Forest_Service_ITSM_RFI-4-26-2018.docx

IT Tool for Customer Service RFI 127604-18-R-0004

IT Tool for Customer Service

Request for Information

127604-18-R-0004

April 26, 2018

Table of Contents

Introduction

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Forest Service, Washington Office (WO) Acquisition Management (AQM), Information Technology (IT) Support Branch, are conducting market research with this Request for Information (RFI). The RFI will be used to refine UDSA/Forest Service requirements and determine the most suitable approach for acquiring and fulfilling the needs associated with providing an IT solution to support a multi-agency service/help desk and improve IT infrastructure and service delivery. The RFI describes service/help desk agent services facilitated through the IT solution; however, the focus of this RFI is only on the IT solution and not on the service/help desk agent services.

The information collected in this RFI will be used to further define the Government's requirements and create the appropriate acquisition strategy. Consequently, do not submit proprietary information in response to this request. All submission information will be considered in finalizing USDA/Forest Service requirements. This RFI shall not be construed as a decision or obligation on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services cited in this notice. The Government will not reimburse respondents for any costs incurred in preparation of a response to this notice.

USDA Background

The USDA provides leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues based on sound public policy, the best available science, and efficient management. Founded in 1862, USDA’s role has evolved to meet the economic needs of the United States. The USDA spans 17 different agencies and includes nearly 120,000 employees at 4,500 locations across the U.S. and abroad.

Forest Service Background

Established in 1905, the U.S. Forest Service has the responsibility for stewardship of more than 193 million acres of the Nation’s forests and grasslands; for developing and communicating scientific knowledge through research and development that leads to informed natural resource decision making; for delivering technical assistance through state and private forestry programs; and for sharing knowledge and experience with others in the global community through international forestry. Performing this mission requires effective collection, organization, analysis, and delivery of many different types of information. The Forest Service currently has a workforce whose size varies by season with a maximum of approximately 42,000 employees distributed among:

a. Nine National Forest System (NFS) Regions (Regions);

b. Five Research and Development Stations (Stations) and the Forest Products Lab;

c. The Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry;

d. The International Institute of Tropical Forestry;

e. National headquarters in Washington, D.C. (the Washington Office (WO)); and

f. Forest Service managed Job Corps Centers

The Forest Service is comprised of more than 900 office locations and approximately 3,000 remote field/wildland non-office sites, including unstaffed locations such as electronic sites. These locations range from densely populated urban areas to sparsely populated, rural or wilderness sites. Forest Service populations include:

a. Large workforces (hundreds of individuals at headquarters, regional or station offices)

b. Very small workforces (fewer than 10 individuals in small district offices, research labs, remote work centers, or teams working in field locations)

c. Individuals working under work-at-home agreements, in travel status, or working in the field.

Customer Help Desk Background

The Forest Service provides and manages an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract for IT Service Desk Support that is available USDA-wide. This contract provisions multiple tiers of services, as well as Information Technology Service Management software to accommodate Incident, Service Request, Asset Management, and the like. Tiers of service/help desk agent services are provided by a SourceAmerica / AbilityOne contractor or Government employees.

The current IDIQ is the third generation of service/help desk contracts. Each version has continued to evolve and mature. While today’s IDIQ is labeled a service desk, it is primarily an IT help desk. The current IDIQ allows for agencies to acquire 24x7x365 support. Support covers the gamut of IT systems and products, including computers, servers, telecommunications, radios, and commercial and Government developed applications and software.

Six Task Orders (TOs) have been awarded under the IDIQ: (1) Forest Service Customer Help Desk (CHD); (2) Forest Service Inter-Agency Incident Application Support (IIA); (3) Client Technology Services (CTS); (4) Identity, Credential, & Access Management (ICAM); (5) Agriculture Research Service (ARS); and (6) Farm Service Agency. The TOs are not uniform in their approach, with some TOs using the contractor for service/help desk agents and tools, while other TOs use government-furnished tools but use contractor-provider service/help desk agent services.

