IPSC+Contract+Summary.docx

ND STATE CONTRACT INFORMATION

CONTRACT INTRODUCTION

The contract is Information Technology professional services in a variety of IT Contract Pool Categories. The State has an ongoing need for Information Technology (IT) professionals in a variety of categories for both project-based and staff-augmentation work. Multiple vendors have been awarded contracts in each of the IT Contract Pool Categories. State agencies may use a structured work order request process to obtain IT professional services through this contract. Use the links below to see the job class definitions, experience levels and required skill sets in each of the contract pool categories, vendors awarded in each category, schedule of vendor hourly rates, and vendor contact information:

VENDOR POOL GUIDELINES

Effective August 1, 2025, this Contract will be subject to Guidelines for Multiple Award Vendor Pool Contracts - Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Delivery - Multistep Competition pursuant to House Bill No. 1122 and N.D.C.C. 54-44.4. See Guidelines, Rules and Laws | Office of Management and Budget North Dakota.

State Agency/Boards/Commissions - IT Review for any category EXCEPT Project Manager - Any purchases made under this contract needs to be reviewed by NDIT. Submit an IT Review Request in the NDIT Service Portal. After logging into the portal, search “IT Review” to locate the form that needs to be completed. Once approved, continue with the ordering process in this contract summary. NDIT IT Review is not required for NDUS, K-12 or political subdivisions.

See Work Order Process below regarding the issuance of work orders to vendors. It is recommended that no work orders extend beyond the contract term listed for each vendor in the respective category.

IT Contract Pool Categories Business Intelligence (BI) Consulting and Services Project Manager Quality Assurance Analyst/Tester

CONTRACTOR INFORMATION

Check the State contract website for the contractor and contract administrator information.

COOPERATIVE PURCHASING

This contract is a cooperative purchasing contract established pursuant to North Dakota Century Code Sections 15.1-09-34(1)(k), 54-44.4-13, and 54-59-18. Though not a party to this contract, North Dakota State Colleges and Universities, K-12 schools, city, county, and local governments, tribal agencies, transportation providers under N.D.C.C chapter 39-04.2, International Peace Garden and nonprofit organizations established on behalf of public entities are eligible to participate in this contract. Contact the contract administrator if you are not sure you are eligible to participate.

ORDERING INFORMATION

Work Order Process When an agency requires IT services, the agency will prepare a work order request describing the needed work. The work order form is available from the OMB State Contract web page, listed under contract #095.

There are several vendors within each IT Contract Pool Category, and the number of vendors an agency must solicit to submit a project proposal is determined by the estimated cost of the IT project. Vendors who are invited to submit project proposals must be priced at, or below, the rates proposed and contractually obligated.

*The Onsite rate must cover all travel related expenses other than “Short Notice” Work Order Requests. Short Notice requests are those issued to Vendors with less than 14 calendar days to project start date. In such cases, Vendors may be allowed, with the approval of the agency issuing the work order, to bill supplemental travel expenses caused by the short notice. The Vendor must provide documentation justifying the supplemental travel expense billing.

1. Projects estimated at less than $250,000:

a. Direct Assignment. An agency may issue a work order request directly to any of the awarded vendors in the appropriate pool category.

b. Competitive - An agency may elect to conduct a competitive process by requesting project proposals from two or more vendors. The agency will select the vendor project proposal that best meets the SOW requirements based upon the selection criteria stated in the work order request.

2. Projects estimated at $250,000 or more:

a. Direct Assignment - An agency may issue a work order request directly to an awarded vendor if prior approval is granted by the contract administrator.

b. Competitive - An agency must issue a work order to all of the awarded vendors in the respective category. The agency will select the vendor project proposal that best meets the SOW requirements and selection criteria stated in the work order request.

When you are ready to issue a Work Order, review the instructional document located on the OMB State Procurement website, under contract #095.

