Amendment 1.pdf

State of South Carolina Request for Proposal

AMENDMENT #1

Solicitation Number:

Date Issued:

Procurement Officer:

Phone:

E-Mail Address:

Mailing Address:

5400019834 6/11/2020 Jason Evans 803-734-9357 Jason.evans@ppp.sc.gov 293 Greystone Blvd, PO Box 207 Columbia, SC 29202

DESCRIPTION: Software Application Maintenance and Support Services

USING GOVERNMENTAL UNIT: South Carolina, Probation, Parole & Pardon Services

SUBMIT YOUR OFFER ON-LINE AT THE FOLLOWING URL: http://www.procurement.sc.gov SUBMIT OFFER BY (Opening Date/Time): 06/30/2020 10:00:00 (See "Deadline For Submission Of Offer" provision) QUESTIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY: 06/05/2020 10:00:00 (See "Questions From Offerors" provision) NUMBER OF COPIES TO BE SUBMITTED: Refer to Page 3 of the solicitation document CONFERENCE TYPE: Pre-Proposal

DATE & TIME: 06/03/2020 10:00:00

(As appropriate, see "Conferences - Pre-Bid/Proposal" & "Site Visit" provisions)

LOCATION: WebEx Meeting

AWARD &

AMENDMENTS

Award will be posted on 07/27/2020. The award, this solicitation, any amendments, and any related notices will be posted at the following web address: http://www.procurement.sc.gov

Unless submitted on-line, you must submit a signed copy of this form with Your Offer. By submitting a bid or proposal, You agree to be bound by the terms of the Solicitation. You agree to hold Your Offer open for a minimum of thirty (30) calendar days after the Opening Date. (See "Signing Your Offer" and "Electronic Signature" provisions.)

NAME OF OFFEROR

(full legal name of business submitting the offer)

Any award issued will be issued to, and the contract will be formed with, the entity identified as the Offeror. The entity named as the offeror must be a single and distinct legal entity. Do not use the name of a branch office or a division of a larger entity if the branch or division is not a separate legal entity, i.e., a separate corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, etc.

AUTHORIZED SIGNATURE

(Person must be authorized to submit binding offer to contract on behalf of Offeror.)

TAXPAYER IDENTIFICATION NO.

(See "Taxpayer Identification Number" provision)

TITLE

(business title of person signing above)

STATE VENDOR NO.

(Register to Obtain S.C. Vendor No. at www.procurement.sc.gov)

PRINTED NAME

(printed name of person signing above)

DATE SIGNED STATE OF INCORPORATION

(If you are a corporation, identify the state of incorporation.)

COVER PAGE (NOV. 2007)

Government entity (federal, state, or local) _ Corporation (tax-exempt) _ Corporate entity (not tax-exempt)

Other Partnership _ Sole Proprietorship

(See "Signing Your Offer" provision.) OFFEROR'S TYPE OF ENTITY: (Check one) mailto:Jason.evans@ppp.sc.gov http://www.procurement.sc.gov/

AMENDMENT # 1

AMENDMENTS TO SOLICITATION (JAN 2004): (a) The Solicitation may be amended at any time prior to opening. All actual and prospective Offerors should monitor the following web site for the issuance of Amendments: www.procurement.sc.gov (b) Offerors shall acknowledge receipt of any amendment to this solicitation (1) by signing and returning the amendment, (2) by identifying the amendment number and date in the space provided for this purpose on Page Two, (3) by letter, or

(4) by submitting a bid that indicates in some way that the bidder received the amendment. (c) If this solicitation is amended, then all terms and conditions which are not modified remain unchanged.

[02-2A005-1]

I. Questions (Black) / Answers (Red)

1. Who is performing the work now? A: The current contractor performing these services is Kopis LLC.

2. What will happen to the incumbents if another vendor is selected? A: The incumbent will finish the work on projects that is near completion. If a new vendor is selected for this procurement, the new contractor will transition on and the incumbent will transition off.

