2025-R-060 Bidders Questions and Answers 7.30.24.pdf

Question Number

Question Expanded Response

1 Do you require any services for OnBase?

The offeror will help support and maintain OnBase during the transition to their proposed solution. There are expected to be no major changes to the legacy OnBase environment during this transition (aside from the continued accumulation of documents and data added through existing workflow processes prior to deprecation of the legacy system).

2 Are you looking to replace the existing OnBase Document Management System? If yes, is there any specific product decided by SAA?

The Senate will consider the mutually exclusive approaches listed in Section B.1. The Senate welcomes proposals for various technical approaches, including but not limited to:

• Enhancements, upgrades, and optimizations to OnBase to align with current operational needs;

• A unified replacement Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system that meets all requirements;

• A disaggregated (non-ECM) modular approach consisting of various specialized software tools;

• A hybrid model combining core ECM capabilities with specialized software and tools; or

• Any other innovative architecture that achieves the Senate’s document management objectives.

3 Do you require migration services? If yes, how much data do we need to migrate?

Yes. The legacy repository contains 1.8 TB across 2 million objects. Migration scope includes documents, metadata, user/role mapping, and workflows, as detailed in Task 3 of the SOW.

Our software employs a named user licensing model tied to two main types of users: Full Users and Participant Users. Full User can be granted ability to do anything within the repository including administering the system, importing documents, and editing metadata. Participant Users are read-only users who can also participate (submit/approve) in forms processes. Do you know the number of users between these two licenses? Or would you like us to submit general pricing tiers only?

Provide a firm fixed price for 100 concurrent users (CLIN 001) and clearly state any underlying named user or tier assumptions in your price narrative per Table B.5. If the cost of the proposed solution will differ significantly based on the volume of users in any given role, the offeror should project an expected cost based on past experience and explain the assumptions on which it was based in their pricing rationale.

For accessing Document Management Software, how many users will need full rights (upload, edit cases) and how many will need read-only rights (only view the cases or participate in workflow process)?

Unknown, as the volume of required roles and permission groups will naturally differ depending on the specific capabilities of the proposed solution. If the cost of the proposed solution will differ significantly based on the volume of users in any given role, the offeror should project an expected cost based on past experience and explain the assumptions on which it was based in their pricing rationale. Current production supports 42 active users. For evaluation we require proposals that license 100 concurrent users to accommodate growth

6 Is the Senate’s preference more towards Cloud based Document Management System or On-Premises Document Management System?

No preference. Solution may be cloud, on premises, hybrid, or modular. For more details, please refer to Attachment J-02, Section 1 and Section C of the SOW.

7 Do you have a budget already available for this project? If yes, what is the maximum budget you are planning to spend on this project?

The Senate does not disclose budgetary ceilings in advance. Offerors should propose a competitive price commensurate with the requirements and term (Base + 5 Options).

Have the Senate seen demonstrations of any Document Management System? If yes, what is the name of the solution and the vendor which provided the demonstration?

Market research demos have been conducted with multiple vendors; no vendor or product has been down selected or given a competitive advantage.

9 Is there any expected timeframe within which you would like this system to go-live?

Due to the ongoing cost of software licensing, there is a strong incentive to retire the legacy system as soon as possible. A go-live of four (4) months post-award would be ideal, however we are relying on offerors' expertise to propose a realistic timeline taking into account the specifics of the proposed technical approach and the contractor's staffing capacity. Offerors shall propose a realistic schedule (see Table C.5) that includes migration, acceptance testing, and cut over. The draft schedule is an evaluated element of Factor 2 (Management).

For PPQ: As per RFP document, needs to submit PPQ forms within 5 days, can you please inform us the date and time for PPQ submission? Should we submit PPQ after the release of RFQ within 5 days? It would be helpful if you could provide dates and time for the same.

References must email their past performance questionnaire to the SAA by the proposal submission deadline.

The existing legacy solution is listed as Hyland OnBase. Hyland has acquired a lot of software solutions over the last few years. Is there a specific product name from Hyland you are currently using and what is the version you have?

At the time of award, the anticipated Hyland OnBase version will be 25.1 or later.

Would an AI-driven document management system with advanced capabilities for efficient document handling be considered for this requirement?

Yes, provided the solution meets all mandatory requirements and complies with Senate cybersecurity SOPs; AI use must be clearly described. For more details, please refer to Attachment J-02, Section 2.

