13-Exhibit D - FWWD Narrative Requirements - Software.docx
DOCX document 66 KB Posted
- Attached to
- RFP Customer Information System (CIS) Software
- Solicitation number
- 25-0128
- Issued by
- Tarrant County, Texas
About this file
This document is an Exhibit D - Narrative Requirements for the City of Fort Worth Water Department (FWWD), detailing technical specifications for a comprehensive Customer Information System (CIS) software procurement. The document outlines requirements for an integrated software solution encompassing Customer Information System, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Mobile Workforce Management (MWFM) systems. The narrative requirements cover critical areas including integrations, rates management, reporting capabilities, letters and notices, technical architecture, reliability, performance, maintenance, development tools, support, security, document management, and artificial intelligence capabilities.
The document emphasizes specific technical requirements such as cloud-based SaaS architecture, data access protocols, system scalability, performance metrics, disaster recovery strategies, and comprehensive security measures. Key technical expectations include unrestricted 24/7/365 database access, near real-time data replication, robust integration capabilities with existing systems, support for complex rate structures (including stormwater billing), self-service report and notice development tools, and advanced AI-driven customer interaction features. The procurement seeks a flexible, high-performance solution that can accommodate the utility's current operational needs while providing adaptability for future growth and technological advancements.
View the file
Other files
Show all 18
On GovTribe
Work with this file
- Download the original file
- Contacts named in this file
- Similar government files
- Ask GovTribe AI about this file
Text version
EXHIBIT D – FWWD NARRATIVE REQUIREMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| EXHIBIT D – FWWD NARRATIVE REQUIREMENTS | 1 | |
| 1 | Integrations | 2 |
| 2 | Rates | 2 |
| 3 | Reports | 3 |
| 4 | Letters and Notices | 4 |
| 5 Technical Requirements | 4 | |
| 5.1 Architecture | 4 | |
| 5.2 Reliability | 7 | |
| 5.3 Performance | 8 | |
| 5.4 Maintenance and Release Management | 9 | |
| 5.5 Development and Administrative Tools | 11 | |
| 5.6 Support | 12 | |
| 5.7 Security | 14 | |
| 5.8 Document Management | 14 | |
| 5.9 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Capabilities | 15 | |
| 5.10 Data Access | 16 |
NARRATIVE REQUIREMENTS
This Narrative Requirements document contains a description of the services the Responder is expected to deliver.
Each of the following required services is expected to be addressed in the Responder’s proposal.
1 Integrations This section describes the Responder’s capabilities and experience related to your software’s integration capabilities, methodology, protocols and experience related to FWWD’s other systems and the Responder’s system. See Exhibit H - Interfaces for information about the required interfaces with the proposed CIS solution.
1.1. Describe in detail your standard integration protocol and your experience with each interface listed in Exhibit H – Interfaces.
Responder’s Reply
2 Rates Water rates have two components - a tiered volume charge and a fixed monthly service charge based on water meter size. The rates are split between inside and outside city boundaries. Water rates are per 100 cubic feet or CCF. One CCF equals 748.1 gallons.
The City of Ft. Worth also bills for Wastewater, Sanitation, Stormwater, Wholesale, and Fireline. Refer to Exhibit J – Rates for a complete listing of FWWD rates.
2.1 FWWD desires the ability to easily add new rates and services within the new CIS. Describe the maturity and robustness your systems rate functionality and capability to support FWWD’s rates listed in Exhibit J – Rates.
Responder’ s Reply
2.2 Describe other rate models and calculations your solution can accommodate.
Responder’s Reply
2.3 Describe your methodology, approach, and capabilities for modeling rate changes and updating rates within your application.
Responder’s Reply
2.4 FWWD bills Stormwater fees monthly based on the amount of square footage of impervious surface. Low occupancy residential customers are placed into one of four billing tiers, based on Equivalent Residential Units (ERU). 1 ERU equals 2,600 sq. feet. High occupancy residential and non-residential customers are billed on a flat rate per ERU.