Historically, the service/help desk resolves approximately 450,000 IT end user issues annually. While the majority of its users include USDA and Forest Service end users, it also provides service to other federal, state and local cooperators as well as non-government personnel. Seasonal efforts, such as firefighting and natural disaster response, cause large influxes of personnel and subsequently service/help desk incidents.

Current USDA service/help desks use a variety of IT tools, including but not limited to Remedy, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle, and PeopleSoft.

Customer Service/Help Desk Future

USDA is undergoing a transformation, first to consolidate duplicative services and then to modernize the services. This same transformation is expected of service/help desk services. Numerous USDA agencies and offices do not currently use the IDIQ service/help desk. In the short-term, transformation includes consolidation leading to an increase in the number of users supported by the service/help desk contract and a decrease in the number of alternative help/service desks. As USDA works towards a broader IT transformation, a key requirement is the right IT tool or tools and system integration to enable better management of IT processes, assets, and projects across the organization.

USDA and the Forest Service are looking for leading technology solutions to modernize USDA’s customer service offering while reducing its total cost of ownership. In addition to modernization and reduction in costs, key aspects of the current strategy, which are subject to change, include:

· An IT solution that will be accessed and used by end users, USDA employees, and contactor technicians.

· Automation and expansion of Tier 0 capabilities to reduce incidents.

· An increase in the number of users supported by the IT solution for a variety of needs.

· As other services (i.e., HR, Finance, specific application support, other mission-related help desks, etc.) are incorporated, additional knowledge areas, service providers and partners will need to be accommodated.

· Any IT solution proposed must be able to integrate with a number of legacy and existing systems.

· The IT solution(s) must be cloud-based and must be FedRAMP certified prior to contract award and the vendor must assist with obtaining an ATO.

· The primary focus of this service/help desk will be to support USDA employees and its contractors; federal, state and local partners; and citizens. The IT solution must enable that support.

Attachments

· Services Requirements Summary

RFI Response Submission Instructions

The Government is not seeking elaborate responses, but rather concise, meaningful responses from vendors with expertise to meet its needs. Responses will not be returned. The Government reserves the right to use the responses to this RFI to amend its requirements, acquisition strategy, and associated documents or approaches for this effort.

The Government recognizes that it is seeking industry’s answers to numerous questions and use cases. Industry should not feel obligated to answer all questions. The Government is interested in industry’s ideas, pertinent information, useful suggestions, cautions and areas for potentially innovative IT solutions. As such, the Government is interested in any relevant information that can be provided, even if only a handful of questions are answered.

The Government also recognizes that many potentially interested companies will need to, and have yet not been able to, partner with other companies. At this time, the Government requests that the response address the respondent’s perspective when addressing the RFI Questions and Use Cases rather than proposing teaming solutions.

Please provide:

1. Answers to all of the questions in Section 8.1, Company Information.

2. As many answers to the RFI Questions in Section 8.2 as possible. The focus of this RFI is only on the IT solution and not on the service/help desk agent services.

3. As many responses to the Use Cases in Section 8.3 as possible.

No page limit exists for the response. Responses must be submitted to nnunezhidalgo@fs.fed.us and wo_aqm_it_support@fs.fed.us no later than 5pm ET on May 18, 2018. Submissions must be in Microsoft Word.

Requested Information

1.1 Company Information

1. Company Name, Address, and Website

2. Point-of-Contact with Email Address and Phone Number

3. DUNS Number

4. Recommended NAICS for the IT solution

5. Company Status (Other than Small Business, Small Business, WOSB, VOSB, SDVOSB, HUBZone, 8(a), ANC, etc. per Small Business Administration’s definitions[footnoteRef:1]) [1: https://www.sba.gov/managing-business/running-business/size-standards ]

6. Contract vehicles that your services and/or products are available for purchase by USDA

7. Brief Company Overview (no longer than ½ of a page)

8. Please note if the IT solution(s) proposed is currently FedRAMP approved and has an active Authority to Operation (ATO) with a federal agency. If not fully FedRAMP approved, please note the current phase of the approval process.

9. Please include agency and the Contracting Officer’s Representative name, contact number, and email address for up to three agencies that have implemented your IT solution.

