040ADV-24-R-0050.pdf

SOLICITATION/CONTRACT/ORDER FOR COMMERCIAL ITEMS

OFFEROR TO COMPLETE BLOCKS 12, 17, 23, 24, & 30

1. REQUISITION NUMBER PAGE 1 OF 4

2. CONTRACT NO. 3. AWARD/EFFECTIVE

DATE

4. ORDER NUMBER 5. SOLICITATION NUMBER

040ADV-24-R-0050

6. SOLICITATION ISSUE

DATE

7. FOR SOLICITATION

INFORMATION CALL:

a. NAME b. TELEPHONE NUMBER (No collect calls)

8. OFFER DUE DATE/

LOCAL TIME

06/24/2024 14:00

9. ISSUED BY CODE 10. THIS ACQUISITION IS UNRESTRICTED OR SET ASIDE: 0 % FOR:

SMALL BUSINESS WOMEN-OWNED SMALL BUSINESS

(WOSB) ELIGIBLE UNDER THE WOMEN-OWNED

11. DELIVERY FOR FOB DESTINA-

12. DISCOUNT TERMS

HUBZONE SMALL

BUSINESS

SERVICE-DISABLED

VETERAN-OWNED

SMALL BUSINESS

SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAM

EDWOSB

8 (A)

13b. RATING

NAICS:

SIZE STANDARD:

TION UNLESS BLOCK IS

MARKED

13a. THIS CONTRACT IS A

RATED ORDER UNDER

DPAS (15 CFR 700)

14. METHOD OF SOLICITATION

SEE SCHEDULE RFQ IFB RFP

15. DELIVER TO CODE 16. ADMINISTERED BY CODE

See Schedule

Same As Issuing Office

17a. CONTRACTOR/ CODE FACILITY 18a. PAYMENT WILL BE MADE BY CODE

OFFEROR CODE

TELEPHONE NO.

17b. CHECK IF REMITTANCE IS DIFFERENT AND PUT SUCH ADDRESS IN

OFFER

18b. SUBMIT INVOICES TO ADDRESS SHOWN IN BLOCK 18a UNLESS BLOCK

BELOW IS CHECKED SEE ADDENDUM

19.

ITEM NO.

20.

SCHEDULE OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES

21.

QUANTITY

22.

UNIT

23.

UNIT PRICE

24.

AMOUNT

(Use Reverse and/or Attach Additional Sheets as Necessary)

25. ACCOUNTING AND APPROPRIATION DATA

26. TOTAL AWARD AMOUNT (For Govt. Use Only)

27a. SOLICITATION INCORPORATES BY REFERENCE FAR 52.212-1, 52.212-4. FAR 52.212-3 AND 52.212-5 ARE ATTACHED. ADDENDA

27b. CONTRACT/PURCHASE ORDER INCORPORATES BY REFERENCE FAR 52.212-4. FAR 52.212-5 IS ATTACHED. ADDENDA

ARE ARE NOT ATTACHED

ARE ARE NOT ATTACHED

28. CONTRACTOR IS REQUIRED TO SIGN THIS DOCUMENT AND RETURN

COPIES TO ISSUING OFFICE. CONTRACTOR AGREES TO FURNISH AND

DELIVER ALL ITEMS SET FORTH OR OTHERWISE IDENTIFIED ABOVE AND ON ANY

ADDITIONAL SHEETS SUBJECT TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SPECIFIED

29. AWARD OF CONTRACT: REF. OFFER

DATED . . YOUR OFFER ON SOLICITATION

(BLOCK 5), INCLUDING ANY ADDITIONS OR CHANGES WHICH ARE

SET FORTH HEREIN, IS ACCEPTED AS TO ITEMS:

30a. SIGNATURE OF OFFEROR/CONTRACTOR 31a. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (SIGNATURE OF CONTRACTING OFFICER)

30b. NAME AND TITLE OF SIGNER (Type or print) 30c. DATE SIGNED 31b. NAME OF CONTRACTING OFFICER (Type or print) 31c. DATE SIGNED

AUTHORIZED FOR LOCAL REPRODUCTION

PREVIOUS EDITION IS NOT USABLE

STANDARD FORM 1449 (REV. 2/2012)

Prescribed by GSA - FAR (48 CFR) 53.212

19.

ITEM NO.

20.

SCHEDULE OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES

21.

QUANTITY

22.

UNIT

23.

UNIT PRICE

24.

AMOUNT

32a. QUANTITY IN COLUMN 21 HAS BEEN

RECEIVED INSPECTED ACCEPTED, AND CONFORMS TO THE CONTRACT, EXCEPT AS NOTED:

32b. SIGNATURE OF AUTHORIZED GOVERNMENT

REPRESENTATIVE

32c. DATE 32d. PRINTED NAME AND TITLE OF AUTHORIZED GOVERNMENT

REPRESENTATIVE

32e. MAILING ADDRESS OF AUTHORIZED GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVE 32f. TELPHONE NUMBER OF AUTHORZED GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVE

32g. E-MAIL OF AUTHORIZED GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVE

33. SHIP NUMBER 34. VOUCHER NUMBER 35. AMOUNT VERIFIED

CORRECT FOR

36. PAYMENT

COMPLETE PARTIAL FINAL

37. CHECK NUMBER

PARTIAL FINAL

38. S/R ACCOUNT NO. 39. S/R VOUCHER NUMBER 40. PAID BY

41a. I CERTIFY THIS ACCOUNT IS CORRECT AND PROPER FOR PAYMENT 42a. RECEIVED BY (Print)

