Amendment #1 Q&A.docx

Questions Regarding Solicitation 5400022715 SCJB Website Redesign Phase 1

1. Is there an anticipated budget or NTE funding allocation for this phase of the project? No If so, what is it? n/a Having this information available will enable bidders to right-size their offers, maximizing the likelihood that offers received will be acceptable and actionable.

2. Our sense is that the SOW for the project seems to be primarily addressing a limited scope of “phase 1” activity, encompassing initial discovery and design work. Please respond to EACH of the following:

a. Does the State hope to work with one vendor for all project phases? Not a requirement.

b. Will the selected vendor for this Phase 1 contract be permitted to compete for subsequent phases of work? Yes We’d be particularly interested in knowing if the selected vendor would be precluded/excluded from bidding on eventual technical implementation and sustainment. The selected vendor for phase 1 will not be precluded/excluded from bidding on other phases.

3. To what extent will technical development and/or technical implementation be necessary under THIS contract? Is the only technical development requirement that two pages will be created in a standalone, hand-coded HTML and CSS format? If the scope would exceed this, please clarify the technical development and implementation needs.

This contract requires that two (2) client-side code pages be delivered. The first page will represent the client-side coding for the home page of the website. This home page should include all relevant content that will be present on the home page of the website including but not limited to a header content, footer content, and primary navigation.

The second page will represent the client-side coding for an interior content page of the website. This interior page should include the structure of a page that will provide a consistent user experience throughout the website. This interior page includes but is not limited to header content, footer content, primary/header navigation, secondary/categorical navigation, breadcrumb navigation, and appropriate headings. These technical deliverables should include be desktop responsive design components and comply with Section 508 accessibility standards. Additionally, these technical deliverables should include all design elements and standards that were determined through the project design and discovery phases. These technical deliverables should be designed to be scalable for future website content and feature development. We are expecting HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript to be used along with the Bootstrap front-end framework for these deliverables.

4. Will any applications need to be included in the two HTML pages that are created? No If any particular functionality will be required within the two html pages, beyond basic text display and linking, then please describe the scope of functionality that will be necessary.

Specific functional feature development is not required for this project. The technical deliverables should provide the UI components for all sitewide features (i.e. breadcrumb navigation, search box, etc.), but UI development for features that are not available sitewide is not covered in the scope of this project.

5. Please confirm that the main URL targeted by this project will be https://www.sccourts.org/. If additional URLs, domains or subdomains will need to be targeted, please provide further explanation of the scope of the requirement.

The focus of this project is providing a content structure, design, and requirements analysis for a new website development effort that will replace the current sccourts.org web application. The future website may or may not reside at https://www.sccourts.org/ and the requirements discovery may incorporate analysis from various stakeholder groups and applications outside of the https://www.sccourts.org domain.

6. The SOW calls for “identification of areas where content strategy could help.” Please respond to EACH of the following:

a. We just want to clarify the requirement here. Does the State actually want the selected vendor to provide the Content Strategy consultation, or merely identify the areas where revised content strategy might be beneficial?

We require both.

b. The notion of Content Strategy is somewhat broad in our industry. It can encompass everything from strategic planning of priority messaging and communications, to usability testing and redevelopment of information architecture, to planning and coordination of editorial calendars, to management and facilitation of content assignments, to actual writing and editing of content. It can also sometimes encompass content migration. To the extent that Content Strategy is actually a requirement for this contract, please clarify the scope of services that the State is requesting.

We expect the vendor to identify and analyze different stakeholders groups. There will be some strategic communication discussions with key stakeholders, but we already have a clear mission for our organization. We are looking for a brand identity that will reflect existing messaging and information about the Judicial Branch. Usability testing and redevelopment of information architecture is required. Planning and coordination of editorial calendars is not required. Content creation is not required for this project; however, we are looking to identify new content categories and topics that may be developed in the future to benefit our stakeholders. Content migration is not a requirement of this contract.

7. As a part of this project, will the selected vendor be required to write, edit or compile text content on behalf of the State? If so, please describe the scope of this need.

No – website content creation is not required for this project.

8. Relative to the submission instructions, please respond to EACH of the following:

a. Please confirm that, for this submission, offerors do NOT need to follow the Instructions to offerors, as presented under “II. INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS -- B. SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS.” (We note that the content outline therein seems more addressed to actual technical solution implementation.) The first sentence of II. INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS – B. SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS “states the following outline may be helpful in preparing your proposal.

b. Please confirm that bidders instead only need to submit information along the lines outlined in the Statement of Work (i.e., schedule/timeline with milestones; organizational description and qualifications; key staff resumes; references/experience in providing services of similar scope and size). Yes, at a minimum, all parts of the Statement of Work should be addressed.

c. Under section “VIII. BIDDING SCHEDULE / PRICE-BUSINESS PROPOSAL,” the State stipulates that the business proposal must address 1) risk analysis, 2) risk should mitigation, 3) risk sharing, 4) performance incentives, and 5) financing options. We question the degree to which these submission requirements are truly applicable to the scope of the project. Would it be sufficient to simply provide pricing for CLIN 0001, or do bidders definitely still need to address these five additional business proposal factors? Under section “VIII. BIDDING SCHEDULE / PRICE-BUSINESS PROPOSAL states the “Offeror’s are to submit a Business Proposals as a separate document from the Technical Proposal. The Business Proposal may include the following considerations.” Since the word ”may” was used instead of must; it is optional.

9. Please clarify any expectations pertaining to on-site performance. Will remote performance by the contractor be deemed generally acceptable?

The vendor presentations must be done in person onsite at SCJB. After the presentations, remote performance will be deemed generally acceptable.

