91003119R0007_Amendment_0004.pdf

Offers must acknowledge receipt of this amendment prior to the hour and date specified in the solicitation or as amended, by one of the following methods:

(a) By completing items 8 and 15, and returning or (c) By separate letter or electronic communication which includes a reference to the solicitation and amendment numbers. FAILURE OF YOUR ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO BE RECEIVED AT THE PLACE DESIGNATED FOR THE RECEIPT OF OFFERS PRIOR TO THE HOUR AND DATE SPECIFIED MAY RESULT IN REJECTION OF YOUR OFFER. If by virtue of this amendment you desire to change an offer already submitted, such change may be made by letter or electronic communication, provided each letter or electronic communication makes reference to the solicitation and this amendment, and is received prior to the opening hour and date specified.

E. IMPORTANT: Contractor is not is required to sign this document and return copies to the issuing office.

AMENDMENT OF SOLICITATION/MODIFICATION OF CONTRACT 1. CONTRACT ID CODE

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7. ADMINISTERED BY (If other than Item 6) CODE

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Prescribed by GSA FAR (48 CFR) 53.243

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11. THIS ITEM ONLY APPLIES TO AMENDMENTS OF SOLICITATIONS

The above numbered solicitation is amended as set forth in Item 14. The hour and date specified for receipt of Offers is extended. is not extended.

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Except as provided herein, all terms and conditions of the document referenced in Item 9A or 10A, as heretofore changed, remains unchanged and in full force and effect.

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16C. DATE SIGNED

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14. DESCRIPTION OF AMENDMENT/MODIFICATION (Organized by UCF section headings, including solicitation/contract subject matter where feasible.)

PAGE OF PAGES

6. ISSUED BY CODE

8. NAME AND ADDRESS OF CONTRACTOR (Number, street, county, State and ZIP Code) (X)

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16B. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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Previous edition unusable

Attachment Page

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Optimal Processing Solution

RFP 910031-19-R-0007

SF – PAGE 1

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SECTION B - SUPPLIES OR SERVICES AND PRICES/COSTS

See Attachment “18 – Pricing Template”. This template includes instructions, volume assumptions, pricing templates, and an opportunity for Offerors to propose alternate pricing.

SECTION C – DESCRIPTION/SPECIFICATIONS/STATEMENT OF WORK

C.1 - INTRODUCTION

The U.S. Department of Education (ED), Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), is embarking on a transformation known as the Next Generation Financial Services Environment (NextGen). Through this initiative, FSA seeks to implement a flexible, more efficient and effective financial solution to leverage in supporting its citizens. Initially, FSA seeks to modernize its technical and operational architecture, in a manner that provides flexibility to expand and support other financial services. This effort will also include creating a new FSA-branded omni-channel engagement approach led by a mobile-first, mobile-complete, and mobile-continuous digital platform to support the complete life cycle of federal student assistance. In addition to improving the overall customer experience, the new environment seeks to improve operational flexibility, enhance cost and operational efficiency, and generate better outcomes for customers and taxpayers.

FSA seeks an Optimal Processing Solution addressing functions across the full lifecycle of student financial aid, from application to pay-off or default, inclusive of FAFSA/Eligibility Determination, Origination & Disbursement Processing, and Servicer Processing System (inclusive of default processing).

Summary of Key Dates

1. November 4, 2019, 4:30pm Eastern Standard Time: All Proposal Volumes. See L.15.2 Proposal

Volume Requirements, L.15.2.5 Submission Due Dates.

2. No later than October 1, 2021, preferred; No later than October 1, 2022, minimum: Delivery of

Eligibility Processing Solution. See C.1.2.3 Target Milestones.

3. FSA Optional Task and TBD: Delivery of Origination & Disbursement Processing Solution. See

C.1.2.3 Target Milestones.

FSA Optional Task and TBD: Delivery of Servicer Processing System. See C.1.2.3 Target Milestones.

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C.1.2 Contract Type

The resulting award will be a Firm Fixed Price Contract. The Government anticipates the following periods of performance:

Development, Implementation, Integration, and Deployment and Operation & Maintenance (O&M) for Eligibility Processing Solution, Origination and Disbursement Processing and/or Servicer Processing System – One (1) year Base Period with nine (9) one (1) year Option Periods.

If FSA determines to award using pricing where Initial Development, Implementation, Integration, and Deployment is incorporated into Operation & Maintenance for the Eligibility Processing Solution, the Period of Performance would be as follows – One (1) Two (2) year Base Period with Eight (8) One (1) year Option Periods.

Development, Implementation, Integration, and Deployment

• Operating Element 1/Milestone 1: Eligibility Processing Solution (C.2.3.1) Development, Implementation, Integration, and Deployment completed by no Later than October 1, 2021, preferred; no after than October 1, 2022 minimum.

