SRP_Questions_and_Answers.pdf

SRP Questions and Answers

Index Questions Answer 1 Will this be a multi or single award IDIQ? This will be a single award IDIQ.

2 Will the government consider extending the due date? No 3 Will the government consider increasing the page count? No

If contractor is partnering with a non 8a company, will government allow a JV?

Only pre-award SBA approved Joint Ventures are allowed.

Is the incumbent eligible to bid on this recompete? SRP has two contracts. The OM Contract incumbent is JBS International, which is not an 8(a) and thus not eligible for this recompete. The DME Contract incumbent is Versatech Inc, which is an 8(a) and is eligible for this recompete.

Will other agency experience be rated or evaluated the same as FDA experience?

Yes

Can we assume we can offer discounts for the current task order as well?

Yes

Can some task orders require contract staff to work at FDA facilities where FDA will provide office space or will all task orders require contract staff work at contractor facilities?

All task orders will require contract staff work at contractor facilities.

If FDA staff are able to work remotely during inclement weather, will contract staff be required to work, if Government buildings are closed? If there is a Government furlough delaying start of a project or delays a project already in progress, what impact will this have on the contractor from a performance and financial perspective?

Yes, contractor staff are required to work during inclement weather when Government buildings are closed but telework is allowed.

Furloughs and other types of delays are addressed on a case by case basis.

Are the FAET recommendations available for public review? Yes, historical information regarding the FAET purpose, background, and its findings can be found by searching the hhs.gov archives (archive.hhs.gov)

Is the contractor responsible to provide the development and testing environment offsite as well as the servers, storage, etc?

Or will NIH or FDA’s Data Center be used to house the DEV & TEST environments and provide the hardware, software, etc.?

The contractor is responsible for providing the hardware, software, etc. necessary to support the development and testing environments for the SRP offsite at the contractors facility.

How many tickets are received each month for Tier 1, Tier 2 & Tier 3? Are there a maximum of 2 regularly scheduled SRP releases/year? Can these be major and minor releases?

Tickets per month information is in the IDIQ SOW. Yes, there are a maximum of 2 major scheduled SRP releases per year. Minor releases are on an as needed basis.

Can you advise as to any metrics to identify how often reports don’t reach target systems?

No we cannot.

14 How many contract staff currently support this project? We cannot release this information.

How much do you expect the volume of reports to increase over the next 12 months

We do not know. All relevant, known and releasable information regarding reports are in the Statement(s) of Work.

Is Help Desk Level 1 support required to be available 24x7x365?

If not, what services are required to be available 24x7x365?

Help Desk Level 1 SLA is 8 hrs per day/ 5 days a week Monday-Friday

Please identify correct # of maximum unscheduled outages anticipated /year the contractor shall be responsible to support.

Please identify correct # of maximum unscheduled outages anticipated /year the contractor shall be responsible to support.

19 Please provide copy of Appendix M, as it was not made available The reference to Appendix M has been removed.

Can government please clarify this statement ? Total users are 6493 that includes _______________? What and How many Accounts ?

6493 internal and external users of SRP. The term users and accounts is interchangeable here.

Is there a deliverable associated Level 2 Technical Support? It is currently listed as N/A

Yes, deliverables for Level 2 Technical Support have been updated

22 Is the current ATO for SRP held by FDA or NIH? The current ATO is held by NIH.

What is the availability of the current NIH/CIT datacenter? We are assuming that it is greater than 99.9%, to meet the application up-time of 99.9%

The NIH Data Center operates on a 7 day/24 hour basis.

24 What are the SLA’s for NIH/CIT infrastructure team? There is no formal SLA between FDA and CIT for the SRP.

Can we leverage the FDA OIMT’s tools (JIRA, SVS, HP Test Suite, etc.)? Or does the contract need to provide?

Yes the contractor can leverage the FDA's approved set of available tools.

Is there a document that clearly defines the role and responsibilities between NIH/CIT and the SRP contractor? Who fixes hardware issues? Who manages backups and restores?

Who is responsible for resolving network issues?

There is no such document.

Several places in the document, it mentions JIRA, is this referring to FDA’s JIRA instance?

Yes.

