2-RFI Licensing.pdf

STATE OF UTAH - DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Request for Information (RFI): Professional Licensing and Registration System Modernization

RFI Reference Number: LD26-12

Issuing Date: 5/18/26

Response Due Date: 6/16/26

1. Purpose & Overview The State of Utah, Department of Commerce is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to gather information from qualified vendors regarding potential solutions to replace, modernize, and enhance our existing professional licensing and registration platform.

This RFI seeks to understand the market availability, capabilities, implementation methodologies, and estimated costs of solutions, including custom-engineered, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), or highly configurable low-code solutions. This document does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a commitment to purchase.

2. Background & Current State The Department of Commerce is responsible for licensing a broad array of professions ranging from healthcare and construction to cosmetology. The system manages the administrative lifecycle for tens of thousands of licenses, including license issuance, renewals, and status updates. Additionally, it must provide a public lookup portal to verify license standing and disciplinary history.The system manages the administrative lifecycle for tens of thousands of licenses, including license issuance, renewals, and status updates. Additionally, it must provide a public lookup portal to verify license standing and disciplinary history. Example volumes managed by the system include:

● ~47,700 Registered Nurses

● ~31,500 Contractors

● ~23,100 Real Estate Sales Agents

● ~12,800 Professional Engineers

The environment currently supports ~200 regular agency users. Crucially, the solution must feature a configuration-driven architecture to ensure "legislative agility," allowing the Department to rapidly create new license types and modify regulatory requirements in response to ongoing legislative mandates and other regulatory changes in a manner that minimizes the need for custom code development.

3. Core Objectives & Scope of Work The ideal platform should support the following core functional and technical areas:

● Processes:The system must support the core business needs of the Department’s licensing and registration processes for the Division of Consumer Protection, Division of Professional Licensing, Division of Real Estate, Trademarks, and the Pete Suazo Utah Athletic Commission. These needs include:

○ All departmental licensing and registration intake and review processes, ensuring a standardized, compliant, and efficient workflow from submission of initial application and fees through the lifecycle of the licensee.

○ A secure, intuitive, and 24/7 public-facing e-commerce portal allowing applicants, licensees, and the public to manage accounts, submit required documentation, process fees, complete various requests for agency action online, and research publicly available licensee information.

○ Integrated robust payment processing capabilities, including a dedicated cash receipt and Point of Sale (POS) system for processing online or manual, in-person payments, coupled with appropriate receipts, close-out reports and integration to the state’s VANTAGE system for accounting purposes.

○ A secure, compliant, and clearly defined data-sharing capability to facilitate essential external collaboration. This includes providing programmatic data access to authorized vendors and government partners for automated validation and service delivery, while also publishing relevant, non-confidential data to the public to promote transparency and accountability.

● License Types and Volume:The current environment contains ~215 active license types, including temporary and sub-licenses, with ~430,000 active licensees.

● Online Forms & Workflows:

○ Application Forms: Common application forms that address multiple pathways to licensure, including initial application, endorsement from other jurisdictions, and reinstatements.

○ Renewal Forms: Renewal forms that may include enforced continuing education calculations, surveys, and other legal requirements.

○ Other Online Forms: Miscellaneous online portal processes, including modification of associated licenses (e.g. apprentice and apprentice supervisor relationships), address updates, license history verification, name changes, and duplicate license requests.

● Document Templates: Document template manager that allows the business to create and manage unique correspondence templates for both automated batch processes and adhoc business needs.

● Integrations & Data Exchange: Real-time integrations, including the Chase Payment Processor, VANTAGE, and other various import feeds and export feeds.

● Legacy Data Conversion Strategy: The vendor must propose a strategy for incorporating legacy data from the cloud-hosted, Oracle database and Documentum repository without data loss. This strategy must maintain state access to all records, identify the most cost-effective method, and avoid a big bang cutover.

● Reports: Ability for standard and custom reporting along with exporting data into Commerce’s data warehouse and integrating with business intelligence tools.

● AI and Forward-Thinking Capabilities: Utilization of AI-driven and forward-thinking solutions to improve operations. Examples include intelligent document processes to automatically extract and document data from diverse applicant uploads, as well as conversational AI assistants to help users navigate complex licensing requirements in real-time. Furthermore, the system could feature automated reviews to identify issues, such as anomaly detection at the point of intake to identify potentially fraudulent submissions, data inconsistencies before they reach the manual review stage, or utilize predictive analytics for workload forecasting.

● Configuration & Development Toolset: Features supporting configuration, low-code environments, and/or AI-assisted development so agency personnel and developers can rapidly build, test, and modify workflows, business rules, and forms without relying exclusively on hard-coded deployments.

