PRESOL | R | COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION TOOLS AND SUPPORT

FBO DAILY ISSUE OF DECEMBER 20, 2009 FBO #2948
SOLICITATION NOTICE

R -- COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION TOOLS AND SUPPORT

Notice Date: 12/18/2009
Notice Type: Presolicitation
NAICS: 541512 — Computer Systems Design Services
Contracting Office: Department of Veterans Affairs;VHA Service Center (VSC);Building 3, Second Floor;10000 Brecksville Road;Brecksville OH 44141
ZIP Code: 44141
Solicitation Number: VA-776-10-RP-0011
Response Due: 2/4/2010
Archive Date: 5/5/2010
Point of Contact: Kevin FinkContract Specialist
E-Mail Address: Contract Specialist
(kevin.fink@va.gov)
Small Business Set-Aside: N/A
Description: NOTE: Much of this solicitation document has been omitted from this posting due to character limitations within Federal Business Opportunities. Offerors will have access to all attachments, clauses, provisions, instructions, and evaluation factors upon release of the complete solicitation on January 5, 2010. Table of Contents SECTION A1 A.1 SF 1449 SOLICITATION/CONTRACT/ORDER FOR COMMERCIAL ITEMS1 SECTION B - CONTINUATION OF SF 1449 BLOCKS3 B.1 CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION DATA3 B.2 STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES5 B.3 PRICE/COST SCHEDULE28 SECTION C - CONTRACT CLAUSES31 C.1 52.217-8 OPTION TO EXTEND SERVICES (NOV 1999)31 C.2 52.217-9 OPTION TO EXTEND THE TERM OF THE CONTRACT (MAR 2000)31 C.3 VAAR 852.203-70 COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING (JAN 2008)31 C.4 VAAR 852.203-71 DISPLAY OF DEPARTMENT OF VETERAN AFFAIRS HOTLINE POSTER (DEC 1992)31 C.5 VAAR 852.237-70 CONTRACTOR RESPONSIBILITIES (APR 1984)32 C.6 VAAR 852.273-75 SECURITY REQUIREMENTS FOR UNCLASSIFIED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES (Interim - October 2008)32 C.7 VAAR 852.273-76 ELECTRONIC INVOICE SUBMISSION (Interim - October 2008)32 C.8 52.252-2 CLAUSES INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (FEB 1998)33 C.9 52.212-5 CONTRACT TERMS AND CONDITIONS REQUIRED TO IMPLEMENT STATUTES OR EXECUTIVE ORDERS--COMMERCIAL ITEMS (SEP 2009)33 C.10 ADDITIONAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS40 SECTION D - CONTRACT DOCUMENTS, EXHIBITS, OR ATTACHMENTS43 SECTION E - SOLICITATION PROVISIONS44 E.1 52.212-1 INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS--COMMERCIAL ITEMS (JUN 2008)44 E.2 ADDENDUM TO 52.212-1, INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS48 E.3 ADDENDUM to FAR 52.212-1 Instructions to Offerors --- Commercial Items - Sub-Part 13.5 Test Program55 E.4 52.216-1 TYPE OF CONTRACT (APR 1984)55 E.5 52.219-22 SMALL DISADVANTAGED BUSINESS STATUS (OCT 1999)55 E.6 52.233-2 SERVICE OF PROTEST (SEP 2006)56 E.7 VAAR 852.233-70 PROTEST CONTENT/ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION (JAN 2008)56 E.8 VAAR 852.233-71 ALTERNATE PROTEST PROCEDURE (JAN 1998)57 E.9 52.212-2 EVALUATION--COMMERCIAL ITEMS (JAN 1999)57 E.10 ADDENDUM TO 52.212-2 EVALUATION - COMMERCIAL ITEMS58 E.11 52.212-3 OFFEROR REPRESENTATIONS AND CERTIFICATIONS-- COMMERCIAL ITEMS (AUG 2009)62 SECTION B - CONTINUATION OF SF 1449 BLOCKS B.1 CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION DATA (continuation from Standard Form 1449, block 18A.) 1. Contract Administration: All contract administration matters will be handled by the following individuals: a. CONTRACTOR: b. GOVERNMENT: Contracting Officer 00776 Department of Veterans Affairs VHA Service Center (VSC) Building 3, Second Floor 10000 Brecksville Road Brecksville OH 44141 2. CONTRACTOR REMITTANCE ADDRESS: All payments by the Government to the contractor will be made in accordance with: [X]52.232-34, Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer - Other than Central Contractor Registration, or []52.232-36, Payment by Third Party 3. INVOICES: Invoices shall be submitted in arrears: a. Quarterly[] b. Semi-Annually[] c. Other[X] Monthly, after completion of deliverables.] 4. GOVERNMENT INVOICE ADDRESS: All invoices from the contractor shall be mailed to the following address: Department of Veterans Affairs Financial Services Center P.O. Box 149971 Austin TX 78714-9971 ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF AMENDMENTS: The offeror acknowledges receipt of amendments to the Solicitation numbered and dated as follows: AMENDMENT NO DATE ______________________________ _____________ ______________________________ _____________ ______________________________ _____________ B.2 STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES I.Background: 1.The Emerging Health Technologies (EHT) team is tasked with identifying and assessing emerging health IT technologies and practices as potential candidates for improving the quality and efficiency of VHA healthcare. EHT facilitates entrepreneurial investment for incubation and/or direct research and prototyping; builds relationships with industry and other private and Government entities; produces trending reports and provides a technical briefing service for audiences ranging from business and technical to executive. A particular focus of the EHT team is to support VHA stakeholder investigations into the use of technology that offers the promise of improving support to VHA's healthcare lines of business. Recent organizational changes have affected the historically close working relationship between clinical and software development staffs and there is a strong desire within VHA to enhance the ability of the field to introduce innovation into clinical practice. As a result, the EHT team has partnered with the Innovation Program Office within the Health and Medical Informatics Office and the Office of Information and Technology to acquire tools and services to provide a collaborative environment called the 'Innovation Sandbox.' II.Scope: 1.The Innovation Sandbox will be a virtual and transparent environment, eventually accessible to any VA employee or Contractor with a network account. The Innovation Sandbox will be used for a range of activities including collaborative development of ideas, requirements, models and software. The virtual nature of the Innovation Sandbox will support communities of interest, irrespective of organizational alignment or physical location, and strengthen early idea sharing and maturation leading to the identification of promising solutions to business concerns and requirements definition that represent enterprise needs. Consequently, the environment is expected to allow VHA to enrich its tradition of field-based innovation as well as facilitate more rapid deployment of mature software that adheres to national development standards. 2.The Innovation Sandbox will be introduced in stages. The first phase will be a pilot with a limited number of users and projects and is expected to last approximately four months. In preparation for the pilot, the software tools will be installed and configured, governance will be established, and users and pilot projects will be identified. Ongoing support for the pilot will afford VHA an opportunity to improve and enhance the environment before transitioning it to production status. The production phase is expected to begin approximately six months after contract award. 