Amendment #2.docx

State of South Carolina

Request for Proposal (Amendment 2)

Solicitation:

Amendment date:

Procurement Officer:

Phone:

E-Mail Address:

Mailing Address:

5400020633 12/31/2020

KATHY SANTANDREU

8038965304 ksantandreu@mmo.sc.gov SFAA, Div. of Procurement Services, MMO 1201 Main Street, Suite 600 Columbia SC 29201

DESCRIPTION: WEBSITE DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE

USING GOVERNMENTAL UNIT: Department of Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS)

SUBMIT YOUR OFFER ON-LINE AT THE FOLLOWING URL: http://www.procurement.sc.gov

SUBMIT OFFER BY (Opening Date/Time): 01/07/2021 1-19-2021 11AM ET (See "Deadline for Submission Of Offer" provision)

QUESTIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY: 12/14/2020 2:00 PM ET (See "Questions from Offerors" provision)

NUMBER OF COPIES TO BE SUBMITTED: 1

CONFERENCE TYPE: Pre-proposal

DATE & TIME: 12/11/2020 10:00 AM ET 1:00 PM ET

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

LOCATION:

Telephone/video conference

You must submit a signed copy of this form with Your Offer. By signing, You agree to be bound by the terms of the Solicitation. You agree to hold Your Offer open for a minimum of ninety (90) calendar days after the Opening Date. (See "Signing Your Offer" provision.)

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.)

DATE SIGNED

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)

STATE OF INCORPORATION

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

OFFEROR'S TYPE OF ENTITY: (Check one) (See "Signing Your Offer" provision.)

___ Sole Proprietorship ___ Partnership ___ Other_____________________________

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

COVER PAGE - ON-LINE ONLY (MAR. 2015)

SAP

SAP

PAGE TWO

(Return Page Two with Your Offer) HOME OFFICE ADDRESS (Address for offeror's home office / principal place of business)

NOTICE ADDRESS (Address to which all procurement and contract related notices should be sent.) (See "Notice" clause)

_________________________________________________ Area Code - Number - Extension Facsimile

_________________________________________________ E-mail Address

PAYMENT ADDRESS (Address to which payments will be sent.) (See "Payment" clause)

____Payment Address same as Home Office Address ____Payment Address same as Notice Address (check only one) ORDER ADDRESS (Address to which purchase orders will be sent) (See "Purchase Orders and "Contract Documents" clauses)

____Order Address same as Home Office Address ____Order Address same as Notice Address (check only one)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF AMENDMENTS

Offerors acknowledges receipt of amendments by indicating amendment number and its date of issue. (See "Amendments to Solicitation" Provision)

DISCOUNT FOR PROMPT PAYMENT

(See "Discount for Prompt Payment" clause)

PREFERENCES - A NOTICE TO VENDORS (SEP. 2009): Preferences do not apply

PREFERENCES - ADDRESS AND PHONE OF IN-STATE OFFICE: Preferences do not apply

____In-State Office Address same as Home Office Address ____In-State Office Address same as Notice Address (check only one)

PAGE TWO (SEP 2009)

End of PAGE TWO

AMENDMENTS TO SOLICITATION (JAN 2004) (modified): (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 by identifying the amendment number and date in the space provided for this purpose on Page Two and returning with solicitation response (c) If this solicitation is amended, then all terms and conditions which are not modified remain unchanged.

Questions from Offerors - amendment (Jun 2017) The solicitation is amended as provided herein. Information or changes resulting from questions will be shown in a question-and-answer format. All questions received have been reprinted below. The “state’s response” should be read without reference to the questions. The questions are included solely to provide a cross-reference to the potential Offeror that submitted the question. Questions do not form a part of the contract; the “state’s response” does. Any restatement of part or all of an existing provision of the solicitation in an answer does not modify the original provision except as follows: underlined text is added to the original provision. Stricken text is deleted. [02-2a097-1]