ITD Review / Approval Process Work Orders anticipated to be over $25,000 must be reviewed and approved by ITD Policy and Planning Division. Submit the Work Order to ITDProcurement@nd.gov . ITD is also available to answer questions and provide assistance to agencies in generating work orders.

1. Submit draft work order for review prior to issuing to vendor(s).

1. Submit final work order with vendor proposal for approval prior to executing the agreement.

Project Management and Change Control A change order process will be used to manage issues and changes during the life of a work order project. A change request must be in writing using a Change Order form to document the potential change. The change will be reviewed and, if acceptable to the agency, the vendor will submit an estimate of the charges and the anticipated changes in the delivery schedule that will result from the proposed change in the scope of work. A Change Order must be approved and signed by both parties prior to implementation of the change. A sample Change Order form is available from the Contract 095 web page.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys Upon completion of each work order, the requesting agency may complete a customer satisfaction survey rating the agency’s satisfaction with quality of work, cost and schedule adherence, and contract compliance. Contractors will be provided copies of the surveys completed for work they have performed under the contract.

The customer satisfaction surveys will be submitted to the Contract Administrator to be used in evaluating performance under this contract. Dissatisfaction with vendor performance indicated on agency customer satisfaction surveys may be used by the State in making a determination to terminate or restrict a vendor’s contract. The Customer Satisfaction Survey form is available as an attachment on the Contract 095 web page.

Frequently Asked Questions A list of frequently asked questions and answers is available from the Contract 095 web page.

Professional Services Contract Pool Categories Business Intelligence Consulting and Services Category *Reminder – work orders estimated at $250,000 or greater must be sent to all vendors listed in the category.

Business Intelligence Consulting and Services Business Intelligence Solutions and System Design:

· Determines the customer’s information requirements

· Studies the customer’s requirements and determines if the business processes for gathering, cleansing, and ensuring the quality of data are adequate

· Provide BI technical and architectural guidance to projects and cross-functional teams, ensuring that new initiatives enable effective data reporting. Collaborate with dashboard/report designers and data scientists to define the necessary data sources, data elements, transformations, and structures

· Prepares an analysis document with the recommended solution

· Works with State architects as well as other technical and management personnel to develop the best solution

Design, Build and Test BI Solutions and Reports:

· Creates design documents for BI solutions based on business analysis document

· Works closely/collaborates with State’s database analysts to fine tune the BI solution design including database or data warehouse design

· Presents design documents to State architects as well as other technical and management resources to provide assurance the best solution is proposed

· Presents design documents to customer for approval

· Prototypes the solution as designed and presents prototype to the customer for approval,

· Prepares BI application and data warehouse processes for production

· Educates and conducts continuous communication with end users throughout the project

BI Project Coordination:

· Manage BI projects using project management best practices

· Coordinates with project managers responsible for specific projects to ensure that interdependencies between projects are understood and that activities and direction are consistent with the related architecture and standard

· Identifies organizational change management issues and incorporates tasks in project plans to address

General skill sets:

· Interpersonal skill set includes strong analytical, problem solving and project management skills, be able to work well with people and possess strong communication skills as needed to mentor others; communicate highly technical information to non-technical and technical users; written and verbal English language proficiency

BI Subcategories A vendor may provide individual resumes of one or more of the following BI Subcategories, but are REQUIRED to submit, at a minimum, in the BI Report Designer or BI Analyst subcategory. The STATE is looking for experts in the submitted subcategory rather than a person who has limited experience in all subcategories. Higher scores may be given to vendors who submit individual experts across all subcategories.