1.2 RFI Questions

1. How would your organization recommend USDA evolve and transform multiple help desks and contact centers into a single service desk through the implementation of your recommended IT solution?

a. Describe what requirements are essential to transition from the current technology solution to your recommended solution to support a single-point-of-contact service desk.

b. With respect to the IT Solution, what steps would your organization take to transition additional USDA office/agencies to the service desk, given that each office/agency will have different organizational structures, data structures, workflows, etc.?

c. If using an ITIL-based tool, is there a sequence your organization recommends for activating ITSM modules to support that change?

d. Describe how knowledge documents are ingested as new help desks or contact centers are absorbed into the single service desk.

2. How would your proposed IT solution meet the following requirements via built-in functionality or required add-on technologies:

a. Multiple channels (e.g., telephony, chat, email, mobile, social media, fax)

b. “Omni-Channel” communications

c. Portal

d. Self-Help

e. Knowledge Management

f. Customer Relationship Management

g. Feedback Mechanisms

h. Service Catalog (Provisioning, etc.)

i. Project Management (functionality to allow for the management of USDA projects)

3. Would your proposed IT solution employ Artificial Intelligence to improve efficiency and effectiveness and the customer experience? If so, how?

4. How would your organization’s approach motivate and enable end users/customers to resolve their incidents with self-help/Tier 0 solutions? How does your proposed IT solution measure and track effectiveness of self-help/Tier 0?

5. Provide examples of how your proposed IT solution integrates with other legacy IT solutions that exist within the USDA’s environment.

6. What best practices or new approaches does your organization have for knowledge management for USDA? What makes your knowledge management different from others offered in the marketplace?

7. What are the most useful capabilities of your IT solution’s customer profile when supporting a wide variety of end users, particularly around: end user IT savviness, end users from different user organizations, from different end user types (i.e., classes of user), and for customer relationship management?

a. How does the solution accommodate different work flows and associated Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for different end users, organizations, types of requests, etc.?

8. Describe the IT solution’s reporting capabilities.

a. How can individuals easily and intuitively create reports (i.e., no administrator assistance, third-party systems, or development required)? Is reporting configurable (e.g., role based)?

b. Provide examples of what agencies/private sector clients use for key metrics/key performance indicators to manage service.

9. Please describe the IT solution’s capabilities with task management (e.g., Kanban boards, other visualization tools).

10. Explain how a request for service, via non-help desk agent interactions (initial interaction outside of the system, i.e., email, fax, voicemail, chat, etc.), are captured within the recommended solution.

11. What are best practices/approaches to Omni-Channel?

a. What metrics are used to manage Omni-Channel?

b. How much is it used by your organization’s current clients?

12. Explain how your organization charges for its product(s) or services?

a. For tool usage, are users (direct support – Tier 1, 2, etc. –, Managers, Administrators, etc.) required to have licenses?

b. Are there multiple types of licenses with different price points and capabilities?

c. Are licenses based on concurrent use or does every individual using the system need a license or is it a flat fee?

d. How does your organization address licenses for part-time staff, seasonal (part year) staff, or interns?

e. In an end-to-end ticket resolution that may involve a multi-sourced environment with multiple tiers of providers using different systems (e.g., including technical support staff, system administrators, cloud providers, different companies and Government and Contractor entities), how will these groups be licensed for advanced ticket processing and root cause analysis?

f. Is technical support for the product included in the costs of licenses?

13. What approaches are your current customers using to price service desk services to the end-user or organization? How are they allocating costs to their supported organizations?

14. How does the IT solution support the automated division of costs among organizations when supporting multiple funding organizations?

15. What Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and measures do you recommend for the IT solution?

16. Please provide any additional features or capabilities that your organization would like to highlight.

1.3 Use Cases

Please address as many of the Use Cases that allow your IT solution to differentiate itself. When responding to the Use Case, please address the following items:

1. Brief Solution Overview (2-3 lines suitable for an Executive’s summary)

2. Description of how the Solution would address the challenges presented in the Use Case

a. Provide examples, if there are any, of a similar solution or portion of a solution used by another federal, state, local or commercial organization.

