Amendment 0002 - RFI Responses 07.15.24.pdf

Solicitation Number: 95332A24N00002

Solicitation Title: Request for Information: AmeriCorps – Robotics Process Automation Services

Amendment Number: 0002

Date: 15 July 2024

1. Amendment 0001 submitted on 11 July 2024 extended the RFI submission due date from Friday, 12

July 2024 at 12:00 PM EST to 19 July 2024 at 12:00 PM EST.

2. The Request for Information has been revised. Please see the document titled “REVISED Request for

Information – RPA Services 07.12.24” for AmeriCorps – Robotics Process Automation Services for further information.

3. The Draft Performance Work Statement (PWS) has been revised. Please see the document titled

“REVISED Draft RPA Services PWS 07.12.24” for further information.

4. Questions have been received from vendors. Please see the responses below.

SOLICITATION QUESTIONS

Question 01: Is this a new requirement? If not, can the Government please share the name of the incumbent and the current contract under which these services are being performed?

Response 01: AmeriCorps' Office of Accounting & Financial Management Services (AFMS) is utilizing Robotics Process Automation software available via UiPath Orchestrator, and services via a Contractor. The Contract Awardee is RemedyBiz and was awarded as a GSA Multiple Award

Schedules Task Order. The AmeriCorps Task Order Number is 95332A23F00007.

However, the subject Request for Information is seeking information that may lead to an Agency-wide RPA effort and is being sought by AmeriCorps' Office of Information Technology.

Question 02: Can you please specify the number of bots, both Attended and Unattended that are currently deployed within the agency?

Response 02: AmeriCorps' Office of Accounting & Financial Management Services (AFMS) currently has four (4) attended bots.

However, the subject Request for Information is seeking information that may lead to an Agency-wide RPA effort and is being sought by AmeriCorps' Office of Information Technology.

Question 03: Are there any considerations for how many Unattended and Attended bots per fiscal year?

Response 03: AmeriCorps' plan is to use this RFI for planning purposes. Currently, the number of

Bots to be deployed yearly is unknown.

Question 04: Is UiPath the preferred RPA software for this project, or are other RPA tools also considered acceptable? If other tools are acceptable, are there any specific criteria they must meet?

Response 04: The Government is considering cloud solution (PaaS\SaaS) and on-prem solutions utilizing UiPath technologies.

Question 05: Will the Government confirm that with this is looking to procure both software licenses and support services?

Response 05: This market research effort seeks to find information for a Contractor to procure software licenses and provide the support services for the tasks outlined within the Draft

Performance Work Statement.

Question 06: Can the Government please share an anticipated procurement timeline?

Response 06: Currently, the Government is conducting market research and does not yet have a procurement timeline.

Question 07: As the question in the RFI Document is asking for pricing estimates, can the Government please clarify the complexity levels of the automation so that the vendors can understand the level of effort required to complete these automations?

Response 07: Please use medium complexity as a baseline for response on the scale of low, medium, and high complexity. Government would like to know the details of how the different levels of complexities are defined to be able to answer this question as this can be subjective per vendor and each vendor's definition of complexity levels.

Question 08: What is the expected ratio of technical staff (e.g., software engineers, architects) to non-technical staff (e.g., business analysts, document specialists) for the RPA projects?

Response 08: Currently, the Government is conducting market research. Further information will be available to the Contract Awardee after contract award.

Question 09: Are there any specific certifications or qualifications that are mandatory for the personnel involved in the project? Are certifications from UiPath mandatory, or are equivalent certifications from other RPA providers acceptable?

Response 09: The Draft Performance Work Statement outlines the experience, functional responsibilities, and minimum education requirements for personnel. The Government prefers personnel to have experience with UiPath software and bot development and capacity to obtain

UiPath software certification.

Question 10: Are there any specific guidelines or preferences for subcontracting to small businesses? Are there any set-aside requirements or goals?

Response 10: Currently, the Government is conducting market research. The market research will aid in determining if a subsequent requirement will be considered restricted to small businesses.

Question 11: Are there particular GSA Schedule labor categories that AmeriCorps prefers for this project?