41b. SIGNATURE AND TITLE OF CERTIFYING OFFICER 41c. DATE

42b. RECEIVED AT (Location)

42c. DATE REC'D (YY/MM/DD) 42d. TOTAL CONTAINERS

STANDARD FORM 1449 (REV. 2/2012) BACK

040ADV-24-R-0050

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Section B – Supplies or Services and Price / Costs B.2 Required Items Total Price Option 4 Period CLINs .................................................................................................................................... $

Section C – Description/Specifications/Statement of Work C.2 Contractor Tasks and Specifications C.2.1 Task 1 – Development Architecture, Analysis, and Design Collection Design and Development Development and Deployment UX/UI Design Testing C.2.2 Task 2 – Support C.2.3 Specifications for Development and Support Cross Functional Teams Performance Management Agile Practices and Frameworks Technology Monitoring and Reporting Training Communication and Policies Knowledge and Experience Development Tools C.3 Government Furnished Equipment C.4 Post Award Conference Section E – Inspection and Acceptance E.2 Responsible Officials E.3 Scope of Inspection E.4 Basis of Acceptance E.5 General Acceptance Criteria E.6 Inspection and Approval of Written Deliverables E.6.2 Approval of Written Deliverables Section F – Deliveries or Performance F.2 Performance Measures F.3 Place of Performance and Hours of Work F.4 Deliverables Section G – Contract Management Contracting Officer (CO) Contract Specialist (CS) Contracting Officer’s Authority G.2 Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) G.3 Invoice Submission

Number Date Title Section H – Special Requirements H.2 Compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 H.3 Key Personnel H.4 Supervision of Contractor’s Employees H.5 Removal of Contractor Personnel H.6 Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) H.7 Contractor Personnel Security and Suitability Requirement H.8 Wants Warrants Investigation H.9 Observance of Legal Holidays / Federal Non-Work Days H.10 Inclement Weather H.11 Government Delays H.12 U.S. Government Publishing Office Non-Disclosure Agreement Section I – Contract Clauses 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes and Executive Orders – Commercial Items (May 2002) I.2. MMAR Clauses Incorporated by Full Text 52.217-8 Option to Extend Services (Nov 1999) Evaluation of Option to Extend Services MMAR 52.217-8 52.217-9 Option to Extend the Term of the Contract (MMAR - Mar 2000) 52.227-18 Rights in Data-Existing Works (Dec 2007) 52.227-22 Major System-Minimum Rights (Jun 1987) 52.227-23 Rights to Proposal Data (Technical) (Jun 1987) 52.232-18 Availability of Funds (Apr 1984)

52.233 Service of Protest (Aug 1996)

Disputes (GPO Clause June 2008) 52.243-1 Changes—Fixed-Price (Aug 1987) 52.245-2 Government Property (Fixed-Price Contracts) (Dec 1989) Section J – Attachments L.1.2 Questions or Clarifications L.1.3 Proposal Content General Format Instructions Technical Proposal and Past Performance (Volume I) Price Proposal (Volume II) Section M – Evaluations:

M.1.1 Evaluation Adjectival Approach Rating Descriptions M.1.2 Evaluation Factors and Ranking Evaluation Factor 1: Technical Capability Sub-Factor 1A: Technical Approach Sub-Factor 1B: Staffing Plan Sub-Factor 1C: Management Approach Factor 2: Past Performance Factor 3: Price Proposal

040ADV-24-R-0050

Section B – Supplies or Services and Price / Costs

B.1 Items Being Acquired

This requirement is intended to provide GovInfo Public Access Subsystem application development and support services and information technology (IT) solutions for the Government Publishing Office’s GovInfo program. The contractor shall furnish solutions, personnel, and services and otherwise do all items necessary for, or incident to, performance of these requirements in accordance with the statement of work (SOW) provided in Section C.

B.2 Required Items

The Government Publishing Office is issuing a Firm Fixed Price contract for development and support services and information technology solutions for the GovInfo program. The work shall be provided in accordance with the Statement of Work (SOW) and with the terms and conditions set forth herein.

B.3 Pricing Schedule and Contract Line Numbers (CLINS)

B.3.0 Base Period (Firm Fixed Price)

CLIN Description Price

0001 Development – Task 1 – 80% of Total DST Price

0002 Support – Task 2 – 20% of Total DST Price

Development and Support Tasks (DST) – Total Price

Price Schedule (Firm Fixed Price)

Contracted personnel are required to perform both development and support tasks to provide IT solutions that meet the needs of the GovInfo program. GPO anticipates some of the labor categories below or similar may be used, as needed, to fulfill this requirement.

The labor categories below are provided as an example. The Contractor may propose labor categories that include Junior, Mid-Level, and Senior status, as appropriate. A labor category may be used for a short period of time or for the duration of the contract to fulfill contract requirements with no change to the fixed price. The contractor shall provide fixed hourly rates that are fully burdened.

The contractor shall initially propose the team composition. Changes to team composition must be approved by the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR), and changes must not increase the total price of the contract. GPO reserves the right to review resumes for team members and to meet with selected personnel assigned by the Contractor to work on the GovInfo program to validate skillsets. For informational purposes only, there are currently nine contracted development and support team members on the GovInfo Search Web Team. GPO envisions that the scope and level of effort associated with this RFP will be similar to the current contract. Below is an example of labor categories to illustrate variation, not need. See SOW in Section C.

