Vendor Engagement Day - FINAL.pdf

VBA Processing and Automation Services (VPAS) Industry Engagement Day

Mr. Todd Hunter, SES Head of Contracting Activity (HCA)

Office of Mission Support

Ms. Stacia Faulhaber Contracting Officer, Office of Mission Support

Ms. Courtney Middleton Contract Specialist, Office of Mission Support

Ms. Lisa Winkler Contract Specialist, Office of Mission Support

February 2024

Agenda and Housekeeping

February 2024

• Introduction / Background

• Information Sought

• Submission Instructions

• List of Questions

• VPAS Performance Work Statement (PWS)

Service Categories

• Contract Overview Key Points

• Key Information

INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND

VPAS SERVICE CATEGORIES

1. Program Management, Strategy, and Planning Support Services

2. Source Material Processing Services

3. Centralized Outbound Services

4. Data Transfer Services

5. Graphical Self‐Service Report Generation Capability Services

6. Inbound Call Services

7. Outbound Call Services

8. Automation Development and Operations

9. Records Processing Services

10. Veteran Transition Support Services

11. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)/Privacy Act (PA) Services

12. Operations and Maintenance Services

13. Integration Services

14. Data Storage, Sharing, and Analysis Services

15. Veteran and Employee Experience Services

16. Enabling and Support Services

VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION (VBA)

The VBA provides Veterans, transitioning service members, and their families with benefits and services including education, home loans, life insurance, and disability compensation or pension.

This Request for Information (RFI) is issued solely for information/planning purposes only.

No funds have been authorized, appropriated, or received for this effort.

The information provided may be used by VBA in developing its acquisition strategy and informing, refining, and finalizing the

PWS.

Information Sought The Government is seeking the following information to be provided by the RFI respondents.

Company Information|| Capability Statement || Answers to Questions || Draft PWS Questions

Company Name

Company Address

Company Point of Contact (name, address, telephone number, email address)

Unique Entity Identifier (UEI)

NAICS Codes and business size for NAICS code 518210

Existing Multiple Award Contracts (List Contracts) ‐ vehicle name ‐ vehicle number ‐ date of award ‐ expiration date

Provide an overview of company’s capabilities to fulfill the requirements of the PWS, including but not limited to:

‐ Details regarding proposed joint ventures, teaming arrangements, strategic alliances or other business arrangements to satisfy requirements of the entire PWS.

‐ Description of the company’s resources available and capable of completing the work under the PWS.

‐ Explanation of what experience providing services similar in size, scope and complexity of the VPAS PWS the company has.

‐ List of specific contracts in the Government or industry where the vendor provided similar services on the same scale and provide Agency / Company name, contract number, contract period of performance and contract dollar value.

RFI respondents shall provide answers to the questions provided in Section 5.0 of this RFI. Respondents are requested to address each question.

Questions that do not apply to RFI respondents or if RFI respondents cannot provide answers, then it shall be addressed by marking these questions with “N/A”.

Comment # PWS Page # PWS Section # Comment

RFI respondents shall provide comments on the PWS in the following table format:

Submission Instructions The Government instruction for submission of information and questions are as follows:

Please submit responses via email to VBA.Procurements@va.gov

• Response submissions to this RFI are due no later than 5:00 PM ET, March 3, 2024.

• The email subject line must contain the following: “Response to RFI 36C10D24Q0038, VPAS.”

• VBA reserves the right to not reply to any emails, responses, questions, and materials submitted in response to the

RFI.

• Mark your response as “Proprietary Information” if the information included is considered business sensitive and/or includes trade secrets.

• RFI responses shall not exceed 30 pages total. Responses shall be prepared in Microsoft Word with standard 8.5 x 11‐ inch page format (charts may be landscaped but must be on 8.5 x 11‐inch page format) and shall be in Times New Roman, font size (12), with 1” margins. All page format of the response shall be appropriately numbered and identified with the RFI number. The email file size limitation shall be no more than 40MB.

List of Questions (1 of 2) Company Services and Operational Factors

1) Could your company independently provide the entire range of services called for in the PWS?

a. If yes, that your company can independently provide the entire range of services, would this include any existing contracts in place available to the Government under which the company can provide the full range of services needed to fulfill PWS requirements that would support the most efficient and rapid procurement of services? If yes, please provide the contract vehicle information (e.g., description of services, scope, contract vehicle number, period of performance, etc.).

b. If your company cannot provide the entire range of services, what services called for in the PWS could your company provide?

2) Please describe your company’s experience providing onsite organizational leadership presence at a customer’s site as described in the PWS, including specific benefits and/or hurdles associated with supporting such a requirement.

