DRAFT Product Description EHCM Modernization Subscriptions Maintenance and Support 12042024.docx

Enterprise Human Capital Management (EHCM) Modernization Subscriptions, Maintenance and Support TAC Number: VA-25-00028927

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION (PD)

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Office of Information & Technology Human Resources Administration/Operations, Security and Preparedness (HRA/OSP) Office of the Center for Enterprise Human Resources Information Services (CEHRIS) Enterprise Human Capital Management (EHCM) Modernization Subscriptions, Maintenance and Support

Date: December 4, 2024

VA-25-00028927

PD Version Number: 1.0

Contents

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The Human Resources Administration (HRA)/Operations, Security & Preparedness (HRA/OSP), Center for Enterprise Human Resources Information Services (CEHRIS) organization supports and strengthens the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Human Resources (HR) Information Technology (IT) infrastructure by updating and replacing legacy, outdated, and/or duplicative HR IT systems, technologies, and manual processes across the VA enterprise. CEHRIS coordinates the use of modern, automated, and standardized human capital services to deliver a world-class workforce with the sole purpose of supporting our Nation’s Veterans.

VA is modernizing its Human Capital Management (HCM) capabilities to empower and enable a diverse, fully staffed, and highly skilled workforce that consistently delivers world-class services to Veterans and their families. VA’s goal is to enhance the overall management of the Human Capital lifecycle, improve user adoption and employee experience, and increase VA’s ability to compete with modern recruitment and talent acquisition capabilities occurring across the public and private recruitment and talent acquisition landscape.

VA requires a modernized integrated solution that will seamlessly deliver the baseline (i.e., core) requirements of the existing HR·Smart solution to not lose capability or functionality currently in use, but also, it must be a solution that can automate all business functions of the lifecycle of employee management. Thus, VA is in need of transformation delivered through a modern HCM platform that is able to meet VA unique requirements, also ever changing and growing business needs, and which is focused on enhancement of user experience.

All technologies delivered through this acquisition must align to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Human Capital Business Reference Model (HCBRM), of which, defines the end-to-end agency, supporting and enabling HR functions of the employee management lifecycle and Personnel Action Processing (PAR), A1-A0 and X, respectively.

2.0 BACKGROUND

The legacy solution is HR·Smart, which is based on Oracle PeopleSoft. As well, ServiceNow is being utilized as a front end for enhancement of the user experience, The current solution is used enterprise-wide across the Department. This includes the VA Central Office (VACO), located in Washington DC, nationwide field facilities administered by three major line subcomponents (Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Veterans Benefit Administration (VBA), and National Cemetery Administration (NCA)), and staff offices. There is a nationwide network of approximately 184 hospitals, 800 outpatient clinics, 135 community living centers, 49 domiciliary residential rehabilitation treatment programs, 278 Veteran centers, 66 Veterans Benefits regional offices and 155 National Cemeteries that provide services and benefits.

This system supports approximately 6,300+ HR users, over 41,000+ managers, 80,000+ administrative supports for department actions, 9,000+ payroll users, 7,500+ manpower users, 100,000+ Workers without Compensation (for example, health professional trainees, providers and researchers), 8,500+ fee basis employees, 5,000+ paid trainees, 1,000+ students and VA will soon have over 497,000 employees gaining access for employee self-service.

The transactions processed by VA HR servicing offices currently exceed one million HR transactions per year, additionally these actions are submitted to HR through Standard Form (SF) 52 Requests for Personnel Action Requests (PAR) or within Manager Self Service (MSS), to include cancellations and correction of historical transactions, over 497,000 mass pay change actions annually and an average of approximately 50,000+ personnel actions per pay period. Appendix A: PAR Processing contains additional details on VA personnel action processing requirements. Transactions in the systems are not limited to PAR.

