Solicitation No. 951700-20-R-T017-10 Amendment 01.pdf

R

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. X is not extended.

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 1 copies of the amendment; (b) By acknowledging receipt of this amendment on each copy of the offer submitted;

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.

12. ACCOUNTING AND APPROPRIATION DATA (If required)

13. THIS ITEM APPLIES ONLY TO MODIFICATIONS OF CONTRACTS/ORDERS.

IT MODIFIES THE CONTRACT/ORDER NUMBER AS DESCRIBED IN ITEM 14.

CHECK ONE A. THIS CHANGE ORDER IS ISSUED PURSUANT TO: (Specify authority) THE CHANGES SET FORTH IN ITEM 14 ARE MADE IN THE CONTRACT ORDER

NUMBER IN ITEM 10A.

B. THE ABOVE NUMBERED CONTRACT/ORDER IS MODIFIED TO REFLECT THE ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES (such as changes in paying office, appropriation data, etc.) SET FORTH IN ITEM 14, PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORITY OF FAR 43.103(b).

C. THIS SUPPLEMENTAL AGREEMENT IS ENTERED INTO PURSUANT TO AUTHORITY OF:

D. OTHER (Specify type of modification and authority)

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

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

The purpose of this amendment is to respond to questions.

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.

15A. NAME AND TITLE OF SIGNER (Type or print) 16A. NAME AND TITLE OF CONTRACTING OFFICER (Type or print)

David Wallace, Contracting Officer

15B. CONTRACTOR/OFFEROR

(Signature of person authorized to sign)

15C. DATE SIGNED 16B. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

(Signature of Contracting Officer)

16C. DATE SIGNED

Previous edition unusable STANDARD FORM 30 (REV. 11/2016) Prescribed by GSA FAR (48 CFR) 53.243

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

1 1

2. AMENDMENT/MODIFICATION NUMBER

A01

3. EFFECTIVE DATE

08/18/2020

4. REQUISITION/PURCHASE REQUISITION NUMBER 5. PROJECT NUMBER (If applicable)

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

United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) Office of Contracts 330 Independence Avenue SW Cohen Building, Room 4360 Washington, DC 20237

See Block 6

8. NAME AND ADDRESS OF CONTRACTOR (Number, street, county, State and ZIP Code) (X) 9A. AMENDMENT OF SOLICITATION NUMBER

951700-20-R-T017-10

9B. DATED (SEE ITEM 11)

08/07/2020

10A. MODIFICATION OF CONTRACT/ORDER NUMBE

10B. DATED (SEE ITEM 13)

CODE FACILITY CODE

08/18/2020

Questions and Responses: Solicitation No. 951700-20-R-T017-10 USAGM Affiliate Content Distribution System

1. What is the nature of the content that should be grabbed from CMS? Is this already present in one of the MAM systems?

USAGM content management systems populate audio, video and text (articles and transcripts) to the current usagmdirect.com website. USAGM media asset management systems are currently not integrated into any type of automated workflow into the current usagmdirect.com system.

This System shall first start importing and continuing to ingest CMS Content. Then additional importers shall be developed for USAGM MAM systems. As MAM system importers are developed, redundant content offerings from the CMS would ideally be eliminated.

2. Do you expect vendor to provide Cloud Storage or will USAGM provide the Cloud storage?

USAGM shall provide the cloud storage, either AWS or Microsoft depending on the new systems preference.

3. Do you expect to store HiRes video in cloud as well?

The storage or distribution of 4k or 8k video is not in the scope of this project.

4. Do you expect vendor to provide file acceleration contracts or use USAGM's existing?

Wherever possible, USAGM shall utilize its existing file acceleration contracts.

5. Does the system need to be capable of handling live assets - while recording?

The handling of live assets is out of the scope of this current project.

6. Will existing CMS Platforms Pangea / Voltron remain?

The System shall support content ingest from both Pangea and Voltron content management systems.

7. 1.1.1.1 Should the platform import scripts, rundowns, schedules, planning events, etc. from the MAM systems. Or only media such as video, audio, image?

The System shall import media Content and any related text-based scripts. Rundowns, schedules and planning events are out of the scope of this project.

8. 1.1.1.1 Can the closed-captions come from the MAM systems? Or would the closed-captions always be generated on the platform, after ingest?

USAGM does not have an internally well-defined closed-captioning workflow. Closed-captioning would be an optional feature to be generated on the platform after ingest.

