13-Specifications.pdf

SPECIFICATIONS

SCOPE

Harris County is currently seeking proposals from qualified vendors to provide an all-in-one comprehensive platform to simplify contract compliance management across several areas including Minorities and Women Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE)/Disadvantage Business Enterprise (DBE)/ Small Business Enterprise (SBE) and Veteran-Owned Business (VOB) supplier diversity compliance, labor compliance (Davis Bacon and Prevailing Wage), Housing and Urban Development (HUD)/Section 3 compliance, vendor outreach, and contractor safety Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) compliance as described herein.

It is the responsibility of each vendor to examine the entire offer package, seek clarification in writing, and review their offer for accuracy before submitting. Questions relating to this RFP must be submitted in writing through Bonfire. The deadline for submission of questions relating to this offer is listed on the Events Schedule within Bonfire. All questions submitted in writing prior to the deadline will be compiled and answered in writing. A copy of all questions and answers will be released as a Public Notice to all firms through Bonfire. The County will not be bound by any information conveyed verbally.

RENEWAL OPTIONS

Harris County may consider four (4) one-year renewal option, based upon the same terms, conditions and pricing as the original year. Renewal is subject to approval by Harris County Commissioners Court. Once renewal options are exhausted, the contract must be rebid. Harris County reserves the right to rebid at any time as is in its best interest and is not automatically bound to renew.

SPECIFICATION

Software and System Security Industry standards for security access control including firewall architecture that includes spam and virus blockers and is monitored twenty-four (24) seven (7), user-specific logins, complex passwords, password expiration, concurrent logins (not permitted), and the ability to restrict or permit access based on Internet Protocol (IP) range or other identifiers to protect against unauthorized data access on several levels.

Unauthorized breaches in security are to be reported to the County after discovering the breach without unreasonable delay and not later than twenty-four (24) hours after the discovery of occurrence with a detailed account of any security breach, with remediation measures undertaken by the vendor, to sufficiently allow the County to determine its future risk and current liability, if any.

The Diversity Management System (DMS) vendor shall prevent inadvertent deletion of data in several ways. The DMS system shall not permit records that are associated with other data to be deleted. Secondly, the system shall utilize a two (2) phase commit process and ask the user to verify the deletion before completing the process. The DMS system administrator shall have the ability to restore deleted data, except where explicitly instructed to permanently delete records per the County’s data retention and disposition requirement.

The data stored within the vendor’s system shall be secured and access rights appropriately limited to those users (vendor and County representatives) who have been granted access. Any administrative access to the County’s data by employees of the vendor shall be logged. All Harris County data remains the property of Harris County.

Physical Security of primary and secondary data centers shall be in an electronic all secure facility within the United States, that automatically tracks employee access, and non-employee access, who are authorized to perform service and support under an existing service agreement. Access to the secure physical facility shall be tracked twenty-four (24) hours per day, seven (7) days per week. An electronically generated log reporting facility shall be available to the County on demand

IT Software (Saas) Diversity Management Software for the Harris County Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity within seventy-two (72) hours.

Hosting, System Back-Up, and Disaster Recovery As a hosted SaaS solution, the DMS servicer guarantees availability of 99.9% or industry standards. The DMS servicers shall maintain redundancy at every level of the service architecture. The servicer shall have multiple co-location facilities (each with redundant power, HVAC, & bandwidth), load balancers, redundant servers & devices at each node, database mirroring, and disk-disk-tape backup.

If the DMS system experiences an outage, County DMS system administrators and senior management are notified without unreasonable delay and no later than four (4) hours of discovery of occurrence, with subsequent notification to County system users.

The vendor shall have a backup procedure to guarantee that no more than four (4) hours of data would be lost due to a complete system failure. The vendor shall provide for an encrypted backup that is written every twenty-four (24) hours and secured offsite weekly.

The DMS vendor shall maintain a disaster recovery environment in place that includes, at no additional cost to the County, the system and its data. In the case of catastrophic system failure, the vendor is to maintain a disaster recovery environment available for rapid switchover and additional training, testing, and development environments with full functionality that shall be utilized at any time. The disaster recovery environment shall be tested at least once a year to verify the accuracy and availability of the disaster recovery system in the case of production system failure.

Module Offerings and Software Updates Service module offerings shall be proposed and priced on a cost basis/fee schedule. The vendor shall clearly identify multi-module discounts and volume considerations in the proposal. The County reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to activate, deactivate, or add modules as needed throughout the term(s) of the contract. Activation of any optional modules shall be contingent upon the County approval and available funding.