Will the contractor have physical access to the SRP server infrastructure on the NIH Campus? Are there any special requirements for accessing the data center either physical or remotely? Will we be issued 24/7 Contractor badges for NIH Campus?

Yes the contractor will have to request and be granted access to the NIH data center following the NIH security requirements. No the contractor will not be granted 24/7 contractor badges to the NIH campus unless deemed appropriate at the discretion of NIH.

Are there any special requirements for the development and test environments? Is the Government considering moving to Amazon? Will the Government furnish any of the necessary software for the test/dev environments hosted by the contractor?

Development and Test environments must comply to NIST security standards. The Government is not currently considering moving to Amazon for the SRP. The Government will not furnish any software necessary for the operation of the test/dev envrionments unless it is a proprietary solution that was developed by the government or for the sole use of the government if necessary.

What are the current operating system versions for all servers and the server specs (Virtual/Physical, Memory, CPUs, Storage?

Are all software versions still under support by Microsoft? Is the current hardware under maintenance by NIH/CIT? Are there any major upgrades planned at CIT that will effect SRP

Allrevelant server informaton is contained in Appendix F. All software is still under support by Microsfot. The current hard is under maintenance by NIH/CIT. No upgrades planned.

Is there specific software to support the help desk functions for Task Order 1? How is the contractor notified of issues/problems? Is there a phone number, email address, or log within the system?

Yes there are application monitoring tools available to support the help desk functions for Task Order 1. Contractors are notified via email address and system log notifications when the situation arises.

Will the government furnish a Blackberries or other mobile device to access FDA mail to meet the movement’s SLAs?

Yes, some contractor personnel will have access to a communication device for this purpose.

is it safe to assume that sections 5.3.3 Requirements and Design Phase Task (SOW 5.3.3) 5.3.4 Product Development and Testing Phase Task, 5.3.5 Implementation and Deployment Phase Task are included under Spanish Language Translation Task (SOW 5.3.2? If so, should they be renumbered to 5.3.2.1, 5.3.2.2,

5.3.2.3 respectively?

See the ammended document, numbering appears to be correct.

Would the Government please confirm that sections 4.1.1 Transition In Tasks, 4.1.2 Transition-In Plan, 4.1.3 Transition-In Meetings, and 4.1.4 Transition-In Deliverables should be renumbered to 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.3, 5.1.4 respectively?

Corrected. Numbering fixed.

Would the Government please release a word format for Attachment 5 Past Performance Questionnaire? The current PDF is not editable.

The Government has posted a Word editable PPQ with this ammendment.

Please confirm that subcontractor past performance is acceptable as part of our submission of 3 projects.

A maximum of 2 of 3 past performances may be for sub-contractor.

A minimum of 1 past performance must be for the prime contractor

Due to the uncertainty of an email submission, and the proposal’s due date of 9AM Monday, please confirm the Government will reply and acknowledge receipt of proposals through the preceding weekend, allowing time to retransmit if necessary.

Tthe Government will reply and acknowledge receipt of proposals.

Because printed proposals will not be accepted, please confirm scanned signatures are acceptable for all required signatures and endorsements.

Yes, scanned signatures are acceptable.

What is the font and size requirement for regular narrative text, not within tables, graphics, or charts?

See instructions.

Please confirm that the Transition-In Plan should be submitted as an Appendix to Volume 1.

The instructions are unchanged.

Will the Government allow offerors to provide more than three

(3) projects as examples of similar work?

Only three (3) Past Performance Questionnaires will be used in evaluation. If more than three (3) are received by the Government, the Government will use the first three chronologically. If the first three received chronologically do not compy with the instructions, the proposal will be excluded from further consideration.

Attachment 1 – IDIQ SOW, page 24 of29, lists Metaphor Product (API, code generator, content failover) as key knowledge areas/capabilities in use with SRP. At the same time, under Attachment 1 – IDIQ SOW, list of systems enhancements (page 5 of 29), indicates that Metaphor COTS Product has been already

It is a program goal to replace the Metaphor COTS product, but that task has not been completed yet. It began in 2014-2015 but is still ongoing and will be expected to be completed within this contract period.

replaced in SRP.