13 Please provide guidance on the application process for the tender for the Senate Document Management system, published on July 02.

The Technical, Price, and Administrative Proposals must be received at the Senate via email to acquisitions@saa.senate.gov with subject line “ATTN: Charles Blalock 2025-R- 060” by the submission deadline. No United States Postal Service, courier deliveries, or any other delivery services or methods of delivery shall be used for this solicitation.

14 User Count: How many users (named or concurrent) are expected to access the new DMS solution?

Please see Answer 5. Size and concurrency assumptions are fixed for evaluation.

Microsoft 365 Usage: Is Microsoft 365 currently in use across Senate offices (e.g., SharePoint, OneDrive)? If so, what license types are in place (E3, E5, etc.)?

Senate offices hold M365 G3 (Gov E3 equivalent) licenses. Most but not all offices use SharePoint Online, OneDrive, or Teams. Exchange Online is not deployed; solutions that require Exchange Online for email must instead integrate with on premises Exchange.

Power Automate can be configured to monitor SharePoint folders

Document Migration Scope: Is migration of existing documents required?

If yes: Are current documents stored in user folders, shared network drives, or an existing DMS? What is the estimated total volume of data (in GB/TB or file count)? Is metadata currently applied to documents, and should it be preserved?

Yes, please see Answer 3. All existing metadata must be preserved and mapped. For more details, please refer to Attachment J-02, Section 3.6.

17 Source Platform: Could you please specify the current platform or systems from which documents would be migrated?

The current platform is Hyland OnBase, as described in the SOW.

18 Third-Party Integrations: Beyond Microsoft Office, are there other third-party platforms or internal Senate systems the new solution must integrate with?

No. All integration requirements are stated in Attachment J-02.

Attachment J - 3.6: The Solution shall support metadata tagging with controlled vocabularies and hierarchical taxonomies. Could the Senate SAA provide examples of the controlled vocabularies and hierarchical taxonomies they have in mind?

A hypothetical example might be a parent category of "Committee documents" with child sub-categories such as "Committee on Foreign Relations documents" and "Committee on Rules and Administration documents" that can be applied as meta data for the classification and retrieval of files. Offerors should assume standard Senate taxonomies (office, record type, FY, retention) will be provided during discovery (Task 1). Solutions must allow administrators to create hierarchical taxonomies and enforce pick lists.

Attachment J - 5.4: The Solution shall support advanced optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities for accurately extracting text from scanned or handwritten documents, including degraded or distressed documents.

Recognized data must be usable for indexing and workflow automation.

Would OCR be needed for every document uploaded/stored in the Solution?

Does the Senate SAA have a percentage of "scanned" documents vs "handwritten" documents to be uploaded/stored in the Solution on a monthly/yearly basis?

Yes, we have about 10% handwritten and 90% scanned documents. Historical ingestion averages 5,000–7,000 documents per month with periodic bulk loads during committee transitions. Offerors should size OCR services accordingly.

21 What 3rd party applications are required for the Solution to integrate with? This information can be gleaned from the SOW and Attachment J-02.

22 Do annotations in OnBase need to be migrated with the documents?

Yes, annotation should be migrated as applicable. The finance group (accounts payable), for example, makes use of annotations to denote the status of invoices.

23 How many workflows does the Senate SAA currently utilize in OnBase? There are 5 workflows.

Are there additional data sources (e.g. SharePoint, Shared Drives/folders, etc) that will need to be migrated to the new Solution? If so, can the Senate SAA provide an estimated total document number and/or size?

The migration source is Hyland OnBase.

25 Does the Senate SAA have a need for an electronic form (e.g. ability change paper forms into electronic forms) solution?

This is not a requirement.

Does the Senate SAA utilize an eSignature solution? If so, does the Solution need to integrate with that eSig tool and would the Senate SAA entertain an alternative to the current eSig tool?

No, we do not use esignature solution.

27 If no eSignature solution is being used, does the Senate SAA have a need for an eSignature solution?

This is not a requirement.

The current 42 users for OnBase, are they named users or concurrent users?

How many of those users are: 1) Search/Retrieval Only, and/or 2) Workflow participants? Is there a need for additional users/licenses in the new Solution? Is there a need for 100 concurrent users for this project?

42 represents current named users. Evaluation will be based on 100 concurrent users to accommodate growth and multiple offices. As instructed in Section B of the SOW, offerors should provide pricing reflective of 100 user accounts. No further detail about account types will be provided.

