FERN CCM Portal CAP Anouncement.doc

FY 21-25 FSIS FERN Cooperative Agreements

Confidentiality Notice:

This communication is considered sensitive and privileged and is not to be shared with unauthorized parties. Any dissemination of the enclosed information, including the matrices being analyzed and the agents under consideration, is strictly prohibited.

Section I: Funding Opportunity Description

The Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) currently comprises federal, state, and local government regulatory laboratories with varying capacities to perform threat agent testing. The FERN division in USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is seeking to award a cooperative agreement for providing and maintaining, in its current active state, a secure communication and collaboration portal which will provide the FERN with capability, capacity and readiness data for the network member laboratories. In addition, this portal will provide for: (1) training event registration and historical tracking of attendees; (2) Just in time training with video and webinar capability to multi-agency participants; (3) proficiency test event registration and historical tracking of participants; (4) public webpage maintenance and enhancement; (5) FERN Storeroom online, secure ordering and inventory maintenance; (6) capability and capacity information available from first day of award date; (7) Activation management and results data entry database for all members during exercise and actual activation events; (8) FERN repository, including housing all FERN methods, operational SOP’s and other network documents, complete with search functionality for all capabilities of network; (9) FERN Calendar of events automatically populated from each network event scheduled within the website functional arena, (10) 24 hour helpdesk assistance and online management of user accounts, and each data set (1-10) will be organized with data output/reporting in the format and manner specified by FERN.

Section II: Award Information

Anticipated number of awards: 1 Expected amount of individual awards: up to $250,000 Anticipated Start Date: September 30, 2020 Period of Performance: One year

Award type: Cooperative Agreement Section III: Eligibility Information

1. Eligible Applicants – Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

2. Cost Sharing or Matching – Not required.

Section IV: Application and Submission Information

Projects listed in the initial proposals are tentative and are subject to review by a panel of scientific experts who may make specific recommendations for modifications to the projects in order to ensure that each of them meets the needs and requirements of FERN.

The following must be submitted:

1) Detailed Proposal (plans, ideas, and objectives in narrative form, including information related to enhance the website capabilities for the FERN network, in order to support the mission of FERN, the following enhancements are required to be completed).

Lab Management Process

Complete development to enhance the lifecycle of a FERN lab from managing the application process (into FERN) to closing out a lab’s participation, as well as any adjustments made to the membership or participation level of each laboratory for any of the network sponsored events. Identify and maintain any additions/modifications to LabDIR (laboratory readiness/profile database). Maintain and update as requested by FERN.

Activation Management Provide online forms for food emergency response activations. Online updating of Situation Reports with reporting functionality for event as specified by FERN; capturing results from exercises and activation events (for all participants) in a secure, online, searchable format with FERN specified output. Maintain and update as requested by FERN.

Provide mechanism for sharing of activation results data with PHIS and other USDA regulatory systems (portal or other specified). Maintain and update as requested by FERN.

Super Query and other LabDIR reports Maintain and update as requested by FERN the ability to search Ad Hoc using both and “and” and “or” functionality Real Time Communication Generate customized workgroups that are region based and customize lab contact types to include in communications for all modules/workgroups

Data sharing with ICLN for activations and exercises Tracks invite/approval/rejection and attendance for all portal events along with follow-up capabilities for archived videos of the event recordings.

Expand current usage and availability for “In the box” style of distance training events with the ability to video record and share training steps as well as storage of pre-recorded videos within the training module itself Users have the ability to schedule online meetings in a FedRAMP moderate environment. Meetings include an audio line and recording capabilities. Recordings may be converted to audio files for archiving or training. Provide online and live webinar training for presenters and hosts Maintain and update as requested by FERN.

Proficiency System Updates Maintain integrated tracking technology into Proficiency Testing system. Add the choice to call an event either a PT or a Challenge test with appropriate individual differences/choices between the two

i. Utilize major carriers for tracking sample delivery

ii. Provide aggregate tracking of delivery information

iii. Handle exceptions through automated notices to Proficiency Test manager

Maintain and update as requested by FERN.

