PWS_Draft_Infrastructure_Tecnology_Support_Services_1_12_2017.docx

USDA FOREST SERVICE

Natural Resource Manager (NRM)

Performance Work Statement (PWS)

For

Infrastructure Technology Support Services

January 12, 2017

Index

31.0 Compliance with Internet Protocol VS. 6 (IBv6) in Acquiring

Attachments

Performance Work Statement (PWS) For Natural Resource Manager Infrastructure Technology Support Services

1.0 INTRODUCTION:

The Natural Resource Manager (NRM) is an IT application and organization helping the Forest Service accomplish the objectives defined in the agency Strategic Plan. USDA Forest Service (FS) relies on IT systems, including NRM, to accomplish its mission of providing cost-effective reliable services to the public. NRM is an investment comprising four mission critical systems: (1) Infrastructure (Infra); (2) Timber Information Manager (TIM) (3) Forest Service Activity Tracking System (FACTS) and (4) the National Resource Information System (NRIS). A substantial amount of agency critical information management activities associated with natural resource management, fiscal management, infrastructure management, grants and agreements, and timber sale accounting are accomplished within the NRM investment consisting of approximately 60 plus applications supporting many business needs throughout the agency. NRM enables the Forest Service to comply with mandated requirements. NRM supports approximately 14,000 FS users utilizing a variety of data sources to manage the enterprise infrastructure.

NRM provides numerous benefits to the agency including but not limited to: (1) certifiable, secure, and auditable data, access and operations; (2) enables coordination with USDA to maintain interfaces with Departmental applications including the Federal Financial Information System (FFIS), the Financial Management Modernization Initiative (FMMI) and the Corporate Property Automated Information System (CPAIS); (3) produces reports required by Congress; (4) recognized as the database of record for 10 elements of the USFS Chief's performance reporting; (5) produces reports required by outside agencies (Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Corps of Engineers); (6) processes grants/agreements; (7) provides real time processing and billings of special use, timber, minerals, and range permits; (8) supports delivery of the Forest Service's mission by making essential data about natural resources and socio-economic factors accessible in a standard corporate information system; (9) provides data standards, data collection protocols, data entry, data storage, and analytical tools for land and natural resource.

NRM continues to meet the mission critical needs of the agency. The NRM investment will continue to be improved upon to best serve users, meet changing management direction and align with e-Gov initiatives. NRM Management will continue to emphasize the discipline of operational excellence in order to be more transparent, more accountable, and more efficient with our dollars and resources.

Additional details regarding the above mentioned system areas are as follows:

Infrastructure (Infra) supports the work of the National Forest System (NFS) and Business Operations deputy areas. Infra modules include

(1) Engineering: inventory and conditions of all constructed features (buildings, bridges, trails, dams, roads, culverts, developed recreation sites, heritage, water systems, waste water systems); (2) Rangeland Management; (3) Lands; (4) Recreation Sites; (5) Heritage Resources; (6) Minerals and Geology Management; (7)Wilderness; (8) Wild and Scenic Rivers; (9) Special Uses; (10) Acquisition Management - Grants and Agreements; (11) Real Property Management including generating all Forest Service data for the Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP). Infra also interfaces with USDA systems including the Federal A Award Data System (FAADS), FFIS/FMMI and CPAIS.

Timber Information Manager (TIM) The Timber Information Manager (TIM) is a suite of integrated applications that support the business of managing National Forest lands through the timber program. TIM supports the Timber Sales, Salvage Sales, Stewardship Contracts, Forest Products Permits, business processes at the field level while capturing information for service-wide reporting needs. The TIM module also is integrated with FFIS for Bills for Collection and with TSA for payments, interest and penalties as well as bonding for the contracts.is used to prepare and produce special forest product permits and timber sales contracts, including contracts for salvage and stewardship sales. These legally binding permits and contracts are generated according to code of federal regulation standards as well as Forest Service policy (manuals and handbooks). Fiscal responsibility is built into the application; TIM produces bills which interface with FFIS/FMMI and works hand-in-hand with the Timber Sale Accounting program (TSA). TIM is currently the only vehicle for input to the TSA system. TIM is the feeder database for seven PAS reporting items (BIO-NRG, BIO-NRG-STWD, STWD-CNTRCT- AGR-AC, TMBR-TRT, TMBR-VOL-HVST, TMBR-VOL-SLD, and TMBR-VOL-SLD-STWD). TIM is used in the field to monitor accomplishments throughout the year and is used for quarterly reporting to Congress, which is required by law. The TIM application is integrated with several other Forest Service applications; TIM utilizes National Cruise Processing for volume information, FFIS for billing and TSA for payments, interest, penalties, and bonding for the contracts. In addition, TIM shares information with regional appraisal systems including transaction evidence analysis. The TIM is a suite of integrated applications that support the business of managing National Forest lands through the timber program. TIM supports the Timber Sales, Salvage Sales, Stewardship Contracts, Forest Products Permits, business processes at the field level while capturing information for service-wide reporting needs. The TIM module also is integrated with FFIS for Bills for Collection and with TSA for payments, interest and penalties as well as bonding for the contracts.