9. 1.1.1.3 Can USAGM confirm that there is no "live" or "growing" support requirements? For example: a MAM recording needs to end/close before it can be referenced on the platform.

Live support is not a requirement of the System at this time.

10. 1.2.1 Does the customer require a dedicated interface for manual import? Or would a watch folder suffice?

Manual imports shall have a web-based interface to manually upload and publish Content to the website with the ability to add associated metadata and transcripts.

11. 1.2.1 Would the customer import camera card content/structure? (P2, XDCAM, etc.)

Camera card content imports would be considered out of scope for this project.

Generally, USAGM offers post-produced content only to its Affiliates/Customers.

12. 1.3.5 Can the customer confirm this is an extraction/merging of the audio tracks of the video assets into a single stereo audio asset?

Extracting and merging separate audio channels from a video Asset in order to create an audio-only offering from the video is acceptable.

13. 1.4 What is the list of all languages USAGM would like to translate from and to? Does it vary from publicly listed language services?

USAGM recognizes that many languages may not be supported within automated translation services.

14. 2.1.2.2 Would registered users be able to gather content into a "shopping cart" before download, or would they download content individually, asset per asset?

USAGM is open to various delivery solutions that may be proposed.

15. 2.1.2.2 Should the website provide a way for registered users to clip or trim assets before downloading them?

This functionality is not currently a requirement.

16. 2.4.1 Would the provided wire service contain video links to the platform, or the video itself in a high-res/lower resolution?

There are instances where both options may be required.

17. 2.4.1 Would the content of the wire feed be customarily selected/annotated by a media manager, or would it be automatically generated based on all content ingested daily?

The System API shall contain parameters or filters that will enable custom Content selection based on USAGM network, language, language service, programs, content categories, and keywords.

18. 2.5 Does USAGM require a manual user approval/review process after the automatic translation, to fine-tune and correct the translation before being visible on the public facing website?

Editorial editing and review would be necessary to approve publishing to the Website.

19. 3.2.4 Can you confirm that the registration of new users need to be validated by an administrator or media manager prior to allowing access to the content? Or only prior to allowing the download of content?

Registration and approval are not required to preview content but it is required to download content.

20. Legacy content: does USAGM require any legacy content to be imported/sorted/annotated before it goes on production?

Legacy or archive content of any significant volume is not a current requirement. Most content to be imported into the System shall be daily and weekly news programs and packages which shall generally have a default expiration and deletion from the system after 30 days.

21. 2.2.1 Automated push delivery of file-based content to Affiliate/Customer shall include the following methods: File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers, Aspera servers, Signiant servers, Amazon S3 buckets, and Azure Blob storage. Are all these automated push methods required from the start or can we start with 2-3 and add more later?

USAGM recognizes that all requested delivery methods may not be available with proposed “out-of-the-box” solutions. Development efforts on a reasonable timeframe are to be expected.

22. 2.5 The Contractor shall provide media indexing with machine translation. Please provide more info. What is required here: Speech to text, also on screen text extraction or not? Do we need a UI for fixing subtitles, reviewing machine translation results?

Minimally, speech to text shall be extracted with keywords indexed for public search. A UI would be necessary to edit and correct machine transcriptions and translations.

23. 3.2.7. Browser compatibility - Is it mandatory to support Internet Explorer 11? If so it will be more limited than other more advanced browsers.

USAGM understands the limitations of Internet Explorer 11 and would expect a reduction in capabilities.

24. RFI timeline - Could you please clarify reg the RFI timeline? What is the deadline for announcing the winning provider for this bid?

The USAGM anticipates awarding the contract September 2020.

25. RFI timeline - Could you please clarify reg the RFI timeline? What should be the contract award date for the winning bidder?"

See response to question 24 above.

26. Implementation milestones - Reg the scope and scale of the required project and deliverables - how firm / flexible is the time line presented in the RFI? Will the USAGM consider extending the initially suggested timeline?

There is no flexibility in the timeline.

27. 1.3.2. By default, a maximum of 6 combined HD and SD video formats of varying aspect ratios, frame rates and bitrates shall be transcoded for every video asset. Could the USAGM indicate what would be the amount of actual ingest jobs required to handle? - Average daily? - Maximum concurrent?

The System shall ingest up to 400 video, 500 audio, and 500 text content items on a given peak weekday.

