Vendor_Questions-Government_Responses.pdf

RFQ No. 70RDAD18R00000012-0001 Questions / Government Responses

No. Reference RFQ Section Paragraph No.

Page No.(s)

Question

1 N/A N/A N/A Roughly how many DHS employees will receive the News Clips and alerts?

Government’s Response: Roughly 50

2 N/A N/A N/A How many news items should be included in the DHS news clips?

Government’s Response: As many news items that capture the major headlines for DHS components.

3 N/A N/A N/A Should DHS and related agency press releases be included in the DHS News Clips?

Government’s Response: No.

4 N/A N/A N/A Will Monday’s clips include stories from Saturday and Sunday?

Government’s Response: Yes. Section 3.9, revised via attached track changes to read, “Summary service shall cover holidays and weekends, with holiday and weekend news presented on the first workday following the holiday or weekend.”

5 N/A N/A N/A Can DHS add an additional week for responses to ensure offerors can interpret and properly incorporate all answers; especially technical?

Government’s Response: The closing date and time for receipt of quotes has been extended to Friday, July 13, 2018 at 12:00pm Eastern Standard (ES). The closing time for receipt of vendor questions has not been extended and no further vendor questions will be accepted.

6 Attachment A 3.1 2 Are Spanish-language media sources to be distributed in the original Spanish, translated by the team, or can English-language versions of them be used?

Government’s Response: An English translation of the Spanish-language media source is required. Section 3.1 revised via attached track changes to read, “The contractor shall provide complete and comprehensive access to media sources including but not limited to national and local television, radio internet, magazines and periodicals, newspapers, news wire, trade journals, social media, specialty publications and Spanish-languages media (translated to English) in electronic form.”

7 Attachment A 3.1 2 Do all analysts have to be fluent in Spanish?

Page No.(s)

Question

Government’s Response: No.

8 Attachment A 3.2 2 Can you better define what "summary” the articles for the News Clips entail?

Government’s Response: A brief analysis of what the takeaways are from the article.

9 Attachment A 3.3 2 What type of information would go into the condensed clips?

Government’s Response: The links, article name, and outlet for each piece of coverage broken out in relevant sections based on each component.

10 Attachment A 3.4 2 How many real-time news alerts do you anticipate the contractor sending each day?

Government’s Response: Each day is different, it would depend on the news cycle of the day. Often more that 3-5 alerts are required because of DHS’ many components

11 Attachment A 3.4 2 During what hours does DHS need to send real-time news alerts?

Government’s Response: 7am-9pm Eastern Standard (ES) but this could change.

12 Attachment A 3.10 3 Please provide a clear definition of “secure/protected”. Does secure IP protected mean IP restricted, CAC Restricted, or SSL?

Government’s Response: Section 3.10 has been deleted via track changes, as attached.

13 Attachment A 3.10 3 Who is responsible for hosting, where would it be hosted and what are the hosting requirements?

Government’s Response: Section 3.10 has been deleted via track changes, as attached.

14 Attachment A 3.10 3 Are there legacy systems (Web sites, databases, etc.)? If so, can we review them?

Government’s Response: Section 3.10 has been deleted via track changes, as attached.

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Question

15 Attachment A 3.10 3 Is there a preferred OS and/or development language? Are any un-allowed?

Government’s Response: Section 3.10 has been deleted via track changes, as attached.

16 Attachment A 3.10 3 Please define all technical requirements.

Government’s Response: Section 3.10 has been deleted via track changes, as attached.

17 Attachment A 3.11 3 Should we interpret this as 100% up time for the SLA requirement?

Government’s Response: Section 3.11 has been deleted via track changes, as attached.

18 Combined Synopsis/Solicitation

(ix) N/A Are the sample deliverables expected to be based on a particular 24-hour period of coverage?

Government’s Response: The coverage period should be the 24 hours prior to the 7AM ET deadline the day the proposal is due.

19 Combined Synopsis/Solicitation

(ix) N/A With regards to the Sample of each requirement, as described in the Solicitation Synopsis (Section ix): For the “Summary of News Coverage,” as described on page 2 (Sections 3.2 and 3.3) of the Statement of Work, does DHS wish to set a publish deadline (date and time) for the samples so that prospective contractors synthesize and distill the news from the same 24 hours and the evaluation can be made “apples to apples?” If so, would 7 AM the day the proposal is due be appropriate?