Forest Service Activity Tracking System (FACTS) manages and track activities for many reporting needs including the tracking of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) activities and decisions, silviculture activities, invasive species treatments, and record accomplishments associated with the National Fire Plan (NFP) such as hazardous fuels treatments and post-wildfire restoration activities. FACTS supports timber sales in conjunction with TIM Contracts and Permits; tracks Knutson Vandenberg (KV) trust fund plans at the timber sale level, reporting at the National level; and, it generates National, Regional, Forest, and/or District Reports. The data that is collected in FACTS is used to produce Trust Fund Plans including the Sale Area Improvement (SAI-KV) plan and Brush Disposal (BD) plan. Data in FACTS is used to answer inquiries from the U.S. Congress, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council, Circuit Courts and other government entities. FACTS shares data with TIM, PALS, NRIS Invasives, and the National Fire Plan Reporting System (NFPORS). FACTS is a critical supplier in many key reporting areas including Performance Accountability System (PAS) measures, and reports generated by NFPORS that in turn satisfy USDA quarterly reports and PART measures. This same data is used to report on Timber Sale Improvement (TSI), Reforestation, Healthy Forest and Restoration Act, and the Healthy Forest Initiative.

Natural Resource Information System (NRIS) is the Forest Service's corporate natural resource information database. NRIS supports delivery of the Forest Service's mission by making essential data about natural resources and socio-economic factors accessible in a standard corporate information system. NRIS provides data standards, data collection protocols, data entry, data storage, and analytical tools for land resource management plans, forest and rangeland health assessments, watershed restoration, fire planning, fuels analysis, biological evaluations, and other ecosystem management efforts for multiple planning scales. NRIS includes integrated corporate tabular and spatial data for (1) Air quality; (2) Aquatic Surveys; (3) Silvicultural Stand Examinations (FSVEG and FSVeg Spatial); (4) Soils, Geology, TEUI (Inventory and Mapping); (5) National Visitor Use Monitoring (NVUM); (6) Rangeland Inventory and Monitoring; (7) TAXA; (8) Threatened, Endangered, and Sensitive Plants (TES) - Invasive Species; (9) Water Rights and Uses (WRU); (10) Watershed Classification and Assessment Tool (WCATT); (11) Watershed Improvement Tracking (WIT); and (12) Wildlife.

These applications are consecutively supporting a wide variety of business needs, projects throughout the agency that includes field-level users on National Forests and multiple Deputy Areas (e.g. State and Private Forestry, Research and Development and Operations, and the Chief Information Office). NRM is currently providing standards, corporate inventory storage, upward reporting, and analytical capability for resource assessments, business information needs, and decision-making at all scales from field sites to the national level.

2.0 BACKGROUND:

2.1 The Nation’s forests are a fundamental part of our landscape, American identity, and the legacy we keep in trust for future generations. Our forests provide clean air and water, recreational opportunities, jobs, and a host of forest products. The Forest Service, encompassing roughly 34,000 employees, in approximately 750 locations in all 50 states and Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The FS plays an important role in protecting and restoring America’s forests and grasslands and making them more resilient to threats and disturbances. The USDA FS is a Federal agency that is multi-faceted managing and protecting public lands in national forests and grasslands (approximately 193 million acres of land that includes 154 National Forests, 20 grasslands) under a founding principle, "To provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run". The agency’s mission is to “sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations”. The Forest Service is also the largest natural resource/forestry research organization in the world, and provides technical and financial assistance to state and private forestry agencies. Much of the work of the agency is coordinated with program managers across NFS. Performing this mission requires effective collection, organization, analysis, and delivery of many different types of information. Additional information about the FS is available at http://www.fs.fed.us and at https://www.fs.fed.us/documents/USFS_An_Overview_0106MJS.pdf

2.2 NRM Staff are responsible for the development and maintenance of the IT Systems Security Plan and resources provided under this contract will assist in that effort.

The NRM Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) provides a central, nationwide data repository that will be maintained and transitioned to a common Forest Service Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) during the life of this contract (transition schedule to be determined, but led by FS employees). With all data maintained in Agency managed datacenters (CDW and EDW), data is much more accessible. Field users can easily compare their data to neighboring Districts/Forests/Regions and Agency decision makers can more efficiently view trends and plan accordingly.