3. The Contractor shall supply collaborative tools software and services to provide, administer and sustain an integrated collaborative environment. The Contractor will also assess and document opportunities to expand and strengthen the administration and operation of the program. 4. Initial efforts are focused largely on getting delivery of the pilot environment first followed by the production environment. The first three task areas below reflect the categories of work that will be done to provide and sustain the operational environment. Subsequent contract activity, however, is expected to fall primarily in the fourth area below and requirements will emerge as VHA garners experience working in a collaborative environment. Tasks in this category will inform the administrative and management aspects of the collaborative tools environment (e.g., design challenge options) that will help attract users to the environment, facilitate their work, and ultimately provide VHA with a positive return on its investment. a.Self-organization and sustainment of communities of interest; b.Full lifecycle management of idea management, knowledge sharing; c.Distributed software development management (e.g., configuration management, issue tracking, assignment tracking and bug reporting); and d.Assessment and documentation of administrative and operations opportunities such as development of standard operating guides and increasing program awareness through a variety of communication methods. 5.VHA has established a high-level Capability List for the Innovation Sandbox program. Paragraph 6 expands upon this list with a set of Core Goals. The numbers in parentheses in the list below represent a mapping to the Core Goals in paragraph 6. The desired Capabilities are as follows: a.Ability to support self-organization. This includes functions such as finding individuals with similar professional interests, discovering and joining communities, structuring and governing projects and/or teams. (Core Goal 1) b.Ability to support 'bottom up' innovation. This ability includes open opportunity submission, discovery, assessment, and collaborative maturation to improve processes, services, and products used by VHA. (Core Goal 1) c.Ability to support 'top down' innovation. This ability includes scheduled or urgent executive management "innovation challenges". (Core Goal 1) d.Ability to spotlight successes and support incentives to encourage user participation in the Innovation Sandbox. (Core Goal 1) e.Ability to allow assessments of innovative work efforts. Includes transparent commenting, voting, and popularity rankings tracked overall and by communities. (Core Goals 1, 2) f.Ability to identify isolated work efforts, discover commonalities, and realign or merge redundant tasks or groups. (Core Goals 1, 2, 10) g.Ability to support work efficiency within the Innovation Sandbox. This includes structured assessments, workflow, communication, and scheduling of activities. (Core Goals 1 -3) h.Ability to support knowledge sharing. This ability allows users to contribute, search, browse, analyze and maintain the innovation knowledge base. (Core Goals 1 -5, 8) i.Ability to support knowledge sharing. This ability allows users to contribute, search, Ability of the integrated architecture and artifacts (design, content, data, and metadata files) to contribute to overall flexibility: create anywhere, use anywhere, evaluate and trace. (Core Goals 1 - 6, 9 - 11) j.Ability to support the following types of roles: (Core Goals 1- 10) i."Guest" for general read privileges; ii."Registered User" to additionally include interactive privileges; iii."Authorized User" to additionally include special permissions (e.g., to a specific project); iv.Traditional "Administrator"; and v.Traditional "Sys Op." k.Ability to support transparency and traceability. This ability includes visibility of changes to social (e.g., ideas, suggestions, comments, questions, issues, and actions) and project artifacts (e.g., requirements, tasks, files, especially documents, code, and other "digital products" created via software, rich media including audio and video, and other project-focused artifacts of interest) throughout the environment. Core Goals 1 - 10) l.Ability to generate summarized and detailed reports (e.g., usage and status) for a variety of administrative and functional areas. (Core Goals 2, 10) m.Ability to support distributed development management. This ability includes software project functions such as configuration management, file release management, issue tracking, assignment tracking and bug reporting. (Core Goals 3, 4) n.Ability to support rapid user proficiency (usability, cognition, efficiency). (Core Goal 9) o.Ability to continuously adapt and extend as technology and VHA business needs change. (Core Goals 10, 11) p.Ability to provide a variety of administrative and operations support for the Innovation Sandbox such as standard operating guides and communication materials. (Core Goal 12) 6.VHA has expanded upon the high-level capability goals with the following set of 12 Core Goals that detail the desired capabilities. Core Goals 1 - 11 are focused on capabilities the toolset is expected to provide; Core Goal 12 speaks to capabilities the Contractor team must have in order to support the administrative and operational aspects of the environment. The Contractor is encouraged to leverage its experience in proposing solutions that may exceed VHA's stated goals and objectives or provide desired functionality capabilities in a more user friendly, efficient manner than what is expressed in this document. Core Goal 1: Ability to support collaborative innovation. VHA desires to create an environment that allows participants to discover and join communities of like-minded people to jointly examine issues and opportunities, share new ideas and repurpose existing knowledge in making improvements in the way VHA serves Veterans. To this end, VHA will acquire and integrate, through this contract, social networking tools to facilitate individual and group knowledge discovery and sharing. 1.Ability for any registered user to create and post Social Artifacts (e.g., ideas, suggestions, comments, questions, issues, and actions) for discussion and/or action. 2.Ability for any registered user to create and post Project Artifacts (e.g., requirements, tasks, files, especially documents, code, and other "digital products" created via software, rich media including audio and video, and other project-focused artifacts of interest) for discussion and/or action. 3.Ability for any registered user to add, associate or relate relevant references to Social or Project Artifact posts (e.g., URL, file). 4.Ability for any registered user to provide references to content (e.g., RSS or bookmarks) outside of the environment not related to a post. 5.Ability for any registered user to reply to or comment on Social Artifacts. 6.Ability for any registered user to delete or inactivate self-entered Social or Project Artifacts. 7.Ability for any guest to readily find Social and Project Artifacts via dynamic means (e.g., filters, keywords, direct or contextual search). 8.Ability for any guest to readily find Social and Project Artifacts via static means (e.g., trees, bread crumbs, lists). 9.Ability for any guest to search for tasks, issues, or files by attributes such as workspace, description, assignee, status, priority, or creation-date-range. 