• Operating Element 2/Milestone 2: Origination and Disbursement Processing Solution

(C.2.3.2) – FSA Optional Task o If exercised, FSA anticipates doing so within the first five years, allowing up to 12 months for Development, Implementation, Integration, and Deployment.

• Operating Element 3/Milestone 3: Servicer Processing System (C.2.3.3) – FSA Optional Task o If exercised, FSA anticipates doing so within the first five years, allowing up to 12 months for Development, Implementation, Integration, and Deployment.

Operation & Maintenance

• Operating Element 1/Milestone 1: Eligibility Processing Solution (C.2.3.1) O&M will begin after the conclusion of the Development, Implementation, Integration, and Deployment by no later than October 1, 2021, preferred; or no Later than October 1, 2022 minimum.

• Operating Element 2/Milestone 2: Origination and Disbursement Processing Solution

(C.2.3.2) – FSA Optional Task o If exercised, O&M will begin after the conclusion of Development, Implementation, Integration, and Deployment.

• Operating Element 3/Milestone 3: Servicer Processing System (C.2.3.3) – FSA Optional Task o If exercised, O&M will begin after the conclusion of Development, Implementation, Integration, and Deployment.

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C.1.2.3 Target Milestones

FSA has identified target milestones in pursuit of the goals identified in section C.1.3. It is critical the solution is designed and implemented against the identified Operating Elements/Milestones in Section C.2 to ensure FSA can achieve its goals. Offerors may propose a Total Solution encompassing all Operating Elements/Milestones, without respect to sequencing outlined above, that offers an innovative approach and schedule.

C.1.3 – FSA BACKGROUND, GOALS, AND VISION

C.1.3.1 Background

FSA’s core mission is to ensure that all eligible students benefit from Federal financial assistance – grants, loans, work-study programs, etc. – for education beyond high school. The programs FSA administers comprise the nation’s largest source of student financial assistance. Every year, over 18 million students apply for Federal assistance and FSA has over 42 million customers across the lifecycle of federal student assistance. FSA’s total lending portfolio is $1.4+ trillion in outstanding loans including $1.1 trillion that is directly serviced. The lending portfolio is growing at 7% per year, driven by nearly $100 billion in annual disbursements across more than 17 million annual loan originations.

In conjunction with institutions of higher learning and third-party vendors, FSA provides student financing information and services across the full federal lifecycle of student financing, from application through servicing and recovery.

At the beginning of the life cycle, students apply for federal assistance through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®). FSA uses this information to determine student eligibility for federal grants and loans. For eligible students, schools will originate and disburse loans.

Once customers (e.g., student, parent, and borrower) enter repayment, their loans are assigned to one of nine Servicers, which perform a complete set of Federal student loan servicing activities including:

customer service; loan counseling; loan consolidation; billing and payment application and processing;

repayment plan adjustments and application of benefits such as deferments, forbearance, or loan forgiveness/discharge; outreach and default aversion; quality control; and financial and other data reporting. Each of the nine Servicers operates its own engagement layer with proprietary branding (e.g., websites, tools, contact centers), utilizes one of four servicing platforms, and maintains certain additional technical systems (e.g., identity and access management solutions). Customers may have several loans on different repayment plans and may be enrolled in special programs (e.g., Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) loans, Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) grants, Perkins Loans, Pell Grant overpayments).

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For customers who fail to pay their loans, currently FSA and Private Collection Agencies (PCA) share Federal default recovery activities. Once a loan defaults, FSA transfers the loan to the Default Management and Collections System (DMCS) and attempts to bring the loan back to good standing. If unsuccessful, collection activity is turned over to contracted third-party PCA that pursues default resolution. Customers may rehabilitate a defaulted loan by making a series of payments or consolidating their loans out of default. This process often results in rehabilitated customers being handed off multiple times between DMCS, PCA and the Servicers.

Today’s fragmented landscape has created many issues across the full lifecycle of student financing, including:

1. Inconsistent customer experience: FSA customers move through the lifecycle of student financing working with multiple vendors and partners (e.g., schools) from application to repayment and recovery, each of which have different interfaces, processes, and standards;

2. Limited branding opportunities for FSA: The lack of consistent branding can leave customers confused and unclear about the role the Federal government; particularly the role FSA plays in their student federal assistance journey; and

3. Operational complexity and inefficiency: Across the life cycle, vendors have built redundant technical and operational solutions, creating inefficiencies and poor experiences. Further, across vendors, data management and cybersecurity practices are inconsistent and siloed.

Additional information about FSA can be found in Attachment “01 – As-Is” and the 2018 Annual Report located at: https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2018report/fsa-report.pdf.