10. Regarding the design/usability process, please respond to EACH of the following:

a. To the extent that the State would like to engage citizen end users in the design process, will identification of end user subjects/participants be the responsibility of the vendor? Or will SCJB be able to provide sufficient participant/candidate lists?

SCJB will identify end user subjects.

b. Does the state have any target levels of end user engagement that should be taken into consideration for pricing purposes? (ex. a certain number of interviews, or a certain quantity or scope of test cases, etc.)

We do not have a target level. However, we do expect some level of end user engagement over the course of this project.

11. Please confirm that bidders will only need to address English content for this project. If there will be a need to address content in other languages, please provide further details on the scope of the requirement in this regard.

This project only requires English content to be considered.

12. We just want to make sure we have a reasonable sense of the targeted scope of content. Please provide an estimate of the page count that will need to be addressed.

Refer answers for questions #3 & #5.

13. Is there any established design framework or guidance that would need to be followed? Perhaps an approved state style guide or design system? If applicable, please provide a relevant link or sample page.

We are looking to the vendor to provide recommendations for brand identity and design elements. We do not have existing state guidelines for a design framework.

14. Is SCJB currently using a CMS, or are the existing site essentially constructed from traditional hand-coded HTML files? If applicable, please inform bidders which CMS is being used to manage the existing site.

No existing web content CMS is utilized for our front-facing sccourts.org website. This website is built on a ColdFusion framework and uses shared files for consistent layout and designs. All of the existing content is embedded an HTML framework.

15. Are there any vendors who are currently working with the existing targeted website(s)? If so:

a. Please indicate who the contractors are, and provide some indication of the general scopes of work that each contractor is accomplishing.

b. Please provide the relevant contract numbers.

c. Please indicate how long each contractor has been working on the assigned scope.

This is outside the scope of this project. Most development for this site has been conducted in-house.

16. Would the State consider affording bidders the opportunity to submit follow-on questions, after responses to these items have been published? This would be especially important if the responses to these items reveal, for instance, that the technical implementation or content strategy needs are deeper than initially indicated.

If needed we can allow for a 2nd round.

17. If at all possible, please allow bidders at least 10 business days to compile responses after Q&A has been published. 10 Calendar days We are allowing vendors 10 calendar days to compile their responses.

18. Is there any MWBE preference or minimum MWBE participation objective for this project? Please refer to section IV, Minority Participation, on page 16 of the Solicitation Documents. SCJB invites all Minority Companies to submit a response. Under section VI. AWARD CRITERIA; EVALUATON FACTORS SCJB has allotted up to 5% for Diversity of Staff.

19. What is your estimated budget for this project? Do you already have money set aside? This helps us determine the complexity of various features.

SCJB does not have an estimated budget for this project. Funding for this project has been approved by Court Services and the Department of Fiscal Services.

20. Is the main executive sponsor for this project from Information Technology, Communications, or another department?

Our project team leaders are from our Information Technology and Public Information offices. We will have stakeholders from across the organization that will be included during the discovery process.

21. Who will be responsible for evaluating responses (people and/or roles)?

The SCJB evaluating team will be comprised of staff from Court Services and Information Technology.

22. Who built your current site, and when was the last refresh?

Our current site was developed internally and has been maintained by internal development resources.

23. Do you have a preference for a highly secure, open-source CMS like Drupal?

CMS implementation is not included in the scope of this project.

24. Please describe your current hosting setup. Are you interested in hosting services?

We are not interested in hosting services.

25. Who currently provides you with ongoing support services?

Our internal development team manages ongoing support and maintenance.

26. Are you looking for ongoing maintenance and developer support?

No

27. Do you have a separate budget for hosting and ongoing support?

No

28. Please describe your technical / IT staff. How many members do you have and what is their level of experience, particularly with Drupal and/or PHP. This helps us determine the level of support you may require.

We don’t think this is appropriate information to provide at this stage.

29. Please describe the below:

a. Monthly Total Bandwidth

b. Monthly Page Views

c. Monthly Hits (e.g. html, css, js, images, docs)

d. CMS Number of content pages

e. CMS Database size

f. CMS File asset size This information is not relevant to this project.

30. We saw the SC Judicial Branch website RFP and wanted to reach out. We're a relational group that likes to put a face with a name and likes to understand all the small details of a project. Would it be possible for us to hop on a call sometime next week and chat about the RFP requirements? Perhaps on Thursday, Feb. 10th at 2:30 PM? Sorry, but under procurement regulations we cannot meet individually with a vendor. This could possibly allow an unfair advantage to a company.

31. As per the RFP, one of the requirements is a comprehensive presentation of our proposed solution. Can you please clarify what this requirement entails? The Presentation Script was included as an attachment to the RFP documents.

32. Will the presentations be done via Zoom at a scheduled time? SCJB is currently planning on meeting with up to the top five (5) vendors via in person at 1205 Pendleton Street, Suite 110 Conference Room, Columbia, SC 29201. SCJB will allow two (2) employees from the Offeror’s firm to be present for the presentations. Additional employees will be allowed to join vis Webex. The presentations are scheduled for the week of April 4th-8th. SCJB reserves the right to change presentations to Webex only. Notification will be sent to participating vendors.

Presentations SCJB will invite up to the top five responsive vendors to demonstrate their proposals. A script shall be followed. The demonstrations will be held at 1205 Pendleton Street, Suite 110 Conference Room, Columbia, SC 29201. Demonstrations will be held during the week of April 4th-8th and will last for no longer than 1.5 hours. There will be no exceptions to these dates or length of demonstration times. SCJB requests no more than two employees are present in the conference room. Any additional employees may be present via Webex. SCJB does have a right to change the demonstrations to a Webex delivery method. A notice will be sent to the companies demonstrating if SCJB opts for a Webex only method.