4-Attachment 4 Supplement 4.docx

Request for Proposal Solicitation No. BPM004453 DCS IT Maintenance and Operations Services

State of Arizona Department of Child Safety Office of Procurement & Contracts 3003 N. Central Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85012

Solicitation Number: BPM004453

Description: DCS IT Maintenance and Operations Services

Solicitation Due Date and Time: As indicated in the Arizona Procurement Portal (APP)

Pre-Offer Conference: A Pre-Offer Conference will be conducted as indicted in the Arizona Procurement Portal (APP). You must register in advance for the Pre-Offer Conference. Please see link in APP to register.

Proposals will only be accepted online in “The State’s e-Procurement System” at https://app.az.gov until the “Bid/Offer Due Date” indicated in “The State’s e-Procurement System” for the Solicitation No. shown at the top of this page. Proposals must be in the State Procurement Office’s possession online no later than that deadline.

Submit technical inquiries about navigating and/or submitting proposals in the State’s e-Procurement System to the State’s e-Procurement System Help Desk by phone at (602) 542-7600, option 2; or by email to app@azdoa.gov

LATE PROPOSALS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED. No extension or grace period will be given for delays or incomplete proposals caused by internet connectivity problems, file uploading difficulties, or misunderstanding of the requirements or procedures for online submission in “The State’s e-Procurement System”.

It is the responsibility of the supplier/offeror to routinely check the APP website for Solicitation Amendments. Additional instructions for preparing an Offer are included in this solicitation.

Persons with a disability may request a reasonable accommodation, such as a sign language interpreter, by contacting the Solicitation contact person. Requests shall be made as early as possible to allow time to arrange for the accommodation.

Notice Page Page 1 of 74

Request for Proposal

DCS IT Maintenance and Operations Services

State of Arizona Department of Child Safety

Table of Contents

Table of Contents Page 2 of 74

Scope of Work

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Arizona Department of Child Safety (AZ DCS) is statutorily responsible for providing services to families whose children are involved with AZ DCS. AZ DCS Vision and Mission Statements are:

Vision: Children thrive in family environments free from abuse and neglect. Mission: Successfully engage children and families to ensure their safety, to strengthen families, and to achieve permanency.

2.0 PURPOSE AND BACKGROUND

2.1 The purpose of this solicitation is to award a contract(s) for Maintenance & Operations (M&O) professional services needed to support the AZ DCS Guardian Case Management System and all required services are described in detail in this Scope of Work including transition services, program and project management, managed cloud services, operational support services, routine application support, major enhancements and solution architecture support, business analytics and reporting services support, documentation and training of users for new Guardian enhancements being deployed, and service level management.

2.2 AZ DCS Guardian is a cloud native case management system built by Microsoft Professional Services on the Dynamics 365 platform and hosted in the Azure Gov and Commercial cloud environments. The system has both customized on out-of- the-box functionality and uses several additional integrated applications and software components to provide the required functionality, including but not limited to InRule and OnBase. Additional information about the current Guardian environment is provided in Attachment 11 - BPM004453 Current Environment.

2.3 AZ DCS leadership seeks fixed fee proposals for a minimum of three (3) years, with three (3) one-year extensions, for a maximum of six (6) years for a Contractor to provided routine Guardian application maintenance and operations services, as well as a fixed capacity of highly skilled resources for the development of functional enhancements, architectural improvements and reporting and analytics services using a fixed fee work authorization process described within this RFP.

2.4 The Guardian system was first put into production in February 2021 and is used to manage the critical information and processes of the AZ DCS in providing services to children in care and supports several key operational areas within the Department.

Request for Proposal Solicitation No. BPM004453 DCS IT Maintenance and Operations Services State of Arizona Department of Child Safety

Solicitation Requirements

A P P . A Z . g o v A v a i l a b l e o n l i n e a t

2.5 Integration between the Guardian system and several other internal and external systems as well as the management of the ‘system of record’ data is critical to the success of the AZ DCS in providing services. Attachment 11 - BPM004453 Current Environment for additional information about the current system integrations.

2.6 The Guardian system is considered mission-critical and must be available to users 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. The AZ DCS has an ongoing need for professional services to ensure the system always remains functional and available and evolves over time to meet the changing needs of AZ DCS.

2.7 AZ DCS views the support of the Guardian system as a shared responsibility between AZ DCS technical staff and the selected Contractor. AZ DCS recently completed a comprehensive IT sourcing strategy assessment to determine its long-term plan for retained and outsourced services. As a result of that assessment AZ DCS has determined that it will retain and continue to operate several key information technology (IT) functions and seek a service provider partner who will work closely with the AZ DCS support staff in a shared services model to best support the Guardian system and its stakeholders. The services determined to be outsourced are the subject of this RFP and depicted in the figure below.