Will the Government please specify how many slots will be available for contract staff positions at Government facilities for Task Order 1? This is needed to determine the appropriate rate structure for Task Order 1 – Government site vs. Contractor site rates. If the Government will not specify the number of contractor slots available at Government facilities for TO 1, will offerors assume that all contract staff will work from contractor’s facilities for TO 1?

No slots will be available at Government facilities. It is correct to assume that all contract staff will work from contractor facilities.

1. Can I simplify the form to a single sheet that our clients can fill out and email to you? As long as I don’t change any language and keep the header?

No.

45 1. Please confirm that our clients are to send to you directly. Have clients send PPQ directly to the FDA POC.

We are working with an 8a team to develop a proposal response. Quick question, is this a new requirement or existing requirement? if existing, is who is the current contractor and what was the previous contract #?

This is a recompetition. There are two contracts being recompeted.

1) JBS International HHSN263201100224U

2) Versatech HHSF223201110031I

As it relates to the Solicitation 15223SOL00089 - SAFETY REPORTING PORTAL for HHS – FDA, is past performance and PPQs from subcontractors we team with acceptable, helpful and meet the requirement of past performance requirements for the solicitation?

See answer to question 36.

"Are the Contractor Teaming Agreement (CTA) allowed under this procurement? If so, please confirm that the prime can take advantage of the credentials of its CTA partner for the purposes of Past performance."

Only pre-award SBA approved Contractor Teaming Agreement (CTA) are allowed.

is it acceptable for past performance information be provided by the prime and subcontractor, and that at least for 2 of the 3 relevant projects, either the prime responder or subcontractor was the prime?

See answer 41

Which would be the right SLA – 8 hrs/day M-F; 4 hrs/day S,S and all holidays (or) 10 hrs/day 365 days?

The first.

Under Task Order 1, is DME effort to be proposed as Labor Hour type or Fixed Price?

No, Task Order 1 is fixed price. Future DME work is expected to be labor hour.

Attachment 4, SRP Labor Descriptions, includes a position titled “Requirements Lead”. This is a Key Personnel position; however, it does not appear on Attachment 3, Pricing Worksheet. Also, Attachment 3, Pricing Worksheet, includes a position titled “Business Systems Analyst”;

however, this position is not described in Attachment 4, SRP Labor Descriptions. a. Is the “Requirements Lead” and “Business Systems Analyst” the same position? b. If so, is the “Requirements Lead” labor category description in Attachment 4 accurate? andc. which title should be used in Attachment 3, Pricing Worksheet?

Requirements Lead is the correct term. Business System Analyst is the same position. The pricing worksheet has been updated.

Section 1.3 indicates a maximum contract ceiling of $20 million.

Does the contract ceiling include both labor CLINS as well as potential Other Direct Costs?

Yes.

if an offeror’s approved rate structure allows for recovery of general and administrative expenses on Other Direct Costs, can these costs to be included (as applicable) in task order proposals?

No.

Are the Fully Loaded Burdened Rates which offerors submit on the Pricing Worksheet (Attachment 3) for this IDIQ:

a. considered “ceiling rates” for the applicable Labor Category?

b. considered fixed rates per position per year?

They are considered ceiling rates.

Attachment 4, SRP Labor Descriptions, include labor categories that could require varying level of experience and background knowledge (such as senior, mid-level and entry level positions) to fulfill task order requirements. In addition, in Attachment 2, Task Order 1 on page 14 of 26, Help Desk support is requested to be provided at Levels 1, 2 and 3. How should offerors distinguish between the levels of expertise, and price differences, that are required for labor categories such as Help Desk, System Engineer, Quality Assurance Specialists, etc?

The information included in the solicitation documents, including descriptions of the Help Desk tasks, and the labor category descriptions, is sufficient to make the distinctions.

: Section 5.4.1, Factor 1 Technical Understanding and Approach to Task Order, states under the fifth bullet “Resumes”: “The letter shall indicate that the employee shall remain employed by the offeror and will work full time for at least one (1) year on the resultant contract if awarded to the offeror.” However, the hours in Attachment 3, SRP Pricing Worksheet, do not reflect full time effort for all of the labor categories identified as Key. Can the government remove the statement requiring all Key Personnel be full time, or update the hours in Attachment 3, SRP Pricing Worksheet (sheet: IDIQ Contractor Site Rate)?

The full time requirement in the instructions has been removed.