SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- Content Metadata Repository / One Form Designer Plus (COMET/OFDP) Interface Services
- Notice Date
- 12/18/2014
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 511210
— Software Publishers
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, U. S. Census Bureau, Suitland, Acquisition Division, Room 3J438, Washington, District of Columbia, 20233
- ZIP Code
- 20233
- Solicitation Number
- ECON-15-002
- Archive Date
- 1/7/2015
- Point of Contact
- Paul W Boesch, , Matthew Gore,
- E-Mail Address
-
paul.w.boesch@census.gov, Matthew.S.Gore@census.gov
(paul.w.boesch@census.gov, Matthew.S.Gore@census.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: The Census Bureau is conducting market research to identify available sources for the proposed services below: DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES: The U.S. Census Bureau designed the initial IBEAM (Information Base for Exchange Administration and Management) system to support paper questionnaire development via an interface with a custom enhanced version of the Amgraf, Inc standard software (OFDP, One Form Designer Plus). Census used a legacy IBEAM/OFDP interface to support the development of many questionnaires for the 2010 Decennial Census program. The IBEAM/OFDP interface enabled resources from multiple organizations across the Decennial Directorate in the content development, questionnaire design and questionnaire data capture of the decennial census questionnaires. The Census Bureau plans to reengineer the IBEAM/OFDP interface for forms designed for use with the implementation of the newly-developed Content Management (COMET) enterprise system. The tight coupling and highly sophisticated intricacies of IBEAM and OFDP requires ongoing technical support to ensure stability for an enterprise automated forms engine to support various censuses and surveys, in particular, the 2010 Decennial Census program. The intent is to continue the tight coupling of COMET and OFDP as Census develops the next generation of enterprise systems for the 2020 Decennial Census. This contract shall provide the re-engineered OFDP enterprise automated forms engine, and paper forms solution interface for use with the COMET repository system by April 2015. The developed solutions will ensure response field consistency throughout the questionnaire process from questionnaire content creation through processing and tabulation. Services required include: INTERFACE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT - Develop and deliver a Microsoft Windows -compatible interactive GUI application "forms designer" composition software with a master XML schema that will allow Census personnel to typographically layout and model Question-Response XML Content into formatted blocks of printable Content to be imaged or printed in Surveys and Questionnaires, including: • Unicode fonts must be supported for document composition in English, other Western languages (i.e. Spanish), and non-Western languages (i.e. Bengali). Every component processed by the software must be assigned a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) for reference, tracking, and document management. • The software must allow Census to compose Standard Response Fields for Surveys and Questionnaires as described in the Census iCADE Specifications, and assign XML tags to the resulting components. • The software must allow Census to interactively create new Response Field designs (for field types not yet in the Census iCADE Specifications) and new XML definitions as-needed without additional software enhancements, changes, or costs to Census. The software must allow Census to create and/or modify XML Stylesheets (XSL) to control the overall "look and feel" of Surveys, Questionnaires, Documents and Forms. • The software must allow Census to create and/or modify the XSL for Base Page Master Files with page sizes, margins, headers, footers, sidebars, side panels, barcodes, and page numbers without additional software enhancements, changes, or costs to Census. • During the survey layout process, response field names shall be indicated via "field-flags" that identify the database name for each associated field on the Survey. • A GUI switch should allow the field-flag indicators to be displayed or hidden. Every Response Field shall also have an optional database "KeyCode" attribute automatically positioned (with gutter spacing) immediately to the lower-left of the associated field boundary. • Additional static text, variable text, typographic elements such as leader dots, symbols, rules, lines, boxes, logos, images, and barcodes are to be defined in the XSL file. XSL to describe the typographic attributes, spacing, and justification mode of response field Headings must also be supported. BATCH COMPOSITION AND PAGINATION ENGINE - Develop and deliver a complementary Microsoft Windows server-based software "engine" to automatically "batch compose" some or all of the components of a standardized multi-page Census document, including the ability to batch Compose paginated Questionnaires from content driven by associated Business Rules. • The engine must be able to return to the requestor a quick "preview" of a composition request either as an HTML or PDF file. The engine must be able to run in a headless workstation environment as a Service that accepts queued batch requests, or as a command to launch the interactive GUI forms designer application that a user can execute on-demand. • The engine must accept XML-formatted command line parameters that drive the behavior of the GUI and control what menu actions are triggered to allow the programmatic execution of the GUI application and simplify user interaction. • The server software composition engine also must automatically batch compose XML-coded content for Question-Response Blocks into sections of Surveys and Questionnaires that are called "Custom Layouts". These Custom Layouts can then be arranged and sequenced within another XML-tagged file to be automatically batch composed and paginated into a finished document ready for printing. • Business rules for page composition are to be defined as Stylesheets and encoded as XML. • Textual Content to be automatically composed (font, style, pointsize, justification, etc.) will be according to the designated Stylesheets. • Question-Response blocks (and other Content objects) are to be automatically arranged to fill the available space on pages. • Automatic Question numbering must be supported. • Variable data "Tokens" must be processed so that the object is substituted in the Content during composition. • Markup "Tags" must be