Figure 1 AZ DCS Sourcing Strategy Summary

2.8 The scope of this contract for M&O services is limited to the infrastructure, application software, and data management support services related specifically to the Guardian system(s).

3.0 MINIMUM MANDATORY REQUIREMENT

The following requirement is considered ‘minimum mandatory’. Contractors that do not meet this minimum requirement will not be considered.

3.1 Contractor must be an authorized MS Gold Partner with capabilities and experience in Cloud Business Applications (Customer Engagement Option) and Azure Managed Services.

4.0 SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS:

The following requirements are considered the core in-scope services. Contractors are expected to address each of the services listed in this section and to have relevant and demonstrable experience with customers of similar size and complexity as AZ DCS.

4.1 Transition Plan

AZ DCS expects the transition of services from the incumbent (Microsoft) to the new Contractor not to happen “all at once”, but instead will happen incrementally over an agreed upon transition period to minimize risk and disruption to the current production systems. The Contractor is required to transition all required support services including, but not limited to, software development, maintenance, and operations (M&O) services from the incumbent with minimal impact and disruption to the ongoing operations of the production systems.

AZ DCS expects that transition activities to start no less than three (3) months before the end of the incumbent’s contract, and that transition activities will be completed no less than 30 days from the end of the incumbent’s contract.

4.1.1 The Contractor shall develop a detailed Transition Plan with DCS input within no more than 30 days of the contract award. The Transition Plan shall describe, in detail, all activities required to migrate the current M&O services described throughout this RFP from the current vendor to the Contractor’s team with minimal impact and disruption to the production systems.

4.1.2 The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS and the incumbent service provider to validate, verify and document the current Guardian cloud infrastructure and environments regardless of use case including, but not limited to all infrastructure operating ‘as-a-service’ and/or on ‘virtual machines’ such as database, operating system, and web services, as well as specialized platform and software-as-a-service currently running to support the current AZ DCS Guardian applications in order to create an up-to- date inventory of all services that will be transitioned to the Contractor.

4.1.3 The Contractor’s Transition Plan shall clearly identify the specific tasks and expected level of support and corresponding deliverables that the Contractor will require from the incumbent vendor to complete a smooth transition, such as knowledge transfer, up to date documentation, tools, and processes. The Contractor shall work with the incumbent vendor and the AZ DCS to identify these services and jointly develop a detailed statement of work for the incumbent vendor that is aligned with the incumbent vendor’s anticipated transition timeline. The AZ DCS will contract with the incumbent vendor directly for these services apart from and outside of the Contractor’s scope of work.

4.1.4 At a minimum, the Contractor’s Transition-in Plan shall include the following

· The transition staffing plan, including roles and responsibilities, and expected staffing levels for the transition activities for the Contractor, the AZ DCS, and the incumbent (e.g., who is responsible for doing what when)

· The specific transition tasks to be accomplished, by Contractor, DCS, incumbent and any others (whom) and by what date

· The specific transition administration and ownership roles and responsibilities, who will be overseeing the transition activities, how will they be managed, and how progress will be tracked

· Identification, production, and validation of all transition services documentation (e.g., design, architecture, support processes) that will be produced and how these documents will be maintained

· Rules of engagement during the transition with respect to the Contractor, the AZ DCS and the incumbent vendor’s roles and responsibilities to maintain the in- production operations with minimal disruptions

· How the Contractor will maintain security and confidentiality of the system in alignment with applicable Federal and the state laws during the transition

· How the Contractor will measure progress, including milestones, checkpoints, and other quantifiable/observable measures

· A Readiness Assessment Checklist which captures all activities that must be completed by the AZ DCS and the incumbent vendor prior to the transition start date

4.2 Transition Services

4.2.1 The Contractor shall execute the tasks and activities described in the approved Transition Plan (defined in 4.1 above) required to seamlessly transition services from the incumbent to the Contractor.

4.2.2 Prior to the transition of any services from the incumbent to the Contractor, the Contractor shall demonstrate to AZ DCS using the developed transition plan that all required transition activities have been completed and receive AZ DCS approval before the transition occurs.

4.2.3 The Contractor shall manage all transition services with a designated Project Manager to track and report progress and highlight risks and issues that require AZ DCS attention. At a minimum, the Contractor shall produce weekly status reports in a format that has been approved by AZ DCS and that, at a minimum, shall document progress against the Contractor’s approved Transition Plan, capture tasks performed, planned tasks, schedule, risks and issues and track progress as a percent complete against the Contractor’s transition plan. The Contractor shall attend recurring project meetings to inform the AZ DCS project and executive teams on transition progress and coordinate with any independent oversight contractor that AZ DCS may retain for the duration of the project.

