Enterprise_Electronic_Fax__RFI_AG-3144-I-17-0008.pdf

OCIO ELECTRONIC FAX Project Page 1 of 8 Request for Information

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

OCIO ENTERPRISE ELECTRONIC FAX

1.0 DESCRIPTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is seeking information for the use of a service(s) or solution(s) to support the Office of the Chief Information Officer Electronic Fax (OCIOEF) to USDA Agencies and Departmental Offices.

The goal of the OCIOEF solution is to provide an Enterprise electronic fax solution that can be used by business and IT professionals across USDA and supporting agencies.

The OCIOEF solution will allow USDA to make germane IT investment decisions supporting the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform (FITARA), strategic sourcing, and shared services.

1.2 THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY.

This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes – it does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP)/Request for Quote (RFQ) or a promise to issue an RFP/RFQ in the future. This request for information does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Further, USDA is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals.

In accordance with FAR 52.215-3, Request for Information or Solicitation for Planning Purposes, the Government will not pay for any information/items submitted in response to the RFI. Respondees are advised that the U.S. Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI; all costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party’s expense.

Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFP/RFQ, if any is issued. No determination as to the viability of this requirement has been made at this point and there is currently no solicitation for this effort. Any solicitation resulting from this RFI will be announced separately.

2.0 CURRENT ENVIRONMENT SUMMARY

2.1 BACKGROUND and CURRENT FAX FUNCTIONALITY

Client Technology Services (CTS) currently offers electronic fax services (known as Fax2Mail) to 11 Agencies and 5 Departmental Offices. CTS currently utilizes Tactical Digital who partners with OpenText to provide the Fax2Mail service. As part of this offering, CTS has been able to disconnect 3,130 analog Fax lines and decommission 2,996 fax machines which has provided enormous savings to USDA.

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Fax2Mail currently covers approximately 4,785 Fax numbers across the serviced Agencies representing 3,000+ USDA offices. The 3,000+ offices are spread evenly across the US with typically an office in each county. In addition, USDA has offices in the Pacific Basin and in US territories. USDA seeks to continue to reduce the number of fax machines across USDA. The combined Fax2Mail monthly usage for all USDA agencies reached 300,000 pages during the most recent reporting period for FY2016.

Many faxes contain PII information, thus increasing the sensitivity and security concerns of the faxes. Also, based on current record retention policies, offices maintain hard copy files of inbound and outbound correspondence. Any outbound document requiring a signature must also be in paper format, signed and then faxed. There is a significant amount of faxing between USDA offices that could be satisfied by scanning and emailing if the offices had quick and reliable scanners.

Current Fax2Mail functionality includes:

Ability to send/receive faxes electronically from user’s computers “Anytime, anywhere” access to sending and receiving faxes, including mobile devices Ability for teleworkers to send/receive faxes electronically Capability to receive faxes 24x7 Security improvements through tighter control over fax content and Personally

Identifiable Information (PII) data 99% of all Electronic FAXes are to be delivered within 15 minutes Data must be held on Fax2Mail servers during this time period As soon as the data is delivered, it is deleted For undeliverable FAXes, the contractor will re-send for up to 2 hours All data is deleted from the vendor servers on successful delivery or after the length of time for retries No users, including administrators, can see the content of the FAXes while the data is sitting on the vendor servers

2.2 CURRENT FAXING VOLUMES

The following table breaks out the Number of Sent plus Received Pages Monthly versus the Number of Accounts for those pages based on the most recent reporting period for FY16.

Number of Sent plus Received Pages Monthly Number of Accounts

0 to 50 3,486

50 to 100 529

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100 to 200 414

200 to 1000 333

1,000 to 2,000 17

2,000 to 7,000 6

Based on these estimates, the total monthly faxing volume is estimated to be in the range of 3 million to 5 million pages annually.

Consideration must be given to the gradual decline of FAX usage across USDA as information management technologies and workflows evolve.

3.0 REQUESTED INFORMATION

For purposes of the RFI, USDA is seeking preliminary information to evaluate viable options available to achieve the OCIOEF goals. Please generate responses to the following items.

3.1 PROPOSED SOLUTION

It is expected that all existing 4,785 phone numbers will be ported over to the new solution with no interruption of service.

Provide a functional component diagram of the primary electronic solution components and their relationships as well as a brief summary for each. Respondents are also encouraged to include a narrative that describes their solution and how or if they would be able to leverage existing agency investments and/or strategies for a solution that is scalable and can be used to meet changing requirements in the future.

The electronic fax solution shall allow USDA employees to send and receive faxes electronically as follows:

Sending

The employee sends an email from their Outlook email box to a vendor fax number with the fax content attached. If documents are in paper format, they must first be scanned.

The fax travels through the internet to the vendor’s electronic fax infrastructure using TLS encryption. An audit trail of faxes and data related to them (e.g. number of pages) is saved on the vendor’s servers. The fax is then sent through the phone network to the destination fax machine.

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Receiving

Someone sends a fax to a USDA agency electronic fax vendor assigned “fax” phone number from a traditional fax machine (or another electronic fax client). The fax travels through the phone service to the electronic fax servers where data about the fax is stored and where the fax is encrypted and sent to the USDA exchange servers where it’s delivered to the pre-assigned address.