Government’s Response: Yes, the coverage period should be the 24 hours prior to the 7AM ET deadline the day the proposal is due.

20 Combined Synopsis/Solicitation

(ix) N/A With regards to the Sample of each requirement, as described in the Solicitation Synopsis (Section ix): For the “Real time alerts,” as described on page 2 and 3 (Sections 3.4 and 3.6) of the Statement of Work, would DHS prefer to just see one alert to evaluate the format or would DHS prefer to see all of the alerts within a particular monitoring window of time? If the contractor is to provide alerts within a particular monitoring window, during which day and hours should contractor monitor coverage?

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Question

Government’s Response: All the alerts that would have been sent in the 24 hour period leading up to the proposal due date.

21 Combined Synopsis/Solicitation

(ix) and (x) N/A With regards to Past Performance, as described in the Solicitation Synopsis (Section ix), can contractors assume that DHS would prefer references from three current federal clients of similar scope and size?

Government’s Response: Section (ix) has been revised to clarify and define Past Performance.

22 Attachment A Schedule of CLINs

1 With regards to the Schedule of CLINs, as presented on Page 1 of the SOW, the table seems to indicate that only one price per Period of Performance is required. Would DHS prefer to see separate pricing for each deliverable (i.e., daily news briefing and real-time alerts) instead?

Government’s Response: No, a total firm fixed price as specified in the Schedule of CLINs is sufficient.

23 Attachment A 3.1 2 With regards to the requirement for inclusion of “Spanish-languages media in electronic form,” as described on Page 2 (section 3.1) of the Statement of Work, should it be assumed that the requirement is for the monitoring of Spanish-language publications that are US-based? If not, would DHS provide a source list or list of countries for which media should be covered?

Government’s Response: Yes, it would be for the monitoring of Spanish-language publications that are US-based.

24 Attachment A 3.1 2 With regards to the requirement for inclusion of “national and local television,” as described on Page 2 (section 3.1) of the Statement of Work, should it be assumed that DHS requires the contractor to capture stories that were broadcast, even if these broadcasts are not hosted on broadcasters’ websites (in other words, a mere web search is insufficient)?

Government’s Response: Correct.

25 Attachment A 3.1 and 3.6 2 and 3 With regards to the requirement for inclusion of “social media,” as described on Pages 2 and 3 (section 3.1 and 3.6) of the Statement of Work, should it be assumed that DHS would desire the contractor

Page No.(s)

Question to curate, distill and alert upon top influencers on social media?

Would DHS provide the criteria for such influencers or instead rely on contractor’s expertise, judgment and best practices to determine the best social media sources for inclusion?

Government’s Response: DHS will rely on the Contractor’s expertise, judgement and best practices, however; DHS will provide input on preferences.

26 Attachment A 3 2 and 3 With regards to the requirement for “summary of news coverage,” as described on Pages 2 and 3 (section 3) of the Statement of Work, some contractors take the approach of providing only a link and an extract of the first sentence or two of an article, frequently repeating the same information from a large number of media publications. Would DHS prefer that the analyst team producing the service carefully weave together the most salient pieces of information from across sources, no matter where in each article that information is found, and even if the key story elements are not near a keyword?

Government’s Response: DHS would like a simple synopsis taken directly from the article.

27 Attachment A 3.7 3 With regards to the news topics as described on Page 3 (section 3.7) of the Statement of Work, would DHS also like the contractor to include an option to provide a general "national news" section, suitable to the needs of DHS officials who must be kept aware of important developments affecting the federal government broadly to support their interactions with peers in the Administration and Congress?

Government’s Response: National news should always take priority, but should not ignore local news. However, all coverage shall be inclusive with the Contractor’s proposal. Additional quantity options are not included with this requirement.

28 Attachment A 3.4 3 With regards to the requirement for “real time news alerts throughout the day,” as described on Page 2 (section 3.4) of the Statement of Work, can you help offerors understand the scale of the expectation through a few examples? Which (if any) of the

Page No.(s)

Question following broader federal government news stories from recent news might have been worthy of an alert:

(a) Impact of a possible US-China Trade War;

(b) Turkey Erdogan declares victory in election;

(c) Breaking news on the Special Counsel Russia investigation;

(d) Stories related to US Representative Maxine Waters calling on supporters to harass Trump Administration officials?

