RFI No. 6-P124-I--05530-00 Questions and Answers.pdf

U. S. Department of Energy laboratory managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC

11/26/2025

TO ALL OFFERORS:

Subject: Research Project Management System RFI

Request for Information No. 6-P124-I--05530-00 Addendum No. 1

Attached herewith for your information and use in preparing your proposal for subject project is Addendum No. 1.

Kindly acknowledge receipt of this Addendum by signing and returning a copy of this letter via email.

Sincerely, Jack Patton

Procurement Specialist III jpatton@anl.gov

Procurement Department

Receipt Acknowledged:

Company:

By:

cc: File

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Financial Management and Procurement Services Procurement Department

Argonne National Laboratory 9700 South Cass Avenue, Bldg. 201 Lemont, IL 60439 atton

ADDENDUM NO. 1

TO

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION 6-P124-I--05530-00Error! Reference source not found.

FOR

Argonne National Laboratory

BLDG. 201 OCF

9700 S. Cass Ave.

Lemont, IL 60439

(insert date)

This addendum is being issued to modify the subject Request for Information as follows:

1. Extend the submission due date from November 26, 2025, at 5:00 PM Central Time, to December 10, 2025, at 5:00 PM Central Time.

2. Attach the Argonne National Laboratory Software as a Service (SaaS) Requirements document for reference.

3. Provide answers to vendor questions as follows:

No. Question Answer 1 Would a FedRAMP Moderate system be acceptable for the ANL Research Project Management System or is FedRAMP High required?

FedRamp Moderate or better is a requirement; A specific security questionnaire will be sent.

On-Prem is also an acceptable option, depending on the stack

2 Would the lack of a current FedRamp certification preclude us from consideration? Or would we be considered if we were paired with a FedRamp-certified prime?

Lack of FedRamp would introduce significant complexity and would likely not result in selection. Would need to provide justification to ASO/Cyber and documentation proving that the software and cloud hosting meets all of the same requirements. If FedRamp is in progress that may be acceptable.

On-Prem is also an acceptable option, depending on the stack

3 In accordance with Section 2.6, can you confirm that FedRamp is a requirement vs a "nice to have"?

FedRamp Moderate or better is a requirement; A specific security questionnaire will be sent.

On-Prem is also an acceptable option, depending on the stack

4 Section 2.6 describes "System must meet Laboratory security requirements as identified in LMS-PROC-22, LMS-POL-46, LMS-POL-19, the CSPP, NIST, etc". Are you

FedRamp Moderate or better is a requirement; A specific security questionnaire will be sent.

On-Prem is also an acceptable option, able to provide further details? depending on the stack 5 How are you measuring success for the project?

Scope, timeline, budget, stakeholder support

6 What are the three most important factors when choosing a vendor?

Does the tool’s out of the box design/purpose fit our intended use cases and business process requirements Is the tool likely to meet long-term needs and evolve with the landscape of technical and functional requirements Are we able to establish a good partnership with the vendor

7 What is your desired project kick-off date?

Effort is expected during calendar year 2026, system launch and rollout dates are TBD.

8 What is your desired implementation completion date?

Effort is expected during calendar year 2026, system launch and rollout dates are TBD.

9 What is driving that timeline? Ie, resource availability, budget cycle, etc.

Yes

10 How many proposals do you submit annually?

Data not available at this time

11 How many awards do you receive annually?

ROM

12 Of your proposals and awards, how many are federal and how many are non-federal?

90/10

13 Do you require a legacy data migration for your grants? If yes, how much data?

TBD

14 How many users do you anticipate will access the system?

Range of 300-600

15 For ROM Pricing purposes. Please provide user personas, how often they will need to access the application and number of users broken out by user personas.

Viewers - unknown Editors ~250 Reviewers/managers ~200 Administrators (system management, reporting, etc.) ~50

16 Can Argonne confirm the expected timeline and target date for a potential subsequent solicitation (RFP) or procurement decision following this RFI?

Not at this time, multiple dependencies

17 What evaluation criteria or weighting will Argonne use to assess RFI responses and shortlist vendors for presentations?

Alignment with requirements based on out of the box functionality

18 Does Argonne have a hosting model requirement (public cloud

Cloud providers datacenters are expected to be us-based and us-staffed.

region/provider, private cloud, ANL-hosted) or constraints on data residency for research project data?

19 Can Argonne provide more detail on the enterprise systems to integrate with (financial, HR, procurement, SharePoint, ESB/event bus) and preferred integration patterns (REST API, message events, ETL batches)?

REST and/or AMPQ Event is preferable, we can support ETL as well. We would be integrating with Argonne services(e.g.

People Service) and custom-built software at Argonne vs direct to other systems so we care that the capability is there for such integrations

20 What is the expected volume and sources of legacy data to be migrated (number of projects, documents, size)?

TBD

21 Approximately how many active projects will be open in the system at any given time?

Data not available at this time

22 Are there any preferred demonstration scenarios or datasets Argonne would like vendors to use in the 90-minute online presentation?