A. The following schedule changes have been made:

SUBMIT OFFER BY (Opening Date/Time): 1-19-2021 11AM ET Demos: 2-23-21, 2-24-21 or 2-25-21 Post Award: 3-8-21 Award goes final (if no protests) 3-18-2021

B. Questions from Offerors with answers:

Note: Vendors are allowed to ask questions only regarding Amendment #2. Last day for questions or to file a protest against amendment #2: January 7, 2021 (11:59 PM ET)

What is the anticipated budget for this project? Web projects can vary widely in budget, from $5,000 all the way upwards of $1 million. It would be very helpful to have a sense of budget range, so as to actually tailor a scope that would be practical for what the State has in mind. We just need a very rough, general ballpark sense (i.e., less than $100K, or $100K-$300K, $300K-$500K, or greater than $500K). Clearly, competitive pressures will assure that the State still receives the most aggressive bids possible. Budget for development/redesign of new website should not exceed $75,000.00, which does not include charges for ongoing technical support.

Are there any incumbent contractors who are currently accomplishing work on the current legacy site? No 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.

Deliverable 10. With respect to hosting, please clarify:

d. Please describe any preferences with regard to hosting solution (i.e., on premise vs. cloud) Hosting will not be performed by DAODAS or on State of SC resources – UNLESS it is by DTO, possibly as part of the SC Cloud. Offeror will provide their proposed hosting solution and provide yearly pricing. DAODAS may or may not utilize your hosting option but may instead use DTO. The contractor would need to be compatible with current DTO cloud solutions which at this time are Microsoft and AWS.

e. Please specify any minimum hosting requirements that the State currently is currently envisioning/anticipating.

If the vendor will host, the vendor must agree to 4-nines uptime and to various security measures. The vendor is responsible for applying all security-related updates to the hosting platform, its OS, and various plugins in a timely fashion. This applies to the entire stack (such as linux, apache, mysql, PHP, Wordpress, Wordpress plugins, etc.).

If the vendor is hosting, patches to high-priority security flaws shall be applied within five days of release. For high-priority security flaws where a patch may not be immediately available, but workarounds are available to mitigate risk, DAODAS shall be consulted about the options.

The vendor shall describe how its work will make use of the OWASP security techniques. Vendor shall also describe how its personnel are vetted (e.g., which types of background checks are made).

The vendor shall describe its password policies in terms of length, complexity, MFA. (How often are password changes enforced? How many of the vendor’s staff are given administrative credentials? How does the vendor log access?)

Vendor shall describe how its employees will access the website? (Will it be from employees’ homes or over a VPN? Will the vendor prevent staff from accessing the website while connected over public wifi, such as at hotels and airports?)

All website access shall be encrypted: SSL/TLS, and SCP or SFTP for file transfers.

Deliverable 5. The RFP seems to indicate that the vendor might have responsibilities with respect to content writing and editing (content development/redevelopment). Please answer the following:

f. Provide some reasonable sense of the volume of content that will need to be created. (number of pages, scope/length of typical page, etc.) DAODAS will provide first draft of all content. Vendor will be responsible for suggesting edits to make content more “website friendly.”

g. Will the person supporting this requirement need to have any particular subject expertise? If so, please specify. Designers are expected to be trained in human-factors engineering and in usability.

h. Please confirm that content production will only be necessary in English. If content will need to be manually produced in other languages, please specify the relevant requirements. Content production will only be necessary in English.

i. How will source information for the content be accessed? Interviews with SMEs? Some other way? NA (See answer to #4.a.)

j. What is the nature of the content that must be produced? Just text? See answer to #4.a.

k. For clarity sake, please indicate the target audience(s) for content that might need to be produced by the contractor’s team. See answer to #4.a.

l. To what extent can vendors anticipate that South Carolina’s personnel will contribute to any content production that might be required? Please provide some sense of the resources that will be available to the contractor in this regard to assist with the content effort described by the preceding items. See answer to #4.a.

m. Is there a particular measure of time and/or effort (ex. hours per week, or FTEs per week) that bidders should assume will be necessary to fulfill the service obligations? Having such an estimate would enable fair and accurate, apples-to-apples comparisons of bidder proposals. No

n. Please confirm that after the site launches, the successful vendor’s responsibilities relative to content production (writing and editing) will be deemed complete, and no further content support will be necessary. If this is not the case, please describe in detail the anticipated level of content product effort that will be necessary after launch. This is correct.