4.2.4 The Contractor shall ensure adequate knowledge transfer, occurs between the incumbent, AZ DCS, and the Contractor, which may require an on-site presence during the transition period. The Contractor shall provide a means for verification by DCS that all required skills and capabilities have been adequately transferred.

4.2.5 During the transition period, the Contractor shall report to AZ DCS, on a weekly basis, any tasks that are not performed in accordance with the approved transition plan. The Contractor shall provide AZ DCS with a recovery plan that includes actions to be taken, by whom and by when, and any impacts that these delays may have on the overall scope, schedule, or cost of the project.

4.2.6 The Contractor shall work closely with the incumbent provider for an agreed upon period as identified in the Contractor’s transition plan both during the transition and after the Contractor has assumed responsibility for performing the Guardian support activities.

4.3 Contractor Program Management Services

AZ DCS will maintain responsibility for overall program management and service delivery of the Guardian system and expects to work closely with the M&O service provider. This section describes the Contractor’s requirements to participate in the overall Guardian program service delivery.

4.3.1 The Contractor shall provide executive oversight, overall service management and active stakeholder engagement with AZ DCS leadership to ensure a seamless service management experience between the Contractor’s staff and AZ DCS stakeholders and executives. The Contractor shall provide executive leadership necessary to enhance the coordination and accountability of all services provided under this contract and needed to support a strong partnership with AZ DCS staff. The Contractor shall provide a process of engagement with AZ DCS executive staff in the assessment, prioritization, planning, management, and execution of the service activities and investments required to deliver the services required under this contract, which will be reviewed and approved by AZ DCS leadership.

4.3.2 The Contractor shall meet regularly, on a mutually agreed upon frequency, with the AZ DCS Program Management Office to document the strategic product roadmaps developed by AZ DCS product owners and develop implementation plans that ensure that the overall needs of the agency are considered and that all approved initiatives and authorized work are in alignment with agency business priorities.

4.3.3 The Contractor shall have an active role in the AZ DCS program governance including, but not limited to participation in the AZ DCS governance structure as a trusted advisor and service delivery expert. The Contractor shall provide the AZ DCS governance team with regular updates on program performance and assist in the identification and mitigation of program risks and issues. The Contractor shall work with the AZ DCS executive team to identify and document the appropriate role and responsibilities of Contractor representative(s) and AZ DCS.

4.3.4 The Contractor shall have an active role in working with AZ DCS to identify opportunities for cost containment, reduction, and efficiency. The Contractor shall perform its duties in the most cost-effective manner and proactively work with the AZ DCS team to identify opportunities for cost savings. As part of the ongoing participation in the AZ DCS governance process, the Contractor shall provide the AZ DCS executive team with regular reports, at least quarterly, of overall program costs, including the cost of those services that the Contractor is managing (e.g. cloud-hosted and others) on behalf of AZ DCS as part of this service and the identification of opportunities for cost reduction and/or increased efficiency through configuration or other changes.

4.4 Guardian Managed Cloud Services

The Contractor is expected to assume day-to-day operational responsibility for the Guardian managed cloud services. The current environment is described in more detail in Attachment 11 - BPM004453 Current Environment.

4.4.1 The Contractor shall provide all required support services to manage, administer, maintain, and document the ongoing operation of the Guardian cloud solution infrastructure and environments identified in the transition plan regardless of use case including, but not limited to infrastructure operating ‘as-a-service’ and/or on ‘virtual machines’ such as database, operating system, and web services, as well as specialized platform and software-as-a-service currently running to support the current AZ DCS Guardian applications.

4.4.2 The Contractor shall provide ongoing 24/7 monitoring of all cloud services to ensure all services are operating efficiently and within expected performance range and establish a notification and escalation process to report any operational disruptions or anomalies to the AZ DCS team in a timely manner. The Contractor shall make all monitoring tools, including but not limited to real-time performance dashboard(s) and/or reports, accessible to DCS staff for full transparency of current service performance.

4.4.3 The Contractor shall support all required cybersecurity and compliance requirements as defined by DCS policies and procedures and be able to demonstrate a wide range of depth and breadth in security capabilities throughout the life of the contract.

4.4.4 The Contractor shall support the management of an inventory and classification of cloud services including but not limited to the discovery and identification of all configured services within the cloud service accounts under management. The Contractor shall ensure that the inventory is accurately maintained and always reflects the current AZ DCS list of deployed services (“what it is”), even if it does not match the record of what was deployed (“what it should be”) and shall provide an up-to-date inventory report to DCS at least monthly. The Contractor shall use a comprehensive logical tagging facility, integrated with the cloud service providers (virtual) tagging systems, to aid classification, reporting, cost controls, and policy enforcement automation.