2.3 Additional information for your reference regarding the NRM applications is contained at the following website: https://www.fs.fed.us/nrm/

3.0 APPLICABLE DOCUMENTS:

In addition to requirements contained in the PWS, the following documents are applicable and are provided as separate attachments.

Document Title

NRM Daily Operations Guide

Employee Contractor Relations Guide

Application Management Framework

NRM Applications Install Environment and Technologies

Sample Project –Migration Cloud

Yearly Self-Assessment Report (YSR)

4.0 SCOPE:

The scope of this requirement is to procure non-personal services, qualified Contractor support with the expertise necessary and ready to support this PWS in its entirety on date of award. The contractor shall be able to work in a multi-vendor environment and assist the USDA Forest Service NRM Operations Management Office and other offices within NRM. The following is a list of, not exclusive NRM task areas/objectives:

· Program Management Services

· Database Management, Migration and Maintenance

· Migration of FS Applications

· Application Testing

· Configuration Management of FS Applications

· Documentation and Troubleshooting Services

· Management of Interfaces with Internal and External Systems

· IT Solutions Support (Modernization)

· Customer Support Services

· Information Technology Support Services

· Security Services

· Other Special Projects (i.e. Cloud Services)

The following are examples but not limited to the knowledge, capabilities and experience that may be required to support the requirement of this contract.

a. J2EE, Spring, HTML and CSS using Oracle interface development techniques such as Oracle forms, Oracle Reports, Oracle ADF, Oracle application server, WebLogic, Fusion

b. ESRI’s JavaScript API to build map interfaces

c. Collaboration software (Examples: Subversion and TeamForge)

d. Web authentication and database authorization models

e. Oracle 11g, and 12c databases on Solaris, Linux, Unix and Windows platforms

f. SQL and PL-SQL

g. HP Quality Center 9.1 and HP Functional Tester 9.1, HP Load Runner 9.2 and JProbe 8.3.

h. Geospatial technologies such as ArcGIS 10.3 or higher and ArcSDE

5.0. SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE TASKS:

Task Area 1 – Program Management Services Outcome: Quality contract program management expertise support is provided to FS to ensure efficient, effective, accurate, on-time and compliant operations.

FFP Firm Fixed Price Potential Skill Set(s): To be defined on individual Task Order

The following Tasks are required:

Task 1a: Management and Execution

1. The Contractor shall follow project management best practices as defined by the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) in managing and executing on all contract requirements. The Contractor shall be responsible for project management for this effort including, but not limited to:

a. Meeting and complying with:

b. Managing personnel (including support, training, and evaluation) and equipment clearance and system access requests in a timely manner so as to not disrupt service.

c. Managing and ensuring quality control.

d. Staffing, to include determining the number of Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) and labor categories required for each task and subtask, to include subcontractors.

e. Allocating and scheduling resources.

f. Cross-Functional Collaboration – The contractor shall participate in integrated program/project teams and agile teams to enhance communication, share lessons learned and facilitate rapid identification of dependencies between various functional entities to ensure that the projects deliver the right solutions and value to the business and end-users. This collaboration may include coaching government staff as the government attempts to stand up or execute an agile project. Additionally Coordinating and communicating-interacting with Government/Contractor personnel/management and technical resources, including participation in regular and ad-hoc meetings.

g. Serving on teams managed by Federal Government Project Managers or other contractor’s Project Managers. Note: The Contractor is not authorized to manage or task other contractors.

h. Monitoring and reporting on status.

i. Establishing and implementing processes and procedures.

j. Providing assistance to the Government in establishing priorities and meeting the needs of FS, specifically in providing advice and recommendations with regard to the design of technically efficient and 508 conformance.

k. Compliance with NIST, OSHA, federal, state, local, USDA and FS policies and guidelines, including applicable Government-wide IT standards (i.e., Privacy Act, 508, etc.) as provided in the terms and conditions section of the solicitation, and as directed by the COR/NRM leadership team.

l. Providing effective and responsive planning and execution of projects, as agreed to during the Support of the Project Plans.

m. Ensuring that all deliverables and activities performed under the contract are completed successfully and are on-time and within budget; and that any and all deviations are documented with justification.

n. Providing timely (monthly) and accurate invoices to the Government with supporting documentation (associated with the Task Order Area).

o. Tracking and managing all Government-furnished property and information in accordance with FAR Subpart 45.

p. Returning employee’s building pass and Government furnished property when a Contractor staff member leaves the project permanently.

q. Ensuring that Contractor staff who have left the project no longer have email accounts, login privileges, or access to applications and the FS network immediately upon leaving.