Labor Category (examples to illustrate variation, not need)

Hourly Rate

Total Estimated Hours for Development CLIN 0001 and Support CLIN 0002 (DST)

Price

Search Engineer

Data Analysis and Metadata Engineer

Web Engineer – Junior Level

Web Engineer – Senior Level

Full Stack Developer

UI/UX Designer

Web Front End Engineer

Java Engineer

Engineering Manager

Total Price Base period CLINs: $

B.3.1 Option 1 Period (Firm Fixed Price)

1001 Development – Task 1 – 80% of Total DST Price

1002 Support – Task 2 – 20% of Total DST Price

See Base Period Price Schedule section for information that also applies to this option.

Labor Category Hourly Rate

Total Estimated Hours for Development CLIN 1001 and Support CLIN 1002 (DST)

Price

Total Price Option 1 Period CLINs: $

B.3.2 Option 2 Period (Firm Fixed Price)

2001 Development – Task 1 – 80% of Total DST Price

2002 Support – Task 2 – 20% of Total DST Price

Total Estimated Hours for Development CLIN 2001 and Support CLIN 2002 (DST)

Total Price Option 2 Period CLINs: $

B.3.3 Option 3 Period (Firm Fixed Price)

3001 Development – Task 1 – 80% of Total DST Price

3002 Support – Task 2 – 20% of Total DST Price

Total Estimated Hours for Development CLIN 3001 and Support CLIN 3002 (DST)

Total Price Option 3 Period CLINs $

B.3.4 Option 4 Period (Firm Fixed Price)

4001 Development – Task 1 – 80% of Total DST Price

4002 Support – Task 2 – 20% of Total DST Price

Total Estimated Hours for Development CLIN 4001 and Support CLIN 4002 (DST)

Total Price Option 4 Period CLINs: $

(End of Section)

Section C – Description/Specifications/Statement of Work

C.1 Background, Scope, and General Requirements

GovInfo is a content management system, preservation repository, and public website that manages, preserves, and provides free online access to current and historical information from the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the United States Federal Government today and into the future. Please refer to the System Architecture document at https://www.govinfo.gov/media/GovInfo_Architecture_v7.pdf and the GovInfo Components and Technologies document at https://www.govinfo.gov/media/GovInfo_Components_and_Technologies.pdf for additional technical information along with the GovInfo About pages at https://www.govinfo.gov/about for a user-focused description of the public access website.

The mission of the GovInfo program (“Program”) is to provide the knowledge, tools, and processes to manage, preserve, and provide access to electronic Federal Government information. The vision of the Program is to operate an effective software development program that delivers value for stakeholders. Program values include the following:

• Agility – Adapting and Adjusting to Change

• Reliability – Consistently Delivering Results

• Collaboration – Working Together to Achieve Our Goals

• Innovation – Implementing New Solutions

FY24-28 Strategic Goals for the Program include the following:

• Deliver Results for Stakeholders.

• Continuously Improve the User Experience

• Support the System and Our Users

• Refine Our Software Development Processes

• Evaluate and Implement Innovative Technologies

• Commit to Preservation and Assessment

• Perform Program Management Functions

In addition to performing operational support tasks, GPO undertakes key efforts for each strategic goal based on agency priority and identified stakeholder needs. A few examples that demonstrate the breadth of historical key efforts for the Program include developing the GovInfo website and replacing the FDsys website, replacing the legacy search engine with Solr, upgrading the Documentum Content Server and WebTop, migrating to GitLab and Jenkins, providing access to Bill Status XML Bulk Data, performing a hardware refresh https://www.govinfo.gov/media/GovInfo_Architecture_v7.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/media/GovInfo_Components_and_Technologies.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/about at the Production and Continuity of Operations instances, providing public access to the Digitized Serial Set and Congressionally Mandated Reports, and performing bug fixes and enhancements based on user feedback and stakeholder need.

To implement key efforts, the Program release cycle typically includes four planned quarterly releases each fiscal year. Each release includes planning, development, integration, and testing activities that are performed during sprints in the Integration, Quality Assurance, and Stage environments followed by one week of activities to deploy to the Production and Continuity of Operations environments. Interim deployments are performed on an as-needed basis, and the Program envisions moving to a more rapid release cycle. Operational support tasks to monitor the system and provide corrective and adaptive maintenance are performed each day.

The Program is currently composed of multiple virtual teams that perform GovInfo development and support activities. Teams generally employ either agile Scrum or Kanban practices based on the scope of work to be performed by each team. Generally, and as applicable for each team, the role of Product Owner is performed by GPO personnel and the rest of the team is comprised of contracted development and support team members. There are currently nine contracted development and support team members on the GovInfo Search Web Team in the labor categories of Search Engineer (2), Data Analysis and Metadata Engineer (1), Web Engineer (2), Web Front End Engineer (1), Web UI Design Engineer (1), and Senior Java Engineer (2).

C.2 Contractor Tasks and Specifications

The sections below include tasks to develop and support the custom code, commercial off the shelf (COTS) software, and open-source technologies that comprise the Public Access Subsystem, as defined in the GovInfo Components and Technologies document (https://www.govinfo.gov/media/GovInfo_Components_and_Technologies.pdf). It also includes tasks to develop and support GovInfo content collections. In addition, Section C.2.3 includes specifications which apply to both development and support tasks.