Stormwater Credits are awarded to non-residential rate payers in the City for voluntarily implementing Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs) to help reduce the amount of runoff and/or to improve the water quality of runoff from their property. The credits are applied as percent discounts to the regular monthly stormwater fees.
FWWD utilizes data from Esri-GIS for square footage / ERU calculations and Accela Permitting for Certificates of Occupancy and residential final inspections.
Describe in detail your Software’s methodology, approach, and capabilities for billing Stormwater based on FWWD’s Stormwater rate and credit structure. (See Exhibit J – Rates for more detail).
Responder’s Reply
3 Reports This section describes the Responder’s offering and services related to Reports.
3.1 The Responder shall address each of the reports in Exhibit A - Reports by indicating if these reports will be a core report or a custom report in the column labeled “Core or Custom.”
Responder’s Reply
3.2 Provide a complete listing of the reports in your current report library.
Responder’s Reply
3.3 FWWD expects the proposed solution will provide the capability and tools for FWWD to be self-sufficient in the development, update, maintenance, and ownership of all Reports.
Responder acknowledges the above requirement, with the following exceptions, if any.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
3.4 Describe your reporting capabilities, methodology, approach, and degree of technical acumen required for an end-user to create and edit reports.
Responder’s Reply
3.5 Describe any tools, additional software, and licenses required to design and develop reports. Document any additional associated cost in the pricing model – Exhibit E – FWWD CIS Pricing Model.
Responder’s Reply
4 Letters and Notices This section describes the Responder’s offering and services related to Letters and Notices.
4.1 FWWD expects the proposed solution will provide the capability and tools for FWWD to be self-sufficient in the development, update, maintenance and ownership of all Letters and Notices.
Responder acknowledges the above requirement, with the following exceptions, if any.
4.2 Describe your letter and notice development capabilities, methodology, approach, and degree of technical acumen required for an end-user to use.
Responder’s Reply
4.3 Describe any tools, additional software, and licenses required to design and develop letters and notices. Document any additional associated cost in the pricing model – Exhibit E – FWWD CIS Pricing Model.
Responder’s Reply
5 Technical Requirements
5.1 Architecture
5.1.1. Provide an overview of your SaaS Cloud solution.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.2. From a components perspective, show diagrammatically and describe the relationship among the system's components.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.3. Provide the logical Entity Relationship Diagram (high-level entities and their relationships) for the system.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.4. Identify explicitly and describe in full any additional modules or middleware applications required per FWWD requirements for the CIS, CRM, and MWFM solution to operate.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.5. Describe your approach to “Enterprise-wide” database management.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.6. Describe the Cloud infrastructure data center architecture; number and location of your data centers are and how they are connected.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.6.1.1.
5.1.7. Provide a list of the supported/recommended browsers and their versions.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.8. Is the solution available for mobile devices and if so, list the platforms and versions that are compatible? Additionally, list any functional differences that a user may experience in the mobile version.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.9. Is there a limit on the number of concurrent connections on your Cloud SaaS platform. Describe the cloud service licensing with “maximum concurrent users.” Define the peak usage limits allowed by the license types.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.10. Describe your licensing model including how you perform audits, the frequency of audits, adjustments, and how you communicate the outcome. FWWD expects the process to be defined in the contract.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.11. Describe any system limitations on data related to items such as number of accounts stored, customers, work orders, etc.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.12. Does the system allow for dynamic scaling of infrastructure/resources? Describe the process for adjusting the system's scaling to accommodate new or changing customer needs, including notification to FWWD of potential scaling issues.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.13. Describe your ability to scale up to be able to manage a customer account growth rate (i.e., 10% to 20%).