C.1.3.2 Goals and Vision

FSA has established four goals for the future state environment that apply to Full Life Cycle Processing, including:

Goal 1: FSA intends to provide a more efficient and effective customer and partner experience throughout the lifecycle of student financing to ensure:

1. Easier, more seamless customer interactions with FSA through an enterprise-wide;

2. FSA-branded, omni-channel digital platform, featuring a mobile-first;

3. Mobile-complete, and mobile-continuous solution (i.e., allowing FSA to maintain a relationship with its customers throughout the customer lifecycle) to enable customers to receive additional support through the channel most appropriate to their needs;

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4. Customers receive an experience informed by a holistic understanding of the lifecycle of student financing and customer needs, refined through ongoing analysis of customer data and feedback, and continuously improved through activities like iterative user testing;

5. Customers better understand the financial implications of their student debt and make more informed decisions regarding the various repayment options and protections available to Federal customers; and

6. Customers receive a consistent experience solely under the FSA brand across all vendors.

Goal 2: FSA intends to improve its operational flexibility by creating an environment that can efficiently and effectively integrate new and existing capabilities and features, continuously improve and innovate, and adjust to stay in compliance with changing Federal rules, regulations, and law.

Goal 3: FSA intends to drive greater operational efficiency; reduce complexity; improve the stability, resiliency, enterprise risk management, and cybersecurity of its systems; and ensure effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

Goal 4: FSA intends to measure its success in part on how well it improves customer outcomes and facilitates compliance with Federal consumer protection standards and Title IV legal requirements.

Examples of improved customer outcomes include: increased customer satisfaction scores, better informed borrowing decisions, decreased percentage of customers in delinquency or default, reduction of customers in deferment and forbearance, increased customer repayment rate, increased digital self-service by customers (instead of calls to FSA), and reduction in mail correspondence and payments (in favor of digital solutions).

FSA intends to accomplish those goals by deploying a new technical and operational architecture that will provide a more efficient and effective customer and partner experience across the entire lifecycle of student financing, including both enterprise-wide solutions and solutions specifically for student processing and servicing. This architecture will include:

Vision:

Omni-channel, enterprise-wide customer engagement led by a mobile-first, mobile-complete, and mobile-continuous solution

To enable a more efficient and effective customer experience, FSA intends to implement an enterprise-wide, FSA-branded omni-channel digital platform featuring a mobile-first, mobile-complete, and mobile-continuous solution. The digital platform will be FSA’s “digital front door” for all customer journeys to replace FSA’s multiple customer facing websites. To realize this vision, the digital platform will consolidate the functionalities of the multiple websites, mobile applications, and contact centers that

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currently exist across the full customer lifecycles (from application to school to servicing to default). This will require the digital platform to be closely integrated with other NextGen solutions, other future state solutions, and existing FSA systems (including those that serve partners). This solution will provide customers with a personalized, self-service experience across multiple channels, robust self-service options, and seamless escalation to additional support when needed.

Common, Integrated Data Management

FSA envisions a solution to ensure customer touchpoints feed into a common integrated data management platform which contains all customer information from throughout the lifecycle of student financing. This common, integrated data management system will allow FSA to:

1. Generate customer and loan portfolio insights through advanced analytics that improve services and reduce risk;

2. Reduce error rates to lessen customer frustration and processing expense;

3. Lower operating expenses through efficiency gains; and

4. Consolidate processing activities across the multiple current systems onto fewer, new and/or upgraded platforms.

Robust cybersecurity and data protection

State-of-the-art cybersecurity protection shall be integrated into all existing and future state solutions, and enterprise-wide cybersecurity will be holistically assessed and tested on an ongoing basis to ensure customer and FSA data is consistently protected.

Integration across the enterprise and potential to further scale solutions

Solutions will need to be integrated with existing and new solutions as well as vendors from across the lifecycle of student financing. Accordingly, all solutions will be implemented with both integration and future scalability in mind, ensuring third parties can “plug in” to use common tools and feed into common interfaces.

Implementation approach that minimizes risk and disruption for customers while deploying more efficient and effective solutions

FSA anticipates the near-term need for multiple servicing solutions while moving towards the future state of a single servicing platform operating environment. FSA will need to migrate, through conversion, nearly 200 million loan accounts from existing Servicers on a rapid but feasible schedule that minimizes disruptions for customers while ensuring that complete migration.

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The Optimal Processing Solution will need to have the flexibility necessary to seamlessly integrate with existing and future solutions provided by FSA or other vendors, across the entire lifecycle of student financing. Those solutions include NextGen solutions such as the FSA-branded digital platform, contact center technical backbone and support, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), business process operations, identity and access management, and analytics platform. FSA Digital Communication and Care (DCC) solution is in development. The Optimal Processing Solution (OPS) must initially be developed and integrated to support aid eligibility determinations and soon thereafter origination and disbursement activities. Data from OPS will initially be stored in OPS and shared with legacy servicers.