2. The Contractor shall document its progress in the completion of task/subtask elements in detailed weekly status reports and present the information at weekly/monthly status meetings with the NRM Program Manager and its staff. The status reports shall include, but not limited to the following: Progress toward the accomplishment of the milestones and deliverables during the period of performance including the risks to cost and schedule. Activities planned for the next reporting period as well as the status of deliverables, including planned delivery date(s) and actual and/or anticipated delivery date(s). Problems encountered: identification of any problems, issues or delays and recommendations as to their resolution, and any corrective action that was taken to correct identified problems.

3. The Contractor shall provide, electronically via email bi-weekly reports, due by noon on the second business day of each month, as agreed upon with the COR. The report must cover activities of the previous month and plan for the current month. These reports must be delivered to the Government Program Manager (PM) and Contracting Officer Representative (COR) specified at award.

These reports must include, at a minimum, the following:

• Overview of work completed, in progress, and planned for each task;

• Hours expended on tasks, labor categories, and personnel used for each task;

• Status of individual deliverables, planned activities,

• Identification of problem areas with recommended remedial actions;

• Status of all outstanding issues identified during previous months status reports;

• Summary of resource expenditures;

· Report critical errors and other potential problems immediately upon occurrence.

· Projection of leave for contractor resources;

• Any other information pertinent to the Government in administering the performance of this contract effort.

Task 1b: Quality Control/Requirements

4. The Contractor shall maintain a Quality Control Program (QCP), including a Quality Control Plan that ensures the Government receives the level of quality that is consistent with the requirements specified in this PWS. The QCP shall be included in the proposal submission, and finalized upon contract award. The QCP shall be finalized within 15 business days of contract award. Any proposed modifications to the quality control proposal during the life of the task order shall be approved by the COR.

5. The Contractor shall develop a QCP that provides for the monitoring of the quality of the services, work products, and deliverables required under the contract. The Contractor shall develop the QCP based on accepted industry standards such as the CMMI SM, ISO 9000 IEEE 12207, or other accepted industry QA standards. The QCP shall detail the processes, procedures, and metrics for assuring quality. The QCP shall also include, at a minimum, a description of the following:

• Methods and processes to be used for identifying and preventing defects in the quality of service performed and the prevention of recurring defects;

• Monitoring and control of critical processes and product variation;

• Mechanisms for feedback of field performance;

• Effective root cause analysis and corrective action system; and

• Continuous process improvement.

6. During performance of the contract, the Contractor shall maintain a quality control inspection system that contains procedures and processes that are consistent with the monitoring and control processes identified in the approved QCP.

7. The Contractor shall maintain records documenting all corrective actions and process improvements undertaken during contract performance. The records shall validate the Contractor’s compliance with the processes contained in the QCP. The Contractor shall make the records available to the Government during contract performance and for a period of five (5) years after final payment under the contract.

Task Area 2 – Database Management, Migration and Maintenance Outcome: Thorough operational support to provide a high level of availability, reliability, and performance (meets or exceeds PWS objectives) to FS personnel. Required for all NRM’s environments: production, testing, training, and pre-production.

The Contractor shall provide the following:

· Perform the operational processes identified in the NRM Daily Operations Guide for maintaining the NRM GSS. In order to maintain the GSS in a continuous state of readiness, the Contractor shall successfully execute the accepted approach, or work with FS to modify the Guide. The proposed changes should demonstrate the Contractor’s ability and experience in identifying and resolving errors in previously installed system hardware and/or software applications.

· Administer and maintain NRM applications as negotiated in Service Level Agreement(s) (SLAs) with NITC.

· Update, upgrade, and apply “patches” to and otherwise perform maintenance on the NRM IT infrastructure, and maintain an audit trail of all modifications made.

· Monitor data center infrastructure/facility system status reports from NITC.

· Notify NRM managers of server installations or any changes to the environment in accordance with change management procedures.

· Provide reports of monitored items for system status, performance and trend analysis.

· Provide reporting of monitored items for trend analysis by customers and their technical representatives using NRM provided reporting tools.

· Manage the routine change request queue to ensure that requests are correctly submitted, categorized and considered.

· Manage all of the request queues, including emergency requests.

· Provide database administration activities including install, update, patch, monitoring, tuning, diagnostics, backups and recovery.

· Provide database administration alternatives and associated impacts working on a support project with developers.

· Implement tested, documented, Government-approved backup and recovery processes and procedures to ensure modifications can be successfully uninstalled and the system being modified can be restored to its original condition.

· Initiate corrective action on reported problems (within agreed upon time per task).

· Make optimum use of existing infrastructure hardware, software and communications, as described in the Daily Operations Guide.

· Test recovery procedures to ensure procedures are accurate and operational annually.

· Provide systems administration and maintenance support for designated NRM enterprise applications.

