen of their PC; 5. Type their input (e.g., ideas, opinions, questions, answers, facts, comments, suggestions, votes) into an electronic notepad on their PC; 6. Post the input from their electronic notepad (after editing) to an on-screen flip chart that can be viewed by all participants on the screens of their PC; 7. Make their input contributions anonymous or attributable as appropriate to the discussion topic; 8. Build on the ideas on the flip chart, adding comments, web links, files or images, and allow a threading of ideas through multi layering and 9. Pass their contributions only to other participants that they designate. (3)The vendor?s MFT must provide the capability for meeting facilitators to: 1. Organize (e.g., combine, edit, move, copy, categorize) the items displayed on the on-screen flip chart into a hierarchy of topics; 2. Display the levels of the hierarchy using structure lines, bullets, or a numbering format; 3. Save all participant contributions, survey data and votes in a database where the data can be retrieval by a unique meeting session identifier; 4. Collect participant contributions at the end of a meeting, and organize them into a concise, publication-ready report or voting ballot in either Word or HTML format; 5. Create and administer surveys (with options for rating, checkboxes, high/medium/low, true/false, assigning points, and agree/disagree scales) for participants to complete. (4) The vendor?s MFT must comply with the following operating environment requirements: 1. The MFT must run on the Windows XP Operating System; 2. The MFT must run in Microsoft's NT and AD (Active Directory) network environments; 3. The MFT must run under Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser interface and 4. The MFT must enable up to 100 participants with PC access (desktop or laptop) to SSA?s Internet to interact with a meeting session. The MFT must be compatible with Federal Government Section 508 standards. Section 508 software standards can be found at www.section508.gov. (Interested vendors must provide verifiable proof in sufficient detail to demonstrate their ability to meet the Agency?s requirement, see URL site http://www.ssa.gov/oag/acq/oagacq_508.htm.) The software/vendor must meet the following Sections of 508 standards: 1) Section 1194.21 - Software Applications and Operating Systems; 2) Section 1194.22 - Web-based Internet Information and Applications; 3) Section 1194.31 - Functional Performance; and 4) Section 1194.41 - Information, Documentation, And Support. SSA uses the JAWS (speech input / audio output) and MAGic (screen magnification) products from Freedom Scientific Corporation. All software must support these products. Compatibility with Dragon software for mobility impaired individuals is also required. Vendors that believe they can offer a technically compliant product (or one that can be made compliant with minimal modification) are invited to submit information concerning their product?s capabilities. Detailed responses to each of the above requirements (with substantiating documentation) are required. Simple marketing information or incomplete responses will not be considered. Reference to vendor web sites is not considered a valid response. Respondents should indicate whether their software is available on GSA Federal Supply Schedules or any other Government-wide Agency Contract (GWAC). Please submit separately product cost and/or pricing data, inclusive of annual maintenance, with your response. This is NOT a Request for Proposal and the Government does not intend to pay for information submitted. Respondents should refer to SSA-RFI-06-1004. Electronic responses only must be submitted by December 2nd, 2005. Faxed information will not be accepted. The size limitation for email attachments is 5 megabytes. MS Word 2002 is the standard word processing software. NO FORMAL SOLICITATION IS BEING ISSUED AT THIS TIME, and the Government does not intend to pay for the information submitted. This information will be used in SSA?s assessment of capable sources. Respondents will NOT be notified of any evaluated results from the data received. If a solicitation should result from the analysis of the responses, it is anticipated that such a solicitation will occur sometime during the first quarter of calendar year 2006. Any questions should be submitted via EMAIL ONLY (no phone calls please) to the Contract Specialist listed as Point of Contact for the RFI for this posting.
 

Place of Performance

Address: Social Security Administration, 6401 Security Blvd, Baltimore, MD

Zip Code: 21235

Country: USA
 

Record

SN00933958-W 20051119/051117212356 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

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