4.4.5 The Contractor shall support the use of Cloud Service Expense Management (CSEM) and Optimization including but not limited to providing a means for tracking ongoing costs at both detail and aggregate levels and provide a capability to recommend and optionally automate the implementation of the periodic rightsizing of resources as directed and approved by AZ DCS. The Contractor shall provide a process for cost monitoring and timely notification to AZ DCS of sudden or abnormal cost increases and ensure that services that will impact cost are not added without AZ DCS’ prior approval.

4.4.6 The Contractor shall support identity, security and compliance management including, but not limited to providing a means for integrating with identity providers and federated systems, including publishing methods by which policies can be defined and enforced through automation, manual workflows, or both.

4.4.7 The Contractor shall provide support for security-focused managed services including, but not limited to services focused on securing the workload and ensuring that threats and vulnerabilities are proactively addressed through activities such as patching operating systems. The Contractor must also offer services, such as reporting, that check the AZ DCS Program’s established configurations for compliance with security best practices and, if necessary, provide subsequent remediation assistance.

4.4.8 The Contractor shall support complex compliance including, but not limited to the ability to service the AZ DCS Program use cases requiring complex compliance adherence, both through technical means and through standardized contracting accelerators such as the compliance requirements of HIPAA, FedRAMP and NIST 800-53.

4.4.9 The Contractor shall support planning and onboarding of new services or cloud- hosted resources including but not limited to providing technical support to AZ DCS staff in the evaluation of options available, system capacity planning, devising an onboarding plan and designing attendant solutions accordingly.

4.4.10 The Contractor shall provide AZ DCS with guidance on cloud-services best practices including optimization of its cloud services by proactively sharing best practices in all aspects of cloud usage and adoption including, but not limited to resource capacity and performance planning.

4.4.11 The Contractor shall provide for the continuous improvement of the managed services including but not limited to updating and maintaining portions of the stack, such as, at a minimum, the operating systems, databases, supporting applications and any other related infrastructure software. The Contractor shall provide insights and recommendation on both traditional workloads that use monolithic software stacks in virtual machines as the primary deployment unit composed of an operating system, middleware, and the application itself, as well as virtualized workloads and native cloud services; and identify any opportunities for improvement to be considered by AZ DCS.

4.4.12 The Contractor shall support the managed DevSecOps environment including, but not limited to the curation of tools, automated processes and integrations that create a DevSecOps and continuous integration / continuous delivery environment.

4.4.13 The Contractor shall provide support for IT Service Management (ITSM) tools including, but not limited to working with existing ITSM tools via prebuilt connectors or APIs. The Contractor shall ensure that any tools, commercial or open source licensed, provided or required by the Contractor are approved by AZ DCS.

4.4.14 The Contractor shall provide support for “Capability to Automate” including, but not limited to ensuring that the Contractor’s tools and platforms are not only driving automation of tasks, but also generating maximum efficiency from that automation.

4.4.15 The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS to devise a clear delineation of roles and responsibilities for the ongoing management of the cloud services, where there is an expectation that AZ DCS will have specific responsibilities.

4.5 Guardian Operational Support Services

The AZ DCS currently operates a help desk that provides end-user support during normal business hours and on-call service after hours. The AZ DCS will continue to provide three levels of help desk support: tier 1, basic intake and incident identification and classification; tier 2, more in-depth technical support; and tier 3, expert product support/subject matter expertise. The Contractor is expected to support the AZ DCS support staff by providing 24x7x365 ‘tier 4’, deep technical support, for the most critical (e.g. Priority 1) issues and on-demand, ‘crisis’ response, after normal hours. This section describes the operational support requirements.

4.5.1 The Contractor shall provide “tier 4” support to the AZ DCS support staff. The Contractor shall provide access to expert technical support staff 24 hours per day, 7 days per week (24x7) that can assist in the resolution of escalated tickets related to the systems under support.

4.5.2 The Contractor shall use the DCS Service Desk Plus support ticket tracking system to log and update support request activity in a timely and accurate manner and in compliance with agreed upon service level targets.

4.5.3 The Contractor’s support staff shall participate in recurring incident and problem reviews and process improvement working sessions with AZ DCS help desk managers which take place during business hours and on a regular recurring schedule. The Contractor’s support staff shall provide expertise and insights on the incident volumes, patterns and trends and offer suggestions for reducing and/or addressing recurring incidents.

4.5.4 The Contractor shall provide advanced technical support and expertise to assist the AZ DCS support team with more in-depth problem management and root cause analysis. The Contractor shall work closely with the AZ DCS support team to evaluate software defects found in production that cannot be resolved by the AZ DCS support team.