10.Ability for any registered user to assign metadata to Social and Project Artifacts, especially tags/labels and states. 11.Ability for any registered user to create a workspace (e.g., project or community) for discussing topics or for use by a specific group of people. 12.Ability for any guest to readily find a workspace (e.g., project or community) of interest without having to 'join' it. 13.Ability for any registered user to readily participate in a workspace (e.g., project or community) of interest without having to 'join' it. 14.Ability for any registered user to mature or promote Social and Project Artifacts informally (e.g., group-directed) or formally through a lifecycle (e.g., states or directed process). 15.Ability for any authorized user to identify and differentiate Social Artifacts for lifecycle promotion via related metrics and/or filters 16.Ability for any registered user to explicitly relate Social and Project Artifacts to each other within the proposed toolset 17.Ability for any registered user to directly or indirectly relate Social and Project Artifacts to each other outside the proposed toolset. 18.Ability for any guest to discover relationships between Social and Project Artifacts. 19.Ability to notify any registered user when individual Social or Project Artifacts are created, modified, or deleted. 20.Ability for any registered user to request a notification when Social or Project Artifacts are created, modified, or deleted based on a specific area of interest or topic 21.Ability for any authorized user to import requirements from XML or CSV format. 22.Ability for any authorized user to manage requirement and issue attributes such as description, state, priority, assigned-to and target release. 23.Ability for any guest to view project requirements, tasks, and issues and their change history. 24.Ability for any guest to see dependencies or duplications among or between requirements, tasks, and issues. 25.Ability for any authorized user to categorize or group requirements, tasks, or issues together. 26.Ability for any authorized user to create, review, update and delete tasks. 27.Ability for any authorized user to create and manage versions of requirements. 28.Ability for any authorized user to log and classify amendments to requirements as change requests 29.Ability for any authorized user to manage a hierarchical relationship between tasks so that a task may have sub-tasks. 30.Ability for any authorized user to import and export tasks and synchronize automatically with Microsoft (MS) Project. 31.Ability for administrators to specify the roles necessary to promote a Social or Project Artifact from one state to another. 32.Ability for any authorized user to manage task attributes such as title, description, state, priority, assigned-to, start and end dates, and estimated effort. 33.Ability for any authorized user to log and classify amendments to tasks as change requests 34.Ability for any authorized user to import and export issues in XML or CSV format. 35.Ability for any authorized user to synchronize with external (third-party) issue and defect management tools 36.Ability for any registered user to attach multi-valued metadata (e.g., first draft, second draft) to a document. 37.Ability for any authorized user to define and use templates for creating documents e.g., forms, test cases, design documents 38.Ability for any registered user to specify minimal profile information for an individual/resource so they can be located/found via searches by anyone in the environment. Other than system-specified basic information, additional profile attributes must be optional and under individual control. 39.Ability for any guest to find individuals participating in the environment. 40.Ability for any guest to readily view Social or Project Artifact contributions (including comments) by another individual. 41.Ability for any registered user to identify individuals subscribing to certain Social or Project artifacts or topics. 42.Ability for any guest to find groups of individuals participating in the environment. 43.Ability for any guest to find non-human resources (e.g., conference rooms) aligned to the environment. 44.Ability for any registered user to share content with others internal to the organization but outside of the product/solution (e.g., via a mail-to feature, link or collection of links). 45.Ability for any registered user to provide content from outside the proposed toolset as a pass-through or inline content (e.g., avoiding a transition to an external user interface). 46.Ability for content (e.g., from an email, via mobile, via a feed) to be pushed by any registered user to the Innovation Sandbox environment. 47.Ability for administrators to leverage incentives to encourage or promote participation. 48.Ability for any registered user to "favorite" or otherwise create a collection of items of interest within the environment. 49.Ability for administrators to promote appreciative inquiry (e.g., feature successes, sharing successes, or building upon successes of others). 50.Ability for any registered user to evaluate or assess the trust/reputation of an individual. 51.Ability for any registered user to have presence-awareness (e.g., currently online) coupled with state-awareness (e.g., inactivity) and opt-out capability. 52.Ability for any registered user to have near synchronous one-on-one or shared/group dialog, akin to instant messaging. Core Goal 2: Ability to support governance. VHA uses 'governance' in this context to refer to rules controlling and directing the roles, responsibilities, and privileges that will be granted to participants in the Innovation Sandbox. While participants will have a significant degree of autonomy, carefully crafted governance is sought to ensure the rights of individuals do not trump the common good. 1.Ability for any authorized user to pre-assign governance attributes to a community and project (i.e., by type or template), which differentiates how/when/why they can be formed, including self-forming, self-managed. 2.Ability for any registered user to optionally specify data criteria to add Social Artifacts (e.g., use of a form to collect specific information for an idea submission). 3.Ability for any authorized user to facilitate/escalate Social Artifacts through states/lifecycle. 4.Ability for any guest to view the progress of Social and Project Artifacts through a lifecycle (where assigned to a lifecycle), either individually or collectively. 5.Ability for any authorized user to manage change control (e.g., rollback, snapshot versioning) across the life of Social and Project Artifacts. 6.Ability for any guest to view changes, either full version or deltas only, across the life of Social and Project Artifacts. 7.Ability for any registered user to optionally specify the roles or permissions necessary to promote a Social or Project Artifact from one state to the next. 8.Ability for authorized user to specify community/project roles (e.g., registered user) by privileges which may be unique from overall system privileges. 9.Ability for administrator to specify roles/privileges at multiple levels of granularity (e.g., workspace, sub-workspace or artifact). 10.Ability for any registered user to access metrics to display, report and monitor (e.g., on dashboards). 