The County shall be entitled to all standard software updates made to the purchased modules that are a part of the DMS’s general software update program. The County shall be made aware of new updates through release notes provided on the DMS dashboard, the system bulletin board, and/or through email alerts.

The County may request new enhancements at any time by contacting support. The awarded vendor shall be able to provide a scope of effort, cost proposal, timeline, and initial prioritization for the County to review.

Setup, configuration, and training shall be provided by the vendor to include:

Kick-off and planning session Comprehensive project management Baseline system configuration Activation and configuration of included modules Accounts set up for all staff users Configuration of notification templates Configuration of login portal Staff training

Labor Compliance Software System Functions In addition to the functions set out above including security, set up, configuration and training; the County shall require labor standards compliance software to track Davis Bacon and Related Acts (DBRA), Prevailing Wage, and HUD Section 3 compliance. This shall include compliance documents, HUD Section 3 Labor Hours, weekly certified payrolls utilizing the Department of Labor (DOL) standard WH 347 form and enhanced reporting functions including standard and customized reports.

Labor Compliance Software System Capacity The labor software system shall be able to handle up to Five Billion dollars in construction value capacity and the ability to include separate database access for three (3) different compliance teams. Further, system shall be scalable as the number of prime contractors, sub-contractors, and lower tier shall continue to increase, as shall the number of workers. As the construction needs of Harris County have grown, so has the need for a robust automated program management tool. The software system shall meet the demands of multi-scale construction projects and adherence to regulatory labor compliance including Texas Government Code 2258, Davis Bacon and Related Acts, and HUD Section 3 requirements the DEEO monitors for all County construction projects. Further, the system shall have the ability to archive projects for audit purposes when closed to seven (7) years or more.

Labor Compliance Training The labor software system shall have training capacity and the capacity to migrate existing electronic files to the database(s).

Training shall be both on demand and by request. Customized training is highly preferred. Training at a minimum shall include relevant courses on-demand added and updated frequently, unlimited phone support for troubleshooting, in person training as well as discount access to conference training. Training shall also include compliance webinars on subject matters such as DBRA and HUD Section 3 as well as in person training availability at a discounted cost.

Labor Compliance Reporting The ability to access standardized workforce reports including payroll enhanced details is required. Power BI integration is essential as discussed in sections below.

Prevailing Wage Compliance The service shall provide automated prevailing wage rate updates and enforce thresholds for prime contractors and subcontractors based on project size and type. The system shall support this reporting through dynamic, automated features, and ability to review Certified Payroll Reports (CPRs).

DBRA Compliance The system shall include the ability to manage Davis-Bacon compliance requirements, including audit-ready reports and real-time workforce classification tracking to ensure continuous Davis-Bacon compliance. The vendor shall have certified payroll reporting functions and detailed workforce monitoring.

HUD Section 3 Compliance The system shall include the ability to manage HUD Section 3 compliance, including alignment with HUD's Final Rule, enabling detailed labor hour tracking and filtering by contract value (e.g., prime over $500,000, subs over $50,000, etc.).

Living Wage Tracking The system shall include the ability to manage a configurable enforcement of living wage requirements per contract.

Form & Contract Tracking The system allows for contract and vendor document uploads, organizational visibility by prime contractor, and bid tracking.

Field Inspections & Logs The system shall have mobile inspection tools including photo documentation, interview forms, and daily log integration.

Offline Access The ability to work in low or no connectivity zones is desired for certain features, such as field inspections and commercially useful function audits, allowing for uninterrupted field data capture.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Tracking The system shall have the ability to track OSHA 10/30 training certifications, log OSHA 300 reports, and send alerts for contractors missing certifications.

MWBE/DBE/SBE Contract Compliance Module (for minimum of 10,000 active contracts with user dashboard) The DMS system MWBE/DBE/SBE contract compliance module shall have the capacity to maintain all contract records for supplier diversity compliance, including Veteran Owned Businesses. The DMS system allows the County to ensure compliance and supplier diversity regulations by managing contracts and payments for prime contractors and subcontractors while monitoring diversity requirements in one system. The County shall be able to create contract alerts to manage compliance and upload supporting documentation. Contract fields and settings are based on the County’s preferences.

The DMS contract record contains the data collected between the County and the prime contractor for construction, goods, or other types of services to be defined by the County. The DMS should have the capability to import contracts electronically into DMS from an external system and manually enter records when necessary.

The DMS contract record manages common contract data, such as contract dollar value, prime contractor, and relevant dates.