The data from HR·Smart is also interconnected bi-directionally with VA’s core payroll system Defense Finance Accounting Service (DFAS), and time and attendance supporting biweekly payroll processing through Veterans Affairs Time and Attendance Solution and the Recruitment/Talent Acquisition solution USA Staffing (OPM solution). HR·Smart also provides employee data in support of various needs to include functions within the Federal HCBRM including recruitment life cycle, identity and access management systems; security clearance system; separation management; employee benefits, employee labor relations, performance management, position classification, safety and workers compensation, Human Capital Data Warehouse,Human Resources – Payroll Applications Services (HR-PAS), Workers without Compensation and financial and accounting management systems across VA.

3.0 DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM

VA’s modern HCM solutions must be agile to keep up with a constantly changing HR regulatory and policy environment while ensuring great user experiences for all user personas. VA must continue to deliver new and improved HR professional, manager, and employee centric capabilities with the focus on user experience, without delays often associated with normal design/build or “waterfall” development approaches. VA is working towards aligning with industry best practices and the future of technology by seeking HCM cloud services and solutions to support system interoperability for servicing VA HR professionals, managers, and employees, with an intentional focus on enhanced end user experience, and a central entry point for all HRIS. VA requires an approach to get to the future that does not disrupt ongoing and continuous delivery of HR services, enhancements, and improvements. VA seeks to maximize automation through modernization via this effort.

4.0 CURRENT HR CAPABILITIES

The current core HR solution, HR·Smart, was successfully deployed in June 2016 with the following enhancements delivered since go live:

1. Manager Self Service (2019)

2. Manpower (2020)

3. Employee Self Service (2021)

4. User Interface Front-End (UIFE) (2022)

5. Employee Benefits (2022)

6. Interfaces

5.0 FUTURE STATE

As VA continues to evolve and grow, VA must continue to support its HR modernization through implementation of a cloud-based Enterprise HCM Software as a Service (SaaS) solution to be delivered in accordance with the OPM HCBRM and VA OIT Policy and Guidance. VA’s research and collaboration with industry demonstrates the future of HR technology to be SaaS solutions that focus on user experience, flexibility, interoperability, and scalability with maximum use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and machine learning. VA seeks a solution that will support the goals of the Department and the daily needs of the user, including, but not limited to improving user experience, improving service delivery, reducing resource intensive processing, improving business fundamentals through highly assistive learning and development capabilities and optimizing talent management of the workforce.

The OPM HCBRM map functions A1-A10, X, and their subfunctions comprise the future employee end-to-end lifecycle and additional capabilities needed to deliver business process automation and transformation, as well, there is integrated payroll. VA is currently projecting a growing user base of an average 5% per year, however, growth is heavily dependent upon Congressional and Legislative mandates. Contraction is possible as well, therefore, please be advised that an annual truing up through adjustment to the baseline of subscriptions is expected each year during the performance period. Accordingly, VA would then either apply additional funds for the increased number of users in a given period or seek credit for the reduction in the number of users in a given period.

VA requires an efficient way to manage HR business functions. VA also requires a solution with rapid scalability to keep pace with VA’s potential future growth, it should have mobile capability for access by phone or tablet, built-in disaster recovery to protect VA assets, and the ability to maximize up-time mitigating impacts to VA business operations. The solution shall be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (except for holidays and scheduled maintenance).

6.0 PERFORMANCE PERIOD

The total ordering period is ten (10) years, consisting of one (1) 12-month base period and nine (9) option periods.

7.0 PRODUCT REQUIREMENTS

7.1 SUBSCRIPTION LICENSING

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of the Center for Enterprise Human Resources Information Services (CEHRIS) has a requirement for the procurement of the following:

1. Base Period - Services necessary to establish sandbox and production environments for VA use, and services necessary for the vendor to acquire a VA provided Authority to Operate (ATO) at Moderate

2. Optional in All Periods - Development subscription licenses for human capital management

3. Optional in All Periods - User subscription licenses for human capital management suite of solutions

The option to procure an initial baseline of approximately 500,000 subscription licenses and the option to purchase up to a total 700,000 subscription licenses is needed for access to the cloud-based Human Capital Management Suite of solutions necessary to deliver employee end-to-end lifecycle management, inclusive of Enabling, Lifecycle, and Supporting functions, of which, are represented in the OPM HCBRM map depicted below, but written as follows: A1- HC Strategy, Policies & Operation Plan: A2- Talent Acquisition; A3- Talent Development; A4- Employee Performance; A5- Compensation and Benefits; A6-Separation and Retirement; A7- Employee Accountability; A8- Labor Relations; A9- HC Analytics & Employee Records; A10- HC Evaluation; their subfunctions; and X-Personnel Action Request (PAR). Please find below for reference the OPM HCBRM map of Agency functions.