Government’s Response: DHS would have considered selection (d) as worthy of an alert.

29 Attachment A 3.4 2 With regards to the requirement for “real time news alerts throughout the day,” as described on Page 2 (section 3.4), for news about components is DHS’s expectation that coverage be comprehensive or high level? For example, which of the following ICE stories from recent news might have been worthy of an alert:

(a) New Yorker fact checker resigns after falsely accusing an ICE employee of being a Nazi;

(b) ICE temporarily closes its Portland (OR) office due to protests;

(c) A follow-up to a raid that happened a year ago asking how many of those arrested were actually deported;

(d) Man pleads guilty to impersonating ICE agent.;

(e) ICE HSI agents arrested 146 employees at an Ohio meat supplier in what the agency calls its largest workplace raid in recent history — and its second massive raid in the state this month.

Still on Page 2 (section 3.4), if for example, the raid story were appropriate for inclusion, would DHS want to see all stories on that topic until coverage died down?

Government’s Response: All of these would be considered important. Any time a DHS component is mentioned in an article DHS should be notified.

30 Attachment A 3.4 2 With regards to the requirement for “real time news alerts throughout the day,” as described on Page 2 (section 3.4) of the Statement of Work:

Page No.(s)

Question

a. What is the time window during which DHS would like to receive the real-time alerts each weekday?

b. Real time alerts can be provided via an automated channel (e.g.

Google Alerts or similar) or can be carefully curated by analysts before they are sent. Automated solutions are typically cheaper but will include more repetitive, unnecessary and false-positive alerts.

Does DHS prefer the real-time alerts be curated by analysts or is a fully automated solution sufficient? If DHS does not have a preference, would it prefer pricing options for both?

c. Are weekday alerts needed on holidays?

d. Should news alerts be limited to priority publications, such as the Top 50 national news outlets so only priority news would be alerted on?

e. Are Spanish-language publications to be included in the list of outlets to be monitored for real-time alerts?

f. Some organizations only require alerts on the most important breaking news, which might mean as few as 3-5 alerts per day.

Other organizations have a less restrictive definition for what is worthy of an alert. How many alerts, on average, would DHS expect to receive per day?

Government’s Response:

a) 7am-9pm, but this could change

b) DHS requires real time alerts that are carefully curated by analysts before being sent.

c) Yes, real time alerts are required on weekdays, including holidays.

d) No.

e) Yes, but they should be translated into English when they are sent.

f) Each day is different, it would depend on the news cycle of the day. Often more that 3-5 alerts are required because of DHS’ many components.

31 Attachment A 3.1 2 On Page 2 (Section 2) DHS describes “The contractor shall provide a complete and comprehensive review and summary of news

Page No.(s)

Question stories…” On Page 2 (Section 3.1), DHS describes “complete and comprehensive access to media sources...” What are the differences, if any, between a review of the news stories for DHS and access to news stories for DHS? Does DHS intend for contractor to provide "access" to sources in a way that goes beyond the two deliverables described in the solicitation (the news summary and real-time alerts)?

Government’s Response: No differences.

32 N/A N/A N/A Do you have a targeted list of sources from each media type of interest? Is there a tier 1 source list for the daily report? How do you want similar stories handled?

Government’s Response: DHS will rely on the Contractor’s expertise, judgement and best practices, however; DHS will provide input on preferences.

33 N/A N/A N/A Do you have a list of keywords to share?

Government’s Response: We suggest including all component names and their jurisdiction as keywords to start.

34 N/A N/A N/A Can you provide annual estimates of volume?

(a) Online

(b) Local TV

(c) Newspaper

Government’s Response: This is variable and not quantifiable in advance.

35 N/A N/A N/A For the sample report, what keywords/sources would you like us to use?

Government’s Response: We suggest including all component names and their jurisdiction as keywords to start.

36 N/A N/A N/A Can you outline the differences between the “summary of news” and “condensed version”?

Government’s Response: “Summary of news” should be more in-depth and include more analysis than “condensed version.”

37 N/A N/A N/A How many user licenses are required?

Government’s Response: DHS does not require any user licenses.

38 N/A N/A N/A How many staff members will get each report?

Government’s Response: About 50 but that can change.

39 N/A N/A N/A How do you want the report organized? What are the categories?

Government’s Response: We leave this up to the expertise of the contractor but would suggest top level, national news at the top and then broken down by components.