Amendment No. 1 to RFP No. DCSC-26-RFP-66 (Quality Assurance and Software Testing Services)_Entire Amendment.pdf

District of Columbia Courts

Administrative Services Division Procurement and Contracts Branch

AMENDMENT NO. 1

TO: ALL PROSPECTIVE OFFERORS

AMENDMENT

ISSUE DATE: April 10, 2026

SUBJECT: Request for Proposal (“RFP”) No. DCSC-26-RFP-66

Quality Assurance and Software Testing Services to Support the

Implementation of the Court of Appeals (COAs’) Case Management System

PROPOSAL

SUBMISSION

DATE: April 21, 2026, by 1:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time (“EST”)

By Email Only, See Section L.2

This Amendment (“Amendment”) No. 1 is issued and hereby published on the Courts’ website and effective as of the date shown above. Except as modified hereby, the RFP remains unmodified.

Item No. 1: The Questions & Answers Spreadsheet is hereby issued and attached as Appendix A.

Item No. 2: Section L.11 – Volume 1 – Technical Proposal Format & Content Table is hereby deleted in its entirety and replaced with the following table:

Tab Section Page limit

A Contractor Information and Disclosures 15

B Experience and Qualifications 15

C Technical Approach 5

D Past Performance and Customer Service 15

Item No. 3: Section L.11 – Volume 1 – Tab B – Experience & Qualifications. The page limit for Tab B listed in section (i) on page 49 of the RFP is hereby revised from 5 pages to 15 pages.

Item No. 4: All Other terms and conditions remain unchanged.

Note: One (1) copy of this Amendment is being sent to only those Offerors who submitted questions.

Offerors shall sign below and attach a signed copy of this Amendment to each offer to be submitted to the

Courts in response to the subject RFP. Offerors shall submit their proposals in accordance with the instructions provided in the original RFP documents and this Amendment No. 1. This Amendment, together with your proposal, must be received by the District of Columbia Courts no later than the date and time specified for proposal submission. Failure to acknowledge receipt of this Amendment may be cause for rejection of any proposals submitted in response to the subject RFP.

Darlene D. Reynolds, CPPB, GWCCM

Procurement and Contracts Branch Manager

& Contracting Officer

Administrative Services Division

District of Columbia Courts

This Amendment is acknowledged and is considered a part of the subject RFP.

Signature of Authorized Representative Date

Title of Authorized Representative

Name of Firm

Appendix A

Questions & Answers Spreadsheet

(See following page)

RFP No. DCSC-26-RFP-66

Quality Assurance and Software Testing Services to Support the Implementation of the Court of Appeals (COAs’)

Case Management System

Deadline for Questions: 12:00 p.m. EST on April 8, 2026

No. OFFEROR QUESTION D.C. COURTS RESPONSE

Section L.11 establishes a fifteen (15) page limit for Volume 1, Tab

A — Contractor Information and Disclosures. Tab A requires, among other items, the completed certifications, representations, and disclosures under Section J (Attachments J.2 through J.7) and Section

K (K.1 through K.8), as specified in Section L.11, Tab A(vi). The

Section J attachments alone total approximately fourteen (14) pages.

When the additional required Tab A content is included — specifically the transmittal letter (Tab A(i)), offeror identification and contact information (Tab A(ii) and (iii)), brief company history (Tab

A(iv)), copy of the District of Columbia business license (Tab A(v)), litigation disclosure (Tab A(vii)), and conflict of interest statement

(Tab A(viii)) — the total Tab A submission will exceed the fifteen-page limit.

Will the Courts consider increasing the page limit for Volume 1, Tab

A, to Twenty (20) pages to accommodate the required Section J and

Section K attachments together with the other required Tab A content?

Alternatively, will the Courts confirm that the Section J and Section

K attachments are excluded from the fifteen-page count for Tab A?

Section J and Section K attachments are excluded from the 15-page count for Tab A - Contractor Information and Disclosures.

Is a firm allowed to submit their response before the April 21, 2026 deadline, even if they have not yet received or reviewed any amendments? Additionally, is there any advantage to submitting our proposal early, or is the process not based on a first-come, first-served basis?

Offerors are allowed to submit their responses before the April 21, 2026 deadline; however, there is not any advantage to submitting a proposal early and the process is not based on a first-come, first-served basis. The

Courts will evaluate proposals according to the evaluation criteria outlined in Section M.3 – Evaluation Factors.