BI Report Designer Experience

· Meets general BI skillset requirements

· Requires three years of experience in this classification in the last four years

· Coordinates closely with State IT and business personnel to ensure proper development and implementation of BI reports

· Gathers, analyzes and documents technical and business requirements for BI reports creation

· Provides performance tuning of BI application and data warehouse processes

· Develops reports and dashboards using BI reporting tool sets

· Translates requirements using reporting tool to develop reports

· Tests and refines the reports to produce the required product

· Publishes reports for end user consumption

· Prepares required documentation, including user-level documentation

· Technical skill set includes analyzing customer reporting needs, development of dashboards and data visualization techniques; experience using business intelligence reporting tools such as: Cognos, Microsoft Reporting Services (SSRS); experience working with Oracle, MS SQL Server, DB2 or similar enterprise-level relational databases; experience with OLAP technologies

BI Data Integrator Experience

· Meets general BI skillset requirements

· Requires 3 years of data integration experience in the last four years and demonstrated proficiency in ETL tools, SQL, and stored procedures

· Creates design documents for BI solution based on business analysis document

· Proficiency in IBM Infosphere (Datastage), Informatica, SSIS, other ETL tools

BI Analyst Experience

· Meets general BI skillset requirements

· In general, would have the skills found in both report designer and data integrator

· Requires three years of experience in this classification in the last four years

· Prepares project and operational cost estimates

· Presents final analysis document and cost estimate to customer for approval

· Develops and implements multidimensional data warehouse and data cube models using enterprise standard tools such as Cognos Framework Manager or Microsoft Sequel Server Analysis Services (SSAS)

· Plans and supervises systems and customer acceptance test activities

· Develops and administers overall project management plans that establish management and reporting requirements for BI projects

· Delegates tasks to other project team members and monitor performance

BI Data Modeler Experience

· Meets general BI skillset requirements

· Requires three years of experience in this classification

· Understand and translate business needs into data models supporting ad-hoc and long-term analytics solutions. Implement data strategies, build data flows and develop conceptual data models

· Create logical and physical data models using best practices while ensuring data quality. Optimize and update existing data models based on current and future project needs. Maintain conceptual, logical and physical data models along with corresponding metadata

· Evaluate existing and proposed data models in conjunction with source system databases for variances and discrepancies which may require reverse engineering physical data models from databases and SQL scripts

· Utilize and maintain standard naming conventions and coding practices to ensure consistency of data models

· Be familiar with operational data stores, data marts, & data warehouses

BI Architect Experience

· Meets general BI skillset requirements

· Five years of experience modeling, implementing, and managing the installation of data warehouses, data marts, ODS, data lakes using multidimensional models

· Proven experience in successful implementation of data warehouses and data analytic solutions

Project Manager Category *Reminder – work orders estimated at $250,000 or greater must be sent to all vendors listed in the category.

Project Manager

· Provides leadership and direction through successful performance of a variety of detailed, diverse project management competencies and frameworks

· Directs project initiating activities, including review of historical information, establishing the project repository, development of project charter, and project kickoff

· Plans, executes, and closes out projects per ND state standards, laws and processes relating to project management (see https://www.nd.gov/itd/services/project-management and https://www.nd.gov/itd/standards/project-management-information-technology-projects)

· Assists in the management of IT procurement services including Request for Proposal (RFP) creation, assistance with solicitation, evaluation and contract negotiations, contract administration and contract closeout

· Directs project planning activities and construction of project plan that includes scope management, acceptance management, project governance, time management, cost management, quality management, human resources management, communication management, risk management, procurement management, integrated change control, implementation and transition plan

· Directs project execution activities to include management of cost, schedule, scope, quality, business value and variance reporting

· Manages the activities of project teams, which may be comprised of client’s technical and program staff, as well as contractors from one or more entities

· Coordinates project activities and communication with client’s organizational change team

· Reports in writing and verbally to client’s management as necessary

· Directs project closeout activities including post-implementation and administrative closeout

Project Manager Experience

· Requires a minimum of 4 years of current and progressive experience managing complex information technology projects

· Experience in public sector assignments preferred

· PMP credential is preferred

· Experience using a scheduling tool (Microsoft Project proficiency preferred)

Project Manager Skill Set

· Primary skill set includes:

· Formal project management

· Superior team building

· Analytical

· Group facilitation

· Relationship management

· Must be able to work effectively with all levels of client staff from clerical through executive management

· Ability to implement solutions across multiple functional and technical environments

· Ability to conduct cost and schedule variance analysis

· Interpersonal and communication skills

· Written and verbal English language proficiency

Quality Assurance Analyst/Tester Category *Reminder – work orders estimated at $250,000 or greater must be sent to all vendors listed in the category.

