SCI_Industry_Day_Questions_04.13.18.pdf

SCI Industry Day Questions 04.13.18.txt Q&A Session for AMS Specialty Crops Program Systems Modernization RFI ‐‐‐ Q&A Session

Session number: 668369103 Date: Friday, April 13, 2018 Starting time: 12:12 PM

Q: Will this recording be available to download later?

Q: Commercial cloud is preferred?

Q: Is a tablet acceptable?

Q: For offline functionality, you mentioned that a browser with required functionality would be acceptable. But wouldn't the offline client need to fully support computer‐assisted grading for the 86 fresh commodities?

Q: Can offline application be a third party app if data integration & data transfer has acceptable security assuming the app's functionality is integrated to overall solution?

Q: will that list be provided. It was very hard to hear.

Q: of the legacy systems Q: Can you provide the size of the legacy applications? Either in function points or SLOC Q: For integration of external systems do you have a required Enterprise Service

Bus, or would that be vendor proposed?

Q: Would you please provide the slide deck later? Thank you!

Q: How will you evaluate an "agile development" approach versus a configurable COTS approach?

Q: To clarify, will the new SCI application be required to provide computer‐assisted inspection support for all 86 fresh commodities? Will support for computer‐assisted inspection of processed commodities be added to the application?

Q: Will USDA provide copies of all applicable grading standards to the developers for each commodity?

Q: The Draft PWS mentions “Best practices for protecting confidential or sensitive information.” in addition to NIST 800‐53, FISMA and FedRAMP. What other best practices will be required, given the scope of the application?

Q: Is Integration to MOAD part of the RFI?

Q: Are your inspections assigned / planned? Do you know the specifics of each inspection that will be taking place?

Q: Will service requests be generated in the new system?

Q: The Draft PWS mentions “The ability to assign, dispatch, and complete pending service requests.” Does the government expect that the service request solution will contain a complex workflows with load balanced scheduling, multiple Q: Do you prefer a COTS solution over an OpenSource solution?

Q: Will this meeting be summarized in a written format after this call?

Q: You have stated a preference for COTS/SaaS but are you open to a custom solution using Free Open Source Software (FOSS) hosted in the cloud?

Q: RFI mentions Hybrid Agile: This term has multiple connotations. Does it mean the project will use Sprints and Waterfall together for different requirements OR

Development will occur in sprints but testing and releases will occur in Q: I believe you have addressed this in the prior response but to be absolutey clear, you want a COTS package and not development from scratch, is that correct?

Q: Would the requirement to use a business rule engine limit the solution to a COTS or SaaS product? What sort of business rule engine capability would an open‐source solution be expected to provide to be acceptable?

Q: Can you provide any system documentation (e.g. user documents or system documentation)? This will help understand the extent of configuration required.

This will also help in providing a better ROM Cost to modernize.

Q: What, if any, source code or APIs might be provided to developer? Example: FEIRS software source code Q: It sounded like Doug said for government commerical cloud he wants Azure. Does that exclude aother government comercial clouds that are fedramp'd?

Q: What data is considered confidential in the scope of this RFI? Inspection

History? Billing? What else?

Q: Understanding several individuals will be inputting data into they system, how many SCP users would evaluate and process this data on the backend? Would all 700 SCI individuals be involved in doing this, or would it be a subset of the organization?

Q: Does the USDA currently have a ServiceNow version impelemented?

Q: If selected to perform the work, do we have access to the current team that is in charge of the legacy systems today? How long will that team be available for?

Q: Will the recorded version of this Q&A be made available?

Q: Can you shared an estimated TCV for this solicitation?

Q: Will USDA own the source code or will ownership remain with developer yet an unrestricted license granted to USDA?

Q: Can you please make the recorded copy of this presentation available?

Q: If an existing solution meets most of these requirements, how would that alter your current phased approach?

Q: Does AMS use or require any specific DevOps tools by the dev teams?

Q: (the existing solution is Saas‐ FYI) Q: Does AMS have a list of products that are under current consideration and could you share that with the group?

Q: Will there by support team from Pay.gov to help us with integration?

