Questions_And_Answers_2.docx

Amendment II Questions And Answers

1. What are SSA’s expectations around acceptance testing? Is it truly the full list of requirements in B.3.2; or is it to examine a folder and report on the 100% duplicates detected?

Answer: For acceptance testing the software will be installed and configured in the SSA environment. The software will examine a folder and identify 100% duplicates and report on what duplicates were found. That list will be compared against the known duplicates and scored.

2. Would SSA consider an alternative approach that ran on more of an as-needed basis if it would result in significant cost savings on cloud resources?

Answer: SSA currently supports the AWS cloud and will provision resources in the Agency cloud infrastructure.

3. What level of scalability is SSA looking for? Ability to add additional servers? Elastic auto-scaling? Scaling of various tiers or layers? Other?

Answer: SSA is looking for the most efficient method to expand for capacity needs.

4. When looking at the total number of document and pages, can we assume that the documents will have a case number or other identification for grouping purposes?

Answer: Yes documents will be identified.

5. Regarding the ability of the DIP system to identify and extract data values to support downstream processing of documents, is this extracting metadata from the text of the documents, or extracting document properties associated to the documents, or both?

Answer: Yes this is referring to meta-data about the document.

6. The DIP system shall have the ability to create user defined tags and place the tags on documents. Does this mean tags can be added within the document similar to comments or is it referring only to metadata tags on the document?

Answer: Documents can be tagged with meta-data for example to mark it as a duplicate. An end user would then have the ability to take an action.

7. The DIP RFP seeks innovative functionality that can be arrived at by one several different approaches. So that vendors may fully assess all the options, ideas and information needed to put forth the solution most advantageous for SSA, will you consider extending the deadline for proposals by one week?

Answer: The due date for proposals of RFP 28321318R00000022 will be extended by one week to February 23, 2018 at noon.

8. The requirements mention providing APIs for integration purposes. Will SSA or the offeror integrate the proposed solution? If it is the offeror, please provide details for the systems that need to be integrated.

Answer: The COTs software must provide the capability through APIs or other services to interface with SSA data stores to process and detect duplicate documents.

9. Can the offeror assume SSA will be able to provide truth data for machine learning? Truth(labeled) data would include pages that are duplicates to other pages.

Answer: Data can be provided and also end users can aide in the process.

10. Does SSA extract document meta data and content with their current OCR solution and store it, if so will that data be made available to us to perform Text Similarity matching?

Answer: No

11. What are the business hours of operation? Does SSA require 24X7 help desk support

Answer: Business hours are 6am to 9pm est. SSA expects helpdesk support during business hours.

12. How many user roles currently exist? Is there a hierarchy with in roles

Answer: Currently process is manual. Roles will be defined to support the business process such as a case preparation. This role would enable the end user to take an action to move a detected duplicate document.

13. Will SSA provide in house Training and Communications teams to assist in this effort?

Answer: SSA will provide in house support to assist in this effort.

14. Can contractors use their GSA contract or any other suitable contract they have to provide this solution?

Answer: This is a FAR Part 12 and 15 procurement. You may submit any product or service as long as it conforms to the requirements, terms, and conditions of the solicitation.

15. Does SSA anticipate all build and implementation activities will complete within the contract’s base year?

Answer: SSA expects the software to be installed, configured, and implemented as a production pilot in the base year. Within the pilot phase, the product will turned into a series of phased releases.

16. What are the period of performance dates for the base and 4 option years?

Answer: They are undetermined at this time but we would hope for an award sometime in late June or early July.