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3.2 SECURITY

Describe how the storage of fax data is treated during transmission; please include any at rest, retrieval, and disposal of fax data.

Describe the how hard drives and/or memory storage are encrypted and secured during any data at rest time periods.

Describe how data is completely removed from hard drives and/or any other memory storage.

Describe under what conditions the vendor would pursue FedRAMP certification to support Electronic FAX service for USDA.

How does industry treat the storage, at rest, retrieval, and disposal of Fax data?

Are Electronic FAX hard drives encrypted in a manner that the data is protected during data at rest?

How does industry ensure that data is completely removed from hard-drives?

Can Electronic FAX systems be configured in a manner that no one can see the data?

How you would satisfy FedRAMP type security requirements for your Electronic

FAX service?

3.3 METHODOLOGY, START UP, AND OPERATION

Describe faxing processes that work with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook.

Describe faxing processes that work independently of Microsoft Exchange/Outlook.

Describe how faxing processes, including administration, meet Section 508 Accessibility requirements.

Describe typical service level characteristics.

Describe a typical process and timeframe to transition 4,785 Electronic FAX numbers/accounts from current USDA provider.

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3.4 DEPLOYMENT REQUIREMENTS

Generate a brief description of the solution delivery process and rough order of magnitude (ROM) level of effort (LOE) given the solution requirements provided. This should include efforts related to discovery and design, development/integration, deployment, testing, and production roll-out. For solutions that require infrastructure to be purchased separately, estimates on infrastructure requirements and alternatives should also be provided. This narrative should also cover ROM delivery time line estimates as well.

3.5 RISKS, ISSUES, ASSUMPTIONS, GAPS

Please impart any specific additional information regarding this solution that the USDA should be aware of when reviewing this and other RFI responses. This section should include risks, issues, assumptions and/or gaps that solution evaluation teams may or may not be aware of at this time.

3.6 PROOF OF CONCEPT

Provide a visual demonstration (wireframes, still shots, etc.) of how the proposed solution would meet the requirements presented in this RFI. Still pictures/slides and/or links to online content, may be provided and/or referenced and bundled with RFI responses.

Respondents are also encouraged to include references to similar work performed for other organizations.

3.7 COSTS

Deliver an estimate of the costs associated with procuring, developing and deploying the solution proposed. Responses should be comprehensive and outline expected costs for a five-year period.

Estimates should include the following:

The typical monthly cost for 4,785 Electronic FAX numbers/accounts across 16 USDA Agencies and 6 Departmental Offices.

A typical per page cost for 300,000 monthly fax pages.

A description of scenarios for volume discounting.

4.0 RESPONSES

4.1 INTERESTED PARTIES

Interested parties are requested to respond to this RFI with an electronic response to Contracting Officer, Tracy Lynn Jackson at tracy.jackson@ftc.usda.gov.

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4.2 ELECTRONIC RESPONSES

RFI Responses must include:

Name of the primary point of contact (POC) for the response Business Title, Email Address and Phone Number for primary POC Firm Name or organization affiliation Identification of other key individual(s) who collaborated on RFI

RFI Response Format:

Responses can be in the following authorized formats, Adobe Acrobat and/ or Microsoft Office Suite applications.

When emailing RFI responses, the required naming convention in the subject line should be the following: RFI Response| FIRM NAME |AG-3144-I-17-0008_OCIO ELECTRONIC FAX Project.

Electronic Responses are due no later than Monday, November 7, 2016 by 5:00pm EST/3:00 pm MST. Additional Marketing Materials may be included with response, however USDA is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals.

5.0 INDUSTRY DISCUSSIONS

USDA representatives may or may not choose to meet with Respondees. Such discussions would only be intended to get further clarification of potential solution(s) or service(s) to meet the OCIOIP requirements, especially any risks, issues, assumptions and/or gaps.

6.0 QUESTIONS

Questions regarding this announcement shall be submitted in writing by e-mail to the Contracting Officer, email address. Verbal questions will NOT be accepted. Questions will be answered by posting answers to FBO.gov; accordingly, questions shall NOT contain proprietary information. The Government does not guarantee that questions received after Friday, October 28, 2016 by 5:00pm EST/ 3:00pm MST will be answered.

Interested parties should send questions in regards to this RFI to Contracting Officer, Tracy Lynn Jackson at tracy.jackson@ftc.usda.gov by Friday, October 28, 2016 by 5:00pm EST/ 3:00pm MST. When emailing RFI questions, the required naming convention in the subject line should be the following: RFI Question(s)| FIRM NAME |AG-3144-I-17-0008_OCIO ELECTRONIC FAX Project.

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7.0 SUMMARY

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY to identify service(s) or solution(s) that can provide service (s) or solution to support the USDA OCIO ELECTRONIC FAX PROJECT. The information provided in the RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. USDA has not made a commitment to procure any of the items discussed, and release of this RFI should not be construed as such a commitment or as authorization to incur cost for which reimbursement would be required or sought. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned.