Questions_and_Answers_for_FBO.docx

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Questions/Answers Received from Solicitation 18-223-SOL-00062 Question 1:

One important question has come up. Page 48 requires that we submit a detailed "Accessibility Conformance Report" confirming compliance with ICT standards. I believe that this relates to various requirements that individuals with disabilities have access to technology (namely, software) developed by vendors. I wanted to suggest that this may not be applicable, since we aren't developing software for FDA (or, for anyone). To be sure, we have back-end code, but we aren't a software developer.

Can you confirm that applicants do not need to submit an Accessibility Conformance Report, unless the proposal includes an offer to develop software for OCI? (Which you aren't asking for.) Let me know, as I think a full Accessibility Conformance Report would be much lengthier than all of the other documents combined if you are asking for it.

Answer 1:

For IT requirements, the ACR is required as it is the tool the Gov’t uses to evaluate a contractor’s compliance to 508. The contractor should complete the relevant areas of the ACR using the standards that were included in the solicitation. If the contractor is not developing software, they should not have to address that area. However, for any of the areas that are relevant (i.e. the standards that were included in the RFP) the contractor does need to address and state how the contractor will ensure all outputs provided to the Gov’t will be 508 compliant. In this instance, there should not be a lot for the contractor to do. The form itself may be long but the relevant areas should not be.

Question 2:

Is this a new requirement or is there an incumbent vendor? If available, can you please send along the incumbent contract number?

Answer 2:

Synopsis/Solicitation 18223SOL00062 is a follow on requirement to the previous contract HHSF223201300481A. The incumbent contractor was Legit Script.

Question 3:

In the solicitation, I believe that it indicates "Fixed Price" (Page 1). However, the Pricing Worksheet indicates pricing for "each" report.

In the past, pricing has been requested for "Fixed Pricing," not "each report," since that provides an "all you can eat buffet" of sorts and budget predictability on both sides. My assumption is that we can modify the pricing worksheet to reflect "fixed pricing" not on an "each report" basis, but please clarify that that's acceptable.

Answer 3:

You are correct that this is a fixed price award. That being the case, the FDA would like to see the price per report for evaluation purposes and to know the basis for the overall report price. Please do not modify the pricing worksheet.

Question 4:

Regarding this solicitation, we are a small company, and feel that we are capable of handling the monitoring of Internet websites for the information and statistics listed.

However, the solicitation security requirements on our facility pose a problem, especially with our staff members that work-from-home.

Is this a hard requirement?

Should we submit a proposal anyway?

Answer 4:

The security requirements for the facility are a hard requirement due to the nature of the information being gathered in this procurement.