FSA will have dedicated resources to validate vendor accountability by monitoring the operational environment and vendor performance to ensure a higher caliber of service than current state.

C.2 – OBJECTIVES, REQUIREMENTS, AND MILESTONES

C.2.1 Solution Objectives

Optimal Processing Solution shall be a highly adaptable technical solution set which supports current and future FSA products and processes across the entire lifecycle of student financing, including but not limited to functions for application for financing, to origination and disbursement, to processing and servicing and pay-off or default. Solution will deploy integrated functions and products over time.

Solution shall deliver cost efficiencies through significantly increased automation, continuous improvement and a modern technical backbone (e.g., modular code base, cloud operability, two-speed development compatibility, and/or innovative middleware). Solution shall better support changing rules, laws, and regulations with minimal operational complexity through the greater flexibility afforded by having separate rules engine(s) and integrated process workflows.

C.2.2 General Operating Requirements

The Optimal Processing Solution shall satisfy these general requirements across all elements outlined in Section C.2.3:

Adaptability, flexibility, and ongoing innovation: Solution shall efficiently and effectively adapt to changes in the FSA operating environment (including changing Federal rules, regulations, and laws), innovation in commercial financial services, and FSA’s goals. Solution shall easily scale to handle changes in account and transaction volumes and have the flexibility to enable incremental modifications without necessitating full production implementation efforts or additional costs.

FSA is seeking a solution that embraces the concept of modularity by providing separate modules that can quickly, accurately, and efficiently carry out all aspects of FSA’s mission. The solution shall be scalable, severable, and offer the capability to change individual modules within the Optimal Processing

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Solution without disruption to the overall functionality of the solution. Each individual module shall have the capability to operate independently and be easily enhanced or integrated with another independent module.

In addition, the solution shall be portable as modules which at the discretion of FSA, may be further developed and operated separately by a different vendor or third-party provider. This includes but is not limited to separate code management, build and deploy process, support environments, and/or production environment.

FSA envisions an overall Optimal Processing Solution architecture of multiple integrated yet severable processing modules. For illustrative purposes only, not prescriptive, this modular architecture might be representative by Primary and Secondary Modules as illustrated below. Whereas the below is for illustrative purposes and not prescriptive FSA seeks an advanced level of data sharing and processing architecture. These modules also serve as examples of other NextGen environments that the Optimal Processing Solution could integrate and interface with. Offerors are encouraged to propose their view of a highly integrated, modular, flexible and severable architecture to meet and/or exceed FSA’s Optimal Processing Solution vision.

Potential Primary Processing Modules

1. FAFSA & Eligibility Processing Solution Module

2. Origination & Disbursement Processing Solution Module

3. Servicer Processing System Module

4. Administrative Module

Potential Secondary Processing Modules

1. FAFSA & Eligibility Primary Processing Solution Module

a. FAFSA Application Management Module

b. Eligibility Determination Module

c. Results Distribution Module

d. Data Sharing Module

e. Statistical Analysis Support Module

2. Origination & Disbursement Primary Processing Solution Module

a. Common Origination and Disbursement Module

b. Funds Management and Reconciliation Module

c. Specialty Loans Module

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d. Title IV Loans and Grants (Pell, TEACH, IASG, Campus based FWS, FSEOG) Module

e. Data Reporting and Analytics Module

3. Servicer Processing Primary System Module

a. Core Servicing Module

b. Payment Processing Module

c. Delinquency Processing Module

d. Default Processing Module

e. Financial Reporting, Audits, and Operational Reporting

f. Loan Consolidation Origination and Disbursement

4. Administrative Primary Module

a. Management Information Reporting Module

b. Management Information Statistical Analysis Module

c. Customer Look-Up Inquiry Module

d. Customer History Module

e. Fraud Prevention and Detection Module

f. Account Access History Module

g. Research and Retroactive Analysis Module

h. Audit Module

i. Financial Reporting Module

Solution shall be built with a modern architecture (e.g., but not limited to modular code base, cloud operability, two-speed development, rules engine, modern language) to deliver more efficient and effective functionalities and cutting-edge industry practices and products.

Solution shall implement a DevSecOps-driven-infrastructure that automates environment creation, testing, code quality checks, and deployment as much as possible (e.g., automatic issue flagging and event-triggered escalation).

Integration: Solution shall be developed and implemented to ensure easy integration with existing FSA or third-party solutions and NextGen solutions, as necessary to execute required functions. Solution shall enable FSA, other government agencies, and designated third parties to interface or engage with it

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as necessary. Solution shall care for broad integration needs including, but not limited to: supporting or re-engineering existing application program interfaces (API), building and exposing new APIs, exchanging and integrating with the Digital Communication Channel and other NextGen environment API’s to enable the custom agent desktop/CRM/Workflows that are being created by NextGen business rules for workflows, providing development and test environments, and collaborating with FSA and other vendors to resolve integration issues which arise.

