REVISED RFI EHCM Modernization Subscriptions Maintenance and Support 12042024.docx

REVISED_RFI_EHCM Modernization Subscriptions Maintenance and Support_12042024 Request For Information

This Request for Information (RFI) is issued for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation nor does it restrict the Government as to the ultimate acquisition approach. In accordance with (IAW) Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. The purpose of this RFI is to obtain market information on capable sources of supply, industry practices, and input specific to the information provided. The Government is not responsible for any cost incurred by industry in furnishing this information. All costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party’s expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future Request for Proposals, if any is issued. Any information submitted by respondents to this RFI is strictly voluntary. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned. Any proprietary/sensitive information must be clearly marked by the vendor.

Background

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO), Center for Human Resources Information Services (CEHRIS) Directorate supports and strengthens the VA’s Human Resources (HR) Information Technology (IT) infrastructure by updating and replacing legacy, outdated, and/or duplicative HR-IT systems, technologies and manual processes across the VA Enterprise.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, in collaboration with VA Office of Information & Technology (OIT) supports Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), National Cemetery Administration (NCA), VA Central Office (VACO) and all VA Staff Offices by implementing modernized, automated, and standardized systems, tools, and capabilities to deliver a world-class workforce with the sole purpose of supporting our Nation’s Veterans.

The objective of this acquisition is to procure subscription licenses for a full lifecycle cloud based HCM platform solution to replace the current VA solution whereby the HCM platform solution will be continuously and iteratively modernized and enhanced in support of VA’s goal to automate HCM functions identified in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Federal Human Capital Management Business Reference Model (HCBRM) Map which is found at the following web site: Federal Human Capital Business Reference Model (HCBRM). Please be advised that a separate RFI and acquisition will be issued for System Integrator professional services in support of modernization.

Current Environment

The VA HR community consists of roughly 6,300+ HR professionals that process over one million personnel actions a year, to include approximately 487,000 employees who require mass pay change actions annually. There is an average of approximately 50,000+ personnel actions per pay period. The VA HR community also currently supports over 8,500+ Fee Basis employees, 5,000+ paid trainees, 1,000+ students, 41,000+ managers, and 100,000+ uncompensated personnel (for example, health professional trainees and researchers).

Requirements

In accordance with the attached Product Description (PD) the Contractor shall provide all capabilities as an integrated service environment that provides a seamless user experience with a Core HR system capability serving as the baseline requirement with the capacity to expand platform offerings. The options for expanded offerings should include, but not be limited to all include Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Human Capital Business Reference Model (HCBRM) employee lifecycle management functions inclusive of Enabling, Lifecycle and Supporting HR agency functions.

The solution will provide a single portal for employee facing information, engagement, and services (for example, Benefits).

HR functions encompassing US Code Title 5 and US Code Title 38, inclusive of functions for hybrid and fee basis type employees, shall be demonstrated. Functional, Technical, and Application features will be demonstrated and will comprise the Government evaluation of potential solutions.

Questions for Vendors, please include your answers within your response:

1. Does the Product Description verbiage in the Attachment provide sufficient information to prepare a proposal? If not, please elaborate and also provide in response any recommendation(s) with rationale.

2. Based on the Background and Current Environment outlined above, are there any requirements you feel are missing within the Product Description that would benefit the Federal Government?

3. Are there any requirements in the Product Description that are not applicable to you, and, that you would recommend be performed by certified system integrators?

4. Upon review of the provided Performance Standards spreadsheet, which performance standards would you deem applicable to you as HCM solution provider vice a system integrator? Do you have any recommended changes, additions, etc., regarding performance standards? If so, please submit with your response.

5. Please provide an itemized list of products (modules, etc.) available within your catalogue of HCM cloud solution offerings that will deliver end-to-end lifecycle management capability to meet requirements of the OPM HCBRM map of HR Agency Functions (please also include address of all subfunctions). Please refer to the following link: https://www.opm.gov/services-for-agencies/hr-line-of-business/hc-business-reference-model/hcbrm-40-map.pdf. Please provide crosswalk of offerings to the OPM HCBRM map for A1-A10 and X and all subfunctions, respectively. Also, if any capability is not available at this time, please elaborate on possible future plans to offer it. For your ease of reference, please find below the list of HR agency functions:

a. A1- HC Strategy, Policies, & Operation Plan

b. A2 – Talent Acquisition

c. A3 – Talent Development

d. A4 – Employee Performance

e. A5 – Compensation and Benefits

f. A6 – Separation and Retirement

g. A7 – Employee Accountability

h. A8 – Labor Relations

i. A9 – HC Analytics & Employee Records

j. A10 – HC Evaluation

k. X – Personnel Action Request (PAR) Processing

6. What level of customization would need to be made in order to cover all of the capabilities outlined in the HCBRM? What applications exist within your organization's extensibility library that would address each HCBRM function or features described in the Product Description?

7. How are internal capabilities added through extensions managed and maintained within your HCM cloud solution? Are there any subscription license costs or fees? Are there best practices for configuring extensions available? Are there any available sandboxes for configuration and test of capability configured through extension? What language would you recommend be added to the Product Description specific to this type of application build?