Are there any restrictions on using non-GSA Schedule labor categories?

Response 11: The Draft PWS outlines labor categories (LCATs) including the duties, functional responsibilities, and minimum education and experience for the effort. For this RFI, the

Government will accept information for any LCAT that adheres to the responsibilities outlined in the PWS and can fulfill the requirement. Please differentiate between the GSA-Schedule and open market LCATs.

Question 12: The RFI states, “RPA services must adapt to the Agency’s current technologies and infrastructure and support future growth and technology advancement.” Please provide a breakdown of the existing technologies and infrastructure in place to support RPA.

Response 12: The Government is currently leveraging a wide range of Azure services (such as

Azure Synapse, Azure Purview, ADLS, Azure App Services, Storage, SQL); Microsoft Office 365 suite, and Microsoft Power Platform. Other systems/tools that may be utilized include ServiceNow, Jira, GitHub, and Oracle Finance

Question 13: Does AmeriCorps plan to develop unattended UiPath automation coordinated by a UiPath

Orchestrator, or will attended automation be largely deployed? If a blended unattended/attended approach is chosen, what percentage of attended and unattended RPA is AmeriCorps expecting within the first year of service?

Response 13: The scope of unattended versus attended bots is not defined. Further information may be available if the Government provides a solicitation for product/services.

Question 14: Does AmeriCorps have an existing UiPath Robot licensing to be used?

Response 14: No.

Question 15: Has the Government performed an infrastructure assessment to ensure environment and system readiness? If not, would an infrastructure assessment be anticipated as part of the initial system setup?

Response 15: The Government anticipates performing an infrastructure assessment before developing/deploying bot(s).

Question 16: Please confirm whether vendors should include UiPath license costs in the estimated pricing requested by the RFI. Further, please confirm that AmeriCorps will provide the UiPath developer licenses that contractors can install on their laptops and contractors do not need to acquire UiPath developer license separately to provide the RPA services for AmeriCorps.

Response 16: AmeriCorps requires that the vendor provides the licenses and be the liaison between

AmeriCorps and UiPath for acquiring the licenses. Vendor should include the costing of licenses.

Also, vendor shall be accountable for only paying for licenses in use; AmeriCorps shall not pay for licenses that are not in use and are estimated for future use. For example; if 10 UiPath Production licenses are needed for the end goal of the project; AmeriCorps will only pay for licenses as they go live in Production in phases.

Question 17: Please confirm that the contractor will return any Government-owned property/data, such as member information and PII data, as well as AmeriCorps information/data collected during the RPA support, and the Government will have unlimited rights to all deliverables per FAR 52.227-14.

Response 17: The Contractor will return any Government-owned property/data, such as member information and PII data, as well as AmeriCorps information/data collected during the RPA support, and the Government will have unlimited rights to all deliverables per applicable FAR

Clauses and statutes/regulations.

Question 18: The Draft PWS (Section 1.18.3.2 – Key Personnel Replacement Process: Contractor Request) states the following:

"... all proposed substitutes/additions must have qualifications that meet or exceed the qualifications of the person to be replaced."

To avoid staffing limitations and subsequent delays, would the Government consider that key personnel replacements meet or exceed the established labor category descriptions/requirements and not the qualifications of the vacating personnel?

Response 18: Section 1.18.3.2 - Key Personnel Replacement Process: Contractor Request has been updated. Please see the revised Draft PWS attached, titled "REVISED Draft RPA Services PWS

07.12.24”

Question 19: Will the Government accept and evaluate commercial clients' past performance(s)?

Response 19: This RFI will be used for planning purposes only. There is no evaluation or scoring component. Regardless of entity type, past performances that are similar is scope may be shared.

Question 20: What contract vehicle does the Government plan to use for this effort?

Response 20: Currently, the Government is conducting market research. The contracting vehicle to fulfill this potential requirement has not yet been determined.

Question 21: Who is providing the RPA infrastructure support? The CIO's office or the contractor?

Response 21: AmeriCorps’ Office of Information Technology (OIT) will provide infrastructure support.

Question 22: Does the Government anticipate issuing a solicitation and awarding the follow-on contract before the incumbent contract's current performance year expires?