Responder’s Reply
5.1.14. Describe any limitations or constraints on the size or number of file attachments.
Responder’s Reply
5.1.15. Describe any limitations or constraints on the size or number of file attachments. Indicate if your solution requires browser plug-ins or add-ins. List required plug-ins or add-ins.
Responder’s Reply
Reliability
5.2.1 Describe the way the system's reliability is enhanced (e.g., database redundancy or duplication options, load balancing, fault tolerance, instantaneous failover, high availability) and indicate if the reliability enhancements are standard or optional.
Responder’s Reply
5.2.2 Describe process audit (i.e., proactive monitoring) and notification functionality. For example, is there a mechanism (i.e., email, text notifications) to inform the utility technical staff if the system is experiencing database or process issues?
Responder’s Reply
5.2.3 Describe the notification process and how the solution interacts with other systems to provide real time notices. What notification options are available (e.g., SNMP, SMS, SMTP, etc.)
Responder’s Reply
5.2.4 Describe the process of proactively notifying the System Administrator regarding issues with anti-malware which are known to create problems with the current version of the vendor software (as an example).
Responder’s Reply
5.2.5 Describe FWWD's ability to view system and application logs and/or direct them to a security incident and event management (SIEM) system for review.
Responder’s Reply
5.2.6 Describe the system backup strategy; backup method, backup schedule and duration, backup testing, backup security, scale, flexibility. Describe access methodology to view system and database backups.
Responder’s Reply
5.2.7 Describe the Point-In-Time Restore (PITR) capabilities of the system and the time that it will take to perform a restoration if required.
Responder’s Reply
5.2.8 Describe your Disaster Recovery strategy and processes.
Responder’s Reply
5.3 Performance
5.3.1 Describe how you would guarantee no impact to staff's online experience response time when they are performing daily operations (online transactions, processing bills, etc.). What is the expected refresh rate under normal conditions?
Responder’s Reply
5.3.2 Describe how you manage and triage performance related issues.
Responder’s Reply
5.3.3 Describe how you monitor system performance, including metrics and tools used to monitor system performance.
Responder’s Reply
5.3.4 Describe system performance impacts when running complex, lengthy reports. Provide examples of performance time for running complex reports.
Responder’s Reply
5.3.5 Describe causes and remediation steps to address remote application latency.
Responder’s Reply
5.4 Maintenance and Release Management
5.4.1 Describe how system changes are promoted through each environment and end up in production. Differentiate between hotfixes, configuration changes, and system upgrades, if applicable.
Responder’s Reply
5.4.2 Explain how system changes will affect end users and outline the strategy for coordination with the FWWD IT team, including the processes for notification and testing.
Responder’s Reply
| 5.4.3 Describe the typical time intervals (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) for installing bug | fixes, patches, security updates, or database updates, along with the testing process before applying them? Also explain any potential user downtime during these updates. |
| Responder’s Reply |
5.4.4 How will critical and emergency updates be prioritized and managed in comparison to ongoing, regular, and non-critical updates? Please describe the criteria, processes, and timelines used to differentiate and manage these types of updates.
Responder’s Reply
5.4.5 Describe the best practice patch application process, including installation and testing, and provide actual level of effort estimates for a comparably sized utility or, in the case of optional systems, specifically excluded during contract negotiations.
Responder’s Reply
5.4.6 Provide options for returning FWWD data upon termination of services ("Exit Plan"), including the appropriate steps and costs necessary to migrate FWWD data from the proposer's system, and a choice of formats in which the data will be returned. The City of Fort Worth has a standard termination clause in their contract.
Responder’s Reply
9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9
5.4.7 Describe the deployment of system updates and maintenance to all affected modules. What are the coordination points with the FWWD IT and Business Teams?
Responder’s Reply
5.4.8 Describe how notifications of third-party software (JAVA, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.) release issues that are identified to conflict with the current solution version are made to the FWWD System Administrator. Provide an example of such notification and release frequency. List the latest version of each third-party software that is supported.
