CMEO Webinar Contact Management RFI.pdf

First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) Chief Procurement Office

Request for Information (RFI)

FirstNet Authority Event Management

1. INTRODUCTION

This Request for Information (RFI) is being issued to help the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) better understand systems capabilities and features, best practices, as well as vendor demographics and contract structure related to procuring an Event Management System.

This is not a request for proposal, request for quotation, or an invitation for bid, nor does its issuance obligate the Government to an eventual acquisition. All information received from this RFI will be used for market research purposes only. The Government does not intend to make any award based on responses to this RFI nor otherwise reimburse vendors for the preparation of any information submitted or Government use of such information. Acknowledgement of receipt of responses will not be made, nor will respondents be notified regarding the outcome of the information received. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

2. BACKGROUND

The FirstNet Authority is a Government bureau charged with the responsibility to ensure the building, deployment, and operation of a Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN) designed to meet the information and communications technology needs of first responders and public safety users. The FirstNet Authority is an independent authority within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), within the Department of Commerce (DOC).

The FirstNet Authority’s Marketing Engagement Office (MEO) started using WebEx to host large virtual engagements with public safety in 2020 and continues to host a few webinars per month. MEO identified WebEx as the best platform for these webinars due to the many capabilities that it offers and its ease of use. Overall, the tool has worked well, but it has several shortcomings; it does not integrate with Microsoft Dynamics 365, cannot brand the emails, does not include registration process and collecting and reporting webinar metrics is manual. MEO recently acquired Microsoft Teams Webinar, which appears to have many capabilities but also has several shortcomings, including its lack of integration with Dynamics 365 for the Government Community Cloud (GCC) environment. MEO also hosts in-person engagements, from small sized events up to larger events with a few hundred people.

The current state of Event Contact Management at the FirstNet Authority is as follows:

• The current process uses a combination of Survey Monkey, WebEx, Teams Webinar, MailChimp, Qualtrics and Poll Everywhere.

• The webinar/event invitation process is manual and time-consuming, only allowing 200 invites to be distributed at a time via Outlook.

• The list of registrants is reviewed daily to scrub particular registrants before sending out a manual Outlook calendar invite for the webinar.

• Registrants do not have the ability to unsubscribe from webinar/event invitations.

• Outlook emails are not always 508 compliant.

• Lacks the ability to create different types of invite links to control attendance. We need to manually scrub the registration lists to review registrants. For example, for invite-only events, we manually import and review the list of recipients and set up controls for the invite links such as disallowing forwarding.

• Limited email metrics.

• Cannot customize WebEx emails/meeting invites with the FirstNet Authority brand.

• Survey Monkey, which is utilized for the registration process, does not integrate with WebEx or

Dynamics 365.

o Registration data, which has more information about the contact, is separate from the attendee data.

o Existing contact data cannot be imported into Survey Monkey.

• The user registration process lacks confirmation with the registrant.

o There is no real confirmation once a person registers, they receive no email follow up, and once they click ‘Submit,’ they cannot go back and review the event/webinar details (date/time/etc.).

This lack of registration confirmation is due to the need to scrub for particular registrant emails before sending the registrant the Outlook calendar invite.

• Collecting and reporting on event/webinar metrics is a manual process.

• Communications with registrants are not automated.

The current state of Dynamics 365 Integration at the FirstNet Authority is as follows:

• None of our tools integrate with Dynamics 365 (Survey Monkey, WebEx, Teams Webinar, MailChimp, Qualtrics, Poll Everywhere).

o Must manually export the attendee lists to Excel, manipulate the data to align with our corresponding Dynamics 365 fields (e.g., spell out state names instead of using the abbreviation), and import the Excel spreadsheets into Dynamics 365, reviewing duplicate contacts and merging those records with the spreadsheet data.

o Do not currently import registrant data due to the time-consuming process.

o Within Dynamics 365, cannot easily determine which events that contacts have registered for or attended.

o These limitations are some of our biggest challenges. We seek a tool(s) that automatically pulls event registrant and attendee data into our Dynamics 365 system without having to import.

3. RFI INSTRUCTIONS

Responses shall be submitted in Microsoft Word format and should not exceed five (5) pages, including attachments, with font not smaller than 12 pt. The attachment should include a comprehensive product/service offerings sheet, with pricing, if available.

Responses are to be submitted via e-mail to John.Girard@firstnet.gov no later than June 15, 2022, at 1pm EST.

4. RFI TOPIC AREAS

4.1: Vendor Demographics The FirstNet Authority is interested in understanding the profile of the companies responding to this RFI.

Responses shall include:

mailto:John.Girard@firstnet.gov

1. Name and address of the company;

2. Name, title, and telephone number of the primary point of contact;

3. Number of years of corporate experience;

4. Number of federal government clients who have implemented your event management solution;

5. Unique Entity Identification Number (UEI) and primary NAICS code;

6. Business classification / socioeconomic status (ex. Small, 8(a), HUBZone, etc.);

7. Listing of any schedules / government wide acquisition contracts (GWACs) you hold for the requested services and appropriate contract numbers.

4.2: FirstNet Authority Event Management Offerings

For each of the relevant FirstNet Authority Event Management services you offer, please provide the following information:

1. Product/service name;

2. Product/service information or general description;

3. Product/service specifications;

4. How is this product/service sold to Government customers?

5. Are you FedRAMP certified?

4.3: FirstNet Authority Event Management Capabilities

For each of the relevant services you offer, describe the extent to which the following capabilities are available:

NOTE: please read the current state in section 2 above

1. Ability for the beginning to end management of event/webinar contacts, from registration, attendance, post-attendance, and metric analysis.

2. Ability to distribute mass invitations for invite-only events and for public event open to most everyone.

3. Ability to scrub lists for particular events, controlling which attendees may attend. Need manual and automatic options.

a. Public events (open to most everyone) need a traditional list management process in which recipients can control whether to unsubscribe from future invites and we can send invites to pre-defined groups.

b. Invite-only events need the ability to assemble a list of emails that can be sent with a quick import process. We need the ability to flag any recipients who previously unsubscribed in order to tailor their invite so that the email comes from the individual who has a relationship with them. We need those invite links to be recipient specific in case someone tries to forward or share the invite link.

4. Registrants can receive an automatic calendar invite upon registering.

5. Ability for contacts to unsubscribe from event/webinar invitations and to easily track which contacts have unsubscribed.

6. Ability for contacts to subscribe to invitation list.

7. All emails/invites must be 508 compliant.

8. Ability to know who has opened emails, clicked on links, unsubscribed, soft bounced, converted

(registered), etc.

9. Ability to brand all communications; emails/invites, etc.

10. Ability to brand all forms.

11. Ability to register people, eliminating the need for Survey Monkey.

12. Ability to embed a registration form directly to FirstNet.gov public facing website, with no need to click through to a secondary platform.

13. Ability to collect and analyze data to determine the success of different events/webinars, such as which had the most registrations, attendance, most popular topics, etc.

14. Registration should be easy and intuitive and provide all the information a registrant would need, to include a calendar invitation with event/webinar details.

15. Ability for event management tool to integrate with Microsoft Teams Webinar – or other proposed webinar/event tool – to exchange metadata about events, registrants, attendees, and webinar-supported apps that generate metadata such as Q&A, surveys/forms, polls, etc.

16. Ability to seamlessly integrate with Dynamics 365 to include:

a. All contacts’ registration and attendee information automatically displayed in Dynamics 365 without having to manually import the data, including all identification data (e.g., name, agency, email, state), and all attendance data (e.g., registered but didn’t attend).

b. The above information should be visible on both the contact record and engagement record in Dynamics 365.

17. Ability to open a contact record in Dynamics 365 and see complete event/webinar and survey information (currently, events attended are visible in the Timeline section, although this is not very user friendly and is limited in detail).

18. Ability to collect and store survey information within Dynamics 365 with minimal data manipulation from surveys or polls distributed to participants during the event or post-event.

19. Tool(s) must be FedRAMP certified, including any accompanying cloud/storage space.

5. REFERENCES

• OMB Circular No. A-130 https://www.cio.gov/policies-and-priorities/circular-a-130/