Aid Data Mart Opns and Maint Final Draft SOO_080111.doc

ADM Operations and Maintenance

US Department of Education

Federal Student Aid

Aid Data Mart Operations and Maintenance

Statement of Objectives (SOO) August 1, 2011

Version 5.0

Draft

Table of Contents

Contents

11.

Statement of Objectives (SOO)

11.1.

Overview

42.

Objectives

42.1.

Business Services Operations Objectives

42.2.

Operations and Maintenance Objective

52.3.

Project Management Objective

52.4.

Projects Enhancements

53.

Scope

53.1.

Business Servicer Operations

63.1.1.

Data Integrity

63.2.

Operations and Maintenance, Configuration Management, and Support Software/Hardware upgrades

63.2.1.

Operations Support

63.2.2.

Operations and Maintenance

73.2.3.

Configuration Management

73.3.

System Enhancements

73.4.

Customer Service

84.

Project Management and Quality Control

105.

FSA’s Life Cycle Management and CMMI Level 2

106.

Government’s Quality Assurance and Surveillance

106.1.

Quality Assurance and Surveillance Methods

117.

Performance Requirements Summary

138.

Deliverables

138.1.

Deliverable Requirements

148.2.

Deliverable Schedule

148.2.1.

Delivery Standard (DS)

148.2.2.

Delivery Extended (DE)

148.3.

ADM Operation and Maintenance Enhancement Deliverables and Acceptance Criteria

189.

Constraints

1910.

Period of Performance

1911.

Place of Performance

2012.

Reference Material

Table of Tables

11Table 1: Performance Metrics

15Table 2: Operations and Maintenance Deliverables List

20Table 3: Enhancement and Release Deliverables List

Table 4: Reference Material List

1. Statement of Objectives (SOO)

1.1. Overview

With this procurement, The Department of Education (hereafter also referred to as ED or the Department) Office of Federal Student Aid Business Operations group is looking to acquire the best value solution for the operations and maintenance of the current Financial Partner Data Mart (FPDM) contract. The FPDM was developed to provide aggregated level information and decision support capabilities Federal Family Educational Loan Program (FFELP) Lender/servicer and its Guarantor performance. The FPDM was enhanced to provide loan-level information around Title IV Additional Servicers (TIVAS) performance to support management decision making processes for loans held by ED in 2010.

With the inception of the FPDM in June of 2001, its purpose has been to gather and provide executive level information to be used to support and monitor the stability of the program and its participants. The FPDM has continued to grow gathering organizational and fiscal information from multiple Federal Student Aid (FSA) systems including the Financial Management System (FMS), Lender Reporting System (LaRS) and the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) and the Postsecondary Education Participation System (PEPS). This information is aggregated to provide summarized executive information and backup reports to support decisions around the key business functions of FSA including Risk, Customer Relationship, Compliance and Portfolio Management. The FPDM is also critical to the research conducted by the Portfolio Performance Division to assist with default aversion activities as well as supplying data to key stakeholders across the Department’s enterprise to ensure the timely delivery and collection of payment for Title IV loans.

Up to the point of the enactment of the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act of 2008 (ECASLA), the FPDM contained only summarized data from the 36 active guaranty agencies and the approved FFELP lenders. This enactment and due to the recent economic decline many of the FFELP lenders choose to sell their non-defaulted FFELP loans to the Department. With the increased volume of loans in the Department’s portfolio the Department has selected four vendors to provide loan servicing for its portfolio. In addition to servicing FFELP loans that have been sold to the Department, the new servicers are also responsible for servicing FFELP loans that have been rehabilitated from the Debt Management Collection System (DMCS), non-defaulted Perkins loans, and non-defaulted FFELP loans that have left the Temporary and Permanent Disability Tracking System. With the passage of the President’s 2010 budget, effective July 2010 all Title IV loans are provided under the Federal Direct Loan Program except for Perkins loans managed by the schools participating in the Perkins program.