Max Daily Ingest

VIDEO AUDIO

Less than 5 minutes 256 (64%) 230 (46%) Between 5-30 minutes 88 (22%) 130 (26%) Greater than 30 minutes 56 (14%) 140 (28%)

28. 2.3. Affiliate distribution system transfer amounts …. Concurrent bandwidth usage for any given time frame is quite low. Please provide more information regarding the BW required for content delivery from the system to affiliates - Minimum BW requirements? - Max concurrent deliveries required?"

USAGM estimates that a maximum burst speed of 1 gigabit/s ought to be sufficient to deliver up to 30 simultaneous transfers.

29. 4.2.2. Digital Rights Management (DRM) - Is there an actual specific DRM service provider currently integrated and used by the current system?

USAGM does not currently use a specific DRM service provider on its current system.

30. 4.2.2. Digital Rights Management (DRM) - Is there a need for an actual DRM certification for the delivered assets or are the functionalities mentioned in the paragraph sufficient as long as they are supported by the system's business rules?

A DRM certification is currently not required.

31. 1.6. Assets shall be stored on USAGM managed Amazon Web Services and/or Microsoft Azure accounts. Can we provide the master storage within our system?

What is the exact purpose that USAGM wants to be owner of that storage?

USAGM would prefer to manage the storage of media Assets for both cost and security reasons.

32. 1.3.1. Transcoding services shall support a wide range of audio/video formats and codecs. - Which are the common output formats required for content delivery?

The System will provide industry standard broadcasting formats for a wide range of international broadcasters.

33. 2.5. The Contractor shall provide media indexing with machine translation. - Please confirm the requirement falls under voice to text? What are the languages requiring support?

Minimally, speech to text shall be extracted with keywords indexed for public search. A UI would be necessary to edit and correct machine transcriptions and translations.

USAGM recognizes that many languages may not be supported within automated translation services.

34. 2.2. System shall provide push / point to point delivery options. - Does that mean an order is automatically triggered by content metadata?

Push delivery orders will be triggered by the manual selection by an Affiliate/Customer to either have every new episode of a specific program delivered to a predefined delivery location or upon selecting an individual piece of Content and choosing instead of downloading to their desktop a predefined delivery location.

35. How many total users will need to access the system? Internal and external.

Internal users that need access to the system number around 100. External users number 2000.

36. Does each USAGM entity need to have its own isolated catalog?

If selected, The Contractor shall present an html design with creative latitude as to the best approach in presenting and promoting USAGM programs and documentaries.

Generally, programs will be filtered and presented by USAGM entity network and language.

37. Can customers only browse content assigned to them, can they see embargoed content but not use?

Affiliates/Customers shall only see Content that they have the rights to use available to them.

38. Do we need to share content across all USAGM departments?

Internal USAGM Content sharing is not a requirement.

39. Does each branded network need its own home page?

Each branded network shall have their own branded home page.

40. How many channels of audio for each file and do they need to be isolated for playback?

Audio channels shall be transcoded according to how the source file from which they originated.

41. Are audio and video files separated or are they embedded into the video?

Video files will have embedded audio. However, one transcoding requirement is to create an audio only file from each video and make that available for radio station simulcasts.

42. On ingest, do the incoming media files utilize a sidecar file for data delivery?

Depending on the ingest integration approach for some USAGM systems this may be one potential option.

43. Please define the use of the term importer? Is this a watchfolder action or a separate service that reaches out to content providers?

The term importer is understood by USAGM to be one defined method of importing Content into the new System. This may be a custom watch folder, or a feed ingest from API or MRSS.

44. Do you want essence tracking in the system for HD and SD formats? Is the media to be viewed as children of the apparent assets, or to viewed as separate assets in the search result?

Analytics shall track by both title and individual file format. Search results do not need to present the formats.

45. Do you have any IMF codec workflows?

USAGM shall continue to use a traditional MPEG workflow. An IMF solution at this point in time would be considered out of scope for this project.

46. Does each language need its own side car document or is it embedded as CC into the video?

Related files like transcripts shall be presented for download as separate files.

47. What news wire language/protocols are needed for NRCS support?

USAGM desires a wire feed service from this System to support the ingest of USAGM content into major news production systems like ENPS, OCTOPUS, and Dalet.

48. What format are the transcripts delivered in and what language do they utilize?

Not every piece of Content shall require a transcript. The current USAGM workflow for transcripts is manual. Transcripts are uploaded separately and related to the video.