C.2.1 Task 1 – Development

The contractor shall provide architecture, design, and development services for the custom code, commercial of the shelf (COTS) software, and open-source technologies that comprise the Public Access Subsystem, as defined in the GovInfo Components and Technologies document (https://www.govinfo.gov/media/GovInfo_Components_and_Technologies.pdf). This also includes tasks to develop GovInfo content collections. Tasks include the following:

Architecture, Analysis, and Design

• Provide subject matter expertise for individual components of the GovInfo system including identifying and implementing architectural improvements to the system to improve functionality, maintainability, scalability, and performance based on current or emerging industry best practices to meet Program needs. Examples include:

o Provide relevancy expertise and create an improvement to the relevancy of search results.

o Provide search engine expertise related to Solr, Solr Cloud, and successor search technologies.

o Perform an analysis of large language models, machine-learning, vector search, or similar technologies and propose potential implementations for GovInfo.

o Evaluate current component technologies to identify successor technologies that will adapt to current and future Program needs.

• Gather and analyze stakeholder requirements to generate user stories and acceptance criteria.

• Create acceptance criteria and testing steps for product backlog items.

• Determine design changes and the technical feasibility of product backlog items.

• Provide estimates on the work required to complete product backlog items.

• Perform a gap analysis on specified topics.

• Perform analysis on products and technologies as required.

• Propose innovative and practical solutions to address challenges.

• Create and maintain GovInfo design documentation, configurations, administrative guides, and standard operating procedures.

Collection Design and Development

• Develop, utilize, and maintain any scripts, processes, or documentation necessary to prepare content and metadata for submission into GovInfo, GPO’s Open Archival Information System (OAIS) (ISO 14721), which is certified under ISO 16363 as a Trustworthy Digital Repository.

• Interface with internal and external stakeholders to discuss needs and propose solutions for compiling, ingesting, managing, and providing access to GovInfo content and metadata.

• Create and update the Data Management Definition (DMD) documents and related design documentation, submission guidelines, metadata templates, and data dictionaries for GovInfo.

• Create and update authority files required to process content and metadata in GovInfo including the authority files for president, congress, member, committee, organization, government author, and additional successor authority files.

• Develop or update Java-based parsers, XSLT transforms, or schema as necessary to support submission and processing of content and metadata in GovInfo.

• Create metadata and update content files as necessary to support submission and processing of content and metadata in GovInfo.

• Serve as subject matter experts for content collections in GovInfo.

• Perform data analysis on new and existing content collections to assess strategies for processing, metadata creation, public display, and search optimization.

• Provide MODS 3.3 to 3.8 (or higher) migration expertise to determine the best path forward and implement.

• Develop the ability to ingest and process different formats of metadata into GovInfo as needed (e.g., Dublin Core, MARC, CSV, JSON, XML, etc.).

• Provide public access to different formats of metadata via transforms from fdsys.xml or successor format.

• Enhance metadata using metadata in various formats.

• Provide XML transform expertise.

Development and Deployment

• Develop and deploy working code and configurations for features and functionality as described in applicable documentation or as required by the Program.

• Refactor GovInfo components to ensure maintainability and performance.

• Check-in code and configuration updates using the Program's designated Version

Control System and processes (e.g., GitLab, Azure DevOps).

• Integrate individual existing and new components with other Public Access Subsystem and/or Content Management and Preservation Subsystem components, as needed to support Program needs.

• Create and update issues within GPO’s source code management tools (e.g., GitLab, Azure DevOps) and update GPO’s enterprise issue trackers (e.g., Trello, GitLab, Azure DevOps).

• Create user stories, acceptance criteria, and test steps. Update release and backlog issues within the GovInfo Program’s release and backlog management tools. (e.g., Trello, GitLab, Azure DevOps).

UX/UI Design

• Design the Web user interface for all GovInfo pages.

• Collaborate with the GPO staff and developers to define and implement innovative solutions for product direction, visuals, and the user experience.

• Execute all visual design stages from concept to final hand-off to engineering.

• Conceptualize original ideas that bring simplicity and user friendliness and accessibility to complex design roadblocks.

• Create wireframes, storyboards, user flows, process flows, and sitemaps to effectively communicate interaction and design ideas.

• Present and defend designs and key milestone deliverables.

• Conduct user research, evaluate user feedback, and provide recommendations for improvements.

• Establish, document, and promote design guidelines, best practices, and standards.

• Maintain a style guide for GovInfo.

• Review and enhance the mobile experience.

• Serve as subject matter experts for Web and web content management system.

• Maintain, run, review, and resolve visual regression testing during testing sprints.

• Review GovInfo for accessibility and make improvements to ensure compliance and accessibility.

Testing

• Create, maintain, run, review, and resolve automated tests to support all applicable levels of the test pyramid.

• Develop and maintain unit and regression tests to support automated testing of code.

• Perform shakeout testing after deployments and infrastructure updates.

• Perform integration and functional testing.

• Conduct performance tests on components and benchmark in an integrated environment that includes a complete stack of GovInfo system components.

• Perform an analysis of integration testing processes to identify gaps then create a plan and acceptance criteria to fill in those gaps.

• Implement integration testing for codebase and integrate it in the build pipeline.

• Resolve failed tests and issues discovered because of testing.

C.2.2 Task 2 – Support

The contractor shall provide support services specified below for the custom code, commercial of the shelf (COTS) software, and open-source technologies that comprise the components of the Public Access Subsystem, as defined in the GovInfo Components and Technologies document (https://www.govinfo.gov/media/GovInfo_Components_and_Technologies.pdf)This includes performing corrective or adaptive maintenance along with support for content collections. Tasks include the following:

• Support daily operations of components to ensure accessibility and availability of systems and services.

• Troubleshoot and resolve problems that arise with components, technologies, and the processing, publishing, and public access to content and metadata.