3. Any Solution Requirements

a. List any Assumptions used to address the Use Case

b. Provide a list of products and/or services required to achieve the level of functionality described in your solution

c. Describe how much effort is required to install and configure the products in a complex multi-sourced environment, such as the USDA, to meet the needs articulated in the Use Case.

d. Describe the level of continued maintenance needed to maintain the level of functionality described in your Use Case response

4. Any suggested improvements, changes, and/or innovations to address the Use Case and underlying business requirements.

Illustrative Use Cases

a) Mountain Top/Mobile Access

The USDA is home to a large and diverse workforce that accomplishes many different functions in pursuit of its mission. The USDA has developed and evolved an IT infrastructure that supports employees as they perform their various job functions. One classification of work that is common within the USDA is work in the outdoors and in some cases in austere outdoor environment – which can include limited or no network connectivity.

As part of my duties, I am required to visit a telecommunications tower located on a mountain top. The location is only accessible during the temperate months, as access is blocked during the snowy season. In some instances, it can take between 4+ hours to ascend to the proper location. When I arrive to the work site, I will need to capture equipment performance information, asset identification information, and any other pertinent information – this typically includes photos and longitude/latitude coordinates.

During a typical work session, I use various mobile devices (iOS, Windows) to edit asset inventory information while on-site. These devices utilize standard wireless connectivity (through a mobile device), or no network connectivity.

Please describe how your solution can support accomplishing my job functions in the described environment. Specifically, how your solution supports a mobile workforce in capturing information, even without connectivity, and whether your solution allows for editing records on-site and under which conditions.

b) Provisioning of Equipment

USDA uses a number of separate Service Catalogs to provision IT Services, Hardware and Software to its internal customer base (USDA Employees). Some of these systems offer integration between back and front office support, while others are standalone solutions or just web-constructs of paper-based systems. Various governing bodies control and manage these disparate Service Catalogs.

As a leader in the organization, I need to be able to simplify the provisioning process for end users and organizations. I also want to be able to track, by employee and location, any equipment that has been supplied, and ensure the right organization is being charged for those services.

Please describe how your solution can: integrate various IT Service Catalogs; route provision requests for the appropriate Government approval; provision IT Services (e.g., IMAC, Application License, Cloud Storage); incorporate and ensure management to budgeting constraints; and generate “chargeback information” that will be used by to allocate the costs to the right organization.

c) Data: Reporting and Data Analytics

Management reports fulfill a need for near-real time situational awareness of service desk trends, to gain insight into the relationships between incidents, and efficiently assess root causes. The use of standardized reports fosters a consistent management view for business insights and clarity into work trends. Ad-hoc reporting can also be used to address incidental business needs.

It is anticipated that different agencies will be interested in obtaining information based on their unique organizational hierarchy, their supported IT products, their users, their equipment and their users’ roles. Explain how your solution would accommodate these unique agency details.

I manage the service desk and need real time situational awareness of IT trends to gain insight into the relationships between incidents and efficiently assess root causes. For example, I see that we have 1,500 incidents that potentially correlate to a single root cause (e.g., network equipment failure).

Describe how your solution addresses the needs of standardized reporting, ad hoc reporting, root cause analysis/problem management, integration with existing tools, and agency-specific customizations. Describe how easily “standard” reports can be created or edited and then made available to managers. Describe your point of view on the best practices around the management of standard reports. Describe how your solution can be used by USDA to proactively manage their demand and capacity management challenges, including examples of how business insights are extracted from service desk interactions. Describe how incident information is “mined” for insights into enterprise performance (e.g., correlating a single network equipment failure causing a localized outage to proactively replacing a specific hardware component in the entire network to avoid future network outages). Describe how your solution provides status information for processes that span tools and organizational boundaries within USDA.

d) Employee Lifecycle

A number of processes need to be tracked and completed to integrate new employees into the USDA organization. The scope of these processes includes:

· Account/Remote Access Management;

· Telephone Service Request;

· Assignment of IT related hardware, including desktop computing, mobile computing, and/or handheld devices; and

· Tracking and coordination with other staffs responsible for payroll, training, etc.

