70 -- INTEGRATED WEB-BASED NOTICE GENERATION SYSTEM

Notice Date

February 6, 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-WEBNOTICE

Response Due

February 21, 2001

Point of Contact

Jane Quinn, Contract Specialist, Phone 4109659588, Fax 4109659560, Email jane.quinn@ssa.gov -- Wayne Mcdonald, Contract Specialist, Phone 4109659480, Fax 4109659560, Email wayne.mcdonald@ssa.gov

E-Mail Address

Jane Quinn (jane.quinn@ssa.gov)

Description

This is a REQUEST FOR INFORMATION. The Social Security Administration is seeking vendors that can provide information to satisfy its needs for an integrated web-based notice generation systme for its manual and semi-automated notices. SSA sends its customers over 240 million notices annually. While the majority of notices are produced by several different automated mainframe notice systems, a significant number of notices are produced in some manual or semi-automated fashion that requires employee intervention using numerous non-integrated systems. These various notice systems are both mainframe and PC based. SSA is looking to consolidate its various manual and semi-automated notice systems into one, web-based notice generation system. The notice generation solution that SSA is seeking must include the following features/capabilities: The solution must be off-the-shelf, field-proven and commercially available; The solution must be accessible to employees with disabilities (i.e., fully compliant with the standards imposed by the Americans with Disabilities Act); Allow for the preparation of a notice to an SSA client from a predefined list of more than 200 different choices in both English and Spanish. A notice consists of client name and address data, static language with variable fill-ins, optional standard paragraphs, optional free-form text, etc. -- each formatted with SSA notice headings, return address, signature and enclosures; Be able to propagate data (such as name and address) from SSA's master records based on the Social Security Number (SSN). The user may choose to enter this information directly rather than retrieving it from SSA's master records; Be able to use static language and optional standard paragraphs obtained from a central language repository. This repository is in an Oracle database and the language is tagged in SGML; Provide the ability to pre-fill variable fill-ins, such as pronouns and titles (from retrieved or pre-entered data such as gender) and conditional fill-ins and optional language (from answers to previous entries, such as a phone number paragraph if requesting a call to the office) , or allow users to enter at displayed prompts; Allow for non-standard paragraphs in free form text that the user can enter; Allow for the notice heading, return address, signature and other formatting to be predetermined by SSA policy; Maintain a local list of frequently-used addresses for easy inclusion as the client name and address data on any notice; Produce an action record for forwarding to a central location for batch printing, mailing and archiving of the notice. The notice must be Advance Function Presentation format for central batch printing; Allow for local network printing in "MS Word"-like format in any of SSA's 1,500 offices using a variety of LAN-based printers; The systems must provide the capability of printing variations of a single document, for example, annotated file copy, claimant copy, etc; Allow for delayed printing such as a prepared notice area for additions and corrections at a later time. Allow for printing, editing or deleting of one, all or a group of the notices from storage; Allow for batch printing that provides the ability to pre-select a set of cases based on a particular profile and generate the same type of notice for each which incorporates variable data from the database; Allow for the creation of a new notice for inclusion in the predefined list of choices; Allow creation and editing of the standard language in a sub-set of notices for local or regional use; Allow copying of standard language stored at the central facility for ease of preparation; Allow customization of local office information for return address and fill-in entries; Allow access by other client/server applications so notices required by any application are produced by this one notice generation system; Allow text entry via an interface to allow word processor type functions such as cutting, pasting, spelling and grammar checking (in both English and Spanish), formatting, etc. while viewing the entire notice; Provide an online help system that provides assistance with use of the application and is customizable to include information on the SSA notices available to users; Provide a "work queue" capability to allow incomplete notices that require an end-user to review and complete the notice to be directed to the proper person/location; The solution must not require changes to existing operating system, hardware or application software in use at SSA. Closing date for submission of response is 15 calendar days from the date of this notice. Respondents will not be notified of the results of any evaluation made from the information submitted. No award will be made on the basis of this synopsis. The information received will be used in SSA's assessment of capable sources. Request for copies of the solicitation will not be honored or acknowledged. The Government will not pay for information provided in response to this publication.

Web Link

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Record

Loren Data Corp. 20010208/70SOL009.HTM (D-037 SN50C8T3)