Digital Engagement Layer: Digital Engagements include front-end, middleware, and services that enable web (including web-responsive sites), mobile app, social media, and customer care channels (telephony and chat to support FSA’s interactions with schools and partners. All front-end student and parent Digital Engagements (Mobile and Web) for Eligibility Processing Solution, Origination and Disbursement Processing, and Servicer Processing System will be provided neither by the Enterprise Digital Customer Care Command Center (DCC) provider. The selected Contract Awardee will be required to provide secure APIs to the DCC to support the Digital Engagements for these business functions. All school partners, financial partners and FSA Digital Engagements functions for Eligibility Processing, Origination and Disbursement Processing, and Servicer Processing System will be provided by the Partner and Participation Oversight program. The selected Contract Awardee will be required to provide secure APIs to PPO to support the Digital Engagements for these business functions.

1. Support of these Digital Experiences shall be severable and transferable to the Enterprise Digital

Experience provider if required by FSA.

2. The selected Contract Awardee shall consider the technical architectures used by the Enterprise

Digital Experience provider to ensure integration with FSA’s Enterprise Digital Experience at a later time.

3. The selected Contract Awardee shall secure all APIs using any future FSA standards. The digital experience will be provided through DCC and data will be exchanged between DCC, OPS, and Partner Partnership & Oversight. Oversight (PPO) program. Solution shall provide a Partner Portal as described below:

• The Partner Portal shall provide customer account access to FSA, Schools, and other trading partners as approved by FSA for capabilities in the aid delivery including eligibility determination and origination and disbursement.

• The portal shall display, at a minimum, but not limited to student eligibility data, customer demographic detail, loan detail, disbursement detail, and access to images (SARs, SAR Acknowledgements, ISIRs, bills, repayment plans, applications, communications, etc).

• The Partner Portal shall provide EDESuite websites access software capabilities

• The Partner Portal shall provide FAA Access website access of functional capabilities

• The Partner Portal shall include loan holder services websites that Guarantee

Agencies (GA) and lenders will use for Loan Consolidation Application processing.

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• The Partner Portal shall provide a Perkins Assignment Web Portal

• The Partner Portal shall provide a HEAL Online Processing System (HOPS).

• Timing of the HEAL Online Processing system solution shall be determined later.

Adherence to and monitoring for changes in laws and regulations: Solution shall meet or exceed existing Federal rules, laws, regulations, agency guidelines or court mandates applicable to the FSA operating environment (including all accessibility elements such as 504/508 compliance). Solution shall establish a process for monitoring and informing personnel of new or pending changes to applicable laws and regulations, and then proactively partner with FSA to determine and communicate the implications to technical design and/or operational procedures. Solution shall continuously update to adhere to applicable laws and regulations.

Cybersecurity, Hosting and Middleware: Solution shall include robust cybersecurity protections and features to protect customer data. The solution must comply with the conditions in Attachment “02 – Security Technical Requirements”.

1. Solution shall meet Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards, and all cybersecurity regulations and mandates, including Presidential Executive Order (EO) 13800 - Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure, to Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. Solution shall ensure that all development and management tools, including project management, version control, code repositories, DevSecOps management, monitoring, and cybersecurity, etc., are identified in the technical solution and in the system security boundary.

2. Solution shall be hosted in a secure environment. If any aspect of the solution is hosted in the cloud, the solution must be FedRAMP-approved or FedRAMP- “ready”, or must be hosted in a private cloud, per the definition in Attachment “02-Security Technical Requirements.” The solution may not be hosted in a shared, multi-tenant environment. Please note the FedRAMP-approved cloud shall require a Department/Agency-level Authorization to Operate (ATO), followed by the FSA-issued ATO for the system, which shall be FISMA and/or FedRAMP-approved at either a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) -199 High level or Moderate level, depending on the proposed architecture and corresponding FIPS-199 category of the system.

Special Notices

1. Hosting and Infrastructure: All vendors are hereby placed on notice that FSA, in seeking to comply with Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, ED’s Strategic IT goals, as well as Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB)-mandated goals established in the Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI), may require all new applications and information systems, once created and stabilized, to transition to and leverage common cloud infrastructure services (e.g. through FSA’s Next Generation Data Center (NGDC) or some other FSA-identified services), and/or leverage common enterprise-wide traditional data center services and infrastructure hosting provider (e.g. through FSA’s NGDC or some other FSA-identified services/provider). The NGDC program provides a physical data center structure, PAGE 14 OF 115 91003119R00070004 access to FISMA High private cloud infrastructure services, and access to FedRAMP High and FedRAMP Moderate cloud infrastructure services, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure.