Information collection and review approval routing; reporting; alerts and notifications, standard integration options

23 Will Argonne provide access to sample forms, workflows, or documents to enable more tailored demonstrations?

When appropriate

24 For event-driven integrations, what is the projected events-per-minute (EPM) or events-per-hour rate during normal and peak operations?

Data not available at this time

25 Do you expect bulk/batch data imports/exports? If so, what are the expected batch sizes (records per batch) and cadence (hourly/daily)?

Data not available at this time

26 What peak-month or peak-project scenarios (e.g., fiscal year close, large award onboarding) should we plan capacity for, and can you quantify the expected multiplier over baseline traffic?

August-September is ~3x typical volume.

May-June is ~.5x typical volume

27 Will you provide representative sample data extracts or traffic profiles (API call logs, event traces, or volume projections) to support accurate sizing and load testing?

Yes, when appropriate

28 Does Argonne anticipate any significant increase in user volume over the next 3–5 years that vendors should consider when proposing scalability options?

Unknown, depends on functionality and strategic planning for consolidation of systems

29 What deployment model is preferred (FedRAMP-authorized SaaS, ANL-hosted, or hybrid for specific AI services), and what FedRAMP baseline is expected at go-live vs. acceptable via an interim ATO with control inheritance?

For SaaS, FedRamp Moderate or better is a requirement; On-Prem is also an acceptable option, depending on the stack – at this point, deployment is one of many factors for consideration;

30 Please confirm supported SSO protocols (SAML 2.0/OIDC), required MFA factors (e.g., PIV/CAC, TOTP, WebAuthn), and whether RPMS should enforce per-field security and records retention natively or inherit from enterprise services.

SAML2 and OIDC per row and per field security is preferred by stakeholders

31 Which day-1 enterprise systems are in scope (financials, HR, procurement, directory), what integration patterns are preferred (REST vs. ESB/events), and which IDs/objects are authoritative for subcontract creation and tracking?

TBD

32 What constraints apply to language-model deployment (on-prem/VPC/provider options), data retention and “no-train” requirements, and can ANL share representative structured/unstructured samples plus a gold-field map to measure accuracy?

Additional information can be provided at a later date.

33 Would you accept an implementor and software solution as a prime and a sub?

Open to discuss

34 What systems are you currently using to support the program?

The program support tools are scattered across multiple applications including home-grown tools, Microsoft 365 tools, Box, InfoEd ERA.

35 What subcontractor performance metrics must be captured and how often must they be reported on?

36 What is the estimated number of users who would require access to the RPMS to inform cost estimates?

See Q14

37 Is there a maximum number of approval steps that must be supported in a workflow? (p.7)

Not at this time, requirements can evolve

38 What reporting tools are currently used or must be supported (e.g., PowerBI)? (p.9)

PowerBI

39 How much configuration should be achievable by “power users” without vendor involvement?

You tell me and tell me what your support packages cost and how they are designed.

40 What documentation is required at each lifecycle phase (installation, operations, decommissioning)? (p.18)

41 Which system(s) does the RPMS need to integrate with (system names, platform, owners) and the purpose of these integrations (direction, frequency, required data)?

See other similar responses

42 Which existing systems (e.g., procurement, HR, financial, document repository, SSO) are absolutely required for integration at launch? Are there planned future integrations?

See other similar responses

43 Please outline the steps, decision points, responsible stakeholders, supporting systems, and required artifacts for each stage of the research project management lifecycle—including details on work acceptance, approvals, risk evaluation, and compliance monitoring?

Will provide additional documentation for follow up if RFI response indicates likely alignment for further discussion

44 Are FedRAMP, NIST, Privacy Act, and DOE standards all required, or are any prioritized? (p.16–17)

Requirements are requirements

45 After the system is deployed, what level of vendor support do you expect (hours, issue types, response times)?

You tell me and tell me what your support packages cost and how they are designed.

46 Will existing data need to be migrated? If so, what types, and what is the current format?

TBD

47 What is the expected timeline for the implementation of the RPMS?

TBD

48 Are there any budget constraints or cost expectations for the RPMS

Yes, responses to this RFI will inform the framework.

49 The RFI states, "Cost Estimate: Total cost of ownership including implementation, licensing, maintenance, and support". Is this requesting that the RFI includes an estimate of costs for this work?

A rough order of magnitude or a general overview of the pricing model is useful.

50 How many distinct workflows need to be configured, and how complex are their approval/routing rules?

ROM: 10-30

51 What are the requirements for document ingestion, parsing (structured/unstructured), and extraction?

TBD

52 What is the anticipated average and maximum document size intended for AI analysis?

TBD

53 What document formats (e.g., PDF, Word, Excel, image files) are expected to be analyzed by AI?

TBD

54 Will the content expected to be extracted by AI consist solely of text, or will it include images, tables, or other embedded data?

TBD

55 Will the system be required to process multimodal content (e.g., documents containing both text and images)?

Yes

56 Approximately how many users are anticipated to access or utilize the system concurrently?

See other similar responses