11.Ability for any registered user to define custom or ad hoc metrics to be tracked. 12.Ability for any authorized user to evaluate resulting metrics (e.g., trending via use of analytics tools). 13.Ability for any registered user to request notification or alert based on defined rules such as a specified period of inactivity. 14.Ability for an administrator to change all entities such as states, transition-criteria, workflows, roles, permissions and metrics based on an external driver such as policy change. 15.Ability for any registered user to see artifact or file activity over a period of time for a specified repository or folder in repository. 16.Ability for any guest to search for all active projects or for projects by attributes such as description (e.g., name, target completion date, estimated cost). 17.Ability for any registered user to create and view visual reports (such as Gantt charts) for tasks associated with a project over a time period or by other task attributes. 18.Ability for any registered user to create and see reports for issues associated with a project or other issue attributes (e.g., product, severity, age, status). 19.Ability for any registered user to create and see reports for requirements associated with a project or other requirement attributes (e.g., product, priority, type). 20.Ability for any registered user to create and see reports for test cases associated with a selected set of requirements and optionally filtered by priority and/or type. Core Goal 3: Ability to support collaborative software development. Some communities will decide to move from the collaborative innovation phase (ideation) into a software development activity. While software development products themselves (e.g., code generators and requirements repositories) are outside the scope of this acquisition, the developers need access to companion tools that will enable definition and management of use cases and test data as well as tracking, workflow, and exportation of work products to other software development tools. 1.Ability for any authorized user to create, review, update and delete test cases. 2.Ability for any authorized user to import and export test cases in XML or CSV format. 3.Ability for any authorized user to synchronize with external (third-party) test case management tools. 4.Ability for any authorized user to define multiple states (e.g., 'approved', 'reviewed', 'obsolete') for a test case. 5.Ability for any authorized user to attach metadata such as tag or labels to a test case. 6.Ability for any authorized user to attach or embed a text or binary document in the test case. 7.Ability for any guest to view changes in test case state. 8.Ability for any authorized user to categorize or group test cases together. 9.Ability for any guest to relate test cases to each other to show dependencies and/or obsolete test cases. 10.Ability for any guest to search for test cases by project, and attributes such as description, status, creation-date-range, creator or some combination of these. Core Goal 4: Ability to support source code management. Developers will have the ability to examine the progress of software development (e.g., download builds, browse source code repositories) by using tools and / or interfaces provided by the Innovation Sandbox environment. 1.Ability for any authorized user to interface with a source code management (SCM) system to allow navigation of source-code repositories and browsing of code. 2.Ability for any authorized user to perform limited source-code management functions via browser such as seeing commit logs, making comments on commits and build-creation invocation. 3.Ability for any authorized user to integrate with a continuous build system to show build results, history, etc. 4.Ability for any authorized user to download builds via browser interface. Core Goal 5: Ability to support traceability among and between various types of artifacts. In order for Social Artifacts (e.g., ideas, actions) to move efficiently into the development lifecycle and result in Project Artifacts (e.g., requirements, code), it is critically important that the Innovation Sandbox support traceability among and between various types of artifacts. For example, VHA needs the ability to identify all risks or test cases associated with a particular requirement as well as checklists and approval forms associated with test cases. 1.Ability for any authorized user to relate an Issue back to a Requirement. 2.Ability for any authorized user to associate Risks with a Requirement or a Task. 3.Ability for any guest to view all Risks associated with a Requirement or a Task. 4.Ability for any authorized user to relate a Task back to a Requirement. 5.Ability for any authorized user to record Risks similar to ability to record Issues. 6.Ability for any authorized user to associate source code commits with Issues or Requirements accessible via the Innovation Sandbox environment. 7.Ability for any authorized user to relate a Test case back to a Requirement. 8.Ability for any authorized user to relate an Issue to a Test case. 9.Ability for any authorized user to associate separately created documents (e.g., checklists, approval forms) with Test cases. 10.Ability for any authorized user to associate a Released-program to issues, requirements and documents. Core Goal 6: Ability to support a variety of canned and ad hoc queries. As part of its goal of transparency and visibility, VHA is committed to an Innovation Sandbox environment that supports a variety of canned and ad hoc queries against all types of Social and Project Artifacts. 1.Ability for any guest to show all Tasks, Test Cases, Issues, and Documents corresponding to a specified Requirement. 2.Ability for any authorized user to show all commits corresponding to a specified Requirement or Issue. Core Goal 7: Ability to selectively support specific and restricted communications. While VHA desires to promote transparency in the Innovation Sandbox, there is a recognition that restricted workspaces and communications may be desirable in certain circumstances. The Innovation Sandbox environment, therefore, must be capable of supporting specific (targeted) or restricted communications (e.g., collecting feedback from testers, discussing a sensitive idea) in certain situations. 1.Ability for any authorized user to solicit and record feedback from testers and end-users on a (preliminary or final) Released-program. 2.Ability for any administrator to establish a workspace where a restricted set of people are allowed to contribute and where any guest has read privileges. Core Goal 8: Ability to support custom knowledge management capabilities. The Innovation Sandbox must provide both out-of-the-box and custom knowledge management capabilities. For example, users need the ability to tune basic searches in order to receive the desired information more quickly. The ability of users to view search metrics will also enable more efficient and effective end user searches. 1.Ability for any guest to tune search mechanisms for improved relevancy. 2.Ability for any registered user to embed taxonomy or ontology into the search and access. 3.Ability for any registered user to define an index of terms. 