· Configure system monitoring in response to customer needs.

· Perform system backup and recovery operations on NRM managed web/application/database servers and code repository per NRM defined standards.

· Assist with any performance related issues that are identified.

· Follow maintenance procedures and direction of the functional Government Manager in identifying and evaluating applications for potential modernization efforts; using various mediums for evaluation criteria, such as NRM Architecture standards, industry and government best practices, security standards, and NRM Code Standard(s).

· Ensure the operation fluidity and support of NRM existing applications.

· Assist in the planning, execution and monitoring of patches to current NRM applications or data.

· Use special web application and database technologies such as, but not limited to: Microsoft .Net, C#, C++, Java and JavaScript, as well Oracle PL/SQL, SQI, Jasper, and COGNOS to complete various maintenance and integration-related tasks.

· Research and provide recommendations to fortify security for existing NRM applications or databases, as well as evaluate different courses of action for resolving NRM security vulnerabilities.

· Regularly attend (weekly and as needed) meetings and actively participate in discussions pertinent to maintenance and integration topics.

· Regularly evaluate NRM existing applications for potential savings in regards to cost, schedule (whether it be lifecycle improvement to upgrades, or integration related), and performance.

· Continuously monitor, test and certify NRM applications within such activities as: security, 508 conformance checks, regression testing, operations compatibility, database and spatial system environments. If Contractor is performing testing for another application, Contractor will be responsible for publishing a detailed list of results that may require either the Government or Contractor to conduct reengineering in pertinence to maintenance and integration activities.

· Coordinate issues with pertinent NRM staff, to include the respective NRM program area in equity to specific issues.

· Continuously ensure Contractor skills are commensurate with NRM maintenance and project integrations needs, and requirements. Lack of skills required for an NRM effort will either result in the Contractor training an individual consultant through Contractor funds, or the individual consultant being removed from the project effort.

Task Area 3 – Migration of FS Applications to and from the NRM General Support System Outcome: Thorough application integration activities

· Provide support in the planning and implementation of such migrations and integration efforts.

· Assist with the migration efforts to be sure that the NRM system (GSS and applications) continues to remain reliable, available, secure, and extendable.

· Communicate and coordinate with NRM’s teams, such as GSS operations team, for releases and module maintenance team and testing of the applications within the NRM environment(s).

· Migrate spatial and tabular legacy data and applications under tight time constraints.

· Complete post migration data cleanup following user inspection.

Task Area 4 – Testing of FS NRM Applications Outcome: Business resources areas need to be fully tested, both tabular and spatial as well as identify if they are 508 conformant. The NRM testing organization has identified processes, test cases, test templates that must be completed and followed for every testing situation in the NRM environment.

· Maintain the existing framework of applications that make up NRM by supporting and implementing break fixes approved by NRM governance processes and scheduled releases. Legislation, Executive Orders, and/or Judicial opinions may require the Contractor to make changes to NRM.

· Test and certify the NRM applications including security, 508 and regression compatibility in operating, database and spatial systems or environments. Automated testing is preferred. Testing results may require some re-engineering of database objects (tables, views, packages, etc.).

· Perform internal testing of the new refinements as well as existing functionalities as a part of software testing effort.

· Provide user acceptance testing support that includes testing environment set-up, user role and permission set-up, application package creation and deployment of the application.

· Provide integration and system testing of the NRM applications.

· Develop, implement software test plans

· Provide and assure the values in the forms and reports are correct numbers and values make sense.

· Provide application deployment support that will include alpha and beta testing of the changes to the applications, required documentation creation and submission to appropriate project manager and service providers for smooth deployment of the application changes.

· Able to test tabular as well as spatial products.

· Provide proper use cases for testing as identified by the testing organization.

Task Area 5 – Configuration Management of FS NRM Applications Outcome: NRM Applications support approximately 60 plus business resources areas and need to be properly coordinated for release into various environments. The NRM configuration manager works closely with Operations and the Application, Development, and Maintenance Offices to ensure the proper packages are deployed into the proper NRM environment.

· Coordinate with the Application Development and Maintenance Office (ADMO) and Operations (OPS) staff in preparation for installation of the application.

· Coordinate with the Project Managers/Tech leads as well as developers to ensure all is ready for the move to the test/prod/train-A and Citrix environments.

· Pre and post implementation review for all applications, including Citrix.

· Coordinate with Year End deployment staff and support their special need for Year End related works.

· Evaluate Deployment Task Tracker (DTT) to verify they met the standard and followed the proper approval process.

· Help maintain Version Controlling for application source codes within the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

· Communicate to DBA team directly for all deployments as well as for business’s special need.

· Coordinate with OPS Project Managers and QA team for all major and emergency releases.