Training Module Upgrades Enhanced training event management with geo maps built in and transition them to global infrastructure to take advantage of advances done by other partners. Update the management and user interface as directed by FERN.

FERN Repository Provide official document storage space in LabDIR for FERN methods and other Network operational SOP’s and documents. Develop a searchable database for all other capability contained within LabDIR. Maintain role for method database managers to update version of method and archive old versions and develop search engine for methods contained in LabDIR with capability/capacity information. Maintain and update as requested by FERN.

FERN Calendar Provide multi- function module relational calendar to host FERN and other related calendar of events. Maintain and update as requested by FERN.

Threat Agent Database Hosting of the threat agent database and update/maintain as directed by FERN Specific development projects for FY21

1) “What’s New” section of FERN Portal to be upgraded to allow editing by FERN personnel with proper permissions. Changes to the “What’s New” section made by FERN personnel could include item title, information section, and link to attachments if necessary. FERN personnel should be able to remove and update items as necessary. Updates should be immediately accessible to FERN network members.

2) The ability to search/query the methods contained in the LabDIR “Testing” part of the database: by method, by analyte, by organism, by lab, etc…..

3) Adding functionality to standardize data submitted to FERN in spreadsheet formats. Incorporating excel functionality into the data spreadsheets, i.e. drop down lists and other tools to allow data submission to be more standardized.

4) PT module modernization -being one of the first modules built it is a likely candidate to be modernized. It was built to emulate the eLEXNET version with the phasing out of eLEXNET this compatibility is no longer required so optimizing user experiencing would be the benefit.

5) Add failsafe in the activation system to prevent a message being sent out to participants if there was an error in the creation process. Also add a message to confirm with creator that the activation or PT was created successfully.

6) Create a report/document storage location for CAP lab including an inventory and tracking of reports and possibly equipment.

7) Repository for archived FERN documents from elexnet.

· Include a detailed budget (in addition to the SF-424 and SF-424A) and justification ensuring that all budget information is listed specifically and can be directly associated with a specific project(s).

2) Completed form SF-424 (Application for Federal Assistance)

3) Completed form SF-424A (Budget Information), including a list of line items.

4) CV and contact information for all dedicated personnel new to the program (limit 2 pages/person).

Deadline: In order to meet Agency deadlines the FSIS FERN National Program Office (NPO) and the FSIS Administrative Services Division (ASD) must have all of this material completed and returned to us no later than July 13th, 2020.

Submit electronic copies of your proposals (including the narrative, the project description, SF-424 “Application for Federal Assistance”, SF-424A “Budget Information”, and contact/CV information for dedicated personnel) to all of the following:

Robert Phillips, robert.phillips@usda.gov Kevin Vought ( kevin.vought@usda.gov ) Marcus Head, ( Marcus.head@usda.gov )

Patrick Sisco, (Patrick.sisco@usda.gov

Section V: Application Review Information

1. Criteria - Proposals should be clearly written and address all areas listed in the announcement. Each portion of the submitted proposal will be evaluated individually on its merits, as well as collectively among all other proposals submitted. All proposals will be required to specifically identify their appropriate list of deliverables with consideration towards the following:

A: FERN CCM Portal Application Requirements

FERN has multiple custom applications built to serve FERN network labs and management. These applications are built on ColdFusion 2018 Enterprise and GovCloud architectures. Documentation and implementation of federal security mandates align with the FedRAMP moderate level.

LabDIR (Laboratory Directory of Integrated Resources) serves to manage labs and their capabilities reporting across the network. Additional FERN applications serve in companion to LabDIR such a Proficiency Testing management, National Conference Management, Network Activations and Incident Response, Supplies Storeroom, and Training Management.

LabDIR and FERN network applications are dependent upon a centralized collaboration portal and a Common Organizational Registry Environment for authentication and authorization. Security must be fully integrated to provide seamless movement of users between applications like LabDIR and the collaboration portal, including one click access into web meeting spaces.

Foundation collaboration system will require:

· Dynamic workgroups with custom teams, role assignment and security sandbox capabilities.