• Perform troubleshooting tasks to identify, diagnose, prescribe, and implement solutions to problems.

• Monitor and report on the health of components, including providing metrics as requested.

• Conduct checks of the components and perform corrective procedures, manually intervening when necessary.

• Publish and republish packages as necessary.

• Monitor and tune performance, including performing load testing and tuning and optimizations, along with capacity planning and benchmarking.

• Perform search engine re-indexing and maintenance tasks.

• Perform activities to support the general availability and performance of the components, including, but is not limited to, investigating, diagnosing, and reporting on performance and functionality issues both internally to individual components, and in conjunction with other subject matter experts across program teams and components.

• For COTS components, serve as a point of contact for commercial product support by entering tickets and implementing solutions and hotfixes that are provided by vendor.

• Install, configure, administer, maintain, update, migrate, and verify components and technologies in GovInfo environments including Production, COOP, Stage, QA, Integration, Utilities, Experimental, and Sandbox including successor and new environments.

• Maintain existing code and design, develop, document, enhance, integrate, and perform bug fixes on components, technologies, and successor technologies.

• Support enhancements and improvements to the code check-in, build, and deployment processes.

• Develop a technology timeline to project lifecycle dates and refresh timelines for GovInfo technologies, with the goal of planning future replacements. This includes end of support dates, end of life dates, and security and update monitoring. The timeline must be updated at least quarterly to ensure that upcoming changes to support levels can be incorporated into release plans.

• Monitor, plan, and upgrade technologies or frameworks in all development and production environments no later than in the planned quarterly release prior to the end of life of that technology or framework, if an upgrade is available.

• Remedy issues identified through IT Security scanning and penetration testing.

• If an intrusion by an unauthorized party is detected, or a security incident is detected, the contractor will notify the GPO Computer Security Incident Response Team (GPO CSIRT) via email at: itsecgp@gpo.gov.

• Ensure system passes GPO CIS-CAT OS and server scans, application scans, and any internal or external vulnerability or penetration detection tools as coordinated by GPO IT or the GovInfo program with no Critical, High, or Medium risk issues present. The execution of these scans will be done with awareness from IT Security, with the report output being provided to GovInfo teams and IT Security to coordinate resolution action on any Critical, High, or Medium issues detected.

• Assist in managing the monitoring, identification, triage, coordination, resolution, and verification of mitigation of security vulnerabilities.

• Take training required by GPO including but not limited to privacy training and security training.

mailto:itsecgp@gpo.gov

C.2.3 Specifications for Development and Support

Regardless of the development or support tasks being performed, the specifications below are required to be adhered to by the Contractor:

Cross Functional Teams

• Work as a member of one or more cross-functional GovInfo program teams.

• As needed and directed by GPO, provide off-hours support to ensure continued availability, functionality, and security of the system.

• Work in conjunction with other GovInfo program team members to provide support for infrastructure, repository, processor, database, search, and web components, technology, and functionality including during system installations, patching, upgrades, development, support, testing, and deployments along with COOP failover and failback activities.

Performance Management

• Manage contracted staff, monitor performance of contracted staff, monitor quality of deliverables produced by contracted staff, and address issues.

• Manage contracted staff availability and ensure there are no gaps in support and development for the duration of the contract.

Agile Practices and Frameworks

• Employ agile practices and frameworks (e.g., Scrum, Kanban) based on the scope of work to be performed and as directed by GPO. The role of Product Owner is performed by GPO personnel and rest of the team is comprised of contracted development and support team members.

• Advise on agile processes and perform duties and associated responsibilities to support development and support efforts.

• Champion agile software development practices on component and cross-functional teams, including day to day communications and activities.

Technology Monitoring and Reporting

• Provide technical input to GPO and GovInfo program team members to ensure new functionality and enhancements to existing functionality are built to align with GovInfo architecture.

• Provide GPO and GovInfo program team members with new, migration, and upgrade technology plans to ensure adequate resources and implementation activities that can be incorporated into the GovInfo program.

• Monitor, evaluate, recommend, and implement components, tools, technologies, and upgrades to ensure the Program is implementing the tools and technologies that are most appropriate and secure to carry out its mission.

Training

• Maintain knowledge of industry trends related to existing GovInfo components as well as potential successor technologies.

• Provide training and professional development to contracted staff on the GovInfo program at no additional cost to the Government so contracted staff stay up to date on current and emerging technologies that may impact the GovInfo program. Examples include conferences, webinars, training classes, and appropriate certifications.

Communication and Policies

• Monitor and communicate within various channels (i.e., Teams channels, chats, email, Trello, GitLab, etc.), to update team members and GPO on the status of tasks verbally and in writing (e.g., update task cards, issues, etc.).

• Actively participate in and schedule working meetings, discussions, reviews, planning sessions, and any other necessary meetings with GovInfo program team members.

GPO uses Microsoft Teams for virtual meetings.

• Contractor shall provide a method for receiving and using approved second factor authentication (2FA) tokens for the purpose of 2FA access to GovInfo systems in accordance with GPO IT Security policies. An example is using a non-GPO issued mobile device that has an approved authenticator application on it (e.g., Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator).

• Comply with GPO policy directives. Contractor personnel will be provided access to GPO policy directives on the GPO Intranet after contract award.

• Comply with GovInfo program and team policies (e.g., use Outlook to indicate when you are not working, use Microsoft Teams for meetings, be on time for meetings). GPO will review program and team policies with Contractor personnel after contract award.

