USDA, Office of Operations, Procurement Operations Division, Room 1547-South Building, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9850

70 -- HELP DESK SOFTWARE DUE 051597 POC Point of Contact -- Sally Soule, 816-926-2330, Contracting Officer -- Michael McFarland, 202-720-4179 17. The United States Department of Agriculture, Office of Chief Information Officer, National Information Technology Center, is seeking marketing literature and technical documentation on help desk software that performs the following functions: (1) Provide Problem and Change management ticketing capabilities consisting of: automatic ticketing (assigning ticket numbers) for problem and change records, ability to track problem and change records, automatic escalation of problem and change records; allow multiple technicians to be assigned per ticket, automatic update of tickets, allow end users to open problem tickets via e-mail or Internet, and problem/change notification of technician via E-mail (SMTP -- Simple Mail Transfer Protocol); (2) Provide a minimum of 20 concurrent users with the ability to add more if required; (3) Provide client/server Internet protocol TCP/IP access; (4) Provide user interface on PC; (5) Provide the ability to toggle between modules/applications; (6) Provide a GUI interface; (7) Provide support for multiple operating systems such as Windows 3.1, UNIX, Windows NT, Windows 95, etc.; (8) Software must be Year 2000 compliant; (9) Provide a relational database with SQL capabilities for historical and current data; (10) Provide a knowledge base for artificial intelligence capabilities; (11) Provide on-demand query building with the following capabilities: ability to pass screens, perform multiple keyword searches, perform string search, perform partial string search, and the ability to retrieve single or a group of records; (12) Provide customizable reports in the form of text, graphs, charts etc. The reports should allow selection criteria based on a range of dates, tracking number, caller, problem or change subject; (13) Provide customization capabilities of data entry and query view screens; (14) Provide variable length fields on entry and query screens; (15) Provide capability of creating a technical support and customer personnel database; (16) Provide online help in the form of pop-up help screens, online documentation, or online tutorials; (17) Technical support is available as needed; and (18) Provide a means of security with the ability to set limitations so availability can be controlled. Written responses are to be directed to Sally S. Soule; Strategic Planning & Support Branch; National Information Technology Center; P.O. Box 419205; Kansas City, Missouri 64141-6205. Telephone inquiries will not be accepted. Responses should include three (3) copies of all marketing literature and technical documentation associated with the identified software. This is a request for information and not a request for comment or request for proposals. To be considered, responses must be received within fifteen (15) days of the publication of this announcement. The Government will not pay for any information submitted in response to this request for information, and any information received will become the property of the Government and will not be returned to the submitter. No solicitation is available for this requirement. (0120)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0350 19970502\70-0016.SOL)