29 Are there any requirements that if not met will result in automatic disqualification?

All Mandatory (M) items found in the Technical Requirement Matrix, Attachment J-02 must be met. Proposals may be disqualified if they do not adequately address the needs of the Senate and all stakeholders, and/or if they do not provide sufficient justifications or workarounds for mandatory (M) requirements that cannot be met as stated.

30 Has a budget been allocated and approved for this project? Please see Answer 7.

31 What is Senate SAA's budget for the project? Please see Answer 7.

32 When does Senate SAA expect to make an award and/or complete contracting?

The date of award is unknown but anticipated to be Q4 of 2025.

33 When does Senate SAA anticipate beginning implementation?

The contractor shall hold a project kick-off meeting as soon as possible following contract execution and begin working toward finalizing an implementation plan. The SAA would like the implementation to begin as soon as possible.

34 When does Senate SAA anticipate going live with the new solution?

Four months post-award is ideal but the contractor should describe the expected project candence in their proposal. The SAA desires to go live as soon as possible due to ongoing fees associated with OnBase licensing.

35 Will shortlisted vendors be invited to provide demos in person?

The SAA may or may not request demos and will make that determination during the evaluation phase.

36 How many prospective suppliers will be invited to provide demonstrations?

The SAA may or may not request demos and will make that determination during the evaluation phase. The SAA may choose to forgo demos completely or to request demos from some or all offerors.

37 Has a scoring matrix for responses been created? If so, please share. Scoring will be based on the factors described in Section M of the SOW.

38 What functional or operational issues exist with the current solution?

Key pain points include limited workflow agility, duplicate content, and difficulty meeting records retention automation goals.

39 Why is the Institution seeking a new solution?

To modernise capabilities, improve integration with M365 services, reduce support costs, and comply with evolving records management mandates.

40 When does the current contract for OnBase expire? The Hyland OnBase license is set to renew at the end of December 2025.

41 What is the Institution's annual spend on OnBase?

Annual licensing and maintenance is approximately $160K; professional services spend varies year to year.

42 Was OnBase purchased directly or through a reseller? If so, which? The Senate licenses Hyland OnBase through a reseller under an enterprise agreement.

43 Has Senate SAA seen any demos in the last 12 months? If so, which vendors? Please see Answer 8.

44 Has Senate SAA consulted with any vendors in developing the RFP requirements?

No vendor specific consultations occurred; requirements were developed internally and through publicly available market research.

45 Can the assumption be made that this is an on-premise solution, there are no questions relating to FedRamp.?

No. The Senate will consider on premises, cloud, hybrid, or modular architectures. Since the awarded solution (on-prem or otherwise) will require a security audit and approval from the Senate's cybersecurity team prior to award, FedRamp certification may be evaluated favorably depending on the specifics of the proposed solution and whether said certification might help to accelerate the cybersecurity approval process, reduce risk to the Senate, or provide greater confidence in the solution's viability. The solution must meet all mandatory requirements and complies with Senate cybersecurity SOPs.

Can we confirm the number of users with access to the system. There is a call for 100 concurrent users. Does this include all users including "read only" type users?

There are typically between 40-50 users of the legacy system (all access levels) but usage is expected to increase during the course of the contract. The 100 concurrent user baseline covers all user roles, including view only, workflow participants, and administrators. As such, offerors shall provide pricing reflective of 100 user accounts as requested in Table B.5 - Price Schedule.

Is there a breakdown of the type of content in the OnBase system. Are there any non-standard type documents such as CAD documents, video and voice recordings?

While stakeholders have requested the inclusion of digital asset management (DAM) capabilities to allow for the capture of other content types (e.g. video, audio, or other multimedia) in the proposed solution, the legacy OnBase system is not currently configured to provide such a capability to stakeholders. The vast majority of OnBase content consists of PDF and TIF files resulting from scans or email ingestion (no CAD), along with the files' associated OCR and meta data.

48 How many metadata fields exist and that will need to be migrated?

The awarded contractor will migrate all meta data from the legacy system; mapping details will be supplied during Task 1 discovery. The exact volume of metadata/keywords cannot be provided.