4.Ability for any guest to access relevant search metrics. Core Goal 9: Ability to support rapid user proficiency and efficiency. It is imperative that the Innovation Sandbox provide a user experience that is easy to comprehend and navigate. It must afford users the option to customize the interface look and feel as well as achieve the efficiencies afforded by extensions such as auto-fill and recommenders. The collaborative tools shall provide user-friendly features such as bookmarks or favorites, a navigation history, a 'what you see is what you get' printing capability and embedded help functions. 1.Ability for any guest to utilize native browser-based User Interface (UI) for both standard tool and administration. At a minimum Internet Explorer 6.0 and later and Firefox 2.0 and later should be supported. 2.Ability for any registered user to customize and make persistent UI look and feel. 3.Ability for any guest to utilize standard keyboard and mouse conventions. 4.Ability for any guest to utilize Rich Internet Application (RIA) extensions such as auto-fill, recommenders, and response-dependent UI included in UI. 5.Ability for any guest to utilize RIA features such as asynchronous communication (Ajax) to minimize screen refreshes. 6.Ability for any guest to paginate large data sets while using web and client browser resources optimally (balancing memory consumption in the web server and on the browser with performance). 7.Ability for any guest to configure page level caching, to improve performance of frequently accessed pages. 8.Ability for any guest to utilize printer-friendly user interface design. 9.Ability for any guest to utilize "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) printing capability. 10.Ability for any guest to benefit from best-practice user experience (UX) design for data/form input. 11.Ability for any guest to utilize navigation history (e.g., bread-crumb trail). 12.Ability for any registered user to set experience preferences and have them persist. 13.Ability for any guest to utilize cross-channel and mobile devices. 14.Ability for any guest to utilize mobile-based UI. 15.Ability for any guest to bookmark pages and artifacts. 16.Ability for any guest to benefit from 'quick start' help and training resources for users and administrators. Core Goal 10: Ability to support environment administrators. Innovation Sandbox administrators need user-friendly tools to help them maintain the environment. For example, they need to be able to easily add and remove users or communities, the ability to add or change governance rules, and tools to monitor and take action on user activity and system performance. 1.Ability for administrators to add and remove users and groups of users. 2.Ability for administrators to create and remove workspaces and update attributes (e.g., name, description, active/inactive/read-only status) as needed. 3.Ability for sys ops to monitor the application for availability, resource-usage (memory, disk), stability. 4.Ability for sys ops to configure the Innovation Sandbox features as desired by the organization (e.g., external versus internal authentication). 5.Ability for administrators to tune the product parameters for improved performance and efficient use of system-resources. 6.Ability for sys ops to backup all data and configuration for the environment. 7.Ability for sys ops to backup metadata and configuration for the product (separate from data content). 8.Ability for sys ops to perform a recovery from a backup environment. 9.Ability for sys ops to configure external or internal authentication for the product. 10.Ability for administrators to create, configure, and modify roles and their authorization for each project. 11.Ability for any registered user to access, at least by loose coupling, VHA commonly used tools (e.g., SharePoint, Microsoft (MS) Office). 12.Ability for sys ops to run the product in a virtual environment (e.g., VMware, Hyper-V, Xen) and to re-use a saved virtual image. 13.Ability for administrators to inactivate a workspace or community. 14.Ability for administrators to retire/archive a workspace or community. 15.Ability for administrators to re-use a snapshot of the environment. 16.Ability for administrators to merge or otherwise combine workspaces. 17.Ability for administrators to split or otherwise separate workspaces. 18.Ability for sys ops to perform automated upgrades from one version of the product-software to another. 19.Ability for administrators to create a version of the data, metadata and relationships for export in the event of vendor/product dissolution. 20.Ability for any authorized user to create and view/print reports for artifacts, by workspace or across workspaces, specifying various attributes (e.g., category, date, label/tag). 21.Ability for any registered user to use whiteboards and instant messaging. 22.Ability for any guest to listen to or view audio/video files as a stream (as opposed to downloading full file). 23.Ability for administrators to turn on audit capability for adds, deletes, changes. Core Goal 11: Ability to support security and other non-functional features. The Innovation Sandbox must also provide a range of non-functional features such as the ability to leverage VA's Active Directory for user authentication, general auditing and to provide for extensibility (e.g. a software development kit (SDK), an application programming interface (API)). 1.Ability for sys ops to leverage Active Directory (AD) for user authentication. 2.Ability to access an Application Programming Interface (API) or open interface for product extensibility. 3.Ability to utilize a Software Development Kit (SDK). 4.Ability for authorized users to export stored content and/or related data for archival and data exchange. 5.Ability for Contractor to supply environment as a turnkey solution. 6.Ability for Contractor to extend and adapt the environment as VHA business needs and technology evolve. Core Goal 12: Contractor ability to support a variety of administrative and operational needs. In order for VHA to realize the full potential of the Innovation Sandbox, a number of issues must be addressed. Some needs are currently known; others will emerge as VHA gains experience with the collaborative environment. Those listed below are notional. 1.Ability to identify needed operational guides and to produce the content for them. 2.Ability to analyze options for design competitions. 3.Ability to analyze options for an award/incentive program designed to recognize contributions made in the Innovation Sandbox 4.Ability to. produce a wide range of communication materials designed, for instance, to increase awareness of the Innovation Sandbox and to encourage its use throughout VHA. 5.Ability to propose a set of meaningful metrics and measures that will help VHA objectively assess the value of the Innovation Sandbox. III.Administrative Constraints: 1.For purposes of this RFQ, the representative requirements are organized into two groups. The first will be funded with Information Technology funds; the second with Medical Administration funds. Due to Congressional appropriation constraints, funds cannot be intermingled within a single task. The task groups are as follows: a. Tool Implementation Planning and Integration (Technical Objectives 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3) b.Collaborative Tools Project Methodology and Plan (Technical Objectives 2-10) 2.Funding authority for software tools (Work Group 1) is limited to $650,000 exclusive of maintenance costs; therefore, the quote for this specific work group and associated objectives cannot exceed the stated ceiling. The Contractor is responsible for detailing the license structure (e.g., perpetual, leasing, etc.) in conjunction with this constraint in its response for Work Group 1. 