Knowledge and Experience

Contractor shall provide contracted staff that:

• Acquire and maintain in-depth knowledge of GovInfo architecture, design, components, and technologies to sustain the system and provide technical continuity across component and cross-functional teams. Experience with comparable technologies will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine if experience meets Program needs. For a list of technologies in use on the GovInfo program, see the GovInfo Components and Technologies document ((https://www.govinfo.gov/media/GovInfo_Components_and_Technologies.pdf) and refer to the technology list for the Public Access Subsystem.

• Have experience with agile software development lifecycle methodologies including Scrum and Kanban.

• Have experience authoring, editing, and maintaining design documentation, data management definition documents, standard operating procedures, and configuration documentation.

• Have experience implementing solutions in a Java-based environment.

• Have experience developing new technology implementation or migration plans including costs, scope, and timelines (e.g., Solr upgrade).

• Have knowledge of GovInfo content, metadata, and architecture.

• Have knowledge of Federal legislative, regulatory, and judicial processes and publications.

• Have knowledge of ISO 14721 OAIS (Open Archival Information System) and ISO 16363

TDR (Trustworthy Digital Repository).

• Have superior oral and written communication skills in the English language.

Contracted staff must fluently communicate in the English language for oral and written communications.

• Have experience with DevSecOps.

• Have experience with test driven development and test automation for all levels of the test pyramid.

• Have relevant experience implementing, administering, maintaining, and upgrading

Solr on Linux in a large-scale, public-facing, production environment including:

o Installing and configuring Solr o Administering and monitoring Solr o Building and troubleshooting Solr indices and related processes o Parsing user queries and submitting optimized queries to Solr o Returning search results to public users and tuning relevancy o Designing and upgrading from Solr to another search engine

• Have experience with large-scale search environments and potential successor search technologies.

• Have experience with large language models, machine-learning, vector search, or similar technologies.

• Have experience building Java EE custom applications in a large-scale production environment including applications to parse descriptive and structural metadata from unstructured and structured content, submit content and metadata to the search engine, and publish content and metadata to a public website and API.

• Have relevant experience designing and documenting how content and metadata is generated, processed, managed, and utilized by system components.

• Have experience with User Experience (UX) Design and User Interface (UI) Design.

• Have experience developing web page designs and templates.

• Have experience with Search engine optimization tools and techniques.

• Understand web markup including HTML5 and CSS3.

• Have expertise in client-side scripting, JavaScript, and jQuery.

• Understand Object-oriented Programming.

• Are proficient in BackboneJS, React, and similar JavaScript frameworks.

• Have experience integrating Drupal open-source WCMS with custom applications.

• Have experience implementing SEO best practices.

• Are familiar with implementing accessibility standards within an AJAX environment

(e.g., Section 508, WCAG 2.0, WAI-ARIA).

• Are skilled in browser testing, debugging, and cross-platform development.

• Have expertise in performance optimization tools and techniques, such as pageSpeed and YSlow.

• Have relevant experience building, maintaining, supporting, troubleshooting, and enhancing one or more high-visibility, high-traffic, high-availability, public-facing web applications and websites.

• Have experience integrating web application code with COTS and open-source web analytics tools including Matomo.

• Have experience integrating external APIs within web interfaces, including social media sharing.

• Have experience building, maintaining, troubleshooting, and enhancing Java EE custom web applications including Spring MVC-Based Custom Web Applications and Services.

• Have experience installing, configuring, managing, maintaining, troubleshooting, and upgrading application servers and Apache Web servers.

• Have experience installing, configuring, managing, maintaining, troubleshooting, and upgrading Drupal, PHP, and MySQL.

Development Tools

In addition to the technologies listed in the GovInfo Components and Technologies document, the program uses a number of developer tools used on individual development workstations and servers, as applicable. Contract staff shall have experience with the following tools and similar technologies:

• Trello

• Oxygen to develop, debug and tune XSLT and Metadata files

• IDE to develop and debug: Eclipse, Spring Tool Suite, IntelliJ and VSCode

• Docker desktop and minkube to test containerization

• Mobaxterm for connecting to various systems using SSH

• Winmerge for comparing common file types

• Notepad++/sublime editor for common editor issues

• JMC, JProfiler, JFR and Wireshark to profile, troubleshoot and tune JVM

• Graphic Design software, including Photoshop, Illustrator, or equivalents

• Prototyping tools, including Photoshop, Sketch, Illustrator, OmniGraffle, InVision, UXPin, Quartz, or other visual design and wireframing tools

C.3 Government Furnished Equipment

GPO will provide laptop computers, power adapters and/or docking stations, GPO network account, VPN access, and associated software to permit remote access. At the discretion of GPO, additional technology may be provided to contractors. Upon provision by GPO, it will be considered Government Furnished Equipment.

Contractor shall provide a method for each contractor to receive and use approved second factor authentication (2FA) tokens for the purpose of 2FA access to GovInfo systems in accordance with GPO IT Security policies. An example is using a non-GPO issued mobile device that has an approved authenticator application (e.g., Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator). A non-GPO issued mobile device for 2FA is not Government Furnished Equipment.

The Contractor shall use Government furnished equipment, information, data, and documents only for the performance of work under this contract. The Contractor shall be responsible for returning all Government furnished equipment, information, data, and documents to the Government at the end of the performance period. The Contractor shall not release Government furnished equipment, information, data, and documents to outside parties without prior and explicit consent of the Contracting Officer.

Contractors shall not take Government Furnished Equipment outside of the United States without prior approval from GPO.