4.5.5 The Contractor shall support problem management by providing a documented process in AZ DCS Service Desk Plus for the recording, analysis, and resolution of more complex defects. The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS support staff to create a process for the categorization, recording and classification/prioritization of incidents and problems that are escalated to the Contractor’s support team.

4.5.6 The Contractor shall support root cause analysis by providing a process for the evaluation of recurring problems, identification of problem characteristics, the problem technical resolution, the monitoring of incidents until a resolution is accepted by AZ DCS support staff and a detailed written report of each problem and resolution.

4.5.7 The Contractor shall provide regular and recurring reporting of critical defects, escalated incidents and issues, and root cause analysis to identify trends, assessment of impacts and opportunities for system improvements.

4.5.8 The Contractor shall support all current, in-production system integrations and interfaces, including but not limited to, the technical support of each interface, the timely and accurate maintenance of all associated documentation, the monitoring of interface health and performance, coordination with other parties for the purpose of support and integration, and the managing of any required interface-related technologies, such as gateways, integration hubs, and API management platforms.

4.5.9 The Contractor shall perform an initial inventory and technical assessment of the current condition of each in-production interface to establish the current performance baseline, see Attachment 11 - BPM004453 Current Environment for current interface list. Based on this assessment, the Contractor shall develop an interface catalogue and interface maintenance and support plan that includes any required immediate actions needed to maintain each interface and a suggested interface/integration development roadmap to address any identified concerns as well as recommendations for API development and/or reuse.

4.5.10 The Contractor shall provide periodic analysis and design services to the AZ DCS team and their partners when new integrations are requested and make specific technical and operational recommendations as to how to best accommodate new integrations and/or improve overall system integrations, including but not limited to developing guidelines and procedures for reuse of existing integrations or integration methods.

4.5.11 The Contractor shall provide periodic integration development support services needed to onboard/offboard new interfaces including, but not limited to the interface design, development, testing and deployment to production. The current in-production interfaces are listed in Attachment 11 - BPM004453 Current Environment.

4.5.12 The Contractor shall design and document a service continuity plan that enables the continuation of critical business services/processes and protection of the supported systems in the event of an unplanned disruption of any major solution components that prevents the normal operation of the business systems.

4.5.13 The Contractor shall document and maintain/update a detailed disaster recovery plan that meets AZ DCS-established Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) within the constraints of existing cloud hosted service capabilities and service level target commitments.

4.5.14 The Contractor’s updates to the disaster recovery plan shall include, at a minimum, the operational detail for continued access to any required data, back-ups, storage management, and contingency operations needed to recover supporting systems within established recovery requirement timeframes after an unplanned disruption that has prevented normal operation and use of the systems.

4.5.15 The Contractor shall establish processes to ensure disaster recovery and emergency management plans are kept up-to-date and reflect any changes made to the systems under support.

4.5.16 The Contractor shall design, document, implement and maintain a suitable disaster recovery environment including all required systems, software, and hardware for dependent systems that are not a part of the cloud hosted environment.

4.5.17 The Contractor shall design, document, implement and maintain a mechanism for any required data replication to ensure that ongoing access to data continues to occur in the event of an unplanned disruption to the systems under support.

4.5.18 The Contractor shall design, document, and perform recurring disaster recovery testing process that verifies all aspects of the disaster recovery plan and establish a regular, recurring annual testing schedule that involves AZ DCS staff members. The contractor shall support AZ DCS’ business continuity planning and testing process, as appropriate.

4.5.19 The Contractor shall document the results of all disaster recovery testing and specifically identify any issues found during disaster recovery testing and provide detailed a detailed report to AZ DCS that includes recommended action plans to address any identified issues.

4.5.20 In the event of an actual unplanned disruption that prevents the normal operation of the business systems, the Contractor shall lead, coordinate, and perform the disaster recovery efforts identified in the disaster recovery plan.

4.5.21 The Contractor shall develop training plans to ensure its staff gain the knowledge required and maintain proficiency to perform the required services.

4.5.22 The Contractor shall develop training plans that are comprehensive and cover all aspects of the supported systems, platforms, tools, technology, configuration, and customization.

4.5.23 The Contractor shall design a methodical approach for the planning and execution of training activities, including communication with participants, determining the most appropriate training staff and delivery approach for a given audience.

4.5.24 The Contractor shall provide training administration, including communication to participants of available training and registration/completion by staff.

4.5.25 The Contractor shall perform training and other related activities required to ready the support team.

4.5.26 The Contractor shall establish a process for the on-going maintenance of the technical, end user and model of practice process training material that factors in feedback for content and delivery improvements plus updates no less than once per quarter to as required due to system changes over time.