· Document repositories with document encryption, file conversion, audit trails and versioning

· Rapid distance communication capabilities.

· Large File Share, video and photo galleries

· Incident/Activation management support capabilities

· Integrated knowledgebase and live support capabilities

· Rapid dynamic data gathering and survey tools

· Integrated web meeting spaces available to users of FERN network applications. The web meeting system should be able to handle up to 400 concurrent users for coordination and communication during an event.

· Both training and web meetings systems should not require plugins for attendance and be available for access from all major operating systems.

B: System Requirements Cloud-based infrastructure with geographical separation in FedRAMP Moderate AWS GovCloud US Government-only datacenters. The system should have the following characteristics:

· The infrastructure allows for distributed secure data management and reliable failover.

· Automatic scaling and load balancing capabilities to handle surge load capacity during incidents or other heavy loads.

· Uploaded file content is stored with reliability to 99.99999999%, with full versioning and backup histories.

· Encrypted backups of critical data are available for further recovery efforts in case of disaster via data corruption or other activity.

· Security must include DDOS attack prevention and other network level mitigations of anomalous traffic, including use of machine learning to alert on suspicious behaviors.

· Application security includes centralized monitoring and response to web application level attacks.

Review and Selection Process

a. Technical review panel members individually review and score applications based on the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal.

b. Panel members meet to discuss their evaluations and individual scores. Consensus strengths and weaknesses are determined and consensus scores are reached for each application.

c. Final panel scores are forwarded to selection official for ranking and selection.

d. Applications will be ranked using panel scores in combination with the following non-merit criteria:

· Past performance (if applicable)

· The ability of the selected entity to provide a seamless transition and access to already accumulated data generated and held in existing database of FERN member laboratory profiles.

· There will be no loss of access to existing data (by FERN National Program Office, FERN Regional Coordinators, or FERN member laboratory members) at the beginning of the award period.

(Note: scores and recommendations by the technical review panel are only advisory. The agency is not bound to award highest scores).

Section VI: Award Administration Information

1. Award Notices – The successful applicant will receive an award notification letter from an FSIS FERN National Program Office representative indicating the award amount, requested modifications to the proposal (if any), and instructions for completing and submitting a final proposal and supporting documents. The letter is a non-binding notice of selection and does not authorize you to begin performance of the award or bind the Federal government in any way. An official and binding notice of award signed by a representative of FSIS’ Administrative Services Division will be provided following receipt of the final proposal and supporting documents.

Reporting – Performance reports are to be submitted electronically 30 days after the end of each quarter (due dates January 30, 2021; April 30, 2021; July 30, 2021; Oct. 30, 2021). Financial status (SF-425) are to be submitted on a quarterly basis (January 30, 2021, April 30, 2021, July 30, 2021, and Oct 30, 2021). Financial reports will be reported electronically through the Payment Management System (PMS). Additionally, a final performance and financial report is required within 90 days of the end of the award period (December 30th, 2021). The award period will run from approximately September 30, 2020 to September 29, 2021.

Section VII: Agency Contacts For further information or assistance concerning this funding opportunity please contact one of the following:

Kevin Vought

Senior Staff Officer, Central Region

FSIS, FERN Division NPO 601 Robert Street North

St. Paul, MN 55155

PH:

651-201-6085 kevin.vought@usda.gov Dr. Robert Phillips Senior Staff Officer, Pacific Region

FSIS, FERN Division NPO 950 College Station Road

Athens, GA 30605

PH:

706-546-3649

FAX:

706-546-3656 Robert.phillips@usda.gov Section VIII: Other Information

Construction costs are not allowable.

Attachments:

· SF-424 “Application for Federal Assistance”

· SF-424A “Budget Information”

· Budget justification and expected cost increases over 5 years to be included

· USDA AD-1047 Certification Regarding Debarment, Suspension, and Other Responsibility Matters

· USDA AD-1049 Certification Regarding Drug-Free Workplace Requirements

· SFLLL Disclosure of Lobbying Activities (if required)

· GG Lobbying Form Certification Regarding Lobbying