Responder’s Reply
9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 9.10 9.11
5.4.9 What is the average number of updates and upgrades annually to the solution software? Describe the following: Notification process for changes, its impact, completeness of release notes, testing coordination needs, and lead time required to implement the current updates/upgrades.
Responder’s Reply
13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 13.8 13.9 13.10 13.11 13.12
5.4.10 Describe how you will support application testing - including preparing of testing strategy, test plans, test cases, tracking of test results, and testing issues/bugs/errors. Describe process for testing UAT, regression testing, performance testing, security testing, etc. Describe your automated testing tools if applicable.
Responder’s Reply
5.5 Development and Administrative Tools
5.5.1 Describe the Development environment for the proposed solution (e.g., programming languages, tools provided, interface options available). Include any third-party tools that are required and/or recommended.
Responder’s Reply
5.5.2 Describe the Training environment for the proposed solution, data and software synchronization with the production system, and on-demand synchronization options, with required lead times.
Responder’s Reply
5.5.3 Identify any tools available with the solution that enable administrators to define test data sets based on user-defined criteria, allowing them to support various testing objectives using a limited dataset.
Responder’s Reply
5.5.4 Identify any configuration management tools available with the solution that monitor and document configuration settings. Describe the tool’s functionality, including the ability to schedule configuration snapshots, analyze changes applied through hot fixes and programming updates, and deploy configuration changes across multiple environments.
Responder’s Reply
5.5.5 Identify any tools that will work with the solution that can perform administrative tasks, such as system health monitoring, provide upgrade assistance, data integrity and other maintenance or administration functions. Provide the programming language(s) that FWWD would need to be familiar with.
Responder’s Reply
10.5 10.6 10.7 10.8 10.9
5.5.6 Describe the solutions ability to support custom dictionaries and the administrative editing of these dictionaries. Provide supported languages and translation application utilized.
Responder’s Reply
5.5.7 Describe the process for adding new values to drop down selection lists. Describe the dependency if any on the vendor support team for these additions and if dependent, what is the turnaround time on an addition of this nature.
Responder’s Reply
10.5 10.6 10.7 10.8 10.9 10.10 10.11
5.5.8 Describe your Business Intelligence capabilities, methodologies, and processes for creation of Reports, Dashboards, and KPI’s. Describe the tools offered and if those tools are included in your solutions or acquired and supported through third-party vendors.
Responder’s Reply
5.6 Support
5.6.1 Describe the duties appropriate to IT resources (either internal or through professional services) in supporting the system. Describe the duties appropriate to business subject matter experts (super users) in supporting the system. Estimate the number of FWWD personnel that would be needed.
Responder’s Reply
5.6.2 Describe the process for replicating data from a SaaS solution to an on-premises database.
Responder’s Reply
5.6.3 Describe the typical client utilities’ administrative duties and the amount of time the utility can expect to devote to them, on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, annual basis.
Responder’s Reply
5.6.4 Define who is responsible for upgrades, cloud server OS updates, cloud infrastructure upgrades, patches or other maintenance and the procedures for managing them. Describe the environmental change control process related to keeping code and data in sync. Describe the timing of any outages or downtime typically incurred during these procedures.
Responder’s Reply
5.6.5 Describe in detail your process for issue resolution and support, including availability (24/7/365), support channels (ticketing, chat, phone, email, knowledgebase, etc.), and SLAs in terms of severity levels, staffing, hold times, expected response times, and expected resolution times. FWWD requires a “root-cause analysis” be performed and results communicated within 72 hours of a systems glitch/outage/incident.
Responder’s Reply
5.6.6 Identify your ticketing system and describe the ticketing functionality, user interface and the prioritization given to tickets.
Responder’s Reply
5.7 Security
5.7.1 Describe how the system provides CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) of the data at rest and in transit. Please refer to the State of Texas customer confidentiality laws.