Q: RFI page 10, 8. Requirements, Phase 1: Is AMS performing its effort of “map

[ping] [its] existing inspection, billing and other administrative functions as well as [its] customer interaction points” internally, or will there be a separate procurement?

Q: Will developer have to develop custom APIs to connect to existing systems with

USDA or use existing APIs? Ex: connecting to Pay.gov and e‐Authentication Q: Have you completed a market survery that confirms the availability of a/an COTS solution that meets most if not all of the requirements as stated in the RFI, or what a "low coding environment can deliver?

Q: Is the government condifdent that a COTS / SAAS solution will cover all aspects fo the system requirements? Or does it forsee that some level of custom code will be required.

Q: Does AMS currently have access to IaaS commerical clouds such as Azure or AWS?

If not, when is access expected?

Q: Can you describe the extent of billing functionality for replacing the legacy system. Pricing/service catalog, processing payments, recurring billgen/invoicing and maintaining billing account balances? What about financial functions like AR, aging, etc.

Q: Can you clarify that you said salesforce is your CRM standard?

Q: Would a low‐code COTS application capable of being deployed to on‐premise virtual environments as well as native commercial clouds such as Azure and AWS without any package modification be a viable alternative to a SaaS proposal?

Q: Total contract value

Q: TCV

Q: What level of self‐configuration do you envision without 'contractor interface"?

Q: Did AMS evaluate any Proof of Concept or Prototypes for modernization of SCI system? If so which were the platform(s) and what were the results?

Q: What is the timeline or tentative deadline AMS has in mind for complete modernizaiton?

Q: Will a single contract be awarded for the upcoming RFP or is there a possibility that more than one contract might be awarded in a coordinated manner, each focusing on one aspect of this RFI?

Q: How many customers does SCI currently have that would need to access the new system?

Q: Will the deadline remain Thursday, April 19th?

Q: How many countries (besides the US) do AMS customers come from? Is multi‐lingual needed?

Q: multi‐currency needed? or will it always be USD?

Q: Will the USDA consider extending the due date for responses beyond Apr 19 since some new information will be provided as late as Apr 18th (next Wednesday)?

Q: Given a response due Thursday, posting information Wednesday will give little time to assess Q: From the RFI Q: What level of Section 508 conformance will be required for browser‐based content

(A, AA, or AAA)?

Q: No other questions, but I do have to send a kudo. Terrific execution of a virtual industry day. Thank you!!

Q: Is the first phase a request for a service provider Q: What is the frequency o fusing offline capability?

Q: will we be able to demo our solution?

Q: For integration of external systems, do you have an enterprise service bus?

Q: WHAT CONTRACT VEHICLE?

Q: How often do users use offline capability?

Q: as part of the RFI, will we be able to demo our solution?

Q: Please do this again.... excellent format for Q&A Q: Is this going to be a combined software and services acquisition?

Q: Or are you going to buy the software first, then services later?

Q: Also ‐ what is the average size of data when they use offline capabi Q: In an existing solution, if 508 compliance is not currently in place can we simply state our date for compliance with this requirement?

Q: Or will you select a services provider and have them recommend the software solution?

Q: Do you anticipate that both the cloud service provider (Azure Gov or AWS Gov) and the SaaS provider will need to be FedRAMP authorized or just hosting on a

FedRAMP authorized cloud service will be sufficient?

Q: What operating systems would the offline client solution need to support?

Q: can you please repeact the standar agile product you use Q: is there a QR or barcode scanning capability be requird for inspection?

Q: Would the offline client need to store user specific data, or would it only store generally available data/reports where authentication is not required?

Q: For the 86 or so commodities, how much variation will the system be expected to manage and guide field resource tasks and workflow to audit/certify Q: Will computer‐assisted inspection support for all 86 fresh commodities be required under the off‐line conditions?

Q: Are the images being embedded into the reports/certificates from the system pre‐determined, or user generated?

Q: Do inspectors use any computers, mobile devices, ipdas to conduct inspections?

Q: I think you said that the SaaS solution does not need to be fedramp'd but needs to be FISMA moderate and go through an agency ATO. Could you confirm? The soundanswer did not come across clearly