The Contractor shall provide HCM Cloud based solution subscription licenses and associated maintenance and support that include:

1. Hosting in a multi-tenant cloud environment that is Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Moderate Authority to Operate (ATO) compliant.

2. Access directly through any web browser.

3. Secure Web-based, Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) that is private to individuals with VA credentials.

4. Designed to achieve 99.95% uptime and availability (network and system) that provides a transparent display of performance, security, and data safeguards through the hosting Contractor’s website.

5. Authorization through VA Active Directory using Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 compliant token passing. The Contractor shall provide client-side code used for connecting to Active Directory.

6. Security (data at rest, data in motion, user access) to meet Federal Agency requirements IAW VA Handbook 6500, “Risk Management Framework for VA Information Systems VA Information Security Program,” February 24, 2021, including access to audit logs.

7. The product has applicable Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPAT) as required in accordance with Section 2.0 and subsequent paragraphs for 508 and Accessibility Standards.

8. All actions that modify data must be correlated to a user account and logged for all authenticated users to see who changed what and when, with the ability to roll back changes by users.

9. Automatic, major release upgrades without any additional costs from the software vendor.

10. All tool customizations and new custom objects shall be accessible on any mobile device (Blackberry, iOS (iPhone and iPad), Android, and Windows Phone).

11. Provide Open Application Program Interfaces (APIs) and be available for integrating data and functions of external systems.

12. Configuration Sandboxes for Government use. Uses of the platform shall include development, testing, and training without compromising the data and applications within the production environment.

13. The associated HCM Cloud based solution software maintenance and support also includes unlimited software upgrades per year which ensures that VA remains on the most current release. It shall enable automatic upgrades of all VA modules with no additional cost or coding, it shall provide a closed social network and provide Tier 2 and 3 helpdesk support.

This effort shall have a base period of performance of 12-months with nine 12-month option periods for continued access to the brand name HCM Cloud based solution subscription licenses, and all associated maintenance and support.

Licensing for initial implementation and expansion of the user base for baseline technology and any newly configured modules on the HCM Cloud based solution platform may be exercised at Government discretion at any time throughout the Period of Performance.

7.2 APPLICATION PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND ALERTING

The Contractor shall utilize Application Performance Monitoring strategies for application health and performance and develop product performance metrics that shall be monitored throughout the performance period.

The Contractor shall provide an Application Monitoring Plan that defines how metrics will be monitored throughout the performance of the requirements, including description of the automated testing tools.

The Contractor shall deliver the Application Monitoring Plan upon establishment of the VA environment for Government review and comment. Updates are due 7 days after receipt of Government comments.

Upon deliverable approval, the Contractor shall implement application monitoring in accordance with the approved plan and establish a Government accessible, electronic application performance monitoring tool that provides real time performance metrics to all program stakeholders.

The application performance monitoring tool shall provide a real-time Application Performance Dashboard with access to daily reporting capabilities that minimally will include the following metrics:

1. Web performance monitoring: measures the average response time for end user interactions to see if speed is affecting application performance.

2. Application availability and uptime: measures whether the application is online and available to users.

3. Request rates: measures the amount of traffic received by the application to identify any significant increases, decreases or coinciding users.

4. Error rates: observes how the application degrades or fails at the software level.

5. Number of instances counts how many servers or application instances are running at any one time.

6. Transaction Volume: measures the volume of transactions occurring in each system component.

7. Average Processing Time: measures the average processing time for transactions occurring in each component of the system.

8. Security and Vulnerability Management: reports the number, severity, and planned remediation dates of outstanding vulnerabilities.

The Contractor shall implement application performance monitoring in compliance with the VA Office of Information Technology Product Line Management Playbook and VA Enterprise Command Center (ECC).