supported for typographical emphasis and special characters. Headers, Footers, Side Panels, Page Numbers, Columns, and Fixed Blocks are to be positioned according to the designated Stylesheet. • Vertical justification of columns and pages must be supported. Automatic column breaking must be supported, with Headings repeated at the top of each continued column. Automatic page breaking must be supported. • Automatic page numbering must be supported. The number of pages produced will be dependent on the amount of Content processed. • The server software will also provide batch pagination to handle scenarios where a large number of Surveys and Questionnaires need to be automatically composed from one request. PRINT OUTPUT OPTIONS - Provide output options of both the interactive GUI "forms designer" application and the server-based software "engine" should be color-separated and/or process color printshop-ready PostScript and PDF files, and metadata files required to professionally print the Surveys and Questionnaires. The server output option shall also include the ability to impose Pages into Faces to handle the situations where more than one page is printed on a single sheet of paper. An additional output of the batch pagination process shall be a file containing the XY coordinates, field dimensions, and database name for every response field to help automate the Key From Image (KFI) recognition of handwritten responses scanned from paper documents. PIXEL-BY-PIXEL COMPARISON FOR PROOFING ASSURANCE - Develop and delivering a Windows PC-compatible "automated proofing" software application for use when making edits and changes to near-final Survey and Questionnaire designs, including 1) A comparison of PDF files from the "Before" and "After" versions of a document, the proofing software should be able to find extremely small changes to documents, with the ability to detect that a 6 point Helvetica period (.) was replaced by a comma (,). 2) The proofing software must identify, highlight, and hyperlink all the changed areas to allow the Proofreader to quickly locate and view the changes. 3) The proofing software must automatically generate a "Sign-off" e-form for the document owner to approve all changes. 4) The proofing software must provide a proofreading audit trail for inclusion in the document production workflow. The rendering software must 1) Run off of template files that describe an empty page, tagged place holder locations to place content, the actual content to place in the page. 2) Be able to accept XSL Stylesheets for altering the look and feel (font family, font size, etc...) of the content on the page. 3) Allow for automated pagination of content with programmatic overrides as to when to break content. This all must be expressed through the XML language, the XML language must be descriptive enough to provide flexibility of when to break across questions and within questions given XML tags describing that behavior. 4) Be able to run in a headless workstation environment, as a Service that accepts queued requests or as a GUI application that a user can execute on demand. 5) Accept command line parameters in the format of XML that drive the behavior of the GUI and what actions to perform, this will be used in the programmatic execution of the application and controlling user accessibility. 6) Process the definition of form fields that must be both controlled and flexible. 7) Support a register of predefined fields, that can be referenced using aliases in the question content. 8) Allow for the definition of any new form fields without the need to alter the software. The definition of new fields must be expressed as XML, that defines every attribute of the field, such as the look and feel of the field, the size of the write-in boxes, style of the write-in boxes, whether the write in boxes have borders, the type of border (segmented, not segmented, etc...), the thickness of the border, the presence or absence of borders in the W/N/E/S sides of the field, etc.. New fields must also be able to be hand defined through a drawing tool in the GUI application. 9) Support full non-robotic rendering of forms through definition/drawing of the form through a GUI application, to provide most flexibility for small forms. All features must meet flexibility criteria such that they don't require future software updates by the vendor. INTERFACE SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE SUPPORT - Provide fixes to software issues upon discovery when transforming the legacy IBEAM/OFDP software into the COMET/ODFP interface to include releasing software patches and new versions of the isolated software as necessary. Provide upgraded Dongles as needed. INTERFACE SOFTWARE INSTALLATION AND SETUP TRAINING - Provide installation and setup training onsite at Census Bureau, and necessary support on an as needed basis to accelerate development of the software solution while the enhanced interface project is underway. Install and setup servers at the Census Bureau site and Contractor site. Structure and setup the Standard Response Fields for the COS/ASM program and all 2020 Decennial tests and production. The Contractor must deliver software installation packages configured to coexist with the Census Bureau servers physically located in the Census Bureau's computer services facility. Share knowledge and provide detailed information on the COMET/ODFP software interface with Census technical experts to optimize the ultimate engineering environment ensuring a stable, production ready system for the CEDCAP initiative. HOW TO RESPOND Interested individuals must submit their capabilities statements that demonstrates same services as described through this notice, and identify any available GWAC contract vehicles, via electronic submission at paul.w.boesch@census.gov. The submission is limited to ten (10) pages (page size: 8.5x11") or less. Include the company name, address, business size, and DUNS number, as well as a contact person and their email address and telephone number on the introduction/cover page. No information will be accepted by telephone or mail. Any questions regarding this request may be directed to the provided e-mail address. DISCLAIMER This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a solicitation. In accordance with FAR 15.201 (e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. Responses to this RFI will not be returned. Respondents will not be notified of the result of the review.
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- SN03600256-W 20141220/141218235033-8f08cc6cbc10d24426ee4bbf8bc8739a (fbodaily.com)
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