4.5.27 The Contractor shall identify when specific staff roles will need training prior to releases or changes to the system.

4.5.28 The Contractor shall provide a comprehensive approach and methodology for developing and delivering technical and end-user training documentation and materials for all services being provided.

4.5.29 The Contractor shall identify the required training materials for various technical teams and produce all required technical training materials to address technical training needs identified including, but may not be limited to, on-line interactive self-learning training, technical manuals and instructor led classroom training material.

4.5.30 The Contractor shall provide electronic copies of all technical training materials in a format that is approved by AZ DCS and can be easily accessed, updated, and printed by AZ DCS technical Staff using software for which AZ DCS owns any required licenses.

4.5.31 The Contractor shall provide an approach and methodology for knowledge transfer that ensures that knowledge transfer occurs between the Contractor’s team and key AZ DCS staff throughout the contract term. This includes identifying key roles as part of the transition plan and engaging personnel throughout the transition and into the support periods to ensure they receive the knowledge required to fill the role. The Contractor shall provide checkpoints throughout the project to ensure the required knowledge is being transferred and establish corrective action plans, if required.

4.5.32 The Contractor shall provide any required training to AZ DCS team members for any changes (e.g., functionality, architecture, etc.) throughout the project, at a minimum at each release, to ensure AZ DCS technical personnel understand the changes.

4.6 Routine Guardian Application Support and Minor Development Services The Contractor is expected to support the current in-production application software using a fixed-capacity development team working and available during Arizona local time, normal business hours and days. This section describes the requirements for routine software support and minor development services.

4.6.1 The Contractor shall provide a fixed capacity, fixed cost, full-service team dedicated to the support the current in-production Guardian application software at a level sufficient to address the current/anticipated volume of routine defects and minor enhancements found in the current AZ DCS backlog. The Contractor is expected to work with AZ DCS during the contract negotiations phase to finalize an acceptable team size and capacity needed to support the current system support efforts. The Contractor shall provide a detailed support staffing plan that clearly defines the key roles and responsibilities for both the Contractor’s staff and DCS staff.

4.6.2 The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS and the incumbent service provider to enhance the current ADO (Azure DevOps) implementation with a more standards-based development environment for scaled agile software development methodologies that is easier to use and support than the current, highly customized ADO implementation. The Contractor may also recommend other tools / methodologies that could be used to simplify the current development process.

4.6.3 The Contractor shall provide a system for software development workload tracking. The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS Product Management and support staff to develop a defect/ enhancement request tracking, intake, and prioritization workflow, as all defects and enhancement requests will be recorded, tracked, and resolved within the Contractor’s system as well as any Product and Backlog Management tools used by the AZ DCS Product Management team.

4.6.4 The Contractor shall provide dedicated support staff to work with AZ DCS to routinely review and prioritize the maintenance backlog and manage the routine maintenance work. The Contractor will work with AZ DCS staff to devise workplans and development schedules that address the maintenance backlog in the most efficient and effective manner. The Contractor will provide a single point of contact responsible for managing the minor enhancements work and effort of the Contractor’s application maintenance and operations team and reporting on performance and progress.

4.6.5 The Contractor shall provide dedicated systems analysts to work with AZ DCS Guardian subject matter experts and business analysts to evaluate and document reported defects in sufficient detail to make them ready for development work. This includes conducting an initial assessment of the defect or minor enhancement request, documenting what’s required to resolve the defect or satisfy the request and describing testing/acceptance criteria.

4.6.6 The Contractor shall provide dedicated support staff experienced in enterprise system and integration testing to devise and implement a comprehensive testing plan that covers all aspects of system testing including but not limited to unit testing, integration testing, regression testing, release testing, user acceptance testing and overall system performance testing. AZ DCS staff will perform all final user acceptance testing and be responsible for final acceptance of all delivered software. All work delivered by the Contractor to AZ DCS for testing must be fully tested first by the Contractor’s staff prior to it being released to AZ DCS for quality assurance and final user acceptance testing and all test results must be fully documented, including test scripts and acceptance criteria, and available to AZ DCS staff for review. The Contractor shall work with the AZ DCS to design and implement a comprehensive testing process to be used on all Contractor developed software that accounts for AZ DCS quality assurance and acceptance testing.

4.6.7 The Contractor shall follow the established AZ DCS change, and release management processes, procedures, standards, and systems required for the management and coordination of all maintenance related application changes and deployments to all environments and systems.

4.6.8 The Contractor shall maintain overall accountability for system change management activities, overseeing, executing, and managing the change and release management processes in compliance with AZ DCS standards.