The Contractor shall:

1. Ensure that custom software components can be instrumented to support a VA approved performance monitoring standard (for example, Open Tracing).

2. Produce and maintain documentation describing data flow through the application, focusing on how and when the application passes/accepts data to/from other systems or end users.

3. Ensure that all workflows and actions identified during the Human Centered Design process are distinctly mapped/measured in the monitoring environment.

4. Monitor system, network, application, database logs, and performance metrics via VA approved monitoring tools and ensure that code and logic changes are accurately reflected in the monitoring tools.

5. Instrument all significant data paths; or instrument all significant data paths themselves using VA approved monitoring tools.

6. Utilize monitoring plugins and agents to monitor numerical metrics provided by external services, servers, or equipment to collect more in-depth metrics.

7. Establish performance thresholds for the application; integrate those into the monitoring tools.

8. Establish robust and reliable alerting and escalation paths for any violations; the incident response team directly responsible for the application, as well as VA, shall be made aware of performance issues in accordance with established SLAs when detected.

9. Perform incident postmortems of any security and privacy events and system outages, including root cause analysis and steps to prevent future outages and provide VA with Incident Postmortem Reports in alignment with the CEHRIS Decision Tree noted below. Incident Postmortem Reports are due three (3) business days following incident resolution in Production. Postmortem incident reports shall be delivered within three business days of Government concurrence that incident resolution is closed. Include initial report, resolution report and lessons learned with each submission.

Table 1: CEHRIS Decision Tree

The Contractor shall report performance metrics, including but not limited to number of issues reported, problem type identification, percent resolved, time for resolution, priority, severity, and so forth, as agreed to with the PM/COR. The Contractor shall provide a Response Time Monitoring Report that provides response time frames at the 50th, 75th, 95th, and 99th percentiles.

Deliverables:

A. Application Monitoring Plan B. Response Time Monitoring Report C. Incident Postmortem Reports

7.3 DATA ACCESSIBILITY

The VA Enterprise HCM Solution provider shall manage data accessibility as necessary for internal and external consumption. All system data shall be accessible for consumption by external systems through Government-approved interface solutions.

7.4 LEGISLATIVE AND POLICY CHANGES

The Contractor shall:

1. Monitor legislative and policy changes, perform regulatory and legislative policy and standards research, and provide assessments to the Government of impact to designated programs and IT products, and implement Government directed legislative and policy changes.

2. Implement all legislative and policy changes to the VA Enterprise HCM Solution to ensure system compliance with policy, regulation, or law. Legislative and policy changes may come from the Contractor’s monitoring and evaluation of Federal requirements and advisory support to the Government to ensure implementation of changes, or Government direction. The Contractor shall acquire Government approval prior to implementation of changes.

3. Support all OPM and VA legislation, regulation, and policy, to include impacts to e-Forms and updated data feeds to interfaces to ensure compliance.

7.5 SUBSCRIPTION MANAGEMENT

The Contractor shall manage all subscriptions procured under this order and provide a monthly Subscription Management Report addressing all subscription counts, subscription usage, and inactive subscriptions sorted by capability/module.

This activity shall begin after acquiring ATO. The Contractor shall also provide the Government with information on entitlements and provide recommendations for effective usage and optimization.

There shall be an annual truing up of baseline subscriptions. This activity shall commence upon calculation of the Full Operational Capability (FOC) population as determined by the Government. The number of subscriptions shall be based upon active employee record count. This activity shall be performed for the purpose of adjustment of subscription counts to accurately portray the employee count and to accommodate growth or contraction of the workforce per annum.

The Contractor shall make no assertion of copyright for any data first produced in the performance of this Task Order without prior written CO approval.

The Government will solely have intellectual property possession of all subscription licenses with rights of use for all subscriptions.

7.6 ENVIRONMENT/MODULES

The Contractor shall provide environments that encompass the following:

1. Provide an environment where the VA CEHRIS Service Desk and/or the HR field are able to troubleshoot system issues. This environment shall allow for troubleshooting to occur against production issues, but not affect production data.