Conversely, a number of related processes need to be completed when an employee leaves his/her respective organization. The scope of these processes includes:

· Removal of all accounts/remote access;

· Update of the asset records to reflect the collection of all IT related hardware; and

· Tracking and coordination with other staffs responsible for the retrieval of all credit cards, keys, other property as applicable.

Some typical scenarios include:

a) A new employee joins the Forest Service. That employee requires a PIV (LincPass) badge, an e-authentication account, active directory account, and email account. Additionally, the employee needs a laptop computer, cell phone, travel card, and access to Human Resource systems (e.g., Paycheck).

b) In March 2019, a temporary employee joins the Forest Service to fight fires during the fire season (roughly 6-months). The employee requires a PIV badge, active directory account, and an email account. Additionally, the temporary employee needs a cell phone and access to Human Resource systems (e.g., Paycheck).

c) In June 2019, a USDA employee transfers from one agency within the USDA to another. In their new position, they should no longer have access to some of the applications that they had in their prior position.

d) In October 2019, a USDA employee has reached 30 years of service, is of retirement age, and plans to retire at the end of the calendar year.

Please describe how your solution facilitates each of the above scenarios.

e) Application Lifecycle

USDA employs a number of custom applications to meet specific business requirements. I need to develop a new application in support of fire data analysis.

Please describe how your solution can enable the lifecycle of a custom application from Ideation through Release and Deployment in a public cloud computing platform such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.

f) Public vs. USDA Employee

The customer base using the Service Desk includes the following user classes:

· Citizens, such as a Farmer/Rancher/Producer (approximately two million accounts),

· USDA employees and contractors (approximately 120,000 users).

· Other Federal Partners

· State and Local Government Cooperators

· Contractors and Vendors (Often suppliers for Fire and Natural Disasters)

Each of these customer-bases have unique support needs.

Explain how your solution would be able to identify who is contacting the Service Desk for support based upon their customer-base classification and route them appropriately (e.g., warm transfer, self-help, problem resolution or user portal). Explain how your solution would facilitate end user profiles and associated data to optimize the end user’s experience.

g) IT Service Owner Wants Total Cost of Ownership Calculated

USDA has a number of disparate help desks, service desk and contact centers. It is the goal of USDA to collapse these services into a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) service desk. As the various avenues for support are consolidated into a SPOC, each business unit will require an invoice for an equitable portion of the services consumed.

I am a line manager that has recently consolidated my help desk support for 1,500 employees and Contractors into the SPOC service desk, what kind of total cost of ownership (TCO) information will I receive on a monthly basis?

Explain your solution’s capability and its granularity, in providing TCO information to various stakeholders of a shared service, such as the SPOC service desk. Explain any limits or restrictions in your solutions capability to provide TCO information.

h) Consolidation

USDA expects to consolidate all of its IT help desks, services desks and contact centers into a SPOC service desk during the lifetime of this contract. Currently six Task Orders support certain services for approximately 70 percent of USDA employees. Many of those Customers also use other help desks, service desks and contact centers for other help and service requests. As these other desks/centers are consolidated, additional or single desk-specific data and knowledge documents may need to be incorporated into the primary SPOC’s database(s) and tools. For example, the Forest Service requires a level of organizational hierarchy information (e.g., Washington Office, Region/Station/Area, Forest/Lab, and District) that is more detailed than other agencies. Other agencies may need to integrate or use other tools sets (e.g., to use Salesforce, connect to ServiceNow, or use multiple versions of Remedy) during the projected life of this contract. Examples of software currently in use include Oracle Service Cloud, Salesforce, Remedy OnDemand, ServiceNow, PeopleSoft, RightAnswers, ACD/IVR (Avaya), Bomgar Chat, API Management Software, TeamForge. This is not an all-inclusive list.

Explain your recommended process on how individual service components (e.g., help desks, service desks, and contact centers) within separate agencies will be transitioned into the SPOC. Describe the process required to modify User Profiles to accommodate specific agency information (e.g., USDA Forest Service), ingest knowledge management documentation, and improve business processes as service components are consolidated. Demonstrate how your solution can augment, integrate and/or transition from various other third-party tools and systems used within USDA.

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