2. Middleware: All vendors are hereby placed on notice that FSA, in seeking to build a future state environment with a consistent, reliable, and scalable architecture; prevent duplication, redundancy, and incompatibility; and reduce costs and complexity, reserves the option to require all new applications and information systems, once created and stabilized, to transition to and leverage a common Enterprise IT Architecture (EITA), FSA’s enterprise middleware architecture program, for middleware and cloud platform services and support. At present, EITA includes Integrated Technical Architecture (ITA) and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), future middleware capabilities, as well Platform-as-a-Service services support in the cloud.

3. Section 6103 of Title 26 Internal Revenue Code: All vendors are hereby placed on notice that compliance with the security requirements that are provided in Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 1075 Publication (See Publication 1075, Tax Information Security Guidelines for Federal, State and Local Agencies) may be applicable and should be considered in the solution design.

4. In regard to these Special Notices, any future changes will be managed through FSAs’ Change Management Process that will be identified in the contract.

Identity and Access Management: Solution shall use FSA’s chosen Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions for authorization, authentication, Single-Sign-On (SSO) via standards-based federation, self-services, and identity management. This will enable FSA to build a future state environment with a consistent and scalable set of security services for provisioning and managing all users, including Optimal Processing Solution personnel, other vendors or third parties, and FSA staff – implementation timing to be agreed with FSA. Attachment “09 – FSA Identity & Access Management Solution Overview” provides an overview of FSA’s IAM solutions.

Data architecture standards: Solution shall implement the enterprise logical and physical data standards supporting FSA’s master data management initiative.

Financial accuracy and compliance: Solution shall include robust measures for ensuring the compliance and accuracy of financial transactions and reporting. Technical requirements for current state financial standards are included in Attachment “03 –Finance Technical Requirements”. FSA anticipates the Full Life Cycle solution to be able to more efficiently and effectively meet requirements as compared to current processes.

Additional current state technical constraints: In addition to security and financial requirements, Offerors also shall acknowledge an understanding of other functional categories of current state technical constraints where relevant (e.g., processing, websites, communications, etc.). For a broader informational view of FSA’s current servicing environment, Offerors are encouraged to review Attachment “04 – Additional Current State Technical Constraints,” which provides a representative, though not comprehensive set of technical constraints. A comprehensive set of jointly agreed-upon requirements will be defined post award.

1. These constraints are derived from existing laws, regulations, agency guidance, and business rules, and will change based upon acts of Congress, updates to Federal regulatory and non-regulatory guidance, and FSA’s goals.

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2. Offerors may propose solution-relevant alternative, more efficient, accurate, or customer-centered approaches and processes (vs. those detailed in the current state technical constraints) to accomplish FSA’s outcomes.

3. Specialty programs (e.g., PSLF, TEACH, TPD, Perkins, Pell, HEAL/HOPS, grant overpayments) and specialty claims (e.g., discharge, forgiveness) require special handling as well as specific and unique processing rules that impact the Optimal Processing Solution, along with other existing and future solutions, and often relate to multiple constraints.

Customer experience focus: Solution shall prioritize customer and partner needs and preferences to assist FSA in enabling a more efficient and effective customer experience throughout the lifecycle of student financing with respect to processing. Helpful additional context on the current state can be found in Attachment “05 – Current State Customer Tasks,” Attachment “06 – Current State Partner Tasks”, Attachment “07 – Top Customer Pain Points”, and Attachment “11 – Life of the Loan Servicing Intended State”.

Contribution to knowledge and training of Business Process Operations personnel: Solution staff shall work with the DCC-provided Command Center on common knowledge resources, contact scripts, agent desktop guides, and other training materials, ensuring that customer-facing instructions and resolution steps as well as back-office processing procedures are accurate in relation to Optimal Processing Solution. The Command Center is responsible for coordinating the development, improvement, maintenance, and distribution of knowledge and training for FSA-designated personnel.

Performance Measurement: Solution shall have performance management mechanisms that will enable improved and ongoing achievement of metrics to be defined at award, as Service Level Agreements (SLA). For example, metrics may include but are not limited to customer satisfaction (compared to a common index), processing error rates. Vendor shall ensure that its staff is aware of FSA’s performance expectations. Offerors shall complete Attachment “19 – Performance Measurement Template” to propose their targets for outcomes. See section L.15.4.1.7 for instructions on completing Attachment 19.

Quality control: Solution shall be supported by documented policies and procedures on vendor quality management system to ensure that more efficient and effective service can be provided.

Software licenses: Commercial software licenses acquired under this contract shall be licensed to the Government.

Technical Support Help Desk: Solution shall provide a Tier II Technical Support Help Desk, including staff for both the Eligibility solution as well as, if exercised, the optional Origination & Disbursement solution, to address technical issues with the solution or data generated. Tier I support will be provided by a separate contact center support solution.