It also manages data specific to the County’s contract compliance tracking and reporting needs. This data includes goal types, goal percentages, funding sources, subcontractor awards, and other relevant fields.

The DMS contract record contains a large amount of data and is linked to other system records including prime contractors, subcontractors, buyers, and project monitoring staff. The contract record and associated records are typically managed by the project monitoring staff with the ability to upload records by the vendors, both prime vendors and lower tiered subcontractors.

The system shall have automated, configurable settings for contractor notifications, payment audits, contract alerts, etc.

The County shall be able to track all communications and notes/comments within each contract file. Staff users and vendors shall be able to receive automated alerts for progress, goals reached, and records updated or changed. The County shall be able to create templated letters for contract status to send notifications on the County’s letterhead.

Vendor Management The DMS system shall allow the County the ability to validate certifications, add addresses, view profiles, work with users, add/edit/delete users from a vendor profile, manage vendor logins, etc.

The vendor database is to include certified firms, self-registered firms, staff created firms, and vendor records imported from the County’s financial system.

All vendors are to be a part of the master vendor database. They can be all, none, or any combination of certified firms, prime contractors, subcontractors, and concessions vendors. The County shall be able to create relationships and populate the County’s vendor database when contracted with or to certify vendors.

Certified Directory Connections The DMS shall have directory connections to many of the nation’s certified MWBE/DBE/SBE directories, including federal, state, and nationally or locally recognized certified directories in one major, easy to search repository. This repository shall include vendor names, contact information, type of certifications with North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and National Institute of Governmental Purchasing, Inc. (NIGP) codes and work descriptions, and certification statuses, including dates and organizations of certification. Certification data must be exportable and connected to all MWBE/DBE/SBE compliance and outreach functions.

Outreach & Event Management Module The platform shall include an outreach module with multiple components to support the creation of content, publication and management of events, and tracking of notice distribution and event attendance.

Components shall include:

Outreach Management – rapid distribution of information to many contacts Vendor List – the creation and management of vendor lists for specific activities Event Management – the hosting of onsite or online events and attendee registration

Contract Goal Setting Module A DMS Goal Setting module that provides a process to set categorial and contract‐specific goals that is based upon statistical methods, past accomplishment, and current market conditions. It shall follow the U.S. Department of Transportation 49 CFR Part 26 guidelines for setting goals and/or County directed goal setting methods. There are three steps to the process:

1. Determine the “Step 1” baseline goals based upon a statistical method.

2. Determine the “Step 2” goal based on past contract participation on similar projects.

3. Consider the two goals and adjust for market conditions (bonding, capacity, etc.) to generate a final goal for the contract.

Utilization Plan Module The system shall have the ability for the County to track vendor supplier diversity plan submissions electronically, with review, communication, and approval functions for the County’s staff. The module shall be compatible with the county’s procurement software, Bonfire.

Commercial Useful Function (CUF) Reviews Module The system shall have a site visit and/or commercial useful function module to certify certified firms are performing a CUF.

The module shall have mobile inspection tool integration support for including photo documentation, interview forms, and daily logs, with offline functionality desired.

Disparity Study Data Collection The DMS system shall be able to compile and organize essential contract and vendor data, which can be shared with consultants to facilitate disparity studies.

Public Dashboard – Search certified directory The DMS system shall have a public dashboard with the ability for vendors to search for certified firms and find qualified vendors who hold certifications recognized by the County, with the ability to search by certification type, certification status, work area, or other characteristics.

Spend Analysis The system shall have the capability to produce diversity spend reports for all types of expenditures, including non-contract (credit card transactions, purchase orders, etc), tier 2 diversity spend (prime reporting), and tier X (tracking through all levels of subcontractors on a project).

Power BI Service Integration The system shall provide for Power BI integration via custom API integration which offers powerful options for creating dynamic visualizations for the County data using charts, tables, maps, and graphics.

Power BI offers dynamic functionality to build and run advanced reports, providing data analytics and interactive visualizations to gather, shape, and analyze graphs and charts. Authorized users shall be able to customize reports and control the look and feel of the report and the way in which data displays before sharing their customized reports with others in the organization for additional reporting functionality.

The DMS development team shall be able to connect the data and provide access to authorized users to build and configure reports.

Custom Reports The DMS system shall have a selection of standardized recommended reports to measure compliance against all supplier diversity, labor compliance, outreach, and safety compliance metrics and an ad-hoc reporting tool to build and run advanced reports. Authorized users shall be able to access published “data models” that are compilations of all relevant fields and parameters in the system for a variety of useful record types. The County shall be able to customize the included fields and formats plus filter, sort, and layout the results using an underlying technology such as Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services and Report Builder 2.0 or better.