· Standby for Sunday releases (communicating with the developers/DBAs/Testers) in case of critical support.

· Evaluate Go/No-go list before monthly release, and make the corrections when needed.

· Provide release status updates in the meetings.

· Communicate to the Tech Leads and Project Managers about ongoing tasks, and to get test confirmation documents, Release Notices, proper approvals, update DTT, Service Now CR status etc.

· Compile and send deployment package information and the instructions to the DBA team prior to deployments for planning and resource allocation.

· Confirm task artifact deployed to test and successfully passed testing prior going to production.

· Work with Tech writers and CSO regarding user communication, mainly around major releases. Provide them the final release task information in preparation for production release notes.

· Liaison between ADMO, CSO, and OPS; attend meetings; informal training sessions when new tools are in place.

· Coordinate with Chief Information Officer (CIO) Citrix administrators for all NRM Citrix client application releases to both test and production environments.

· Work closely with GIS coordinator for all GIS related installation in Citrix environments.

· Update about upcoming releases for both Citrix and database.

· Support CIO web applications for install in both test and production

· Submit Change Request (CR) for all Citrix and web applications, using Service-Now tools for TLQ task to conduct testing.

· Provide support to the CIO testers throughout the testing phase in TLQ and work together with Citrix development team to get their applications installed on planned release date.

· Responsible to gather information for submitted task and installs, CIO release notices as well as signed test plan documentations in preparation for upcoming CAB meetings.

· Attend Change Authority Boards (CAB) calls for all Citrix related installs to describe changes being implemented in the release and request for approval.

· Assign Deployment Task Tracker (DTT) tasks to the appropriate person/group for deployments in timely manner.

· Check pending deployment status as well as logs are correctly uploaded in OPS workspace.

Task Area 6 – Documentation and Troubleshooting Services Outcome: Thorough troubleshooting is completed to resolve issues, and thorough and accurate documentation is developed to transfer knowledge to FS personnel.

· Provide appropriate user/administration documentation for NRM processes.

· Most documentation will be delivered within one week of a NRM software release.

· Update user/administration documentation as gaps in the documentation are identified.

· Maintain reference, control, and administration tables in the NRM database and provide documentation and reporting as requested.

· Research, resolve, and document issues that arise during the normal operations of NRM. Conduct trend analysis to identify issues that should be addressed with end user documentation. Documentation can include an update to user documentation and/or websites, as well as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

· Provide advanced user support through the ongoing training and support of NRM’s Help Desk operations.

· Provide web-based training materials and appropriate user/administration documentation for NRM modules including those with a spatial data engine interface.

· Work with the NRM Help Desk team to review and analyze tickets to ensure current interface standards are meeting business needs, and Security and Section 508 requirements. The current trouble ticket software used to track change management includes Serena Products (Mash Ups) software.

· Monitor NRM on a regular basis to assess reliability, performance, and data quality issues and deliver reports on operations and utilization.

· Maintain reference, control, and administration tables in the NRM database and provide documentation and reporting as requested.

· Research and resolve issues that arise during the normal operations of NRM databases.

· Provide remote end-user support for issues that cannot be resolved by FS personnel. Advanced user support will, at times, include communications directly with end users that are experiencing problems with NRM.

· Coordinate application hosting and administration support from the CIO service provider.

Note: Training materials currently in use shall be refined and updated as the applications change.

Task Area 7 – Management of Interfaces with Internal and External Systems Outcome: Thorough troubleshooting is done to resolve issues, and thorough and accurate documentation is developed to transfer knowledge to FS personnel.

· Coordination with the NRM team to maintain interoperability between interfaces, FS applications (e.g., Performance Accounting System (PAS), PALS), other USDA applications (e.g., FMMI, CPAIS), and other federal applications (e.g., NFPROS)

· Support in order to maintain security and interconnection agreements, Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) and Interface Control Documents (ICD), as required for complying to FS, USDA, federal, and IT standards and best practices.

· Recommend, maintain, and work toward section 508 interface best practices as required for complying with FS, USDA, federal IT standards and practices, where available.

Task Area 8 – IT Solutions Support (Modernization) Outcome: Support that meets or exceeds PWS requirements.

LH Labor Hour

· Analyze, recommend, develop and implement the most effective and efficient IT solutions for the Natural Resource Manager (NRM) application suite and for the NRM GSS infrastructure.

· Perform requirements review and analysis, and provide appropriate timeline and effort estimation to complete each solution definition. The detailed functional requirements associated with each application or refinement will be provided by the Government.

· Perform design, Support, internal testing of the new refinements as well as existing functionalities as a part of software Support effort.