Technical Environment & Tooling:

For the Performance and Load testing (Section C.3.1.18), does the

Court already have licenses for tools like JMeter or LoadRunner, or is the Contractor expected to recommend and provide the tool?

The contractor can recommend tools, but the court is not expecting them to provide tools.

Technical Environment & Tooling:

The SOW references ServiceNow for service management. Is

ServiceNow also the primary tool for defect tracking and the RTM, or is a tool like Jira or Azure DevOps used for the SDLC?

The Courts utilize ServiceNow for defect tracking and RTM.

Technical Environment & Tooling:

Since "Database Testing" is a key requirement, will the testers be granted direct access to Oracle/Java backend environments for data validation and SQL querying?

The QA & Software Testers will not have direct access to the backend environment; instead, they will validate data by reviewing it in the current application.

Methodology & Workflow:

Section C.3.1.17 mentions Agile support. How frequent are the sprints, and are the QA resources expected to participate in Daily

Stand-ups and Sprint Planning for the COA Case Management

System?

Sprint cadence is managed by the COA Case Management System vendor, who is responsible for developing and delivering the product. As such, sprint frequency and Agile ceremonies are primarily driven by the vendor’s development approach. QA resources are not embedded as core members of the CMS vendor’s sprint team; however, their participation in Agile ceremonies, such as Daily Stand-ups and Sprint Planning, may be requested based on the Project Manager’s discretion.

Methodology & Workflow:

To what extent is testing integrated into the deployment pipeline? Are you looking for "Shift-Left" testing where automated scripts trigger automatically upon a code commit?

Testing is integrated into our overall deployment approach; however, given that development is performed by the CMS contractor, our focus is on establishing strong independent validation.

Methodology & Workflow:

Are these two testers the *only* QA resources for this project, or will they be augmenting an existing internal ITD QA team?

The two (2) QA & Software Testers will be the only dedicated QA resources for this project.

Specific Testing Requirements:

Does the Court require a specific accessibility testing tool (e.g., Axe, SortSite) or manual testing with specific screen readers like JAWS?

Manual testing with screen reader JAWS which will be provided by the courts.

Specific Testing Requirements:

Section C.1 mentions Disaster Recovery (DR) testing. Are the testers expected to help *write* the DR plan, or simply validate the system’s availability and data integrity after a failover event triggered by ITD?

Validating the system’s availability and data integrity after a failover event is triggered by ITD.

Scope & Deliverables:

Section C.1 mentions "training and ongoing support to end users." Is this training focused on *how to use* the new system, or training the

Court’s internal QA staff on the *automation frameworks* built by the Contractor?

Both are true.

Scope & Deliverables:

Does the scope include testing the migration of legacy case data from the old system into the new web-based enterprise application?

Yes.

Scope & Deliverables:

Given the D.C. location, is this role expected to be 100% on-site at the

Court’s facilities, or is there a hybrid/remote allowance for the two testers?

The preference is for a hybrid work model. Based on the nature of the tasks and at the discretion of the Project Manager, the testers should be flexible and able to adjust their schedule, including on-site presence as needed.

Does the Court anticipate any on-site presence requirements during the base or option year, or is performance expected to be fully remote?

The preference is for a hybrid work model. Based on the nature of the tasks and at the discretion of the Project Manager, the 2 QA & Software

Testers should be flexible and able to adjust their schedule, including on-site presence as needed.

Are the 2,040 hours per tester expected to be evenly distributed throughout the year, or should offerors anticipate surge periods tied to releases?

The expectation is a standard allocation of 8 hours per day per tester.

However, offerors should anticipate potential surge periods aligned with key releases. In such cases, the Project Manager may authorize additional hours in writing. Under no circumstances will the total exceed 2,040 hours per QA & Software Tester per year.

Does the Court have preferred or currently deployed tools for test management, automation, or defect tracking (e.g., Jira, ALM, Selenium Grid), or should offerors propose their own toolsets?

The courts are currently using Selenium Web Driver for test automation and ServiceNow for defect tracking.

Will contractors have direct access to development and test environments, or will testing be executed through Court-managed pipelines?

Contractors will have access to Test environments as directed by the

Project Manager.

For deliverables listed in Section F, is the Court seeking high-level examples or detailed artifacts as part of the proposal response?

Not required as part of the proposal response.