Transcript automation is a workflow aspiration where software with editorial corrective edits shall create the transcripts for many more USAGM packages.

49. Do you have multiple closed captioning versions being tracked?

USAGM does not have a closed captioning workflow in production at this time. Multiple closed captioning versions are not being tracked.

50. How do you mark/denote evergreen content?

Evergreen content is marked by specific Content categories like Documentary. The System shall enable administrators to choose which categories are considered evergreen. Content within those categories marked as evergreen shall inherit an evergreen no delete or expiration policy.

51. Do you utilize any AI intelligence or AI translation engines?

AI workflows have not been well established across all of USAGM.

52. Do both AWS and Microsoft platforms/repositories need to sync or are they two separate systems and workflows?

USAGM currently uses and supports both AWS and Microsoft clouds services and repositories. Syncing between these two is not a requirement.

53. Does each customer need add credentials for delivery to their cloud storage, or will credentials be stored/managed on the back end?

Ideally, each Affiliate/Customer shall have the option to choose their push delivery method(s) and self-service their own server or storage credentials. However, USAGM administrators shall have the ability to add, edit or delete these credentials in order to help an Affiliate/Customer if necessary.

54. How would you like to gather analytics? With automated services or manual? Also does the analytics need to be gathered daily weekly or monthly?

Analytics shall be both automated and manual for any given time-frame which would include daily, weekly and monthly.

55. How should branded content be delivered? In a zip/containerized file or IMF package?

USAGM is open to more efficient delivery solutions. However, packaged deliveries like zip or IMF is not a requirement.

56. What level of integration is needed with Salesforce? (API? XML Paging?)

The preferred Salesforce integration would utilize the Salesforce API.

57. What current integrations are being used for Salesforce CRM?

With regards to integrating between the current usagmdirect.com system and Salesforce there is no custom integration.

58. Does any part of the system need to be On-Prem?(Storage, transcode, etc)

USAGM would prefer a completely cloud based solution.

59. Are there any additional billing or project management application that need integrations?

Additional billing or project management application integrations would be considered out of the scope for this project.

60. Is Section 3 intended to cover perpetual software licensing of the product?

USAGM would consider any custom website created by The Contractor to be property owned by USAGM with perpetual usage rights.

61. Please confirm if the Milestones in Section 6 correspond to the US Government Fiscal Year Schedule.

The milestones do correspond with the US government fiscal year starting October 1, 2020.

62. You reference push delivery in 2.1 and 2.1.2.2.1.2. Are we right in thinking that you are defining “push” delivery method as an instance whereby a user manually selects a piece of content to be transferred to a location that is not the users desktop but rather a server that may or may not be hosted by a third party? We have also experienced “push” delivery defined as an instance where ALL content is automatically pushed/file transferred to a predetermined location. In the solicitation, does “push” ever refer to automatically and impartially transferring ALL content from one location to another?

Push delivery of all content is a possibility but only upon USAGM approval. This would be a very select group of Affiliates/Customers that may request this option. The most important automated push delivery we envision are the latest episodes of a program.

Automatic program push delivery should be a self-service option for any Affiliate/Customer.

63. 1.4. The System shall include a media indexing service with translation engine. Do you expect the fixed text to be made available in the languages listed or do you expect dynamic text entered by users/content contributors to be translated in the selected languages for the end user?

Only the fixed text shall be made available.

64. 2.1.2.2.1.3. Affiliates/Customers shall have the option to choose a custom format to be transcoded on-demand. We already have 25-30 predefined transcode formats. This option appears open ended. Can it be restricted in any way?

Predefined transcoding formats numbering 25-30 would be considered plenty to fulfill this requirement.

65. 1.6. Assets shall be stored on USAGM managed Amazon Web Services and/or

Microsoft Azure accounts. Are storage costs for USAGM’s managed Amazon or Azure accounts considered outside of our responsibility or do we include them in our fees/bid?

USAGM would prefer to assume and manage storage assets and their related costs.

66. 2.5. The Contractor shall provide media indexing with machine translation. Assume a piece of video content WITH audio is uploaded. What are we indexing? What outputs are expected for display (2.5.2)?

Minimally, the audio will be automatically transcribed with timecodes. Automatic transcriptions shall be optionally made available for download as a text or srt file.

Keywords from the transcription will be indexed for search.

67. Will you share questions and answers from all vendors with us?

All questions and answers from every vendor have been shared within this document.