The DMS shall support live interactive Key Performance Indicator (KPI) dashboards and support data exporting to monitor compliance across vendors and contracts.

Help Desk & Support The DMS system shall provide a Help Desk module that allows the County to track and respond to customer support queries.

External System Interface The DMS system shall have an external system interface for self-service usage and help desk support allowing vendors to request assistance with user profiles and passwords.

API & Automation Support The system shall have full API and webhook functionality for integration with platforms like Snowflake (a Harris County contract database) and Monday.com.

Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) / Single Sign-On (SSO) The system shall have optional SSO integration using SAML 2.0, enhancing system security and user management, or better.

Liquidated Damages The parties agree that if the vendor fails to comply with the contract requirements specified within the specifications, Harris County will incur damages that are difficult to determine and accurately specify. The parties agree that the damages specified herein are not penalties but represent a fair and reasonable estimate of the damages Harris County would incur due to the vendor's failure to provide the contracted services.

Harris County may deduct liquidated damages from any payment for up to five percent (5%) of the total contract monthly fees due to the vendor under this contract. Harris County shall notify the vendor in writing of any claim for liquidated damages pursuant to this paragraph on or before the date Harris County deducts such sums from money payable to the vendor.

Schedule of Liquidated Damages:

Failure to meet System Availability/Uptime: The system or service is down or unavailable more than the agreed-upon percentage (e.g., less than 99.9% uptime).

Failure to meet Response Times: The vendor does not acknowledge or begin work on an issue (incident or service request) within the specified time frame.

Failure to meet Resolution Times: The vendor does not fix an issue within the agreed-upon time frame for a given severity level (e.g., critical errors not resolved within four (4) hours).

Failure to meet Performance Metrics: The system fails to meet agreed-upon performance standards, such as transaction processing speed or data backup completion time.

In case of repeated failures (three (3) or more occurrences of the same type of failure within a ninety (90) day period), Harris County reserves the right to double the liquidated damages amount for subsequent failures.

1. Technical Requirements

The technical requirements are constructed to correlate to the Harris County Universal Services Reference Architecture (USRA) and to determine a vendor’s ability to provide technical capabilities.

1.1. HCUS Reference Architecture (USRA)

The USRA is a compact, comprehensive, abstract illustration of the technology components and business processes supporting County operations, see the attachment titled Harris County Universal Services Reference Architecture (USRA). The USRA has been developed to provide guidance on how solutions shall deploy and operate within the IT environment. The USRA serves as a reference for the specific architectures that vendors may implement to solve County business objectives.

1.2. The USRA is composed of Six (6) Interrelated Domains:

1.2.1. Data Services

1.2.2. Digital Services

1.2.3. Enterprise Technology Infrastructure Services

1.2.4. Information Security Services

1.2.5. IT Service Management

1.2.6. Technology Optimization

1.3. USRA Requirements Checklist Questionnaire Q-58OT:

Vendors shall complete the questionnaire as part of vendor’s response. "Complete” is defined as responding to all questions. A response is still required for non-applicable questions. The questionnaire will assist the County in understanding the scope, capabilities, technical implementation, and deployment features of the proposed solution.

2. Training The vendor shall define in detail, the training methodology to be utilized to provide training and knowledge transfer to ensure proper use of solution during the implementation/go-live phase as well as provide access to training materials thereafter. At a minimum, vendor shall provide complete training for up to fifty (50) users so that all basic, intermediate and advanced topics are covered in detail.

2.1. Training Requirements including, but not limited to, the following:

2.1.1. Initial on-site training for all users (minimum sixteen (16) hours)).

2.1.2. Monthly online training sessions.

2.1.3. Video tutorial library.

2.1.4. Written documentation.

2.1.5. Train-the-trainer program.

3. Final Acceptance The evaluation committee may require completion of an acceptance test after the installation of the proposed software/hardware. The acceptance test will involve the achievement of Harris County’s standard availability and performance goals during a period of thirty (30) consecutive calendar days.

The acceptance test will start on the date that Harris County receives a written notice from the vendor that the software/hardware is installed and ready for production usage. If the software does not achieve availability during the first thirty (30) days following the installation date, the acceptance test will continue on a day-to-day basis until availability is achieved for thirty (30) consecutive calendar days.