8. What does your current product roadmap look like with respect to planned future capabilities and improvements? Could you share your roadmap?

9. Do you possess customer facing application monitoring dashboard(s) that provide broad and in-depth information? If so, what is monitored and accessible to the customer?

10. VA has a Tier 1 Service Desk in place and uses an internal ticketing solution (PEGA CRM) to triage user requests for assistance. VA is seeking Tier 2 and Tier 3 support. Does your ticketing/reporting system support integration with external systems? If not, what is the process for communicating Tier 2 and Tier 3 tickets into your eco-system for processing, response, updates, and resolution? What system do you use for intake and tracking of Tier 1 requests?

11. What role (if any) does the system integrator play in assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring?

12. How soon after award could you provide the documentation necessary to process a VA-issued Authority To Operate (ATO)? Example documentation includes VA-specific Incident Response Plan, VA-specific System Authorization Boundary, VA-specific System Security Plan, and Third-party Assessment Organization (3PAO) Security Assessment Plan and Report.

13. Due to the criticality of our system, regarding disaster recovery or system failover, do you offer Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)? Is system failover offered as part of your service? What is your failback time? Is all data moved, mirrored, or copied to the second site? Would all of the system data be available after the switch?

14. Government intent for the competitive process is to have solution providers conduct a demonstration over a five (5) day period during the proposal process. This shall include oral briefs on product/services which cannot be demonstrated through the technology. All demonstrators would be provided the same data and would be required to demonstrate the same requirements. Below are examples of content, at a minimum, that may be part of the evaluation process:

a. Functional demonstration – Vendors may be asked to discuss and demonstrate the following: baseline HR functional areas such as personnel action processing, benefits management, position management; compensation management; also, employee self-service; manager self-service; benefit elections; manpower management; automated/configured system, transaction, data error validation; user interface front end capabilities.

b. Technical demonstration – Vendors may be asked to discuss and demonstrate the following: technology system history; architecture; personnel security; physical and environmental protection; 508 compliance; infrastructure; continuity of operations; configuration management; system information and integrity; incident response; system maintenance; network management; identification and access management (user roles and data security); history correction process (correction, cancellation, retroactive late personnel actions) audit and accountability; data integration and synchronization across the solution.

c. Application feature demonstration – Vendors may be asked to discuss and demonstrate the following: navigation; use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, built-in user aids; workflow creation, management, routing, employee initiated, manager initiated, event-initiated workflows; error handling; querying and reports; standard federal reports.

15. What success factors/criteria would you recommend the Government use to evaluate the success of the demonstrations? What represents the key areas of importance and emphasis you think should be considered in the source selection decision? What evaluation factors do you suggest that would support meaningful comparison and discrimination between and among competing proposals?

16. The Government seeks to be in possession and control of Intellectual Property Rights for all delivered capabilities. What flexibility does your solution offer for Government Intellectual Property Rights? What level of services are covered under your subscriptions?

17. What Government vehicles would you recommend for the subscription licenses?

18. What type and forms of training are available to users and for product configuration to the end customer?

19. VA will seek use of multiple environments such as for Service Desk, System Business User training, Agile testing (UAT, IVV, etc.), and Train the Trainer. What environments are available to the end customer and VA contractor support team?

20. Is product specific implementer certification training available to end customers? If so, what are the specifics/syllabus of that training?

21. Are there any Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses (or other small businesses) solution resellers representing your product line of cloud-based HCM solutions? If so, please identify them and under what Government contract they exist.

22. Is your HCM cloud-based solution FEDRAMP approved? If so, what is the current FISMA categorization level? Do you have plans to move to a higher impact level and is there a timeline associated with doing so?

23. What is your standard Service Level Agreement (SLA)?

24. Government will seek pricing for subscription licenses in multiple forms to include enterprise licenses, range of quantity (e.g., 1-5,000, 5,001-10,000), by persona/role, as well, because not all employees engage with the solution to the same degree of effort or time. Thus, what pricing structure and flexibility do you offer with your subscription licenses? Do you have any recommendations for a subscription/licensing price model? What information do you require from the Government to accurately price?

25. Government will seek an annual truing up of baseline subscription licenses to accurately represent the population under management and provide additional funding as needed if there is population growth, or, conversely, Government would seek a credit based on contraction. What is your standard practice with respect to this matter of subscription license management?

26. What number of developmental subscription licenses is recommended for configuration of the solution and all available modules to represent end-to-end lifecycle management? Is this type of license required for renewal the entire performance period of ten years?

27. What is the vendors definition of population under management? Does it include separated employees or just active employees? What is your approach to separated employees?

28. Please provide the following information with your response:

· Company Name

· CAGE/DUNS Number

· Company Address

· Point of contact name

· Telephone number

· Email address

· For small business concerns, indicate whether at least 50 percent of the total amount paid by the Government will be paid to firms that are similarly situated.

Responses to this RFI are due by 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on December 17, 2024, addressed to William Waterhouse at William.Waterhouse@va.gov.

Next Steps:

The Government will evaluate all responses to this request for improvement in its requirements and communication to our industry partners.