C.4 Post Award Conference

The Contractor shall attend a Post Award Conference with the Contracting Officer and the COR no later than 7 business days after the date of award. The purpose of the Post Award Conference, which will be chaired by the Contracting Officer, is to discuss technical and contracting objectives of this contract. The Post Award Conference will be held via teleconference.

Section E – Inspection and Acceptance

E.1 Notice Listing Contract Clauses Incorporated by Reference

The following Contract clauses pertinent to this section are hereby incorporated by reference (by Citation, Number, Title, and Date) in accordance with the clause at MMAR 52.252-2 CLAUSES INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE in Section I of this Contract. Full text of the clauses is available at https://www.gpo.gov.

Number Title Date

52.246-4 Inspection of Services Fixed Price Aug 96 52.246-2 Inspection of Supplies Fixed Price Aug 96

E.2 Responsible Officials

Inspection and acceptance of services and supplies required by the contract will be made by the cognizant COR. Acceptance of services and supplies by the cognizant COR must form the basis for payments to the contractor and will form the basis of the contractor’s permanent performance record with regard to this contract.

E.3 Scope of Inspection

All deliverables will be inspected for content, completeness, accuracy, and conformance with contract requirements by the COR. The scope and nature of this inspection will be sufficiently comprehensive to ensure the completeness, quality, and adequacy of all deliverables.

E.4 Basis of Acceptance

E.4.1 The basis for acceptance shall be compliance with the requirements and relevant terms and conditions of set forth in the contract. Deliverable items rejected shall be corrected in accordance with the applicable clauses.

E.4.1.1 If the Government finds that a draft or final deliverable contains spelling errors, grammatical errors, or improper format, or otherwise does not conform to the requirements stated within this contract, the document may be immediately rejected without further review and returned to the contractor for correction and resubmission. If the contractor requires additional Government guidance to produce an acceptable draft, the contractor shall arrange a meeting with the COR.

E.4.1.2 All of the Government's comments on deliverables must either be incorporated in the succeeding version of the deliverable, or the contractor must demonstrate to the Government's satisfaction why such comments should not be incorporated.

https://www.gpo.gov/

E.4.1.3 Deliverables will be accepted when all discrepancies, errors, or other deficiencies identified in writing by the Government have been corrected.

E.5 General Acceptance Criteria

E.5.1 General quality measures, as set forth below, will be applied to each work product received from the Contractor under this contract.

• Accuracy: Work Products shall be accurate in presentation, technical content, and adherence to accepted elements of style.

• Clarity: Work Products shall be clear and concise. Any/all diagrams/excel spreadsheets shall be easy to understand and be relevant to the supporting narrative.

• Consistency to Requirements: All work products must satisfy the requirements of this

Statement of Work.

• File Editing: All text and diagrammatic files shall be editable by the Government.

• Format: All reports and document deliverables are to be submitted in English, in electronic copy (in MS Office), with tables, data and calculations in MS Excel. The electronic copy must be in a format as indicated in the Deliverables Table.

E.6 Inspection and Approval of Written Deliverables

E.6.1 Delivery of Written Deliverables

E.6.1.1 All monthly reports and deliverables shall be submitted in accordance with the delivery requirements in Section F of this solicitation.

E.6.2 Approval of Written Deliverables

E.6.2.1 Unless otherwise specified in the contract, or by mutual agreement in writing, the GPO will have ten (10) business days to determine if written deliverables are satisfactory.

Any deficiencies shall be corrected by the Contractor and incorporated into the final deliverable for resubmission to the GPO within three (3) business days after notification.

Section F – Deliveries or Performance

F.1 Period of Performance

Base period: August 1, 2024 through July 31, 2025 Option period 1: August 1, 2025 through July 31, 2026 Option period 2: August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2027 Option period 3: August 1, 2027 through July 31, 2028 Option period 4: August 1, 2028 through July 31, 2029

F.2 Performance Measures

The Government will evaluate the contractor’s performance under the resultant award using the method of surveillance specified in the attached Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP). See attachment 1.

F.3 Place of Performance and Hours of Work

Contractors on the GovInfo program telework. Contractors are required to work within the United States. Contractors may be required to perform work onsite at the U.S. Government Publishing Office (732 North Capitol Street, NW, Washington DC 20401). Telework is at the discretion of the Government.

Normal workdays are Monday through Friday except U.S. Federal Holidays. Contractors are expected to work at least eight (8) hours per day, 40 hours per week or equivalent (e.g., AWS 5-4/9), unless other arrangements are approved by the COR. Planned and unplanned leave must be communicated to the COR as early as possible, and the vendor must ensure other contractors continue to perform required tasks on schedule and at the same level of quality. Alternative work schedule (AWS 5-4/9) is at the discretion of the Government.

Unless other arrangements have been approved by the COR, the following items apply.

Core hours of work for the GovInfo program are from 9:00 AM Eastern to 3:00 PM Eastern.

Contractors are expected to be available and working during core hours, with flexibility for remaining or additional hours to meet program needs and fulfill contract requirements.

Contractors may start as early as 6:00 AM Eastern but not later than 9:00 AM Eastern. To meet program needs and fulfill contract requirements, meetings may occasionally have a start time that is outside of core hours.

Contractors will occasionally be required to perform tasks on weekends and outside of core business hours to meet program needs and fulfill contract requirements to ensure continued availability, security, and functionality of the GovInfo system and its data (e.g., system deployments, emergency restoration of down services, troubleshoot failed content packages that are critical for the Federal legislative or regulatory process, occasional planned weekend maintenance tasks). Tasks must be performed under the same CLIN pricing with no increase to contract cost.