Approximately how many distinctive types of content does the current site have? Please provide a simple list the current types, if possible. The current site has landing pages, downloadable content assets, and calls to action (e.g., training registration, alcohol use disorder self-test).

With regard to the current status and condition of the legacy content:

o. Approximately what percentage of the legacy pages are using a standardized format and layout, such that they can easily and consistently mapped to CMS content types? 90%

p. Is there currently any clean and consistent separation between content and presentation? Yes

q. In whatever format the current content is presently being stored, is it strictly plain text, or does it blend-in / intermix html tags amidst the content? HTML tags are intermixed with plain text.

r. In the State’s estimation (percentage), how much of the current content (pages) could be “lifted as shifted” as is? 25%

With regard to the content migration needs of the project:

s. How many PAGES that will need to be migrated. We will not know this until we consult with the successful bidder on the overall site design.

t. How many FILES will need to be migrated? We will not know this until we consult with the successful bidder on the overall site design.

u. Describe any DATA (not reflected by a & b) that will need to be re-stored/migrated.

v. Will State personnel assist with the migration effort? If so, please describe the scope of resources that will be available to the successful vendor.

DAODAS can give the vendor access to its webservers through a desktop-sharing session. Available will also be the IT Manager, the Public Information Office and a couple of other people at DTO (SC Division of Technology)

w. Will any dated/historic content, like meeting notes and minutes, need to be migrated, and if so, would a library of PDFs be a reasonable alternative to html migration? We are not aware of any such content that will need to be migrated, but if we are overlooking anything, a library of PDFs would be an acceptable alternative to HTML migration.

x. Please describe any intentions to convert legacy files (ex. pdfs, word files, excel files, etc.) to html. There are no such intentions at this time.

Please confirm that any submitted resumes will NOT count towards page limits. Please review page 24 of the solicitation document – there is a list of 6 items which are the only items that will not count toward the page limit. To that list of items, the State is adding a 7th item which will be the service provider security assessment questionnaire. The service provider security assessment questionnaire will not count towards the page limit. Please answer the questions to the questionnaire in a concise and precise manner. Do not use the questionnaire as means to provide information other than the information requested be provided by the question.

Please confirm the security assessment questionnaire will not count towards page limits. Please see answer to question 8.

Would the State please consider increasing the page limit to 40 or 45? The State will increase the page limit to 45 pages.

If at all possible, please ensure that the schedule affords bidders a period of at least 10 business days to prepare responses subsequent to Q&A being published. Offerors will be given enough time to prepare their responses.

Under technical proposal instructions, for “deliverables” the RFP indicates that bidders must respond to the first 15 deliverable items. Please confirm that this was not supposed to be 1 thru 16, because there are actually 16 deliverables listed in the scope. Does the State want bidders to respond to only the first 15, or should responses include #16 as well? Please respond to all 16 deliverables.

Deliverable 12 in indicates, “The contractor shall provide consulting to assist DAODAS in developing interactive online dashboards using Tableau, incorporating data available from various sources.” Please provide a clearer sense of this scope by responding to EACH of the following:

y. How many dashboards? We anticipate 5 to 10 dashboards.

z. Describe some of the dashboards that the State is envisioning. Which ones would the state deem more complex and less complex, and why? Examples of planned dashboards can be found at: http://justplainkillers.com/data/embed/prescription/

aa. Should bidders assume that all infrastructure is in place for tableau to make connections? Or will bidders need to setup any of the infrastructure in this regard. If setup will be required, please explain the scope in detail. Tableau provides an embed code that can be put into the website for display. An example can be found at: http://justplainkillers.com/data/embed/prescription/

Please provide the pre-bid conference attendance list, if available. Not available.