Responder’s Reply
5.7.2 Describe how the solution protects FWWD's sensitive data and controls access and the ability to set security using either permissive or restrictive methods;
Responder’s Reply
5.7.3 Describe certification needs (ex: ISO 27001 certified) for cybersecurity.
Responder’s Reply
5.7.4 Describe your use of Federated Identity across your applications.
Responder’s Reply
5.8 Document Management
5.8.1 Describe your approach to Document Management and how it integrates with your CIS, CRM, MWFM and other related systems.
Responder’s Reply
5.8.2 Identify Document Management System (DMS) vendors with which the solution has previously been integrated with.
Responder’s Reply
5.9 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Capabilities
5.9.1 Describe how your software processes unstructured text data, such as customer emails, chat messages, and feedback. How does it manage multilingual interactions (i.e., describe the specific translation tool)?
Responder’s Reply
5.9.2 Outline how your software utilizes Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) to transcribe and analyze spoken customer interactions. What accuracy rates can be expected for different accents, dialects, and background noise levels? Describe any real-time transcription and translation features.
Responder’s Reply
5.9.3 Provide details about your chatbot and virtual assistant capabilities. Are they rule-based, AI driven, or a hybrid model? How do they manage complex queries or escalate issues to human agents? Can your virtual assistants seamlessly integrate with external systems or third-party applications?
Responder’s Reply
5.9.4 How does your solution use predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs and behavior? Provide examples of how predictive insights can be applied to personalize customer interactions and identify opportunities for improved customer service and experience.
Responder’s Reply
5.9.5 Explain the capabilities of your speech analytics tools in understanding customer sentiment, emotion, and key topics during voice interactions. Describe how these tools contribute to improving agent performance and enhancing customer satisfaction.
Responder’s Reply
5.9.6 Describe any AI models or frameworks used in your solutions and whether they are proprietary, open-source, or based on third-party platforms.
Responder’s Reply
5.9.7 How does your system ensure data privacy when using AI for customer interactions?
Responder’s Reply
5.9.8 Provide details on the scalability and customization options of your AI tools to meet specific industry requirements.
Responder’s Reply
5.9.9 Please provide examples, case studies, or metrics that demonstrate the effectiveness of your AI-powered customer service and CRM tools. Include any unique features or innovations that set your solution apart.
Responder’s Reply
5.10 Data Access
5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9
5.10.1 FWWD requires unrestricted, secure, and high-performance access to its Customer Information System (CIS) data. The solution must meet the following requirements:
1. The system must provide FWWD with continuous (24/7/365) access to the full CIS database to enable ad hoc data extraction and analysis at any time.
2. The vendor shall provide a replicated, read-only instance of the CIS database that mirrors the production environment. This instance must reflect changes in the production database in near real-time to ensure data consistency and minimize latency for reporting and analytical use.
3. The replicated database must be fully isolated from the production environment to eliminate any risk of performance degradation or data conflicts.
4. If a replicated, read-only database is not feasible, the vendor shall propose and describe alternative solutions (e.g., database availability groups, real-time data warehousing, or other supported mechanisms) that provide equivalent access, performance, and reliability.
5. All data access must comply with FWWD security policies and applicable industry standards (e.g., NIST, CIS Controls).
6. The solution must support audit logging of all data access and query activity, with logs accessible to FWWD for review and monitoring.
7. The replicated environment (or alternate solution) must support high-performance query and reporting workloads without impacting production systems.
8. The vendor must specify performance benchmarks and expected query response times for standard use cases (e.g., batch data pulls, multi-table joins).
9. The solution must scale to accommodate increasing data volumes and concurrent users over time without significant degradation in performance.
Responder acknowledges the above requirement, with the following exceptions, if any.
5.10.1
5.10.2 Describe in detail your proposed approach, including synchronization frequency, data latency expectations, security controls, performance metrics, and any limitations on access or functionality.
Responder’s Reply
File details come from the government source that posted it. Updated .