F.4 Deliverables

Deliverables will be inspected and accepted or rejected by the COR. Deliverable review will be executed by the COR and GovInfo program team members in accordance with the Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP), and feedback will be provided to the Contractor.

Deliverables Due Dates Description Deliver To

Post Award Conference

Within 7 business days after contract award

Conference after award. COR, Program Manager, GPO Program Staff

Updates to Code and Configuration Repositories

Ongoing with every applicable sprint

Version-controlled code, configurations, and dependencies checked into source code management tools (e.g., GitLab, Azure DevOps).

Code, configurations, and dependencies delivered under the contract must have substantial test code coverage, a clean code base, be properly styled, be functional, be free of medium, high, and critical level security vulnerabilities and

COR, Program Manager, GPO Program Staff must successfully built and deployed to the appropriate integration, QA, stage, production, COOP, or successor environments.

Configurations includes updates to support code and environment changes in all applicable environments, including updates and verification by automated configuration tests.

Documentation and Issue Tracking

Ongoing with applicable sprint

Create and update issues within GPO’s source code management tools (e.g., GitLab, Azure DevOps) and update GPO’s enterprise issue trackers. Also includes issues that track End-Of-Life or End-Of- Support technologies and dependencies, maintenance issues, and security issues.

COR, Program Manager, GPO Program Staff

Create user stories, acceptance criteria, and test steps. Update release and backlog issues within the GovInfo Program’s release and backlog management tools (e.g., Trello, GitLab, Azure DevOps).

Technology Timeline

Quarterly Lifecycle dates and refresh timelines for GovInfo technologies, with the goal of planning future replacements. This includes end of support dates, end of life dates, and security and update monitoring.

COR, Program

Provided in Excel format or another format as proposed by the contractor and agreed to by the

COR.

UX/UI Design Deliverables

Ongoing with every applicable sprint

Mock-ups and/or design files if applicable, or design changes reflected in the development product. Includes update of design documentation.

COR, Program Manager, GPO Program Staff

Analysis, Planning, and Implementation Documentation

Ongoing with every applicable sprint

Analysis or proposals for new technology or significant technology migration or upgrade planning documentation that includes recommendations or implementation plans, resources, activities, and timelines.

COR, Program Manager, GPO Program Staff

Development Product and Design Documentation

Ongoing with applicable sprint

In-progress and final development product, tested, deployed, working and accessible within integration, QA, stage, production, COOP or successor environments, as appropriate.

COR, Program Manager, GPO Program Staff

Functionality in the software / source code is documented.

Documentation is checked in to GPO’s source code management tools (e.g., GitLab, Azure DevOps) and provided to GPO’s IT Configuration Management Branch.

Individual methods in source code are documented using comments.

Testing Deliverables

Ongoing with applicable sprint

Unit, regression, integration, and functional tests checked into tools and available for use.

Documentation of testing results.

COR, Program Manager, GPO Program Staff, Test Manager

Support and Operations Documentation

Ongoing with every production release

Documented procedures and automated scripts used to maintain, verify, automate, and support system components, to be kept in the version control system (e.g., GitLab, Azure DevOps).

COR, Program Manager, GPO Program Staff

Daily Logs Along with List of Completed Deliverables

Within 5 business days of the beginning of each month

Daily log of activities and work for each contractor along with a list of deliverables completed by the team during the prior month. To accompany monthly invoices submitted by contractor. Provided in Excel format for the logs and Microsoft Word for the list of deliverables, or another format for each as approved by the COR.

COR, Program

Section G – Contract Management

G.1 Contract Management

Notwithstanding the Contractor’s responsibility for total management responsibility during the performance of the contract, the administration of the contract will require maximum coordination with the Contracting Officer and Contracting Officer’s Representative.

Contracting Officer (CO)

Rashid Behi Acquisition Services, Room 530, Stop: AS U.S. Government Publishing Office Washington, DC 20401 rbehi@gpo.gov

(202) 512-1677

Contract Specialist (CS)

Jasanya (Dea) Bias Harrison Acquisition Services, Room 530, Stop: AS U.S. Government Publishing Office Washington, DC 20401 jbiasharrison@gpo.gov

(202) 512-0058

Contracting Officer’s Authority

The Contracting Officer is the only person authorized to make or approve changes in any of the requirements of the contract and notwithstanding any provisions contained elsewhere in this contract; the said authority remains solely in the Contracting Officer.

In the event the Contractor makes any changes at the direction of any person other than the Contracting Officer, the change will be considered to have been without authority and no adjustment will be made in the contract terms and conditions of this contract, including price.

mailto:rbehi@gpo.gov mailto:jbiasharrison@gpo.gov

G.2 Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR)

GPO designates the following individual as the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).

TBD

The COR may be changed at any time; however, GPO will promptly provide notification of COR changes to the contractor.

The responsibilities and limitations of the COR are as follows:

The COR is responsible for the technical aspects of the program and serves as technical liaison with the Contractor. The COR is also responsible for the final inspection and acceptance of all deliverables, services, reports, and such other responsibilities as may be specified in this contract. The COR is not authorized to make any commitments or otherwise obligate the GPO or authorize any changes, which affect the contract's price, terms or conditions. Any Contractor request for changes shall be referred to the Contracting Officer directly or through the COR. No such changes shall be made without the expressed prior authorization of the Contracting Officer. If the Contractor performs a service that alters the current cost, quantity, or scope without prior written approval from the CO, the Contractor does so at his/her own risk.