Please provide a copy of any pre-bid conference presentation, if available. Not available.

Number of Copies. The RFP seems to be requiring a USB submission. Please respond to EACH of the following:

ab. We are curious about the purpose of the USB submission. To the extent that the State will already be receiving an electronic copy through SCEIS, please just confirm that the physical USB submission is indeed really necessary. (Note that many offices are still decentralized, and submission of the physical USB will likely force some level of additional retail contact and engagement).

ac. Does the USB need to be received by the submission deadline, or can it be received afterwards?

For both of the questions above, please review and adhere to the instructions on page labeled page 1 of the solicitation document - **Important information for all Offerors**

Please provide an indication of the institutional roles that will be involved with proposal evaluation (ex. technical IT specialists, communications, etc.). This will help to ensure that bidders are targeting their proposals appropriately. The proposals will be evaluated by content subject matter experts, a technical IT specialist, and the agency’s public information officer (i.e., communications expert).

How many domains & subdomains does the team currently manage? Various agency-owned domains resolve to our one site: daodas.sc.gov .

Who built the current website(s) - the internal team or an outside vendor? The current website was built by an outside vendor.

Do South Carolina-based vendors receive points for being in-state? No

Does the team have a preference for local vendors? No

Can you confirm the current CMS is wordpress, if now what is it? The current site is built on WordPress, but DAODAS is willing to change to another CMS.

What do you not like about your current CMS that's causing you to seek a new one? The content manager does not find the current CMS to be particularly elegant or user-friendly.

Is your team open to leveraging a cloud-hosted CMS? If the vendor uses a cloud-hosted CMS, it shall be hosted on either AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or IBM Cloud. Before approving, DAODAS would need to know additional, granular detail about the vendor’s cloud-hosted CMS, beginning with the CSPs they are using.

The RFP calls out an open source CMS - is there specific CMS you have a preference for? (i.e. Drupal, WordPress, Joomla)? No

Do you require extended hosting capabilities like a web application firewall (WAF) for DDoS protection, or something else? DAODAS requires WAF. If the vendor’s solution is cloud-hosted, they must state which CSP services (e.g., anti-DDOS) they will use. See additional information on hosting on #3.

Can you provide estimated site traffic figures in the form of page views per month? (to nearest 10,000 is fine) 15,000 (but our goal is for the redesigned site to increase traffic) the RFP requests responders to list security certifications, but are there any security certifications that are specifically required for storing sensitive information from the website (like HIPAA, PCI, SOC-2, FERPA, FedRamp, etc)? The website will not contain sensitive data under HIPAA, PCI, FERPA, etc.

The RFP calls out transmitting email and text messages - are you looking for a communication automation solution integrated with the website send out email/sms follow-ups based on user actions? DAODAS desires automated confirmation e-mails generated by the submittal of contact form inquiries, event registrations, and requests for publications.

What are the different types of roles of employees who have responsibilities related to the new platform? One employee will have primary responsibility for content updates, and a second employee will serve as their backup.

Are there many non-technical users who will have responsibilities with the website? No

Whether companies from Outside USA can apply for this? (like,from India or Canada) No

Whether we need to come over there for meetings? Most meetings will be held virtually. However, the vendor must be willing and able to meet in person if required by the agency.

Can we perform the tasks (related to RFP) outside USA? (like, from India or Canada) No

Can we submit the proposals via email? No

We would like to understand if the Primary Bidder (Vensai Technologies) can work with our proven partner in some parts of the requirements like SEO & Digital Marketing. If yes, will our partner also need to fulfill all compliance and documentary requirements as mentioned in the RFP? My Partner will be doing only part of the RFP requirement. All material requirements of this contract also apply to subcontractors at any tier.

Which versions of IE do you need supported? We no longer support IE11 or lower. IE 11 is the current version, so there is no need to support anything lower than v11. We expect the site to support Chrome, Chromium-based Edge, Firefox, and Safari. We expect it to function well on mobile devices (iOS and Android), as well as on monitors and projectors.