● Legacy Data Migration: A secure migration framework to extract, transform, and load (ETL) historic licensing data, enforcement actions, and document attachments from the existing legacy automation tool without service disruption or data integrity loss.

4. Reserved Vendor Day

In support of this RFI the State has reserved Tuesday, July 14th, Wednesday, July 15th, and Thursday July 16th, 2026 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM for vendors to come in and discuss with the State their proposed solutions for resolving the Problem Statement described above for professional licensing systems. Please note, depending on the number of requests to demo with the State the reserved date is subject to change. Time available per vendor is subject to the number of responses received to this RFI and will be confirmed at a later time.

5. Costs

In a separate document we would like to understand broad outlines of costs as part of the vendor's RFI written response. This document would be separate from the demonstrations provided by the vendor.

● What is the cost structure based on their solution?

● How do their costs typically compare to the costs of other vendors?

● What are ballpark estimates of cost for migrating from current systems to their system?

● Given the broad set of functionality we are looking to implement, what are ballpark estimates of subscription costs that other state or governmental entities they have worked with are paying?

Depending on availability, it is expected that vendors will have the option to come and present in person at the Taylorsville State Office Building, present virtually (through Google Meet), or a combination. Taylorsville State Office Building 4315 S 2700 W Taylorsville, UT 84129-2128

6. Reserve Your Spot To qualify for participation in this vendor day, vendors should meet the following criteria:

● The vendor must be the primary developer, architect, or lead implementer of the offered solution.

● The vendor’s response should be based on either :

○ an existing product or a previously delivered system with a proven implementation history in similar regulatory environment OR

○ a detailed presentation of the vendor’s custom development framework, system architecture, and case studies of bespoke solutions delivered to clients with similar requirements.

● Vendors must demonstrate a proven track record of success delivering or maintaining solutions for clients of a similar scale or complexity as the Utah Department of Commerce. If a vendor does not meet this criteria, but would still like to provide a solution, they may submit a recorded demo that addresses the agenda topics below, allowing the state to view the solution separately. If you are interested in having your firm participate in this RFI with a demo with the State of Utah for licensing systems, please include the following information with your submission and a representative from the Division of Purchasing will contact you to schedule a vendor demonstration.

1. Vendor Name

2. Vendor Contact Name

3. Vendor Contact Email Address

4. Vendor Contact Phone #

5. Whether you will be presenting in person, virtually, or combination

6. Written summary of the proposed solution (not to exceed 2 pages)

7. Vendor to provide a statement confirming that they meet the requirements outlined above.

Agenda Topics for Demos and Presentation:

● Demonstration of your existing solutions and/or, a previously delivered system that supports the needs outlined in this request for information, including how staff perform daily tasks and workflows.

● Explanation of your 'Modification Roadmap' detailing how the proposed solution will be tailored to the Department of Commerce’s unique needs.

● Explanation of low-code tools provided by the vendor for making customizations and extensions, including the process to be used.

● Explanation of APIs provided by the solution to get information in and out of the system.

● Detail your specific approach and cost-effective strategy for migrating complex data from a legacy cloud-based Oracle database and document repository. Explain how you ensure zero data loss and maintain access to historical records.

● Description of how this solution would be integrated with other systems, such as the core financial system. Also, a description of any pre-built connectors with other applications.

● A discussion of typical implementation timeframes.

● Based on experience with other regulatory agencies, a discussion of potential risk areas.

What should the state watch out for?

7. RFI Submission Requirements Vendors interested in responding to this RFI should submit a comprehensive response that includes the following sections:

Section Description

Company Overview Brief description of the company, experience with government or other regulatory licensing systems, and deployment history.

Proposed Solution Details on whether the solution is a custom application or a SaaS.

Cloud deployment details.

AI and Forward-Thinking Capabilities

Description of how the proposed solution incorporates AI/ML, automation, and scalable architectures.

Configuration and Developmental Capabilities

Description of the configuration, code-assisted development, and/or low-code tools available for ongoing system administration and business rule updates.

Scope Management Methodology for incorporating ~215 license types and supporting document templates, and streamlined reporting in the proposed system.

Data Migration Methodology

Proposed approach to migrating data from legacy formats (Oracle and Documentum), including data mapping, quality assurance, risk mitigation, and downtime considerations.

Integration Management

Approach for managing legacy imports and exports and replacing or modernizing real-time and batch integrations which must flow into the Department’s data warehouse.

Cost & Implementation Timeline

Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) for licensing, implementation, data migration, training, and ongoing support. Estimated timeline from contract award to go-live.

References Provide regulatory agency references where the proposed or previously developed solution is currently in production.

8. Submission Instructions Please submit your response electronically in PDF format to the State of Utah Public Procurement Place (U3P) portal by the specified due date.

● Inquiries: All questions regarding this RFI must be submitted via the U3P platform.