SAA requests different support hours for varying tasks. Please confirm the support hour ranges are intended to vary:

C.4.8 Task 7: Acceptance Period Support, C.4.8.2

• The Contractor must provide technical support during normal business hours (Monday - Friday, from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, EST)

C.4.9 Task 8: Technical Support and Maintenance, C.4.9.1

• Technical Support Technical telephone support and troubleshooting from 8:00 am-9:00 pm ET;

• Four (4) business hour on-site service response time during business hours, 8am-5pm, Monday - Friday (ET)

Confirmed.

M.5.1.5 Price – Factor 4, Page 42: Section M.5.1.5 states “For evaluation purposes, the SAA will derive a proposed price for the proposal, by multiplying the Offeror’s proposed rates for Labor Hour CLINs by SAA estimated hours for the Base period and each Option year.”

Since CLINs X010 and X011 are the Labor Hour CLINs, please confirm whether SAA will provide estimated hours or if Offerors are to just propose a list of potential labor categories and fully- burdened labor rates that may be used for additional professional services or training.

Offerors should provide a single blended, fully-burdened hourly rate for each labor hour CLIN. The volume of ad hoc labor that might be requested over the course of the contract is unknown and is expected to depend heavily on the specifics of the proposed solution, such as the level of autonomy and user-friendliness provided by the solution's workflow management tools.

L.7.2.1 Price Proposal Instructions, Page 39: All proposed prices must be adequately supported. The proposal must include sufficient background to show derivation of all costs.

Please confirm that for each firm-fixed-price (FFP) CLIN, supporting information includes the labor categories, fully burdened hourly rates, and estimated hours.

Confirmed.

Table B-5 Pricing Table – FFP CLIINs, Pages 7 and 3:

Please confirm that we can invoice for FFP tasks on a monthly equal basis?

Confirmed. The Senate will authorize monthly level of effort invoicing once the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) has validated the percentage of completion.

Section B.5 Price Schedule, Page 3: Table 8.5 Price Schedule

CLIN x001 outlines Software on a monthly unit basis (quantity of 12 months).

Please confirm that a contractor can invoice for software upon procurement and delivery (i.e., single, annual basis) rather than on a monthly basis.

Confirmed. The Senate will authorise a single event invoice after software licence keys are delivered and verified.

L.7.2.2 Administrative Proposal Instructions, Page 40: f. Technical and Contractual points-of-contact. Provide telephone and facsimile number as well as E-mail address.

Please confirm that a telephone number and E-mail address are sufficient for the technical and contractual points-of-contact, given that facsimile number(s) may not be available.

Confirmed. Fax number is not required.

L.7.5.1 and M.5.1.4, Pages 38 and 42: PP Reference Summaries (L.7.5.1) say three (3) contracts performed within the last 5 years; Evaluation criteria (M.5.1.4) say three (3) contracts performed within the last 3 years.

Please confirm whether Past Performance references should be for projects performed within the last 3 years or 5 years.

Contracts within the last five (5) years are acceptable.

M.5.1.4 Past Performance, Page 42: The Panel will review the Offeror’s similar experience as a Prime Contractor during the past three (3) years.

Can the Government clarify if Offeror (bidding as a prime) may include contracts with similar experience performed as a subcontractor?

Yes, provided that the stated reference is reviewing your firm's work specifically.

C.4.6 Task 5: Training Program, Page 8: C.4.6.1 d. Provide a dedicated account manager for training-related questions and issues.

Please confirm if the “dedicated account manager” is a training lead/manager position in addition to (or part of) the Project Manager (key personnel) responsibilities?

This can be the same person or two separate people.

C.4.9.1 Task 8 Technical Support, Page 10: e. All labor, materials and/or parts furnished by contractor.

Can the Government clarify what types of materials and parts are anticipated to be required under this task?

There are no specific parts and/or materials anticipated for this task. If, however, the contractor for any reason determines that parts or materials are required to support the solution, these must be furnished by the contractor.

Attachment J-02 - Requirements Matrix, Rows 77 to 83: Requirements 9.1 through 9.7 (Stakeholder Use Cases)

Will the respective vendors for CRM / Accounting / Avanti products be available for assistance with integration with a new system or is this 100% the responsibility of the winning bidder?

Yes. The Senate will facilitate vendor contacts; however, primary responsibility rests with the contractor to complete integrations. Please refer to Attachment J-02, Section 1 for the complete requirements.

C.2 Scope of Work, Page 5: h. Support the legacy OnBase system during transition;

Is Hyland and other related software currently in use at SAA under current software maintenance and support?