Could the State confirm that it expects the work to be performed at the contractor's premises, except for meetings that, for some reason, cannot be done virtually? This is correct.

Could the State share the estimated budget, or the budget cap, for this multi-year project? See answer to question #1.

Will the State share the questions and answers arising from the pre-proposal conference? Yes. Also see page 11-12 of solicitation document, clause labeled Questions from Offerors (Feb 2015).

What is the Not To Exceed (NTE) budget amount allocated for this RFP? See answer to #1.

If applicable, is there an incumbent currently providing the services? No

Is the Division of Technology Operations (DTO) responsible for patching the application program specific language e.g. PHP? Not at this time

What framework is currently being used and is the agency open to a different framework/CMS or the agency would like to maintain the current CMS and migrate to a new design? The current framework is WordPress, but DAODAS is open to alternatives.

Are there any known security issues that vendors should be aware of, in this current platform (WordPress, Hosting platform, access right, spam mails, etc.)? DAODAS requires that the webserver OS and applications, including Apache, mySQL, PHP, WordPress, and its plugins, be updated within 1.5 weeks of patches becoming available.

Is there an incumbent and how long has the incumbent been on the contract for? No

Would the agency provide the required tools search us design e.g. photoshop to build out mockups or are the consultant responsible for acquiring these tools and maintaining licenses? Vendor should have all such tools. If DAODAS personnel need to use such tools, we will license them as appropriate.

As stated in the RFP, the consultant is responsible for maintaining license under the permit and license section. Can you elaborate on this? Does it include software purchases, etc.? Yes, it could include software purchases, etc.

Is there a minority goal for this contract? No

Is there an incentive for South Carolina minority business? No

Are vendors required to work with a South Carolina certified minority business as a subcontractor for this contract if the vendor is out of state? No

How many resource personnel from the Department of Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS) will be working with the vendors and what could be their roles? 1 Agency Director (overarching vision for website); 3-4 subject matter experts; 1-2 technical experts; and 1 communications expert

The RFP requires training with limitations. We would like to know what modes of training does the Department of Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS) recommend. Online training via platforms such as Microsoft Teams, WebEx, and Zoom are acceptable.

When the website development is complete will the Department of Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS) issue task orders? No

Where can vendors find the Department of Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS) color & logos guideline requirements? Please contact Jimmy Mount via email at jmount@daodas.sc.gov for this information. You must label the subject line of your email to Mr. Mount: Request for DAODAS) color & logos guideline requirements for RFP 5400020633. Please do not wait until the last minute to request this information from Mr. Mount.

Are we going to host the Development and Quality Assurance environment on our own servers? or on the DTO hosted environments? Please see #3. Also, if third-party hosted, the must satisfy DAODAS’ security regimen.

Does the Department of Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS) employ the use of version controls and what are some of the department’s software development policies to consider? Also, the RFP requires the use of only HTML, and CSS, would the agency also take into consideration JS? Other than WordPress’s built-in version control, we don’t use them for our website. The agency would not consider JS, as it is a popular attack vector.

Given the number of questions/topics in Section III and related responses required in tsection IV, it will be very difficult to provide meaningful responses and stay within the required 30 pages. Is it possible to allow for more than 30 pages or remove this restriction altogether? Please see answer to #10

Page 18, section III Scope of Work/Specifications, states: The vendor will provide creative, digital, and website design/maintenance services. These services will include website design and maintenance, as well as the recommendation, implementation, and execution of methods to reach target audiences through digital media. Please expand on what is meant by “the recommendation, implementation and execution of methods to reach target audiences through digital media." Also, where in the price proposal do we provide information about “the recommendation, implementation and execution of methods to reach target audiences through digital media." DAODAS is referring to ideas for the website (e.g., landing pages, special features) that would lend themselves to driving traffic to the website through the agency’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Please include your pricing for this in the “Other Cost - Optional” tab of the excel pricing spreadsheet.

