Synopsis Questions ANSWERS _2_.pdf

U.S. Department of Agriculture / Rural Development GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Geospatial Service & Support

(Synopsis / Solicitation Number: AG-31ME-S-10-0004)

SYNOPSIS Q&A

1. QUESTION: Is this a a follow‐on requirement. If so, would it be possible for you to provide the incumbent information.

‐ ANSWER: The current synopsis represents a new requirement so there is no incumbent.

2. QUESTION: Would the Government consider modifying the set‐aside to include all small businesses instead of just 8a?

‐ ANSWER: No. Market research has determined that there are suitable 8a vendors available that are capable of providing the services required.

3. QUESTION: Is this acquisition going to be limited to a size standard 8 (a) set aside of $4.5 M? Is there any chance that will change to a higher level as 8 (a) or be full and open?

‐ ANSWER: This acquisition will be a 8a small business set‐ aside. The NAICS determination and classification requirement has been removed.

4. QUESTION: Do you have a centralized geodatabase with versioning etc?

‐ ANSWER: No Geospatial Infrastructure exists at this time.

Shape files are in use in a limited manner with KML and KMZ formats in wide use for web applications.

5. QUESTION: Why is the work located in St. Louis, MO? Can it be accomplished virtually from other locations?

‐ ANSWER: No, the nature of the work required will not allow for virtual locations although there are portions of the work that can be accomplished virtually. The Government intends to make a single contract award and the vendor will be required to have resesource and personnel available to provide service on site at both of the Government locations in St. Louis and Washington DC.

6. QUESTION: What is the estimated value of this acquisition and the number of FTE's??

‐ ANSWER: The Government is not at liberty to disclose the the estimated value of the resulting contract. The estimated number of FTE’s has been determined to be 14, however, that is ONLY an estimate. The actual number of FTEs provided will be at the discretion of the contractor and the contractor’s proposed solution to accomplish the tasks identified in the statement of work.

7. QUESTION: For your enterprise GIS effort how many applications are you envisioning to be developed.

‐ ANSWER: Depends on the requests from our customers and the future needs assesment.

8. QUESTION: Are you planning to migrate your current ArcIMS (if any) applications to ArcGIS Server.

‐ ANSWER: Yes.

9. QUESTION: What is the existing infrastructure you have?

ANSWER: Web Farm with database and table data sets interlinked. ESRI Licenses are contracted. There are several web mapping applications in use and several Dashboard type applications in development‐production.

There is no Geospatial Infrastructure at this time. Present web mapping applications are using GoogleMaps mashups and Microsoft Silverlight Bing Maps. Individual ArcIMS services also exist within the organization.

10. QUESTION: Do you have process and procedures in place for data collection and uploading?

‐ ANSWER: No, this needs to be standardized. Geospatial needs have not been included in historic data plans. There are ITS rules governing the upload of data to the Web Farm etc. For individual databases and table updates there are seperate individual policies in place. There are also requirements for ITS and NITC approval of new aplications that are developed before they can go into production or hosted on the web.

11. QUESTION: What version of ArcGIS software do you currently have and how many users will be using the applications that will be developed?

‐ ANSWER: 9.3.1 ArcGIS, We have Rural Development and USDA license agreements with ESRI. Applications can be used if web based for the public, USDA or RD program specific users. Not all applications will be ESRI based. There are GoogleMaps Mashups, Microsoft Silverlight ‐ Bing Maps for public and internal web based viewing of map data. Executive Dashboards with Mapping functionality is another area to be fully explored.

12. QUESTION: Will any of these applications be on a classified network?

‐ ANSWER: No – Some sensitive PII records may be present for internal use only.

13. QUESTION: Will there be needs for data to be digitized?

‐ ANSWER: Potentially there could be task orders for digistization of historic data found in tables depending on customer needs and requests.