· Assist NRM in preparing evaluation design which will serve as the framework for prioritization and decision-making:

· Conduct Initial Assessment.

· Develop recommended processes for managing potential hosting services, including:

· Provisioning and deploying services to a new environment.

· Roles and responsibilities for managing cloud deployments.

· Recommended funding and charge-back approach.

· Guidance and training documentation for process formalization

· Identify architecture/design considerations for selecting target applications.

· Draft recommended management and oversight capabilities.

· Risk management approach, tools and procedures.

· Cost management approach, tools and procedures.

· Performance and service level management approach, tools and procedures.

· Change management approach, tools and procedures.

· Create model for comparing cost and long-term ownership implications.

· Assist NRM management in selecting potential projects to evaluate new environment capabilities and readiness including:

· Select initial systems for deployment into a new environment.

· Assist in assessing potential environments.

· Develop baseline measurements of cost and performance.

· Create provisioning, operations support and management procedures.

· Assist NRM in developing potential assignments for new roles and responsibilities.

· Provide planning and documentation assistance.

· Prepare and assess applications in new environment including:

· Preparing to migrate selected applications or data.

· Coordinating migration of pilot applications to new environment.

· Operating and administering pilot application(s) / environment.

· Assisting NRM in monitoring technical and operational impact.

· Assist NRM management in evaluating potential environment performance and decide on adoption of new technology including:

· Analyzing new technology solutions, including the technical and operational impacts.

· Providing total cost of ownership assessment, and compare to baseline measurements.

· Examining impacts to service levels, performance and security.

· Analyzing effectiveness of procedures, guidance and management functions.

· Participate in Lessons Learned feedback sessions.

· Recommend process, responsibility, guidance, and oversight changes need for migration to different environment.

· Provide final assessment criteria for selecting applications to be migrated in the future.

· Conduct readiness analysis.

· Assist NRM to develop adoption implementation strategy.

· Develop and recommend sequence, pace (roadmap) of potential scale-up.

· Participate with NRM Leadership in presenting information to make final decisions on new operating environment/infrastructure, new processes and responsibilities, and migration needs.

· Assist NRM management in implementation that could include:

· Provide assistance for developing planning materials.

· Manage and coordinate infrastructure, process and security changes.

· Coordinate migration and technical support for selected applications.

· Provide coordination, training and communications support to institutionalize new procedures, formalize new guidance and policies, new position functions.

· Support the formalization of management and oversight functions.

· Track support solutions cost and schedule and provide bi-weekly project status updates to project managers.

· Coordinate and manage support efforts in accordance with project plans.

· Evaluate, develop, integrate, test, configure and install information technology solutions.

· Administer, track and coordinate Application Requirements Documents (ARDs).

· Provide support for the certification and accreditation (C&A) process of the NRM system.

· Attend required meetings and conferences as necessary to maintain satisfactory performance and resolve any issues.

· Complete by utilizing Agile software development, best practices, experience with modern web application frameworks, experience with migrating legacy applications and databases to modern infrastructure, and user experience/visual design capabilities.

· Task shall be completed by working in short development iterations of several weeks, each of which will typically result in the delivery of functioning software that can be tested with internal and external users.

Task Area 9 – Customer Support Services Outcome: Wide range of thorough support to provide customers, problem solving, testing, and/or output products.

FFP Firm Fixed Priced

· Knowledge with business logic and technical aspects of NRM applications, depending on complexity and/or degree of usage.

· Knowledge on select NRM common components such as Contacts, the Geospatial Interface (GI), Mobile, etc.

· Knowledge of Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) products that support and are utilized in conjunction with NRM applications such as Oracle, ESRI products ArcMap, MS Access, MS Excel, PL/SQL Developer, etc.

· Have knowledge of the Helpdesk processes utilized and as defined by NRM and CIO to track user issues. Follow this process to communicate with users, trouble shoot, and document issues.

· Provide recommendations for change from the user perspective, and track issues through to solutions via the change management process which uses BASE and/or TeamForge.

· Conform to FS Enterprise and NRM standards and constraints.

· Assist with the testing of NRM applications prior to releases and clearly document testing notes; also assist with testing necessitated by system changes or required for contingency planning.

· Maintain and update user documentation. User guides can include a mix of screen images and explanatory text, and typically need to be updated to meet release schedules and/or system updates.

· Prepare or assist with the preparation of training materials.

· Support or lead online/classroom trainings.

· Prepare or assist with the preparation of videos (closed caption) to address topics that arise frequently.

Task Area 10–Information Technology Support Services Outcome: Support to staff members, as well as customers that requires additional technical expertise than required for most issues.

· Level two support to other staff members on technical issues related to Oracle, ArcMap, Citrix, etc.