Transactional Data Integration: Solution shall provide transactional level data into FSA’s Enterprise Data Management and Analytics Platform Services (EDMAPS) environment. Solution shall be responsible for developing the retrieval and processing solution working within the overall EDMAPS architecture.

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Data Conversion: Solution shall plan to convert existing Eligibility (FAFSA/Central Processing System [CPS]) and Common Originations & Disbursement (COD) (Optional Task, Operating Element 2/Milestone

2) data and records necessary to effectively support future Eligibility and Originations & Disbursement (Optional Task, Operating Element 2/Milestone 2) functions. See FSA Deliverable Table C.2.4.2.

Continuous Improvement: The Contractor shall provide a plan on how to identify, analyze, propose, initiate and implement minor system enhancements at no charge to FSA and process improvements to continuously improve the customer experience, efficiencies and effectiveness of their solution. Offeror shall describe their Continuous Improvement approach as part of the Technical Proposal Volume L.15.2.

Partner & Participation Oversight (PPO): The Contractor shall provide technical solutions in support of FSA’s future PPO. PPO will enhance the front-end engagement layer for partners; enhance processes for compliance and enforcement activities; enhance human capital support for compliance and enforcement activities; engineer, design and develop technology enablers for compliance and enforcement activities; and engineer, design and develop technology enablers for partner-facing business operations processes. As part of the Next Generation environment, PPO will need to integrate with the Enhanced Processing Solution (EPS), Business Processing Operations (BPO) and OPS system and processes in order to provide the full capabilities to customers. "Partner" refers to schools, third party-servicers, etc. and financial partners like NFPs and TIVAS, etc.

Independent Performance Testing: The Contractor shall work aligned with FSA’s performance testing contractor to support independent performance testing of the solution. This includes but is not limited to establishing an independent performance testing environment, providing data set up as required to support performance testing, deploying an operational version of the solution, providing access to independent performance testers to monitor performance, support for identifying and defining performance testing scenarios and addressing performance testing issues identified.

Conference Support: The Contractor shall provide FSA with support for FSA Annual Fall Conference attendance. The services and deliverables provided for conference support shall include various professional services, development of presentations and training. Contractor shall provide training to schools and FSA personnel. As part of FSA’s request for Conference Support, the Contractor shall provide a list of potential conference support participants inclusive of their specific roles and responsibilities.

C.2.3 Operating Elements and Related Requirements

FSA seeks an Optimal Processing Technical Solution addressing functions across the full lifecycle of student financing, from application to pay-off or default, inclusive of FAFSA/Eligibility Determination, Origination & Disbursement Processing, and Servicer Processing System (inclusive of default processing). Potentially no single technology product can provide solutions for all required functions, but rather a set of modular solutions that are seamlessly integrated (e.g., the transfer from origination to servicing should use common data definitions without data loss or errors).

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C.2.3.1 Operating Element 1/Milestone 1: FAFSA & Eligibility Processing. FSA seeks a more efficient and effective solution that shall accurately and efficiently determine eligibility for federal financing, based on applicable laws and regulations, by in-taking and processing various data sources for eligibility determination and calculates an Expected Family Contribution (EFC). The EFC data is then disseminated to financial aid offices at postsecondary schools who uses the data to determine Federal student financial assistance through various grants and loans and performs analysis for various uses by FSA and its partners.

Functions include but are not limited to:

• Development, Implementation, Integration and Deployment

• Application management

• Eligibility Determination

• Results Distribution

• Data Sharing

• Statistical analysis support

• Administration

• Additional Tasks

System and Software Development – Annual Release of the FAFSA Application

The Annual Release of the FAFSA application shall be deployed no later than October 1st of the year prior to the start of each award year or as directed by FSA.

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The activities and effort that are associated with the Annual Release of the FAFSA Application fall into the following two categories:

• The first category is the effort required to make changes to the system and services to enable the processing of an additional award cycle, commonly referred to as Annual Releases.

• The second category is the effort involved in making changes to the system and services that address deficiencies and enhancements to ensure the delivery of quality services as a part of the annual development process.

Currently, FSA utilizes a “cycle” approach to determine eligibility of aid to the school year students plan to attend. Each cycle provides an opportunity to update the application, incorporate regulatory changes, and make other desired and necessary changes. Within an application cycle year, there are two types of scheduled releases 1) cycle start-up and 2) mid-cycle releases. Mid-cycle releases include various types (i.e. production/code corrections, enhancements, and FAFSA corrections shutdown). At any given time, there are 2 active FAFSA cycles and 1 cycle underway: 1) Planning and development for an upcoming FAFSA cycle can take up to 13 months, August of the previous year through September of the year the new FAFSA will be released into production), 2) Operations and Maintenance of the current FAFSA cycle (21 months, October through June of the following year) and 3) Close out of the previous FAFSA cycle (2- 3 months, July through September of the current calendar year). For example, the planning and development for the upcoming 2020-2021 FAFSA cycle began in August 2018, this FAFSA cycle will deploy on October 1, 2019, and will be in production operating through the end of June 2021, (21 months later) as it then enters close out activities through late September 2020 (aligned with the end of a student’s academic year of summer sessions in late August). This is an example of the development cycle. FSA is open to other approaches and offerors are encouraged to propose their view of a highly flexible progressing system to meet and/or exceed FSA’s Optimal Processing Solution vision.

FSA seeks proposals for a more nimble, modular, flexible, and self-serve platform where changes can be easily, efficiently and quickly incorporated by FSA personnel as desired and with routine, continuous and frequent vendor development in a shortened desired release schedule and able to be integrated and aligned with other NextGen environment solutions.

Outcomes

Solution shall meet outcomes and associated targets, supporting FSA’s vision and goals that will be incorporated into the OPS Contract as Service-Level Agreements (SLA). These outcomes include, but are not limited to:

• Flexible and adaptive solution: how quickly (i.e., number of days) eligibility rules can be modified on the solution

• Minimal error rate: software and system corrections made quickly and accurately

• Rapid results sharing: for an applicant’s eligibility data to be disseminated through the NextGen environment

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Offerors shall complete Attachment “19 – Performance Measurement Template” to propose their targets for outcomes. See Section L.15.4.1.7 for instructions on completing Attachment 19.

1. Development, implementation, and integration: Solution shall provide a system in order to develop and process an annual Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) that has FSA’s student eligibility data. Solution shall effectively integrate with the future state digital platform, through which customers and partners will primarily engage with FSA, including the application portion of the lifecycle of student financial assistance.

a. Solution shall provide infrastructure required to process student data submitted through multiple channels, including web, mobile, and paper forms, in addition to third-party software applications via Electronic Data Exchange.

b. Solution shall provide FSA personnel and its authorized users the ability to easily and efficiently receive, test, and implement FAFSA changes and error fixes.

c. Solution shall provide processing functions and data to enable application status and plain language rationale for notifications or rejections to be tracked and accessible to applicants and other approved parties.

d. Solution shall expose relevant services through FSA-designated solutions, e.g., Responsive Web Applications (RWA), Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

e. Solution shall provide a method for schools and third parties to be able to provide FSA with all student’s data.

2. Application Management: Solution shall be designed flexibly to accommodate rapid changes and effective integration with other FSA solutions.

a. Solution shall have a flexible architecture which can be easily and rapidly adapted for changes in eligibility requirements, data sources, and additional business rules as determined by FSA.

b. Solution shall provide capabilities to support and submit applications for re-processing as instructed by FSA.

c. Solution shall maintain and provide access to the prior years of FAFSA data, in accordance with federal records management regulations, in a user-friendly manner for designated users.

d. Solution shall provide capabilities for FSA to review, grant, make corrections and resubmit aid eligibility applications deemed ineligible that require additional computer automated matched or if not possible manual intervention with, but not limited to other federal agencies that have agreements with FSA including but not limited to:

Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service.

e. Solution shall provide capabilities to resolve student identity conflicts.

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3. Eligibility determination: The eligibility process is a high-level business process that uses various data point inputs both from within the Department’s databases and external federal databases (i.e., computer matching agreements) from various data sources (i.e., FAFSA on the web, FAFSA mobile, paper forms, and FAA Access) to produce outputs for various eligibility components (i.e., Student Aid Report (SAR), Student Aid Report Acknowledgement (SAR ACK)) .

The eligibility process determines both an individual student's initial and ongoing qualification for federal financial aid. The eligibility process is organized around three major components which it interacts with; 1) web applications, mobile, paper and EDE, 2) the eligibility system, and 3) PC software. Determining eligibility centers on six core sub processes: it receives the inputted data, processes the data, performs the edits, executes matching, accurately calculates the Expected Family Contribution (EFC), disseminates data to students, schools, and other FSA systems and agencies and conducts verification selection. Determining eligibility also goes through other FSA systems that provides pre-screening financial aid history data, post-screening for changes in financial aid history data (NSLDS), and receipt and storage of demographic data (from the processed ISIR) for institutional research in order to provide accurate determination of a student’s eligibility.

a. Solution shall collect and process new, renewal, or correction applications.

b. Solution shall process inputs from federal agencies, other existing and future FSA solutions, and other internal and external sources.

c. Solution shall provide capabilities to conduct the federal agency matching operations as per the matching agreement cycles.

d. Solution shall provide singular view of a student’s history with FSA (multi-year applicant data).

e. Solution shall provide FSA personnel and/or its…