3.VHA recognizes that collaborative tool products use different terminologies. Language used in this solicitation is intended to be generic and does not represent a preference for a specific product(s). The Contractor should provide clear definitions for generic terms used in its response to the RFP. 4.VHA seeks to benefit from the knowledge of the Contractor community. The capability instances provided in the Statement of Objectives are examples. The Contractor is encouraged to provide novel examples of other product capabilities if they are deemed relevant to VHA's overall objectives for the Innovation Sandbox. 5.The Contractor shall conduct weekly status calls with the VA Project Manager (VA PM) to provide immediate notification of any issues that have potential to affect the project schedule or outcomes. The specific weekly date will be negotiated between Government and Contractor. IV.Technical Constraints: 1.The Contractor shall provide a response based on product versions in general release as of the RFP submission deadline. 2.The contractors shall provide product capacity specifications. 3.The Contractor shall quote the latest version in general release of products and supporting software. This is the version that will be used in the demonstration phase and that will be installed to provide the Innovation Sandbox environment. 4.The Contractor shall prepare all contract artifact deliverables first in draft form using standard Microsoft Office products. The Government will have ten (10) business days to review deliverables; the Contractor shall produce final deliverables with five (5) business days of receipt of Government comments. 5.All artifact deliverables shall conform to the EHT style guide which the Government will provide at the contract kickoff meeting. 6. The Contractor shall submit final contract artifact deliverables in electronic form using either standard Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat products. 7.The Government estimates the users participating in the Innovation Sandbox pilot, beginning with and for duration of the pilot phase, to be: a.Total 'registered' and 'authorized': <500 b.Average concurrent of all types : <75 c.Average concurrent 'registered' and 'authorized': <50 d.Peak concurrent of all types : <175 8.The Governments estimate of users participating in the Innovation Sandbox production phase, beginning with and for duration of the production phase, is below. The proposed solution shall demonstrate scalability to production level. a.Total 'registered' and 'authorized': <5000 b.Average concurrent of all types : <250 c.Average concurrent 'registered' and 'authorized': <150 d.Peak concurrent of all types : <3000 9.The environment will be hosted on the VA network for duration of contract period of performance, but the Contractor will have flexibility in the type of license structure proposed (e.g., Government owns the licenses outright, Government pays per seat/per year, open source, etc.). VI. Technical Objectives The contractor's proposal shall explicitly state how it addresses each Technical Objective for both Work Groups detailed below. Although the proposed tasks/deliverables in response to the SOO may vary in number and sequence from the Work Groups, the contractor's response must clearly state the objective being met by each task and deliverable to ensure total coverage of the Government's requirements. NOTE: The operating platform (e.g. hardware, operating system, software development accounts) for the Innovation Sandbox and associated infrastructure and engineering and operations are out of scope as are software development tools such as code generators and requirements repositories. The VA will provide these items. Tool Implementation Planning and Integration. A toolset that supports VHA Core Goals 1- 12(reference Scope paragraph 6), a Contractor that actively engages with VA and VHA stakeholders in planning for tool implementation and then works with VA staff to install and integrate the tools to form a seamless user experience in the collaborative environment. The three tasks in this Work Group track to the three distinct phases of the Innovation Sandbox project: toolset identification, delivery of the pilot environment, and delivery of the production environment. Technical Objective 1.1: An identified toolset that, when implemented, supplies the collaborative platform that VHA seeks to provide to its staff. Toolset features must conform as closely as possible to the goals and capabilities specified in the scope section of this document, although the Contractor is encouraged to propose products that offer additional features that, in the contractor's professional experience, will help attain VHA objectives. Technical Objective 1.2: An installed, configured, integrated and pilot-ready toolset for a collaborative environment that ensures the end user experience is as seamless, intuitive, and easy to use as possible. Technical Objective 1.3: An installed, (re)configured, (re)integrated and operational production-ready collaborative environment that, where appropriate, has incorporated lessons learned from the pilot into improvements in the environment. Technical Objective 2.1 - Contract Project Plan: A comprehensive project plan including identification, examination and resolution of administrative, operational and maintenance tasks, issues, and risks from award date through delivery of the production environment. The plan will include project tasks ranging from management tasks such as mandatory Contractor training and issue and risk management as well as technical tasks such as those associated with installing and configuring the collaborative tools environment. Risk assessment and risk management are critical elements of the plan. It will also include any activities that are the responsibility of the Government, such as making the hosting platform available, which must be completed in order to ensure the collaborative tools environment is successfully delivered. The project plan will include a work breakdown structure. Issues that must be addressed to facilitate readiness for the pilot phase of the Innovation Sandbox include, at a minimum, the following: a) Installation of other operating environment components such as Operating Systems, databases or other IT infrastructure; b) Internal governance (e.g., roles and permissions within the Innovation Sandbox environment for individuals, communities, and projects); c) External governance (roles and responsibilities of those entities involved in providing, supporting, and maintaining the environment); d) VHA-specific configuration settings such as custom(izable) user home pages and/or dashboards. Technical Objective 2.2: A pilot-readiness quality assurance plan that, when executed by the Contractor, will give a high degree of confidence to the Government that the pilot environment will function as intended. Contractor certification of the completeness of testing and the resolution of all identified