· Expertise in troubleshooting and resolution of performance issues related to NRM applications for users running applications from the desktop or Citrix platforms.

· Support for Testing tools and processes.

· Work with Customer Support Leadership to configure and support System Development Life Cycle processes, business intelligence tools, and other management tools for internal tracking and reporting.

· Work with Account Managers to synthesize requirements for outputs and provide from tools such as SQL, PL/SQL, the geospatial interface (GI), FME, Access, Excel, etc.

· Work with Project Managers to synthesize requirements for data migration and provide from tools such as SQL, PL/SQL, FME, Access, Excel, etc.

· Provide recommendations on architectural options for database, disconnected editing, user interface, or output development, as well as on infrastructure, geospatial, and testing configurations. Recommendations must consider the cost to change, complexity, industry acceptance, and impact to users.

· Program in PL/SQL, .NET, VBA, Java, Python, JavaScript, HTML, XML, FME, to provide solutions to a broad range of NRM issues. In some cases, the resultant procedures will be used to assist users directly; in others, by staff members to support recurring problems.

Task Area 11 –Security Management and Technical Support Outcome: To obtain full time technical security support to the NRM applications to aid in the implementation of more rigorous project and program management as well as provide Subject Matter Expert (SME) oversight in support of the NFS Resource Information Manager (RIM). This discipline is needed to ensure efficient, cost effective management of the program, to provide technical support for the CSAM implementation and provide auditability as part of the security program.

· Support the transition from current application to the ArcGIS Geodatabase environments including ArcObjects programming, and ArcSDE Geodatabase design and Support. The specific programming skills needed are Visual Basic and/or C# for .NET. The Contractor shall also have knowledge and understanding of Oracle, PL/SQL, and RDBMS designs and functions.

· Development of improved program/project management security process.

· Provide CSAM technical support.

· Assistance in development of a Knowledge transfer/formal mentoring process for federal staff.

· Provide technical IT security assistance in resolving POAMS.

As the agency moves forward to meet the security mandates required by federal laws, standards, and guidance, a more advanced conceptual and continuous approach to security will be required to ensure the safeguarding of information entrusted to the agency. This “Comprehensive and Robust” Information Security Program can be accomplished:

(1) By continuing to implement and update NIST-compliant policies, and procedures,

(2) By engineering and implementing solutions to new requirements that arise both from advances in technology and from new Federal and regulations and directives and,

(3) By maintaining IT system resiliency with effective contingency planning, evaluation, and testing.

All compliance descriptions for the NIST controls need to be updated to reflect revision three (3). The support would include but not limited to writing and entering compliance descriptions in CSAM in support of Authorizations to Operate (ATO) a moderate system under NIST and its subordinate child systems. Compliance descriptions must reflect USDA and FS policy and security procedures as well as NIST standards. Current system alignment is under review and revision. It is anticipated that approximately 20 child systems will remain after realignment.

Other support areas for NRM security may include, but is not limited to assistance in; answering audit requests, the annual assessment, quarterly reviews, updating inheritance of controls, and security documentation, Coordination with FS INFOSEC staff to facilitate the response to emergent requirements.

Development of improved program/project management security process for NRM and eMNEPA/PALS/CARA

The support of the development of the program/project management process will be based on the review of the current structure and state of NRM project and material weaknesses identified in previous NRM Security Program audits.

The contractor shall review and make recommendations to elaborate on the current project work used by NRM security to help make the program more efficient. Where recommendations are adopted the contractor will aid in the implementation of the updated procedures to include the development of detailed process, documentation, and templates to support the transition.

Provide CSAM technical support for NRM and eMNEPA/PALS/CARA

The contractor shall provide on-going technical support to the FS CSAM user community. These support tasks are on an as needed basis to support emergent USDA requirements as part of the program. This support includes, but is not limited to the following sub-tasks

· NRM support for CSAM to ensure information is included correctly and provides reports when needed.

· Control Compliance Description development and entry.

· Annual Assessment Support in developing good test responses and defining appropriate supporting artifacts. Includes entering and uploading assessment results into CSAM.

· Identification of deficient process not meeting control requirements/Creation of Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M) reflecting the deficiency and entry of the POA&M in CSAM.

· POAM support to include creation, tracking and request for validation and verification.

· Assist in development of a Knowledge transfer/formal mentoring process for federal staff for NRM and eMNEPA/PALS/CARA.

· A formal mentoring process will be established as part of this task.

Task Area 12 – Oracle Software Technical Support Outcome: To obtain part time technical Oracle support to the NRM Information System Security Office and support of the NFS RIM supporting an implementation of more rigorous auditing, monitoring, and overall system security.

· Support transition from a database security model that is independent in each database to one that makes use of a central Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) for authentication and…