2. Provide an environment for system business users to train themselves on system functionality.

3. Provide testing environments for all Agile testing with capability to be configured for interface testing (for example, UAT, IV&V) that exists within an environment that is within a Government authorized security boundary.

4. Provide a train the trainer environment where current employees can train new employees on the functionality of the system.

The Contractor shall:

1. Ensure that all environment data exists within an ATO environment that mirrors the production environment.

2. Ensure that all data and capabilities within the environments listed above remain synchronized with the production environment on a 24-hour cycle.

7.7 TIER 2 AND TIER 3 SERVICE DESK SUPPORT

The Contractor shall understand and operate under the following definitions for this work:

1. Tier 1 Service Desk Support: Services provided by VA Service Desk to triage and resolve tickets received from end users; not included in the scope of this work.

2. Tier 2 Service Desk Support: Services needed to triage and resolve tickets escalated from Tier 1 requiring diagnosis of applications and infrastructure issues which do not require programming to resolve. The Tier 2 Service Desk shall then route the ticket back to Tier 1 for closure.

3. Tier 3 Service Desk Support: Services needed to triage and resolve tickets escalated by Tier 2 that may require programming to resolve. The Tier 3 Service Desk shall then route escalated tickets once resolved back to Tier 1 for closure.

The Contractor shall:

1. Provide Tier 2 and Tier 3 Service Desk support for users of all delivered capability, at a minimum during VA core business hours from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Monday through Friday, which shall at a minimum include:

a. A detailed Service Desk Support Plan delivered 180 days after exercise of Option Period 1 that includes standard operating procedures and SLAs for the support provided. An updated Service Desk Support Plan is due seven (7) days after receipt of Government comments. This is a living document and shall be updated throughout the life of the Task Order.

b. Providing help to authorized users as identified by the Service Desk staff.

c. Managing and tracking all environmental outages.

d. Managing Service Desk access management and planned and preventive maintenance.

e. Providing input and technical support to VA Service desk staff on all issues until resolution is reached.

f. Provide on-call support for Incident Management events.

g. Notifying VA of scheduled maintenance windows per the Task Order SLAs.

h. Coordinating with VA for network outage, reconfiguration, and network troubleshooting issues.

2. The Contractor shall deliver a Weekly Service Desk Report that include the number of tickets opened, number of tickets closed, close out metrics, status of remaining open tickets, and outages. The report is due each Friday after exercise of Option Period 1.

3. Use VA’s case resolution management system to resolve Tier 2 tickets.

4. Provide Government access, process documentation, change management, and training for the use of a Contractor-owned internal Tier 3 ticket tracking system.

5. Provide visibility, transparency as well as Government access with reporting capability to the Contractor-owned tool.

6. Respond to Tier 2 and Tier 3 tickets in accordance with the Task Order SLAs.

Deliverables:

A. Service Desk Support Plan B. Weekly Service Desk Report

7.8 AUTHORITY TO OPERATE/AUTHORITY TO OPERATE CONTIONAL RENEWAL

The Contractor shall provide applicable documentation and coordinate with data center partners to ensure consistency with VA ATO requirements for certification to ensure the supported applications/systems meet VA information security policies and standards to facilitate the successful completion of the A&A process and maintain its VA ATO and FedRAMP certification.

ADDITIONAL SECURITY REQUIREMENTS

The Contractor shall:

1. Provide the necessary support for continuous monitoring and evaluation and comply with the following security requirements in accordance with outlined in NIST SP 800-53 and NIST SP 800-60. Perform a security assessment of the solution with and in accordance with VA’s Information Security Office and Privacy Office.

2. Ensure the system continues to comply with FIPS 199, NIST 800-60, and operates in compliance with FedRAMP requirements, or be hosted/managed with a FedRAMP-approved authorization boundary. The Contractor shall perform all necessary activities to maintain an ATO at a categorization of “Moderate”.

3. Provide and update all artifacts necessary to obtain and maintain Risk Management Framework (RMF) ATO.

4. Support the RMF continuous monitoring to identify, analyze and remediate vulnerabilities.

The Contractor’s system shall:

1. Be FedRAMP certified without exceptions or reservations.

2. Meet the requirements outlined in NIST SP 800-53, Revision 4, Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations.