Yes. Please see Answer 42 and Answer 41.

What scanning / OCR software is currently in place and will the contractor be required to integrate with the existing scanning solution or should bidders propose their own solution?

Stakeholders currently use both desktop and high capacity production scanners, along with the manufacturers' provided software to capture documents (for example Kodak software). OCR is provided by the legacy OnBase sytem. The proposed solution must provide OCR capabilities. With regard to the scanning software, the proposed solution must either be capable of processing documents captured with existing software or, alternatively, provide its own scanning component capable of interacting with the existing scanners. Offerors may integrate or propose a replacement. The Senate states no preference for either approach, but requires that the proposed solution be capable of ingesting and processing materials captured by their scanning hardware.

C.4.3.2 Implementation, Page 7: b. Configuration of workflows and business rules;

To enable offerors to make accurate level of effort and delivery schedule determinations, can the Government provide more detail on the existing workflows, i.e. - users, steps, tools used, business rules.

Summaries of existing stakeholder use cases and workflows can be found in Attachment J-

02. Further details will emerge during the post-award discovery phase. No further granularity or detail will be provided at this time.

C.4.3.2 Implementation, Page 7: c. Integration with existing Senate systems as required;

To enable offerors to make accurate level of effort and delivery schedule determinations, can the Government provide more details on the existing integrations, i.e. - users, steps, business rules.

Most of this detail can be gleaned from Attachment J-02, including expected intergrations. Additional requirements may emerge during the post-award discovery phase, but no further detail will be provided at this time.

64 Please confirm that the SAA will provide all necessary infrastructure for environments (e.g., Dev, Test, Staging, etc.).

Confirmed.

Please confirm that SAA will provide any required Government furnished equipment (GFE) and hardware, along with networking, security, and remote access during implementation?

Confirmed.

SOW C.3.1 and L.7.1, Pages 5 and 37: “The Contractor shall complete Attachment J-02, Requirements Matrix, indicating whether the Solution meets, exceeds, or does not meet each requirement.” (C.3.1) “In Volume I, the Offeror shall demonstrate the ability to meet the specifications and requirements in Section C and J-02 Requirements Matrix.” (L.7.1)

Is the Attachment J-02 Requirements Matrix to be included in Volume I, and if so does it count toward the 30-page limit for this volume?

The completed spreadsheet should be attached as a separate file and does not count toward the page limit.

Attachment J-02 and L.7.1: Attachment J-02, line 76, the Government requests narratives for Use Cases 9.1-9.7. Narratives are to address needs and provide recommended software, tools, techniques, middleware, and/or configurations…for each specific use case.” However, in L.7.1 Technical Proposal Instructions, “The Offeror shall demonstrate the ability to meet the specifications and requirements in Section C and J-02 Requirements Matrix.”

Can the Government clarify where, or in what format, they would like offerors to provide the Use Case narratives (9.1 through 9.7) - in the technical response (Vol 1), the comments box within Attachment J-02, or as a separate attachment?

In Attachment J-02, we are looking for confirmation that you have thought through the current stakeholder use cases and how the proposed solution would address them.

Offerors should provide a brief overview of their approach to each use case in the spreadsheet comment column (a few sentences should suffice). If you wish to elaborate further, you may do so in your technical volume and provide a page reference in the J-02 narrative, but please keep the spreadsheet comment as consice as possible while conveying the general technical approach.

C.2. Statement of Work, Page 5: h. Support the legacy OnBase system during transition.

To enable offerors to make accurate level of effort and delivery schedule determinations, can the Government clarify the following questions about OnBase software and current scanners:

1) What version of OnBase is currently installed?

2) Is the software currently under a maintenance plan?

3) How many, and what model, scanners are connected to the OnBase system?

4) Are the scanners under a maintenance plan?

5) How many documents are scanned per week or month?

6) How many different document types are scanned into the system (invoices, receipts, correspondence, etc)?

7) How many steps, on average, does the current scan solution have for each document type?

8) What is the current daily ingest volume in terms of pages and documents?

1) Please see Answer 11.

2) Yes. Please see Answer 42 and Answer 41.

3) No scanner directly connected to OnBase. Scanner type is the I5850 Kodak.

4) Yes.

5) 25k pages / 5k docs per month.

6) Please see Answer 47.

7) Pre-scan workflow, 2 steps. Post-scan workflow, 2 steps.