Quality Assurance Analyst/Tester

· Introduce, coordinate and oversee all Quality Assurance (QA) efforts during each phase of the software development life cycle and oversee their effective implementation

· Responsible for implementation of software testing processes on assigned projects

· Design, implement, and execute software testing to demonstrate software development project conformance with specific criteria

· Implement project related quality management goals and strategies

· Work with the software development team to build and deliver, stable, maintainable and efficient software

· Train and mentor testers/managers/developers on QA processes, delivery, and models

· Facilitate test assessment meetings to gather feedback on strengths and weaknesses of the testing processes for continual process improvement

· Create and maintain project schedules containing test related tasks, deliverables, and milestones

· Manage action items, issues, change requests, and risks impacting testing activities

· Communicate status on progress of test related tasks, deliverables, and milestones

· Represent the test team in project meetings including sponsor, advisory, and status meetings and including facilitation of periodic status reviews for test case execution and defect resolution

· Work with project team to create clear, concise, detail oriented test plans, test scenarios, and test cases

· Identify, prepare, and maintain test data

· Maintain requirement traceability through verification with project and testing deliverables

· Provide primary guidance on the fulfillment of testing entrance and exit criteria

· Meet regularly with the test teams during test case execution to inform of release management, defect resolution, and testing progress

· Manage defects utilizing a defect management process and defect tracking tool

· Manage test cases utilizing a test case management process and test case tracking tool

· Schedule and execute test cycles and document test results in the project’s test case management toolset

· Oversee the test case management and defect management processes to ensure they are functioning correctly and enact changes for continual process improvement

· Evaluate, design, and implement automated testing options when appropriate

· Participate in software development deliverable reviews as required

· Establish the project repository for test artifacts

· Set and educate team members on the project’s testing standards, approach, and methodology

· Verify the project’s testing standards, approach, and methodology is followed

· Manage the testing process and staff

· Assign testers to projects

· Monitor quality task work

· Audit project quality adherence

· Collaborate with project managers and project leads on metrics gathering and reporting

· Collect, analyze, and report all relevant testing metric data for the software development projects

· Create and deliver the testing closeout reports

· Submit testing artifacts to the project repository at conclusion of the testing effort

· Provide testing metrics to support independent verification and validation processes

· Conduct formal test training to project staff

· Understand Software Development Life Cycle models including Agile, Iterative, and Waterfall

Quality Assurance Analyst/Tester Experience

· Requires a minimum of 4 years of experience in this job class

· Experience in planning, design, and execution of multiple test types including system integration / functional, performance, security, compliancy, regression, and user acceptance

Quality Assurance Analyst/Tester Skill Set

· Business Experience

· Domain knowledge related to the project’s business area

· Strong commitment to seeing the quality of application development initiatives meet the needs of the business

· Practical working knowledge of multiple software testing methodologies

· Software testing execution and results analysis

· Writing and communication test result reports

· Designing and implementing test plans/cases/procedures

· Designing and implementing tests for various test types including system integration / functional, performance, security, compliancy, regression, and user acceptance

· Test scripting

· Use of test case management software such as Azure DevOps and JAMA

· Use of defect management software such as Azure DevOps and JIRA

· Interpersonal Skills

· Superior group facilitation and relationship management skills, must be able to work effectively with all levels of staff from clerical through executive management

· Strong analytical, problem solving, and organizational skills

· Possess strong verbal and written communication skills as needed to mentor others, communicate information to non-technical and technical users, written and verbal English language proficiency is required

· Ability to work independently with minimal supervision

· Good time management skills with an understanding of project management concepts

· Organizational, leadership and decision making skills

· Strong team orientation image1.png