3. Segregate VA data from the vendor's own data, as well as the data of any other entity.

4. Implement encryption at rest (in database and in storage) throughout the solution to protect VA data.

5. Implement encryption in flight throughout the solution to protect VA data.

6. Provide for the storage of encryption keys.

7. Advise if and how any third-party company is involved in the solution (e.g., backups, hosting, support, etc.).

8. Provide a solution which implements Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 and integrates with VA Active Directory.

9. Provide two-factor authentication for any privileged accounts (system and application administrators).

10. Provide access only to users (including HR and Administrators) coming from the VA network.

VA requires Single Sign On capability for user access. The Contractor shall ensure all software product(s), software configuration and customization, and/or new software are PIV-enabled by accepting HSPD-12 PIV credentials using VA Enterprise Technical Architecture (ETA), http://www.ea.oit.va.gov/VA_EA/VAEA_TechnicalArchitecture.asp, and VA Identity and Access Management (IAM) approved enterprise design and integration patterns, http://www.techstrategies.oit.va.gov/enterprise_dp.asp.

The Contractor shall ensure all Contractor delivered applications and systems are compliant with VA Identity Management Policy (VAIQ# 7011145), Continued Implementation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (VAIQ#7100147), and VA IAM enterprise identity management requirements (IAM Identity Management Business Requirements Guidance document), located at https://www.voa.va.gov/documentlistpublic.aspx?NodeID=514.

The Contractor shall ensure all Contractor delivered applications and systems provide user authentication services compliant with NIST Special Publication 800-63, VA Handbook 6500, “VA System Security Controls”, and VA IAM enterprise requirements for direct, assertion-based authentication, and/or trust-based authentication, as determined by the design and integration patterns. Direct authentication at a minimum must include Public Key Infrastructure based authentication supportive of Personal Identity Verification (PIV) and/or Common Access Card (CAC), as determined by the business need. Assertion based authentication must include a SAML implementation. Additional assertion implementations, besides the required SAML assertion, may be provided as-long-as they are compliant with NIST 800-63 guidelines. Trust based authentication must include authentication/account binding based on trusted HTTP headers.

The Contractor solution shall conform to the specific Identity and Access Management PIV requirements are set forth in OMB Memoranda M-04-04 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/fy04/m04-04.pdf), M-05-24 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/fy2005/m05-24.pdf), M-11-11 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2011/m11-11.pdf), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 201-2 and supporting NIST Special Publications.

7.9 USER INTERFACE FRONT-END AND HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT MODERNIZATION BACK END

The VA Enterprise HCM Solution shall:

1. Support all OPM Federal requirements, to include processing personnel actions, pay settings, data standards, and reporting requirements.

2. Be usable by all staff offices and the four administrations: VACO, VHA, VBA, and NCA

3. Support and hold information for approximately 6,300 HR users, over 41,000 managers, 80,000 administrative support users for department actions, 9,000 payroll users, 7,500 manpower users, 150,000 Workers without Compensation users, over 497,000 employees/users, and for the projected 5% growth per year.

4. Support over one million transactions per year.

5. Support four personnel systems, Title 5, Title 38 (including Fee Basis), Hybrid Title 38 and Workers without Compensation. The VA Enterprise HCM Solution shall provide full lifecycle HCM services, with a core HR system to include the software, hardware, hosting, and services necessary to support VA’s Human Capital IT Modernization.

6. Maintain all data generated by the VA Enterprise HCM Solution and not purge any data. All HCM data shall be transferred, unmodified, to the Human Capital Data Warehouse through streaming protocols or replication mechanisms; additional details on interfaces to and from the VA Enterprise HCM Solution can be found in Appendix C: Interfaces.

7. Provide seamless integration and interoperability with the UIFE, optimizing use of the “data entered once” concept and Single Sign On through the UIFE.

8. Include journey tracking and employee engagement (customer feedback) functionality to support continuous improvement of operational efficiency and user experience.