68. Are there any citizenship requirements for the developers? For the 24x7 managed services team?

USAGM does not have citizenship requirements for the developers or other Contractor personnel assigned to this project.

69. For CLIN 3, does the 1750 hours represent hours per year for each developer?

This is an estimate of total, billable development hours needed for the first year.

These hours can be split amongst a group of developers depending on their expertise.

70. For CLIN 1003 and 2003 and 3003 and 4003, what does 160 hours represent?

This is an estimate for professional services which may include some custom administration or development work that would fall outside the parameters of regular support.

71. Under Scope in 2.6, how frequently should subscribed information be delivered?

Subscription email and/or text messages shall be delivered according to the Content that an Affiliate/Customer is interested in tracking. Mainly, our Affiliates/Customers would use this notification to track specific daily and weekly programs that are carried by their station. General System download success and failure messages would not be necessary for desktop downloads, only for push deliveries which may only account for 10% of all Content deliveries. Our best estimate based on current usage would be 200-300 emails and/or text messages per day.

72. Under Scope in 5.5, is there a specific ticketing system used by USAGM's Help Desk?

USAGM uses FootPrints by BMC.

73. Is there any documentation/process for ATO?

Documenting the attached security controls were used with a recent similar project in order to work through the Authorization to Operate process. The USAGM technical security office will schedule several security sessions with The Contractor in order to walk through and explain these controls and security references.

74. Is there any API documentation we can have to look at? Is is possible to have example of what data is coming from what system?

Most of our systems are industry standard and not custom with "out-of-the-box" API's like Dalet, Kaltura and Drupal. However, the biggest CMS for which all Video, audio, images and articles (text files and transcripts) is custom and called Pangea. Here is the API documentation for that system:

Pangea API Methods: https://showcase.pangea-cms.com/a/pangea-api-methods/29663099.html

Pangea API Methods and Models: https://showcase.pangea-cms.com/a/pangea-api-methods-and-models/29663096.html

75. 1.1.1.2 What data is coming from the CMS systems?

The data from CMS systems required for ingest and presentation to our Affiliates/Customers includes video, audio, images and text (articles/transcripts) with associated metadata.

76. 1.1.2 Will the existing MAM and CMS system be retired at some point after the new CMS is in place?

This may be a possibility but not in the near-term future anytime within this next Fiscal Year.

77. 1.1.2.2, 1.1.2.3, 1.1.2.4 Should we assume the APIs will provide the information necessary for importers to work (update dates, metadata, language, content categories)?

Any missing information hindering the proper presentation or ingest of Content into the new affiliate distribution System from the API shall be corrected by USAGM.

78. 1.3.2. Is this the same default values for all assets? What are those formats/aspect ratios/ frame rates/ bit rates?

We will be using broadcast industry standards for the distribution of digital video files with standard resolutions of 1080, 720, and 480 at 29.97 and 25 frames per second. Bitrates will vary depending on source mezzanine files. Naturally, transcoded bitrates shall not exceed the bitrate of the ingested source file.

79. 1.3.3. How many and what other optional formats should be given as options?

We expect that other "on-demand" file transcoded options shall be offered as part of a general suite of formats on offer from any generic cloud transcoding system or transcoding as a service.

80. 1.4 can you please provide more details on what is expected for this item?

This primarily refers to the automatic generation of video time-coded transcriptions with the ability to edit transcripts and translate them into other languages.

81. 2.4 are there any examples of the usage of this API and what methods/data it would be expected to provide?

The API shall be capable of producing a custom wire service feed with metadata and media file delivery capabilities that would be used for ingesting Content with metadata into newsroom systems. Newsroom systems include ENPS, OCTOPUS, and Dalet.

82. 2.6 Would we need to provide users with a way to subscribe to programs/categories?

Subscription service options shall be provided within the System as part of an Affiliate/Customer account preferences.

83. "2.6.2 is this to all subscribed users on every download? or this something to sent only to internal users? Should the notification be different if they have choosen and automated delivery method? When a new asset is uploaded should the notification be sent right away? or will there be any approval/publish process or any wait time to allow for any updates before the notification is sent and the auto delivery is triggered?

Would this be triggered by the content importers in 1.1.2? or on manual uploads? or any time any asset is upload/updated no matter the method?

Subscription email and/or text messages shall be delivered according to the Content that an Affiliate/Customer is interested in tracking. Mainly, our Affiliates/Customers would use this notification to track specific daily and weekly programs that are carried by their station. General System download success and failure messages would not be necessary for desktop downloads, only for push deliveries which may only account for 10% of all Content deliveries. Our best estimate based on current usage would be 200-300 emails and/or text messages per day. New Asset notifications shall be sent immediately upon publication to the website. Assets are to be published only when all default transcoded versions are available.

84. 3.5.1.1 this will be only on initial upload? if there is an update should that be notified too?

One notification shall be sent upon new Asset publication to the website.

85. 3.5.1.3 should we provide the option of adding multiple configurations? and give the option to choose between the pre-configured methods when subscribing to a program?

The option to provide multiple configurations with choices of preconfigured methods when subscribing would be preferred.

86. 3.5.1.4 This refers to sections 3.5.2.1 which does not exist in the document, just to confirm this meant 3.5.1.2?

3.5.1.4 would be better referenced as 3.5.1.3 which specifically discusses the need for self-service delivery options by adding server credentials.

87. 3.5.1.5 does this mean giving the option when subscribing? and if they don't choose any automated delivery they would have to use a download link?

A preferred approach would give options to be notified upon the successful transfer or failure of an automated push delivery. System users shall always have the option of download links regardless of which push delivery methods have been configured.

88. 3.5.2 and 3.5.3. Assuming you are expecting to have a user settings/preferences page where they can set this up.

User account preferences would generally be expected to have a dedicated area or section within the website.

89. 3.6.1 would this be a separate pages per catalog? How would it be structured in the

CMS?

The selected Contractor shall present an html design with creative latitude as to the best approach in presenting and promoting USAGM programs and documentaries. Generally, programs will be filtered by network and language.

90. 3.6.2 can we have a detailed example of how this would be expected to work?

SAME ANSWER AS ABOVE

91. 3.7 is this entity networks list (VOA, RFE/RL, OCB, RFA, MBN) something that could change? should we have a management view for this?

These are the branded networks that represent USAGM which are not expected to change.

92. 4.2.2 how would this behave, the content will not be shown at all if blocked? or it needs to be shown but not reproducible or downloadable and show a message saying it is blocked?

If Content is blocked by USAGM for any reason to any group of Affiliates/Customers either by country or exclusivity then the content would just not be shown to those Affiliates/Customers that fall into a blocked group.

93. 4.2.3 talks about playlist, but it is not mentioned anywhere else how that should work?

Playlist was only meant to refer to a filtered category listing of content. For example, if an Asset is categorized as USA Politics and an editor would like to highlight that Asset to be presented as the first Asset listed within USA Politics, then they would have the option to somehow mark the Asset as "pinned" or "highlighted" content. This Asset would override the general sort order by publishing date.

4.2.4.2 what data exactly needs to be sent to the create the Lead in salesforce?

The following information shall be collected upon user registration and sent to Salesforce as a Lead.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email Address:

Phone Number 1:

Phone Number 2:

Preferred Language: Spanish Country:

City:

Company Information:

Company Name:

Job Title / Position:

Company Facebook URL:

Company Twitter URL:

Website URL:

Organization Type:

Audience Size:

How did you hear about us:

94. 4.2.4 this means a regional systems administration management view is needed? can there be multiple regional administrators?

Our marketing offices may have more than one regional site administrator.

95. 4.2.5.5 what would be the process for this? does it have to be approved by a region admin again?

In order for an account to be reactivated, an affiliate would be prompted with a message saying that their account has been deactivated, would you like to make this account active again? If yes then this would trigger the same approval process as a brand new registration which would require regional admin approval.

96. 4.3 does this mean that content can be manually marked as available just to registered users when uploaded or updated? or how would this work?

For this use case, content program categories would control which content would not be available for preview to unregistered users. For further clarification, it is expected that daily and weekly episodic program Assets will be give the program name as a category. So a weekly music program like Border Crossings would have all Assets according to its category labeled "Border Crossings" would be set to no-preview for registered users.

97. 5.1.1 Has any design work or research been performed for this project already and can it be shared with us?

USAGM has not documented any design work or research for this project.

98. 5.1.2 Will you want to apply "Design Thinking" methodology (a holistic approach to design experience) to improve the user experience or a simple redesign based on the current user experience?

USAGM is open to all new ideas and approaches to website design as suggested by The Contractor.

99. 5.1.3 How much tailoring do you foresee needing for this Product from what is available "off-the-shelf"? Highly customized to your exact needs?

In terms of the website design there will be a need for customizations related to both the broadcast industry and USAGM branding and promotion.

100. 5.2.1 What are the different content types (articles, live video, archived video, audio/podcasts, etc…) you are expecting to present?

Audio and Video (No Live Content), Images, Text (articles) and Transcripts that need to be related to Video Assets.

101. 5.2.2 Are you pleased with the way the content is currently organized and structured in the current product? Why or why not?

Our current website is a massive Content aggregator with content from our different branded networks in 50+ languages. There are user challenges searching and filtering content that they are interested in using. Mainly, for new users they ought to be presented with only the correct localized site in their language preference and their network preference to avoid confusion. Also, there is confusion between choosing a language localization verses the language content filter. Many users expect that by changing the site language they will automatically be presented with only that content.

102. 5.3.1 Can you provide any research/information about your current users such as user surveys, personas, or interviews?

We do not have any official user feedback that can be shared at this time.

103. 5.3.2 Do you have data on what devices your users will primarily be viewing the platform on?

Primarily, these users will be using a desktop browser, both PC and Mac.

104. 5.4.1 Is there an inhouse designer/design team that we would be working with?

USAGM will assign an in-house designer to help project and product manage the design aspects of the Website.

105. "5.4.2 Can you provide: Style, brand, and/or design guides? Web specifications in these guides? Digital assets for logo, typefaces, illustration, and images used in the current website? Content type examples?

Our networks will be able to provide brand and style guides along with logos any images necessary for the Website.

106. 5.5 Can you tell us what accessibility standards you will need to follow for visual and interactive design?

Accessibility guidelines when possible shall follow WCAG 2.1 adopted by the W3C in 2018.

107. 5.6 Please describe what you think will be the optimal outcome for your viewers after this project. For example, ability to view content anywhere at any time? Can easily find the content they are interested in when it becomes available?

The optimal outcome for this project will be noted improvements in more easily navigating and searching for content, improved file acceleration and transfer speeds as well as adding the capability into the System for immediate new content available notifications as well as self-service push downloads. For push or automated downloads, it is very important that Affiliates/Customers shall immediately receive new program episodes one their servers or storage locations once the program episodes are available.

108. 1.6 Are you interested in using kubernetes or docker?

With regards to process orchestration, USAGM is agnostic.

109. 1.6 Will the client purchase and manage the domain and subdomain names?

USAGM will provide domains and all DNS management.

110. 1.6 Will the client provide DNS services?

USAGM administrators will manage the DNS entries of any of the domains or subdomains associated with the new website.

111. 3.5 Is SSO required? If SSO, what's the SSO product currently used?

USAGM currently use Microsoft 365 in the cloud version.

112. 5.5 Does this application require high availability for non-production environments (i.e. require clustering)? If so, which environments?

USAGM does not require high availability for Development or Staging environments.

113. 5.5 Is having a disaster recovery environment required?

The Contractor shall provide a Cloud Disaster Recovery plan as part of its SaaS, PaaS and/or IaaS solution.

114. 5.5 If disaster recovery is needed then, are there specific RTO/RPO numbers that need to be met?

USAGM requires a 4-hour RTO with an 8-hour RPO.

115. 5.5 Do you have any preference for a specific primary and DR region(s)?

USAGM would prefer a US region.

116. 5.5 Do you have archival needs beyond backups (ability to recover to specific date in the past from backups)?

USAGM does not consider this to be an archival system. Media archives and the integrity and retention rules surrounding original copies of media content are managed and governed by internal systems designed for archiving. Once content has been expired and groomed from the new System it can only be recovered by re-ingesting it from an internal USAGM system.

117. 5.5 If so, what environment(s) and specific data would you like archived?

Not Applicable

118. 5.5 If so, what are the archival parameters (e.g. archive once a week and go back 3 years)?

Not Applicable

119. 6.1 Is encryption at rest required?

Encryption at rest will only be required for Affiliate/Customer profile data.

120. 6.1 If so, what data specifically requires encryption at rest?

Specifically, Affiliate/Customer information like name, email and phone numbers, and push delivery credentials shall be stored within a database that provides both rest and transit encryption.

121. 6.1 Do you have a preference for firewall/IDS, or other cloud solutions for security?

USAGM is agnostic with regards to firewall/IDS or other cloud security solutions.

122. 6.2 Will the client provide SSL certificates?

USAGM network administrators shall provide and manage SSL certificates needed for the domains associated with the Website.