8) 25k-50k monthly.

Implementation C.4.3.2 b, c and d, Page 7: The Contractor shall implement and configure the Solution according to the COR-approved design and implementation plan, including but not limited to: b. Configuration of workflows and business rules; c. Integration with existing Senate systems as required; d Configuration of reporting and analytics

1) Regarding b. above: How many workflows are currently developed and in use in OnBase? Can the Government provide a sample of a current workflow in use today?

2) Regarding c. above: How many external systems are connected to the OnBase solution today? Can you share the names/software systems that are connected? If so, pls. describe.

3) Regarding d. above: How many unique reports are requested? Can you provide the cadence for each report? Are they generated daily, weekly and/or monthly?

Most of this information can be gleaned from the SOW and Attachments (including the Requirements Matrix and the Service Level Agreement). No further information will be provided.

C.4.4 Task 3 Data Migration, Page 7: “The Contractor shall complete Attachment J-02, Requirements Matrix, indicating whether the Solution meets, exceeds, or does not meet each requirement.” (C.3.1) “In Volume I, the Offeror shall demonstrate the ability to meet the specifications and requirements in Section C and J-02 Requirements Matrix.” (L.7.1)

To support the migration of data, can the Government confirm that they have licenses for OnBase Export Tools in Studio Config and/or Unity Management Console and/or is a thick client in Advanced Capture used?

Unity Management Console export tools are licensed and may be used for migration.

The RFI does not specify the preferred hosting environment for new solutions.

Could the Senate please clarify whether it expects deployments to occur within the Senate’s managed cloud, a contractor-provided cloud environment, or on-premises infrastructure?

Please see Answer 6 and Answer 45.

The Senate does not specify what font, or size, is expected for the Technical Volume. Could the senate please clarify a preferred font, size, and spacing for the Technical Volume?

Font size and spacing are at the offeror's discretion. That said, offerors are advised that concision matters and one of the proposal evaluation critieria is, "Clear and concise written proposal." As such, we suggest using a font size of 12pt or greater, line spacing of

1.5 or greater, 1 inch or greater margins, and in a common face such as Arial/Helvetica, Times New Roman, Calibri, etc..

The Senate does not specify whether or not tables of contents, or cover pages count towards the page limit of the technical volume. Could the Senate please clarify whether or not tables of contents, cover pages, and similar elements will count towards the page limit of the technical volume?

Table of contents, cover letters, and other front matter do not count toward the 30 page limit.

Under Section C.2 of the SOW: The Senate states that the contractor shall “establish workflow replacements and improvements that meet the business needs of current use cases.” To accurately scope and price professional services for migration and implementation, we request a complete list of existing workflows, including their complexity and business purpose. While the SOW outlines system use cases, understanding the specific workflows involved is essential for developing an accurate and comprehensive proposal.

The offeror will establish workflows within their proposed solution that meet the needs of the use cases described in Attachment J-02. The awarded contractor will provide leadership in the establishment of optimized workflows to satisfy their described use cases.

Under Section C.2 of the SOW: The Senate states that the contractor shall “support the legacy OnBase System during transition.” Could the Senate please clarify if the Senate intends to extend existing OnBase support services during the transition period, or are vendors expected to provide both operational support for the Hyland OnBase platform and full migration services to the new solution?

Offerors will provide a quote for CLIN 004 "Data migration and legacy system support services" with the assumption that they will be providing operational support and full migration services. The proposal evaluation will help the Senate determine the most advantageous path in consideration of all factors and options at our disposal.

Statement of Work (SOW) C.5, I,20, and Requirements Matrix 2.7, 5.4., 7.7, 7.10, and 7.11: These references pertain to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and OCR. The SOW references state restrictions on AI use and the requirements refer to advanced OCR, zonally OCR’d documents, intelligent forms recognition, and sentiment and topics analysis by extracting insights from documents. Can you please confirm that AI for the purposes of intelligent document classification, recognition, data extraction, and document analysis is permissible?

Please see Answer 12.

SOW F.2, Requirements Matrix 7.1, and SAA SOP for Cybersecurity 14.3.13.2.1: SOW F.2 states that work must be completed at the Contractor’s site(s), via remote communications, or onsite at SAA. SOW 7.1 states that the Solution may support seamless integration with third-party scanning software through standard interfaces or connections. The SOW does not refer to cloud or FedRAMP. The SAA SOP for cybersecurity refers to a FedRAMP Moderate or High requirement. Can you please confirm whether a solution integrating cloud-based intelligent document processing and document management software with scanning at the Contractor’s site via secure connectivity is acceptable, and whether such a solution or a fully on-premises solution (scanning and software) is preferred?