19 What testing tools and platforms are currently in use? SQL Server, ServiceNow, Selenium Grid

Are there any preferred or mandated tools/technologies the contractor must use?

SQL Server, ServiceNow, Selenium Grid

21 What is the current maturity level of test automation? The current maturity level of test automation is moderate.

22 Can the Courts provide details on the application architecture? The application architecture is proprietary to the CMS vendor.

What environments will be available (Dev, QA, UAT, staging, performance)? Are they stable and fully provisioned?

For the testers, Dev, QA, UAT, Staging, performance environments will be available. They are stable and fully provisioned.

What defines a “mid-level” QA/Software Tester in terms of years of experience and skillset?

Please refer to Tab B- Experience and Qualifications.

Are the two resources expected to specialize (e.g., one automation-focused, one manual), or be fully cross-functional?

Both QA & Software Testers are expected to be cross functional.

Are additional surge resources ever anticipated during peak testing phases?

No.

27 Are resources required to be onsite, hybrid, or fully remote? Please see the response to question #14.

If onsite/hybrid: What is the minimum onsite requirement

(days/week)? Are there facility access or badging timelines?

The preference is for a hybrid work model. Based on the nature of the tasks and at the discretion of the Project Manager, the testers should be flexible and able to adjust their schedule, including on-site presence as needed.

Yes, there are badging requirements that will enable access during hours of work and location.

Are there any security clearance or background check requirements for personnel?

Yes, details will be provided after the vendor is selected.

Which testing areas are highest priority (e.g., performance, UAT, automation, accessibility)?

All of them.

Is the contractor expected to own end-to-end QA, or work alongside internal QA teams?

The QA & Software Testers are expected to own end-to-end QA.

Are there existing test cases and documentation, or will these need to be created from scratch?

These will need to be created from scratch.

What development methodology is primarily used (Agile, hybrid, Waterfall)?

Agile.

34 What is the typical sprint cadence and release frequency?

Sprint cadence is managed by the COA Case Management System vendor, who is responsible for developing and delivering the product.

As such, sprint frequency and Agile ceremonies are primarily driven by the vendor’s development approach. QA resources are not embedded as core members of the CMS vendor’s sprint team; however, their participation in Agile ceremonies, such as Daily Stand-ups and Sprint

Planning, may be requested based on the Project Manager’s discretion.

35 What tools are used for: Defect tracking and CI/CD pipelines ServiceNow for defect tracking. For CI/CD pipelines, the tooling will be provided by the COA CMS vendor

What is the expected level of participation in ceremonies (daily standups, sprint planning, retrospectives)?

Sprint cadence is managed by the COA Case Management System vendor, who is responsible for developing and delivering the product.

As such, sprint frequency and Agile ceremonies are primarily driven by the vendor’s development approach. QA resources are not embedded as core members of the CMS vendor’s sprint team; however, their participation in Agile ceremonies, such as Daily Stand-ups and Sprint

Planning, may be requested based on the Project Manager’s discretion.

37 Is there a not-to-exceed budget range for this effort? The Courts do not provide this information

Is there an incumbent contractor, and will transition support be provided?

Transition support is not required, as there is no incumbent contractor.

The RFP references ITD's current QA group supporting Java and

Oracle APEX applications, but also calls out C-Track Enterprise experience as highly desirable. Is the Court of Appeals Case

Management System built on one of those in-house platforms, or is it a COTS product like C-Track?

It’s a COTS product like C-Track.

Does ITD have existing APM tooling in place, or are the testers expected to instrument transaction response time capture from scratch as part of automated functional testing?

ITD does not have APM tooling currently.

Is there a CI/CD pipeline the testers would plug automated test execution into, or is deployment coordination handled manually through configuration management?

No. Deployment coordination is handled manually. For CI/CD pipelines, the tooling will be provided by the COA CMS vendor.

How many Work Packages are anticipated for the base year, and are they aligned to sprints, releases, or a phased waterfall schedule?

Two Work Packages and each package has multiple sprints.

What performance and load testing tool does ITD currently use or prefer — JMeter, LoadRunner, Gatling, something else?

LoadRunner.

Does ITD follow specific IEEE standards today for test documentation and SQA plans, or is the Contractor expected to propose the applicable standards for Court approval?

ITD does not currently follow specific IEEE standards for test documentation or SQA plans. The Contractor is expected to propose appropriate standards for Court review and approval.