9. Include the ability to communicate directly with the VA Integrated Financial Acquisition System (iFAMS) and other key financial systems in order to provide direct financial ties to critical Human Resources reporting measures (for example, retention rates, termination rates, and associated burndown charts).

8.0 OPTIONAL SUBSCRIPTION LICENSES

Optional Tasks provide the ability for VA to obtain enhancements and new functionality to the solution under this Task Order.

8.1 DEVELOPMENTAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide developmental subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 100 subscriptions, which is subject to change based on vendor solution.

8.2 INITIAL BASELINE SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide UIFE and Back-End subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 500,000 subscriptions.

8.3 ADDITIONAL BASELINE SUBSCRIPTION (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide additional UIFE and Human Capital Management Back-End subscriptions enabling the Government to procure subscription support for up to 700,000 users over the life of the Task Order. This optional task can be exercised at any time during the performance of the Task Order.

8.4 BASELINE RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide Human Capital Management Modernization UIFE and HCM Back-End renewal subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. These subscriptions represent renewal for all existing capability in production. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 over the life of the Task Order.

8.5 A1 AGENCY HUMAN CAPITAL STRATEGY, POLICIES, AND OPERATION PLAN SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK) If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.6 A1 AGENCY HUMAN CAPITAL STRATEGY, POLICIES, AND OPERATION PLAN SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK) If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.7 A2 – TALENT ACQUISITION SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions.

8.8 A2 – TALENT ACQUISITION SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.9 A3 - TALENT DEVELOPMENT SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions.

8.10 A3 - TALENT DEVELOPMENT SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.11 A4 - EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions.

8.12 A4 – EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.13 A5 - COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions.

8.14 A5 – COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK) If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.15 A6 – SEPARATION AND RETIREMENT SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions.

8.16 A6 – SEPARATION AND RETIREMENT SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK) If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.17 A7 – EMPLOYEE RELATIONS AND CONINTUOUS VETTING SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK) If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions.

8.18 A7 – EMPLOYEE RELATIONS AND CONTINUOUS VETTING SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK) If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.19 A8 – LABOR RELATIONS SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions.

8.20 A8 – LABOR RELATIONS SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.21 A9 – WORKFORCE ANALYTICS AND EMPLOYEE RECORDS SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK) If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions.

8.22 A9 – WORKFORCE ANALYTICS AND EMPLOYEE RECORDS SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK) If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.23 A10 – AGENCY HUMAN CAPITAL EVALUATIONC SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK) If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions.

8.24 A10 – AGENCY HUMAN CAPITAL EVALUATION SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK) If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

8.25 INTEGRATED PAYROLL SOLUTION SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions.

8.26 INTEGRATED PAYROLL SOLUTION RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTIONS (OPTIONAL TASK)

If exercised by VA, the Contractor shall provide subscriptions to provide access/use of this capability for a period of 12 months. The Government may exercise this option for renewal of up to a total of 700,000 subscriptions throughout the life of the task order.

9.0 NOTICE OF THE FEDERAL ACCESSIBILITY LAW AFFECTING ALL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) PROCUREMENTS (SECTION 508) On January 18, 2017, the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) revised and updated, in a single rulemaking, standards for electronic and information technology developed, procured, maintained, or used by Federal agencies covered by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as well as our guidelines for telecommunications equipment and customer premises equipment covered by Section 255 of the Communications Act of 1934. The revisions and updates to the Section 508-based standards and Section 255-based guidelines are intended to ensure that information and communication technology (ICT) covered by the respective statutes is accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities.

9.1 SECTION 508 – INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) STANDARDS

The Section 508 standards established by the Access Board are incorporated into, and made part of all VA orders, solicitations and purchase orders developed to procure ICT. These standards are found in their entirety at: https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-ict-refresh/final-rule/text-of-the-standards-and-guidelines. A printed copy of the standards will be supplied upon request.

Federal agencies must comply with the updated Section 508 Standards beginning on January 18, 2018. The Final Rule as published in the Federal Register is available from the Access Board: https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-ict-refresh/final-rule.