deficiencies will be required in order for the Government to accept delivery of the pilot environment. NOTE: During quality assurance testing, the Government will expect to have daily conference calls to review test status and results as well as proposed remedies for any identified deficiencies. Technical Objective 2.3: Documentation of the pilot environment. The document must include, at a minimum, software installation, configuration or tuning issues and trade-offs and their resolution. The document must include lessons learned and best practices from the pilot phase to date and from other non-VA collaborative communities. Technical Objective 2.4: Weekly configuration change control log. Technical Objective 3.1: An updated framework (objective 2.2) with issues that must be addressed to facilitate readiness for the production phase of the Innovation Sandbox. Technical Objective 3.2: A production-readiness quality assurance plan that, when executed by the Contractor, will give a high degree of confidence to the Government that the production environment will function as intended. Contractor certification of the completeness of testing and the resolution of all identified deficiencies will be required in order for the Government to accept delivery of the production environment. NOTE: During quality assurance testing, the Government will expect to have daily conference calls with the Contractor to review test status and results as well as proposed remedies for any identified deficiencies. Technical Objective 3.3: Documentation of the production environment. The document must include, at a minimum, software installation, configuration or tuning issues and trade-offs and their resolution. Standard Operating Procedure Guides Description: A set of standard operating procedures to assist with use and operations of the Innovation Sandbox. All guides must utilize a similar style and be accessible from within the toolset. Optional Technical Objective 4.1: A list of the necessary administrative procedure guides needed by VHA end user and administrative staff. Optional Technical Objective 4.2: A set of administrative procedure guides, developed in collaboration with appropriate stakeholders, such as, but not limited to, the following: a)community establishment b)fulfilling requests for Sandbox resources c)posting of strategic 'wants' d)coordination of technical and consultation services e)coordination of operations and maintenance support The guides must include a common style, very specific hand-off points, roles and responsibilities amongst all Innovation Sandbox stakeholders. Optional Technical Objective 4.3: A list of the necessary operations and maintenance guides. Optional Technical Objective 4.4: A set of operations and maintenance guides for the Innovation Sandbox to include procedures such as backups and restores. Optional Technical Objective 5.1 - Metrics and Measures: A proposed set of key indicator metrics and measures to be captured during the Innovation Sandbox pilot and subsequent production phase as well as a process for collecting them. These metrics must include, at a minimum, business metrics to gauge performance in achieving business objectives and structural metrics to assess the quality of creative activities, throughput of ideas, and the success of engaging employees and others in innovation. Desired outcome includes: "List of proposed metrics "Set of qualitative and quantitative measures for the Innovation Sandbox including a description of the proposed method for capturing metrics "Monthly report and analyses on the measures captured Optional Technical Objective 6.1 - Design Challenge Options: Investigation and documentation of options for the issuance of design challenges in the Innovation Sandbox. This is intended to be similar to design competitions sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DoD) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The design challenges must be structured to encourage Innovators to follow VHA strategic and tactical goals. Options must address, at a minimum, the participation of VA and non-VA staff as well as volunteer vs. directed participation. The document must describe, at a minimum, the options and recommended approaches, costs, legislative authority and constraints, and so forth for establishing a design competition within the Innovation Sandbox. Optional Technical Objective 7.1- Intellectual Property Rights/Ownership: A document that describes how other public and private organizations handle the issue of idea and software ownership. The document must include rulings or findings, issued by OPM's Office of Ethics, Board of Contract Appeals, or other sources. In addition, the document must include an examination of, at a minimum, issues such as employees or contractors innovating 'off-hours' during personal time, contractors integrating or interfacing commercial applications to VHA's electronic health record system (VistA), or Innovation Sandbox users loading proprietary software into an open environment. Optional Technical Objective 8.1 - Employee Incentive/Award Program Framework: A framework for identifying categories of incentives/awards and assessing the value of innovation contributions based on research of options existing within VA for granting awards or other forms of recognition to VA and non-VA staff based on Innovation Sandbox participation and contribution. Research must consider potential novel options for future consideration by VA. The analysis must include an assessment of the significance of working in the Innovation Sandbox during compensable or non-compensable time. Optional Technical Objective 8.2 - Employee Incentive/Award Program Options: Investigation and documentation of options for an incentive/award program for VA and non-VA staff who participate in the Innovation Sandbox. The document must include, at a minimum, an assessment of pros, cons and costs of the options. The analysis must consider the structure of existing VA incentives and awards policies. Incentives and awards must be engineered to encourage Innovators to follow VHA strategic and tactical goals. Optional Technical Objective 8.3 - Incentive/Award Program: A defined incentive/award program and an executive-level presentation for it based on Government selection of an option from Optional Technical Objective 8.2 that encourages Innovation Sandbox participation, consistent with VHA strategic and tactical goals, through recognition and reward for superior innovation. Optional Technical Objective 9.1 - Innovation Sandbox communication materials and assistance with delivery/dissemination of them: A complementary suite of communication products that, at a minimum, increases general awareness of the program, informs executives and managers of specific aspects of it, and provides informational knowledge to users. The Government will determine at a later date the specific materials (e.g. glossy brochure, e-mail broadcast, flash video, electronic slide presentation) and the sequence for producing them but will include, at a minimum, Innovation Sandbox informational literature and announcements and staff- and executive-level briefings. Optional Technical Objective 10.1 - Establishment and Maintenance of a lessons learned repository: An electronic repository of all lessons learned during the Innovation