Page 24, the delivery date is currently May 30, 2021, or roughly 12 weeks from award and protest period (March 4). Given the scope and scale of the website, would it be possible to extend the delivery date from a 12-week timeframe to a longer timeframe? DAODAS is open to other timeframes. As part of your technical proposal response, please provide your best timeframe for the solution you are offering.

Page 24, under Information for Offers to Submit, Important Note, states the following will not count as part of the 30-page limit:

· Page 1 and 2 of this solicitation document

· Dividers

· Insurance Information

· Cost Sheet

· Minority Participation Questionnaire

· Subcontractor Form Page 27, sections (III) Project Management and Planning and (IV) Qualifications and Experience require a response. Would this information be included in the 30-page limit or should it be provided in an Appendix? Yes, that information is included in the page limit. Please also see #8 and #10

Beginning on page 39, related to Contractors Liability Insurance, is the vendor supposed to agree to procure the insurance if granted the contract or show that the required insurance has already procured? Please see page 28 of the solicitation document, clause labeled Information for Offerors to submit – General (Mar 2015). Check with your insurance provider. For any insurance that you do not currently carry, have them provide proof that they would be to provide it to you if/when you are awarded.

Page 58 - does the Service Provider Security Assessment Question belong in an Appendix/fall outside the 30-page limit? Please see answer to #8 and #10

Can hosting change to our Flywheel account? Flywheel would be acceptable as a host, but the design and hosting account would have to be registered in DAODAS' name, not that of the vendor.

Hosting Requirements:

- What is the current size of the site and database? Size is 560Mb and 3,146 files. Database is 3 Mb.

- What is the monthly traffic/bandwidth? Average number of monthly page views is 15,000.

- Can we be provided a sitemap? The sitemap files are available from the Wordpress admin page, and there are 5 small files that can be provided as a .zip archive.

- Is it a multi-site installation? Does DAODAS have future plans of needing a multi-site? No

How will the site export be provided so we can build our staging/dev environment? Will we be able to login into WordPress Admin and export ourselves or will site dump of files and database provided by client? DAODAS can provide .zip archives or a site dump.

How will we receive the ability to perform the initial site audit? Will we be able to view the WP Admin to see site structure? The vendor will perform the initial site audit via sharing of an IT administrator’s desktop. The initial audit will be a detailed look over of the website for organization and to inventory all assets (such as pages, images, PDFs, configuration files, etc), as well as to get an idea of how our CMS is being used.

Is there an existing GIT repository? If so, will new work require use of client's GIT repo or can new development be managed our own GIT repo? No. GIT is not used.

Can we build our own custom theme? Or do we need to add onto the existing theme? DAODAS will collaborate with the vendor on development of new themes (or modification of existing themes).

- What are the current dependent plugins? Are any plugins required for the new site? The current Wordpress plugins used are Advanced Custom Fields, Akismet, Backup WordPress, Contact Form 7, Events Manager, Query Manager, WP-Mail-SMTP, and Yoast SEO.

- What Custom Post Types (CPT) are currently used? N/A

- What Taxonomies are currently used? N/A

- Are there any custom user roles? Does DAODAS want any new roles/restrictions? No

Is there a sitemap of what the new site should be? If so, where can we find this information? If not, how will this information be obtained? The sitemap will be developed in coordination with the successful bidder.

Does DAODAS want any new forms or other functionality? DAODAS wishes to explore the incorporation of data dashboards and video. Other forms or functionality may be identified in collaboration with the successful bidder. Please provide pricing for this under the “Other Cost (optional)” tab of the cost spreadsheet.

Will Tableau data be added to site using embed codes or is there another method in mind? Yes, Tableau data will be added using embed codes.

What level of ADA compliance does the site need to have? The required level is WCAG 2.1 AA

Page 21, 5a: What is an example of a customizable process for approving content? What are individual circumstances? Since the release of the RFP, internal changes at DAODAS have eliminated the need for these two items.