The Contractor shall comply with “508 Chapter 2: Scoping Requirements” for all electronic ICT and content delivered under this contract. Specifically, as appropriate for the technology and its functionality, the Contractor shall comply with the technical standards marked here:

9.2 COMPATABILITY WITH ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY

The standards do not require installation of specific accessibility-related software or attachment of an assistive technology device. Section 508 requires that ICT be compatible with such software and devices so that ICT can be accessible to and usable by individuals using assistive technology, including but not limited to screen readers, screen magnifiers, and speech recognition software.

9.3 ACCEPTANCE AND ACCEPTANCE TESTING

Deliverables resulting from this solicitation will be accepted based in part on satisfaction of the Section 508 Chapter 2: Scoping Requirements standards identified above.

The Government reserves the right to test for Section 508 Compliance before delivery. The Contractor shall be able to demonstrate Section 508 Compliance upon delivery.

10.0 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY USING ENERGY-EFFICIENT PRODUCTS

The Contractor shall comply with Sections 524 and Sections 525 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007; Section 104 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005; Executive Order 13834, “Efficient Federal Operations”, dated May 17, 2018; Executive Order 13221, “Energy-Efficient Standby Power Devices,” dated August 2, 2001; and the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to provide ENERGY STAR®, Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) designated, low standby power, and Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) registered products in providing information technology products and/or services.

10.1 EPEAT

EPEAT product compliance is not required in this acquisition.

10.2 ENERGY STAR

The required software and software maintenance support for this effort are not included in the complete listing of Energy Star categories and associated products found at http://www.energystar.gov/Products, therefore this section is not applicable.

10.3 FEMP

The required software and software maintenance support for this effort are not included in the complete listing of FEMP product categories found at https://www.energy.gov/eere/femp/search-energy-efficient-products, therefore this section is not applicable.

11.0 SHIPMENT OF SOFTWARE

Inspection: Destination Acceptance: Destination Free on Board (FOB): Destination

Ship To and Mark For:

Alternate

Name:

Name:

Address:

Address:

Voice:

Voice:

Email:

Email:

The Contractor shall support the VA enterprise management framework. In association with the framework, the Contractor shall comply with OIT Technical Reference Model (VA TRM). The VA TRM is one component within the overall Enterprise Architecture (EA) that establishes a common vocabulary and structure for describing the information technology used to develop, operate, and maintain enterprise applications. Moreover, the VA TRM, which includes the Standards Profile and Product List, serves as a technology roadmap and tool for supporting OIT. Architecture & Engineering Services (AES) has overall responsibility for the VA TRM.

12.2 SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER (SSN) REDUCTION

The Contractor solution shall support the Social Security Number (SSN) Fraud Prevention Act (FPA) of 2017 which prohibits the inclusion of SSNs on any document sent by mail. The Contractor support shall also be performed in accordance with Section 240 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) 2018, enacted March 23, 2018, which mandates VA to discontinue using SSNs to identify individuals in all VA information systems as the Primary Identifier. The Contractor shall ensure that any new IT solution discontinues the use of SSN as the Primary Identifier to replace the SSN with the Integrated Control Number (ICN) in all VA information systems for all individuals. The Contractor shall ensure that all Contractor delivered applications and systems integrate with the VA Master Person Index (MPI) for identity traits to include the use of the ICN as the Primary Identifier. The Contractor solution may only use a Social Security Number to identify an individual in an information system if and only if the use of such number is required to obtain information VA requires from an information system that is not under the jurisdiction of VA.

12.3 INTERNET PROTOCOL VERSION 6 (IPV6)

The Contractor solution shall support Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) based upon the memo issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on November 19, 2020 (https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/M-21-07.pdf). IPv6 technology, in accordance with the USGv6 Program (https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/usgv6-program/usgv6-revision-1), NIST Special Publication (SP) 500-267B Revision 1 “USGv6 Profile” (https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.500-267Br1), and NIST SP 800-119 “Guidelines for the Secure Deployment of IPv6” (https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-119), compliance shall be included in all IT infrastructures, application…