3. Can you describe in more detail what enhancements you anticipate? A: Enhancements can be brought from the

Legislature as laws are passed, the Governor based on executive order, the Director based on business need, or business units based on their needs. The scope ranges from minor changes to an individual page, up to additions of new modules or redesigns of existing modules.

4. Can we propose remote rates and onsite rates to cover travel costs? A: No. Per the solicitation, there must be a single rate for each category of staff, and this rate must include but not limited to travel, software, hardware, insurance, overhead, and any other cost associated with the performance of the resulting contract.

5. Can you provide an estimate of the number of hours needed on site per month and for which roles? A: This can vary by project, although project management, business analyst, and technical lead are more likely to be needed to meet and offer in person assistance over other roles.

6. p. 3, Individual hard copies…submitted on-line. Please confirm that these “hard” copies are electronic. A:

Hard copy submittals must be submitted in paper form. Five copies must be marked as such identical to what was submitted online through SCEIS.

7. p. 3, All copies must be delivered…to the following address. Please clarify whether the State requires copies mailed to the Greystone Boulevard address or (only) requires on-line submission. A: Paper hard copies must be delivered/mailed to the address listed on page 3 of the solicitation document.

8. p. 18, Personnel requirements. Please identify the daily work location of incumbent resources. A: Regular work location of incumbents are managed by their employer, which is based in Greenville, SC.

9. p.19, Travel to Columbia, SC will be required to gather new requirements or to deliver new software versions.

Can you provide an estimate of the frequency/number of these events per year? A: This has tended to be around 5-10 per year, but the frequency will vary based on customer need, technical complexity, and project scope.

10. p. 20, Support and maintenance services. Please provide details on the volume and priority of tickets over the past 12 months. A: There have been 332 tickets assigned to the incumbent in the last year, as of this writing.

Information on priority is not available.

11. p. 25, State Criminal Justice or Law Enforcement systems in South Carolina. May we substitute equivalent out-of-state experience for this requirement? A: No. Laws, regulations, and delegation of duties across agencies differ by state. The purpose of this requirement is to highlight awareness of SC business rules and processes as it applies to law enforcement.

12. p. 44, Provide a lump sum. The pricing sheet appears to be missing a cell to provide the lump sum. Please clarify and provide instructions for calculating it. A: Offerors may submit a lump sum cost as an attachment to the Price-Business Proposal.

13. What kind of enhancements are expected for the contract period? (in terms of technology and size of effort)?

A: Historically we have added new modules, updated existing modules, and upgraded infrastructure (SQL

Server, .NET Framework, etc.) as dictated by business or technology needs.

14. How many enhancements does the current team implement in a given month/release period? A: Because of the time required to coordinate, gather requirements, develop, and test large builds, it is unlikely that there is more than one production build a quarter per application at most. This does not count hotfixes. Each build may contain between one and several dozen enhancements or fixes.

15. Is there a tool that is currently used for capturing maintenance requests? Does SCDPPPS expect to continue using this tool? A: We currently use Microsoft DevOps for issue management. We have no expectations to change from this at present.

16. What is the current release management approach and does SCDPPPS expect changes to this? A: We use development, test, user acceptance, and production environments, with releases escalating to each as they progress through the development lifecycle. We do not expect this to change in the near future.

17. What is the number of staff currently assigned to these systems by the incumbent? A: The incumbents do not assign staff to systems; they are used, and billed on an hourly bases, as needed. Individuals may work on these systems for one hour a month, or a hundred, depending on their specific skills and the need for them. On average, we use about 900 billable hours per month.

18. Per the RFP, travel is only needed for gathering new requirements or delivering new versions. How does

SCDPPPS define "new versions" (bi-weekly, waterfall, monthly?). A: This is as needed, and has varied.

Production pushes tend to not be more frequent than once a quarter, but this varies by application, business demand, and does not include hotfix builds.

19. Does SCDPPPS expect travel for support fixes or only enhancements? A: It could be either. While it is unlikely that a minor fix may require travel, fixes may also include post production support issues, which can be complex and expansive following a large deployment. In such cases, the complexity and sensitivity may require onsite support.

20. What are the most common issues that SCDPPPS faces for support or maintenance (For priority level 1-3)?

What is the frequency of these issues? A: We do not have quantitative historical information on priority.

21. Is the vendor expected to procure any software/tools? A: The vendor is expected to procure any software or tools needed to perform development in the environment and on the applications described.

22. The Qualification section (IV) notes "Offerors must provide documented experience of the proposed staff".

What documentation is this referring to other than resume? A: Certificates may be included as documented experience for this requirement.

23. The RFP notes that "The successful contractor upon award will be required to execute a ‘Non-Disclosure

Agreement’. In the call on 6/3, it was stated that the NDA needs to be in the response. Do we need to submit one with the response or only do it after the award? A: The Non-Disclosure Agreement will be signed and provided to SCDPPPS after award but prior to commencement of work.

24. If the vendor is bidding with a sub-contractor, is the sub also required to be registered in SC? A: Subcontractors may not need to be registered in SCEIS but all subcontractors must be identified in their proposal (refer to

“Subcontractor - - Identification” clause found on page 26).

25. Does SCDPPPS require afterhours/emergency services? A: In the past we have not needed or required emergency support, but have required afterhours support for key efforts, such as a large production push.

26. What tools does SCDPPPS use to capture and manage support tickets? A: Although issues begin with a helpdesk system, the development process is managed using Microsoft DevOps.

27. What is the expected SDLC process followed by the team? A: We use an agile methodology, and use DevOps to manage the source code, work items, assignments, and deployment.

28. Does SCDPPPS allow for any transition time from the incumbent? A: SCDPPPS will make reasonable accommodations for transition time. Offerors should propose a transitional plan in their proposal.

29. Is there any system knowledge base of past support items that is maintained? A: Past work items reside in

DevOps.

30. The RFP indicates that all systems are held on an internal only network, will the developers have access to that network or will they need to be on site? - Are there currently Development and Testing versions of those systems or is the contractor expected to set up there own dev and test environments? A: Access to the network can be granted to non-production environments, provided the vendor and staff pass CJIS security requirements.

31. Are there staff currently specifically assigned to the support and maintenance tickets? If so, How many? A:

No, incumbent staff are not specifically assigned. Work is reviewed by SCDPPPS, and at our approval, passed to the vendor to begin work.

32. What is the average number of monthly service request tickets across all systems and for each system? A: As of June 10, 2020, there have been 332 tickets assigned to the incumbent in the past year.

33. What percentage of work is to be done on site and how much can be done at the contractor’s location? A:

Onsite work is handled on an as needed basis, and not determined in advance. Historically, the majority of work has been done at the contractor’s location.

34. When on-site work is required, will staff be given workspace? Are staff to use agency equipment or contractor equipment (laptop, phones, desktops, etc.) A: If the vendor is required to work on site, space and necessary access will be provided. It is expected that the contractor will provide their own hardware and software.

35. Are there any enhancements or work in progress that deals with mobile applications? A: Not as far as iOS or

Android native applications. There are versions of our websites which are designed to be compatible with phone screens and browsers.

36. Does SCDPPPS have reservations in the vendor employing foreign nationals working in the US with a valid US issued work permit? A: The State does not have a problem with contractors employing foreign nationals as long as they comply with all State and Federal laws while performing the work as well as all requirements set forth in the solicitation.

37. Does SCDPPPS consider the SC Criminal Justice or Law enforcement experience mandatory? A: State Criminal

Justice or Law Enforcement systems in South Carolina is a minimum mandatory requirement in the qualifications section (Section V) of the solicitation document.

38. Given the current nature of events, does SCDPPPS accept online submissions ONLY? A: Please refer to the answers provided to Questions #6 and #7.