Page 21, 5i: Is this internal search feature in the WP Admin? I'm confused because it says, 'customers' who need to search for files, but from my experience, 'internal' would be the backend of the site, can we get a better explanation of who is performing the advanced search? The searches in question would be performed by visitors to the website. We said “internal” because we want visitors to have the opportunity to search the content of the website itself, as opposed to a feature that conducts an “external” (e.g., Google) search.

"the search feature will need to index the contents’ of any .pdf, .docx, or .xls files, as well as the content of the site itself.”

· Contents of Excel, xls and Word docs cannot be indexed or searched. Only the titles can be.

· PDFs can be indexed and searched, but it requires them to be exported a specific way. Are all of the current PDFs exported to allow for indexing? Yes

For ArcGIS integration, does that mean the ability to embed Tableau dashboards? Would users be generating reports through the Tableau dashboard itself or is something different expected? ArcGIS is separate from Tableau. DAODAS will use ArcGIS’ online capabilities to create a resource map. An example of the ArcGIS hub/tab for the website can be found at: https://sc-department-of-health-and-environmental-control-gis-sc-dhec.hub.arcgis.com/

Could the State confirm that it expects the work to be performed at the contractor's premises, i.e., expects a fully remote project? The vendor must have the ability to perform all work on its premises, but some work could be done at the agency if required for vendor-agency collaboration.

Could the State share the estimated budget, or the budget cap, for this multi-year project? See answer to #1.

Could the State share the estimated full-time equivalent (FTE) workload that is expected from the contractors' side, in both phases, development and ongoing support? DAODAS cannot estimate the workload that any given vendor might need to complete the development phase. Ongoing support could be easily handled by a part-time employee.

Could the State share the estimated full-time equivalent (FTE) workload that it plans to provide from its staff (if any), in both phases, development and ongoing support? DAODAS will provide all necessary support from its staff in both phases.

What's the oldest Internet Explorer version the site must support? The site must support IE 11.

What CMS does DAODAS currently use? Do you have access to the CMS's source code? DAODAS currently uses WordPress, which is open source.

The interactive online dashboards - what data should they display? Do you want to access them through the site's admin side or do you envision them as a separate online entity that DAODAS will access independently from the CMS? Dashboards will be for public view on our website (see example at http://justplainkillers.com/data/embed/prescription/). Tableau data will be added using embed codes.

Are you open to alternative means of creating these dashboards besides Tableau? No. Do you intend to manage these dashboards in the future on your own, adding new data sources? DAODAS requires that there be no non-encrypted traffic with the site. For users, the site will be protected with SSL and TLS. For development and change traffic, SCP or SFTP will be used.

About the "reports by substance, time frame, risk factor/consequence, etc." - could you send a screenshot of any online report that's close to what you envision? If not, can you describe an example of a user creating a report on the site (what she/he does and what she/he sees as the result)? See answer to #13.c.

What is the allocated budget for this project? See answer to #1.

Is there any CMS Preference for this project? No

Can you provide us with an approximate number of web pages that will need to be migrated? Please see #7

Please let us know the start date and end date for the project? Please review the updated dates included in this amendment. The start date will be the date the award goes final. The award goes final seven (7) business days after the intent of award is posted (unless the award is protested). For the end date, please review clause 07-7B240-1 TERM OF CONTRACT -- EFFECTIVE DATE / INITIAL CONTRACT PERIOD (JAN 2006) and 07-7B245-2 TERM OF CONTRACT -- OPTION TO RENEW (JAN 2015) in the solicitation document.

Can you elaborate on any specific pain points with the existing website, both front end user facing and backend site administrator facing? The existing website’s structure is a little too “layered,” causing front-end users to have to “dig” a bit to find necessary information. Problems experienced by the site administrator(s) might be the result of the CMS being used.

All other terms, condition, bidding instruction, and specifications remain unchanged. If there are any question or if any confusion or uncertainty arises as a result of this amendment, it is the sole responsibility of the Offeror to contact the procurement officer for clarification. Contact information can be found in the top right-hand corner of the cover page of this amendment reference the “Duty to Inquire” in the original Request for Proposal (RFP).