4. Maintenance/Support/Warranty Upon Final System Acceptance (FSA) and training, the maintenance/support/warranty of the system shall commence on the first day of the official operation of the system as designated by Harris County. At a minimum, the system shall include annual maintenance/support/warranty to include upgrades, patches, fixes and support via phone, web, and email.

Pricing shall also reflect annual renewal, and maintenance or license fees for subsequent and continued use of the system.

5. Service Level Agreement (SLA) The vendor shall describe each SLA associated for the applicable service offering. The vendor shall meet all SLA requirements to include but not be limited to the delivery of service offerings, maintaining service offerings, measuring key performance indicators (KPIs), reporting compliance and issuance of credits when performance fails to meet performance objectives. Vendor shall disclose its methodology for measuring each of its SLAs, including but not limited to the formulas for calculating those measurements. The vendor shall disclose how the vendor shall address failures to perform to SLA levels and any billing adjustments, credits or other compensation offered. The SLA provided shall not be less than what is commercially available. At a minimum SLAs shall include:

5.1. Twenty-four/seven (24/7) technical support.

5.2. Maximum one (1) hour response time for critical issues including, but not limited to, the following:

5.2.1. Hardware failures.

5.2.2. Connectivity issues.

5.2.3. Software glitches.

5.2.4. Data overload.

5.2.5. Security and privacy concerns.

5.3. Maximum four (4) hour response time for non-critical issues including, but not limited to, the following:

5.3.1. Minor data inconsistencies.

5.3.2. User interface challenges.

5.3.3. Delayed data transmission.

5.3.4. Software updates and compatibility.

5.3.5. Battery drain on devices.

5.3.6. Non-Critical Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs)

5.4. Dedicated account manager.

5.5. Monthly system performance reviews.

6. Project Management Plan Vendor shall include a comprehensive and detailed project management plan as part of the response. The plan shall outline the methodology and strategies to implement and rollout the telematics solution including, but not limited to, the following:

6.1.1. Assignment of a dedicated project manager to oversee execution.

6.1.2. Submission of a detailed implementation plan within ten (10) days of contract award.

6.1.3. Development and maintenance of a milestone schedule as part of the project management plan, detailing all tasks and key events.

6.1.3.1. Installation completion within eight to ten (8-10) business days of equipment delivery.

6.1.3.2. System configuration within five (5) business days of equipment installation.

6.1.3.3. User training within fifteen (15) business days of equipment installation.

6.1.3.4. Full system deployment within thirty (30) calendar days of equipment installation.

6.1.3.5. Implementation of a thirty (30) day stabilization period post-launch to monitor performance and address any operational concerns.

6.1.4. Submission of weekly progress reports to ensure transparency and accountability.

6.1.5. Development of a testing plan with clearly defined acceptance criteria to validate system functionality.

6.1.6. Completion of a go-live checklist to confirm readiness for deployment.

7. Vendor Resources Vendor shall maintain and assign a sufficient number of competent and qualified professionals to meet Harris County requirements. Vendor shall provide Harris County with a staffing plan that identifies the staffing levels, types, and any applicable certifications necessary to meet the requirements of this RFP. Vendor shall also indicate space, technology and telecommunications infrastructure requirements so that Harris County can allocate workspace for the project team to use during the implementation.

7.1. Project Manager (PM)

Vendor shall dedicate a PM for the length of the project to act as the vendor’s representative for all communication and activities with Harris County. The PM shall be the prime point of contact for Harris County for project matters.

The PM shall develop a Project Management Plan that provides guidance and direction for the project development and shall maintain a detailed and accurate project schedule at all times.

The percentage of the PM’s time dedicated to this project shall be defined. The PM shall have overall responsibility for day-to-day project management. Vendor shall submit a resume for the PM candidate for Harris County to review and approve. At a minimum, the PM candidate shall possess the following qualifications:

7.1.1. PM with five (5) years of project management experience with specific experience related to telematics implementations.

7.1.2. Demonstrated experience creating detailed dependency-driven schedules tasks required to implement recommended changes.

7.1.3. Demonstrated experience facilitating and supporting formal review sessions with executive stakeholders.

7.2. Key Staff

Vendor shall provide resumes for all key staff for Harris County to review and approve. Key staff is defined as all Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to be utilized during the project. The resumes shall indicate the key staff knowledge and experience specific to telematics solution, background, years of experience and skill sets to ensure project success. Changes to the key staff, anticipated or unforeseen, shall be immediately relayed to Harris County.

8. Optional/Value-Added Vendor may provide information for other equipment, hardware and/or software available within the manufacturer’s catalog as an optional/value-added item.