Please see Answer 6 and Answer 45.

SOW F.2 and Attachment J-02 Section 9: The use cases describe some scanning done as part of Senate business operations, including bulk scanning.

Is all scanning to be done onsite at SAA or Senate offices or can some scanning be done at the Contractor’s secure facility?

On-site only.

SOW C.4.4 Task 3: Can you please confirm if, in addition to the migration of data and files from OnBase, the documents require any further OCR, creation of searchable PDFs, or data extraction?

The proposed solution shall include a method of "refreshing" the OCR for PDFs and other files, including documents migrated from the legacy system. Stakeholders should be able to perform this action themselves on individual files or in batch as needed (e.g. to "re- OCR" a batch of migrated handwritten documents that were not processed correctly by the legacy OCR tool). Enabling end users to perform this action themselves shall be an aspect of the initial training program.

SOW 4.9.2 Maintenance: For purposes of system sizing, can you please share an estimate of the rate of incoming document volume for each use case in terms of documents, pages, and extracted data elements?

While we are unable to provide exact incoming document volume rates for each use case, the following is a general breakdown. The legacy system contained just shy of 2 million files at last count, accumulated over the past decade. Most of the use cases described in Attachment J-02 are relatively low volume. The highest volume use cases are 1) the finance (accounts payable) users, who use the system daily to process dozens of invoices, and 2) the users involved with batch processing documents who periodically process large batch jobs consisting of hundreds of files at once using DAT files, index sheets, and meta data tagging to classify and organize records.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.1, p. 5: Can the Senate confirm the version and configuration of the current Hyland OnBase implementation, including custom workflows and third-party integrations?

Please see Answer 11.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.4.4(c), p. 8: Will the current OnBase licensing agreements remain active during the transition? Should the proposed solution assume a cold or hot cutover?

The legacy system will remain active during the transition. The Senate will determine, in consultation with the contractor and relevant stakeholders, the time frame in which final deprecation and decommissioning of the legacy OnBase system is safe and appropriate.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.3.2(c), p. 7: Can the Senate provide a list of current systems integrated with OnBase that must be supported in the replacement solution?

Please refer to Attachment J-02, Section 1.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.4.3, p. 8: Will all 1.8 TB of data, including all 2 million files, be migrated, or will any content be excluded based on age, relevance, or classification?

Yes. Full migration is required. No exclusions based on age, relevance, or classification.

85 2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.4.2, p. 8: Is the Senate requiring complete migration of workflow history, audit trails, and version history from OnBase?

Yes. Workflow history, audit logs, and version history are in scope.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.4.3, p. 8: Will the Senate provide schema documentation and direct SQL access to the OBDATA database to support migration validation?

Yes.

87 2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.2, p. 7: Can the Senate provide examples or documentation of current workflows to guide replication or optimization?

Sample workflow diagrams will be furnished during Task 1 discovery.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.2.c, p. 6; Section C.4.2, p. 7: Should Offerors assume a like-for-like workflow migration or proactively propose redesigns to optimize functionality?

Offerors may assume a like-for-like workflow migration or propose a redesign provided all mandatory business rules are preserved.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.2, p. 7: Does the Senate seek AI-driven functionality (e.g., intelligent routing, auto-tagging, classification) as part of workflow modernization?

AI features (auto tagging, routing) are permitted provided they meet all mandatory requirements and complies with Senate cybersecurity SOPs.

Attachment J-01 Cybersecurity SOP, Section 14.3.13.2.1.1, p. 44: Is a hybrid (on-prem/cloud) architecture permitted, and must any cloud components be hosted on FedRAMP-certified platforms?

Please see Answser 45.

Attachment J-01, Section 14.3.13.2.3, p. 45: Are there any restrictions or preferences regarding cloud service providers (e.g., AWS GovCloud, Azure Government)?

No preference. Please see Answer 45.

Attachment J-01, Section 14.3.12.4, p. 42; Section 14.3.13.2.2, p. 44: Does the Senate require contractor systems to undergo Senate-facilitated or third-party security assessments before production use?

Yes, contractor hosted components must pass Senate facilitated cybersecurity risk assessment prior to production.