4.6.9 The Contractor shall develop and maintain a schedule of planned changes and provide easy access and visibility to upcoming and recent changes to AZ DCS stakeholders.

4.6.10 The Contractor shall design and implement a comprehensive and consistent process and tools for formally identifying and controlling configuration of all items under support including software and infrastructure under support, including customizations.

4.6.11 The Contractor shall provide a configuration management process that accounts for any concurrent software development efforts of AZ DCS and the Contractor’s staff.

4.6.12 The Contractor shall maintain infrastructure configuration using the existing AZ DCS Service Desk tool and ensure that all configuration items are up to date and that changes to configuration are reflected in a timely manner.

4.6.13 The Contractor shall notify AZ DCS in a timely manner of any errors or omissions found by the Contractor in the configuration management system.

4.6.14 The Contractor shall identify any infrastructure configuration changes including those within or the result of a change request or release update and ensure the configuration management tool is updated as part of the release.

4.6.15 The Contractor shall use data obfuscation techniques (e.g., masking, encryption, tokenization, etc.) and tools in the non-production environments (dev, test, training, etc.) to ensure all sensitive, identifiable personal information are properly protected according to state and federal policies and regulations. In the case of use of offshore resources, the Contractor shall be able to demonstrate that no client data shall traverse the national boundaries of United States.

4.7 Guardian Major Enhancements and Solution Architecture Services The Contractor is expected to support the development of larger, more complex enhancements and/or architectural changes using a fixed-capacity development team. This section describes the requirements for major enhancement and re-architecture services.

4.7.1 The Contractor shall provide a full software development team (including software engineers, analysts, solution architect, testers, product owner, etc.) with a fixed capacity of 12,000 development hours per quarter dedicated to the development of larger, more complex enhancements and system architecture changes. The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS to determine the appropriate size (capacity) of this team based on an evaluation of the current solution architecture and product backlog.

4.7.2 The Contractor shall provide a mechanism for AZ DCS to temporarily increase the size of the development team(s) up to 10,000-hours per quarter on a temporary, as- needed basis to increase capacity when needed to address high priority and/or urgent requests that cannot be handled by the development team in a timely manner.

4.7.3 The Contractor shall establish and follow a standard software development methodology including process and tools. AZ DCS has a strong preference for the use of Enterprise Scaled Agile software development lifecycle (SDLC) methodology or a suitable hybrid approach that can best meet the department’s needs. The contractor to provide appropriate training for AZ DCS stakeholders (especially the Product Management team) in the proposed methodology to ensure effective and productive engagement in the software development lifecycle.

4.7.4 The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS to devise a Work Order request process that can be used to initiate a request for enhancement work that is determined to be outside of the scope or capacity of the routine support team for routine maintenance, such as activities associated with either an Epic (a related grouping of capabilities, features, and stories), solution increment (i.e., multiple sprints) or an individual sprint/iteration. Enhancement work order requests will be initiated by authorized AZ DCS staff. The purpose of the work order request is to provide a minimum level of detail required for the Contractor to accurately estimate the level of effort and associated cost of the work for AZ DCS approval. The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS to improve and finalize the Work Order Request template 30 days prior to a formal Enhancement Work Order proposal is due to AZ DCS.

4.7.5 The Contractor shall develop a major Work Order request process that can be used for the intake, evaluation, and prioritization of requests for enhancements that require change(s) to the solution architecture or major refactoring work that are submitted by the AZ DCS Architecture Review Board (ARB). A sample form/template is provided at the end of this section for illustrative purposes.

4.7.6 The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS to devise a process by which work order requests are evaluated by the Contractor so that the Contractor can provide a firm fixed level of effort and cost proposal. Depending on the level of effort and the available capacity of the major enhancement development team, work orders may be determined to be ‘no cost’, meaning they are sequenced in the current capacity of the development team as a minor enhancement or ‘additional cost’, meaning the work will be done by additional resources outside of the fixed capacity of Guardian Application maintenance team. A sample form/template is provided at the end of this section for illustrative purposes.

4.7.7 The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS to devise a process by which work requests are approved by the AZ DCS team. The approval process shall clearly identify the approval process and authority required to authorize additional effort, which may include the issuance of a purchase order, a new Work Order or some other required ordering documentation.

4.7.8 The Contractor shall provide dedicated technical staff including but not limited to solution architect, senior developers, and business/system analysts to evaluate major enhancement and re-architecture work order requests and to create a solution design and development plan. The Contractor shall present a detailed solution design and development plan that clearly describes the planned software and/or architectural changes required and the implications, if any, to the current solution design for each work order to AZ DCS for review and approval before work begins. The Contractor’s composite rate for “major enhancements” work must include the effort required by the contractor to prepare a high quality and complete response to each Work Order Authorization request at no additional cost to AZ DCS.