Response 22: The subject RFI is to conduct market research for a prospective Agency-wide RPA program. There is no incumbent for this effort.

Question 23: Is the current contractor working with AmeriCorps’ AFMS operating an RPA program without an ATO (pilot, etc.)? Is the support for ATO to achieve additional features/functions of the RPA software?

Response 23: There is no agency-wide RPA program. As such, the Authority to Operate (ATO) will be necessary.

Question 24: Will the Government consider reducing the years of experience to: 1) 5 years of experience for developers and 2) 5-10 years of experience for business analysts.

Response 24: The Government is not considering reducing the years of experience for labor categories. Respondents shall provide information considering the personnel requirements within the revised Draft PWS.

Question 25: Would the Government consider limiting the key positions at the BPA level to a Project

Manager ("Project Manager / Subject Matter Expert) and a Technical Lead (combined Senior Development

Specialist / IT Subject Matter Specialist and Business Subject Matter Specialist / Senior Functional

Specialist)? Additional positions could be defined as key in individual task orders, as required by the scope of the work.

Response 25: Currently, the Government is conducting market research. A decision as to which positions are outlined as key personnel may be decided at a later time. For the subject requirement, please utilize the information within the current Draft PWS.

Question 26: Would the Government consider any substitutes to the years of experience requirements in order to show resource quality (e.g., certifications, training, etc.)?

Response 26: Currently, the Government is conducting market research. A decision as to specific qualifications substitutes for key and non-key personnel may be decided at a later time. For the subject requirement, please utilize the information within the current Draft PWS.

Question 27: The guarantee of 4 key positions over the life of the 5-year BPA will require contractors to bid at significantly higher pricing in order to minimize the attrition of key personnel. Would the

Government consider limiting the key positions at the BPA level (additional positions could be bid at the task order level), or allowing some flexibility for substitution of key personnel at the start of each option period?

Response 27:

Question 28: Is the intent to design and develop an ATO environment where Bots can be deployed or is there an ATO environment which can be leveraged where the Bots can be deployed?

Response 28: Currently, AmeriCorps is conducting market research. As such, the Agency has not yet decided as to the ATO environment properties for the bot deployment.

Question 29: Will the Bots need to generate output reports including graphs and charts?

Response 29: AmeriCorps is using this RFI to assist with planning and could very well expect graphs and charts as outputs. Please use medium complexity as a baseline for response on the scale of low, medium, high complexity.

Question 30: Will the Bots perform user actions in external system for transactional and/or reporting purposes?

Response 30: Currently, the Government is conducting market research. The use of the bots may be to perform user actions in external system for transactional and/or reporting purposes.

Question 31: How often do you plan to run the Bots (Daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc.) or is this intended to be determined as a part of the planning?

Response 31: The plan to run bots depends upon the requirement, task, and systems involved. In this market research phase, the frequency of running bots is undetermined. If a solicitation is released, further information will be included.

Question 32: For any of the Labor Categories identified are there alternate experience exceptions to the educational requirements? For example, certifications or an additional number of years’ experience.

Response 32:

Question 33: Are the minimum number of years’ experience in lieu of the Educational Requirements?

Response 33: No.

Question 34: How are the tasks intended to be replaced by Bots currently being supported?

Response 34: Tasks that may be considered for automation are being handled manually.

Question 35: Does AmeriCorps have any enterprise systems modernization efforts underway or planned that will be concurrent with the RPA Services period of performance?

Response 35: AmeriCorps is continually modernizing its systems.

Question 36: To provide a more accurate ROM estimate, can AmeriCorps please provide an estimate of the complexity levels (e.g., low, medium, high) that comprise the total number of automations sought per year?

Response 36: Please use medium complexity as a baseline for response.

Question 37: Can AmeriCorps clarify what it means by ‘categorize’ the automations?

Response 37: The reference to “categorize” is removed. Please see the revised PWS (Performance

Work Statement) for further information.

Question 38: Regarding pricing, is the Government intending to receive pricing for the range of bots for 1-

10; 11-20; and 21-30?

Response 38: Yes.