Attachment J-01, Section 14.3.13.3.1.4, p. 45: What API usage policies apply to systems integrating with external (non-Senate) platforms? Are there whitelist or gateway controls in place?

External API calls must traverse the Senate API gateway; whitelist controls are in place.

Attachment J-01, Section 14.3.8 (Remote Access), p. 35: Will remote contractor staff require Senate-issued PIV or smart card credentials, or may they use contractor-managed MFA tokens?

Please see Attachment J-01, Section 14.1 Contractor Access for more information.

Attachment J-01, Section 14.3.12.4, p. 42: Does the Senate mandate specific endpoint protection tools beyond the named examples (Carbon Black, JAMF, Lookout, Tenable)?

Yes.

Attachment J-01, Section 14.3.12, p. 41-42: Are Offerors required to use a Senate-specified vulnerability scanner, or may they propose their own tools and protocols?

Senate vulnerability scanner.

Attachment J-03 SLA, Section 9.3, p. 4: Will the Senate provide its records retention schedule and disposition instructions for use in configuring automated policies?

Yes. Official retention schedule will be furnished for configuring automated policies.

Attachment J-03 SLA, Section 9.3 and 9.4, p. 4: Is the contractor responsible for configuring automated purging and archival in compliance with Senate retention requirements?

Yes. Contractor shall configure purge and archival policies in compliance with Senate retention rules.

Attachment J-03 SLA, Section 7.d-g, p. 3: Does the Senate have a preferred analytics or BI platform (e.g., Power BI, Tableau) for visualizing metrics from the new solution?

Power BI is preferred; Tableau or equivalent may be proposed if licences are included.

Attachment J-03 SLA, Sections 7.f, 7.g, and 7.h, p. 3: Are Offerors expected to create initial user activity dashboards or is only data logging and reporting infrastructure required?

Yes. Offerors shall create baseline user activity and performance dashboards at go live.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.6.1, p. 9: Is end-user training expected to be conducted on-site, virtually, or in a hybrid format? What is the total number of learners by role?

Please see Section C.4.6 of the SOW, Task 5 of for more information. The current count of named users is 42.

102 2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.9.4, p. 11: Should pricing include refresher and train-the-trainer sessions beyond go-live, or will those be ordered separately?

After the initial training program (CLIN 006) is completed, future training sessions will be requested on an as-needed basis under "Additional training" (CLIN 011) at the offeror's specified hourly rate.

Attachment J-03 SLA, Sections 7.2 and 12.1, pp. 3, 6: Must SLA compliance be monitored entirely by the contractor, or will the Senate provide performance logs for cross-verification?

Contractor must provide monitoring; Senate will supply log data for cross verification.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.5.1 and Section C.4.8.1, pp. 9-10: Will Senate UAT occur during the same 30-day acceptance test window defined in Section C.4.8?

Yes. Senate UAT is part of the 30 day acceptance test period defined in Section C.4.8 of the SOW.

Attachment J-03 SLA, Section 8.4, p. 4 and Section 12.2, p. 6: If log data from Senate systems conflicts with contractor logs, which source prevails for SLA enforcement purposes?

Senate authoritative logs prevail; discrepancies will be resolved by the COR.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section H.11, p. 19: Will custom code or configurations developed under this contract be Senate-owned or made available for reuse by other offices?

Custom deliverables (code) funded under the contract become Senate property (unlimited rights).

2025-R-060 RFP, Section H.11, p. 19: If Contractor is using Commercial Software, will the Government remove H.11 language stating that all intellectual and data rights in the software become the exclusive property of the Senate?

H.11 pertains to software and data specifically created and delivered for the purposes of this contract, and does not apply to the non-transferrable intellectual property rights of the underlying commercial software.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section H.12, p. 20: Can the Government clarify the first sentence whereas it is linking commercial software only to “equipment”?

Contractor will provide software license agreement for commercial software not specific to an equipment purchase.

H.12 applies to any COTS software provided under the contract, regardless of whether it is bundled with equipment.

2025-R-060 RFP, Section C.4.2, p. 7; Attachment J-03 SLA, Section 9.1, p. 4:

Are Offerors permitted to include commercial accelerators (e.g., OCR engines, redaction tools) with licensing terms subject to COR approval?

Yes. Accelerators (OCR, redaction) may be proposed under CLIN 001; licences are subject to COR approval.

Table 1