Mail Handling and Processing

3) Please describe your company’s experiences with inbound/outbound mail and notifications in all formats, as well as any experience with handling of wet, contaminated, and fragile source materials?

4) In consideration of your company’s experience and innovations, what state‐of‐the‐art mail processing strategies and/or emerging technologies should the Government consider as they develop their long‐term mail handling strategy?

Pricing

List of Questions (2 of 2) Conversion, Tracking, Data, and Innovation

5) Please describe your company's experience with providing document conversion services for original and / or historically sensitive source materials in the custody of organizations such as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA):

• What measures were employed to prevent damage to the documents?

• What measures were employed to restore any materials damaged during conversion?

6) What is your approach, turnaround time, management plan for a source material tracking system and mail portal services?

7) Contract awardees will be required to ingest large volumes of data residing in systems maintained by VBA’s current conversion and mail handling vendors. Please describe specific information related to the data your company would need to effectively ingest large volumes of data using existing APIs into the material tracking system and mail portal required by the PWS.

Performance and Risk Management Factors

8) What are the major risk factors in the performance of the services required in the PWS and how can those risks be managed?

9) Please describe any experiences with electronic business processing based on multi‐level processing complexity rules. Please describe the pricing structures used (e.g., transaction‐based; quantity‐based, price banding based on volume, price banding based on complexity, etc.) and provide recommendations of pricing structures for this PWS.

VPAS PWS Service Categories See RFI Announcement RFI 36C10D24Q0038 in SAM.gov for PWS in PDF Format

• Draft VPAS PWS attached to RFI Announcement

• PWS VPAS Service Categories are presented as Contract Service Breakdowns

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT AND P LANN ING SUPPORT

Develop PM artifacts, provide monitoring, analysis and performance reporting services

SOURCE MATER IA L PROCESS ING SERV I CES

Receive, Intake, Digitize and Process Source Materials

CENTRAL I Z ED OUTBOUND SERV I CES

Centralize the printing, mailing and/or electronic notification of outbound communications

DATA TRANSFER SERV I CES

Develop and execute processes to achieve integration with

VBMS and other VA and contractor systems

GRAPH I CAL S E L F ‐SERV I CE REPORT GENERAT ION

Develop, implement, and execute processes for a business intelligence engine supporting report generation

VPAS PWS Service Categories The descriptions below are intended to provide further insight and depth into the sixteen (16) PWS categories.

I NBOUND CAL L SERV I CES

Develop, implement, and execute processes for a call intake capability

OUTBOUND CAL L SERV I CES

Develop, implement, and execute processes for outbound call capability

AUTOMAT ION DEVE LOPMENT AND OPERAT IONS

Provide Automation Services such as requirement documentation and software development, support of systems interfaces, and data extraction and processing

RECORDS PROCESS ING SERV I CES

Services to request the retrieval of records (internal and external to VA), then digitize, and upload to designated repositories

VETERANS TRANS I T ION SUPPORT SERV I CES

Develop services to support transitioning from military to civilian life such as mobile applications

FREEDOM OF I N FORMAT ION ACT ( FO IA ) / PR IVACY

ACT SERV I CES ( PA )

Provide services to receive, process, and respond to

FOIA/PA request

OPERAT IONS AND MAINTENANCE (O&M) SERV I CES

Operate, manage, and maintain managed service solutions

I NTEGRAT ION SERV I CES

Provide services necessary to integrate or interact with various organizations between systems, and automation processes, to include routing and system uploads/downloads

VPAS PWS Service Categories (continued)

DATA STORAGE , SHAR ING , AND ANALYS I S SERV I CES

Provide all types of data management, Database Management

Systems and database applications needed to effectively use OIT‐ provided data lake capabilities

VETERAN AND EMPLOYEE EXPER I ENCE SERV I CES

Develop, implement, and execute Veteran and Employee

Experience Services to provide a more useful and seamless experience for Veterans seeking to exercise their VA benefits or for Employees performing their work

ENABL ING SUPPORT SERV I CES

Perform a variety of services such as business processing and professional services, organizational change management, marketing and outreach, communications, customer relationships, case management, system modernization, integration, setup, test, validation, service updates, transition in/transition out, and help desk/call centers services

Responses from RFI will assist with acquisition strategy and determine set‐aside, if any

Multiple Award IDIQ

Subcontracting Opportunities

Contract Overview Key Points

Key Information Please submit responses via email to VBA.procurements@va.gov

Response submissions to this RFI are due no later than 5:00PM ET, March 3, 2024.

The email subject line must contain the following:

“Response to RFI 36C10D24Q0038, VPAS.”

All RFI materials are available for download at SAM.gov by searching Contract Opportunities with the number 36C10D24Q0038.