4.7.9 The Contractor shall provide dedicated support staff to work with the AZ DCS Product Management team to routinely review and prioritize the product backlog and manage the major enhancement and reporting/analytics work being performed by the Contractor’s development teams. The Contractor shall work with the AZ DCS staff to devise product roadmaps, development schedules and a development cadence to address the major enhancement work in the most efficient and effective manner.

4.7.10 The Contractor shall provide dedicated support staff experienced in enterprise system testing to devise and implement a comprehensive testing plan that covers all aspects of system testing including but not limited to unit testing, system testing, integration testing, smoke testing, regression testing, release testing, user acceptance testing and overall system load and performance testing. All work delivered by the Contractor must be fully tested by the Contractor’s staff prior to it being released to AZ DCS for acceptance testing and all test results must be fully documented, including test scripts and acceptance criteria, and made available to AZ DCS Quality Assurance staff for review. The Contractor shall work with the AZ DCS to design and implement a comprehensive test or behavior driven development process to be used for all Contractor developed software.

4.7.11 The Contractor shall work closely with AZ DCS support staff to develop, document, and implement approved enhancement changes and release packages according to approved changed and release management processes, procedures, standards, and systems required for the management and coordination of all software deployments to all environments.

4.7.12 The Contractor shall follow the comprehensive and consistent process and tools for formally identifying and controlling configuration items for all items being released to production including software and infrastructure under support.

4.8 Business Analytics and Reporting Services

The Contractor is expected to support the current business analytics and reporting environment including but not limited to the support of the environment as well as support for the development of new reports, dashboards, data views, data integrations and/or other data analytics tools. This section describes the requirements for business analytics and reporting.

4.8.1 The Contractor shall provide a data warehousing, reporting and analytics development team (including data engineers, data analysts, ETL developers, BI solution architect, testers, product owner, etc.) with a fixed capacity of 5,000 development hours per quarter dedicated to the development of new visualization dashboards, standard mandated reports, and new descriptive and predictive analytics. The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS to determine the appropriate size (capacity) of this team based on an evaluation of the current solution architecture and product backlog.

4.8.2 The Contractor shall provide a fixed capacity full-service business analytics and reporting team dedicated to the support the current in-production analytics and reporting environment level sufficient to address the current/anticipated volume of routine requests for reports and data analytics needed to support the ongoing operation. The Contractor is expected to work with the AZ DCS to establish an acceptable team size and capacity needed to support the current reporting and analytics efforts.

4.8.3 The Contractor shall assume responsibility of the existing business analytics and reporting environment from the incumbent service provider and is expected to continue to maintain the existing environment for reporting and analytics. The Contractor shall make an initial assessment of the reporting and analytics environment including tools, processes and documentation and may over time make recommendations for changes to improve the efficiency of the data analytics team, so long as the Contractor is able to meet is support obligations. The Contractor shall define, optimize, and plan for evolving the technical architecture and infrastructure components that directly or indirectly affect analytic capabilities.

4.8.4 The Contractor shall provide technical expertise needed to support the integration of reporting and analytics capabilities into all aspects of the solution architecture to improve/enhance users access to data from within the developed and supported applications.

4.8.5 The Contractor shall use the MS Azure ADO work items for data analytics and report request tracking. The Contractor shall work with AZ DCS support staff to develop a data analytics and report tracking, intake, and prioritization workflow, as all data analytics requests will be recorded, tracked, and resolved within Azure ADO.

4.8.6 The Contractor shall provide dedicated support staff to work with AZ DCS to routinely review and prioritize the data analytics and reporting request backlog and manage the routine work. The Contractor will work with the AZ DCS staff to devise workplans and development schedules that address the data analytics and reporting backlog in the most efficient and effective manner. The Contractor will provide a single point of contact responsible for managing the data analytics work of the Contractor’s development team and reporting on the team’s performance and progress.

4.8.7 The Contractor shall provide dedicated support staff experienced in data analytics and reporting to work with AZ DCS staff to evaluate and document DCS approved data analytics and reporting requests in sufficient detail to make them ready for development work. This includes conducting an initial assessment of the request, documenting what’s required to address the request and describing testing/acceptance criteria.

4.8.8 The Contractor shall provide dedicated support staff experienced in testing to test all work performed by the Contractor’s data analytics and reporting team prior to it being released to AZ DCS for acceptance testing. The Contractor shall work with the AZ DCS to design and implement a comprehensive testing process to be used on all Contractor developed reports.

4.8.9 The Contractor shall provide a mechanism for documenting and sharing data analytics project work including but not limited to the analytic reference architecture and data models.

4.8.10 The Contractor shall work with…