Sandbox pilot and production phases. At a minimum, these lessons must address installation and configuration, governance, software, technical, management, and program findings. Optional Technical Objective 11.1 - Administrative and Operational Support. This objective correlates to Core Goal 12. Some needs are currently known; others will emerge as VHA gains experience with the collaborative environment. The solution meeting this objective shall address the following issues: a.Ability to identify needed operational guides and to produce the content for them. b.Ability to analyze options for design competitions. c.Ability to analyze options for an award/incentive program designed to recognize contributions made in the Innovation Sandbox d.Ability to. produce a wide range of communication materials designed, for instance, to increase awareness of the Innovation Sandbox and to encourage its use throughout VHA. e.Ability to propose a set of meaningful metrics and measures that will help VHA objectively assess the value of the Innovation Sandbox. f.Option year software maintenance, including updates, upgrades, and technical support. g.Option year collaborative innovation environment configuration and customization support. VII.Schedule for Technical Objectives: The Government has provided what it believes to be aggressive but realistic date estimates in the table below. Contractors are encouraged to propose different dates if they are believed necessary for project success. Once the Government accepts the Contractor proposal, the dates contained therein shall be binding on the contract. Thereafter, if for any reason, any objective cannot be met in the required time schedule, the Contractor shall provide a written explanation to the Contracting Officer. This written transmittal shall include a firm commitment of when the work is completed. This notice to the Contracting Officer shall cite the reasons for the delay, and the impact on the overall project. The Contracting Officer will then review the facts and issue a response in accordance with applicable regulations. Technical ObjectiveDescriptionDue Date 1.1Identified toolsetDate of award 1.2Operational pilot environmentDate of award + sixty (60) calendar days 1.3Operational production environmentDate of acceptance of 1.2 + 4 months (approximately 180 days after award) 2.1Contract project planDate of award + fifteen (15) calendar days 2.2Quality assurance plan for pilot readiness testingDate of award + thirty (30) days 2.3Pilot environment documentationDate of award + sixty (60) days 2.4Configuration change control log(Ongoing). Delivered Monday of each week for changes made the preceding week beginning with date of acceptance of the pilot environment 3.1 Updated project plan for production phaseDate of acceptance of 1.2 + two (2) months 3.2Quality assurance plan for production readiness testing Date of acceptance of 3.1 + thirty (30) days OR date that 2.1 is deemed sufficient for the production phase + thirty (30) days 3.3 Production environment documentationDate of award + one hundred eighty (180) days 4.1 (Optional)List of administrative guidesDate of award plus six (6) weeks 4.2 (Optional)Administrative guidesDate of acceptance of Optional Deliverable 4.1 plus twenty eight (28) calendar days 4.3 (Optional)List of operations and maintenance guidesDate of award plus six (6) weeks 4.4 (Optional)Operations and maintenance guidesDate of acceptance of Optional Deliverable 4.3 plus twenty eight (28) calendar days 5.1.1 (Optional)"List of proposed metrics "Set of qualitative and quantitative measures for the Innovation Sandbox including a description of the proposed method for capturing metrics "Monthly report and analyses on the measures captured "Date of award + thirty (30) calendar days "Date of acceptance of Deliverable 5.1 + fourteen (14) calendar days "5th business day of each month following acceptance of Deliverable 6.1 (Optional)Design challenge documentDate of award + 14 weeks 7.1 (Optional)Intellectual property documentDate of award + 11 weeks 8.1 (Optional)Framework for categories of incentives/awards and for assessing innovation contributions Date of award + 11 weeks 8.2 (Optional)Options for incentive/award programDate of acceptance of Deliverable 8.1 + fourteen (14) calendar days 8.3 (Optional)Incentive/award programDate of acceptance of Deliverable 8.2 + fourteen (14) calendar days 9.1 (Optional)Communication materials * See below. 10.1 (Optional)Lessons learned repository Date of award + twenty eight (28) calendar days; continual maintenance (accessible online) thereafter 11.1Administrative and Operational Support* See below. * Offerors shall provide proposed dates for Objectives 9.1 and 11.1 in accordance with their proposed solutions. VIII.Period of Performance: 12 Month Base plus 4 Option Years IX.Place of Performance: The primary place of performance shall be the contractor's site. B.3 PRICE/COST SCHEDULE ITEM DESCRIPTION OF QTY UNIT UNIT AMOUNT NO. SUPPLIES/SERVICES PRICE 1 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 1.1 Offerors shall provide a complete Price Schedule in accordance with the Addendum to 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors. Prices shall be based on a per deliverable basis. Offerors shall provide quantities, units of issue, unit prices, and extended prices per deliverables. Offerors shall include prices for four (4) Option Years as well for Technical Objective 11. This is a sample only, and offerors shall tailor their price schedule to their solution. 2 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 1.2 3 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 1.3 4 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 2.1 5 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 2.2 6 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 2.3 7 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 2.4 8 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 3.1 9 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 3.2 10 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 3.3 11 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 4.1 12 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 4.2 13 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 4.3 14 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 5.1 15 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 6.1 16 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 7.1 17 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 8.1 18 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 8.2 19 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 8.3 20 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 9.1 21 1.00 EA ____________________ _____________________ Objective 10.1 22 12.00 MO ____________________ _____________________ Objective 11 23 12.00 MO ____________________ _____________________ Objective 11. Option Year 1. 24 12.00 MO ____________________ _____________________ Objective 11. Option Year 2. 25 12.00 MO ____________________ _____________________ Objective 11. Option Year 3. 26 12.00 MO ____________________ _____________________ Objective 11. Option Year 4. ____________________ GRAND TOTAL --- ====================
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R -- COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION TOOLS AND SUPPORT