Recent changes in higher education necessitated the need for the data mart to be expanded. The expanded information sent to the FPDM from NSLDS includes loan-level data elements. When the information is received from file transfers from NSLDS, the FPDM loads and transforms the data to provide expedient access to pre-defined reports, as well as allowing users to create custom reports. As part of this SOO, ED is also expanding current functionality of the FPDM to include reporting of grant data as well as aligning the data mart to be agnostic to FSA organizational structure. From this point forward the future FPDM will be referred to as the Aid Data Mart (ADM).

The users of the ADM include Portfolio Performance Division staff, the Budget Services Office for congressional reporting, the FSA business units responsible for operations related to the Department’s Title IV Portfolio, and approved Guaranty Agency and FFELP lenders.

The data mart currently maintains 329 operational reports and 703 custom user reports; this count does not include maintenance reports. The data mart receives multiple data feeds from several FSA sources including the Financial Management System (FMS), Postsecondary Education Participation System (PEPS) and the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS). The maintenance of the data mart involves the following:

· Feeds (or pushes) to ADM of organizational data, aggregated loan data

· 22 bi-weekly feeds including the largest of the feeds from NSLDS of loan level data consisting of roughly 10 million loan records.

· 10 monthly feeds and

· 3 annual feeds.

· The production database is currently 3.4 TB in size.

· The database contains 531 tables.

· There are 201 DataStage Jobs performing data extraction, transformations and loading (ETL).

· The ETL jobs process 43 million records a month.

· The current ETL processing time is approximately 38 hours.

The Federal Student Aid ADM Solution consists of IBM Infosphere Information Server (DataStage, QualityStage, Information Analyzer, Business Glossary), Microstrategy 9.02 (Intelligence Server with Report Services, OLAP Services, Distribution Services and Oracle 11G RAC RDBMS. The solution provides a repository with a loan-level data view, including student and borrower’s demographic information. The subsets of the functional elements that are elaborated in the design document are highlighted in Figure 2-1.

Figure 2‑1: Solution – Detailed Design Scope

This illustrates the outline of the functional elements required for extracting and loading the loan-level data from NSLDS into ADM. The diagram outlines how this data is leveraged for end-user reporting and analysis.

The components for the ADM development, staged, test and production environments will consist of the following:

MicroStrategy Intelligence Server 9.0.2 on REH Linux 5.x (product database is Oracle on HPUX)

Oracle 11G RAC on REH Linux 5.x host of ADM database MicroStrategy Web Universal running on HP-UX 11.0

MicroStrategy Backup Server running on Unix Server

IBM Infosphere Information Server (DataStage, QualityStage, Information Analyzer, Business glossary) on IBM P servers running AIX

2. Objectives

FSA has established the following key objectives for the ADM Operations and Maintenance Contract.

2.1. Business Services Operations Objectives

2.3.1. The contractor shall provide continuity of the ADM operations and maintenance, including updating and enhancing the system to meet FSA’s changing business needs and regulatory requirements.

2.3.2. The contractor shall actively collaborate with FSA and other contractors who will be involved in updating and enhancing the system. The contractor will be responsible for mitigating risks to the operations and maintenance, and enhancements of the ADM.

2.3.3. The contractor must support all ADM reporting and query functions

2.3.4. The contractor shall manage requirement changes

2.3.5. The contractor must maintain data quality and work with FSA to improve data in the ADM in order to ensure a high-level of integrity

2.3.6. The contractor shall ensure that access to the data mart is secure and granted only to authorized users through Federal Student Aid Access Identity Management System (AIMS)

2.3.7. Provide technical support to maintain the operation of the ADM functionality and system. Provide technical support to track and resolve software and operational issues.

2.3.8. Provide comprehensive customer support services to ensure that users of the ADM, as well as providers of the data, are able to effectively conduct their business functions.

2.3.9. Lead and support bi-weekly user group discussions around the ADM with issue logs, meeting coordination, meeting minutes, necessary research or support to resolve issue.

2.3.10. Provide user guides detailing the data included in the data mart as well as how to access the data.

2.3.11. Provide training on the capabilities of the data mart and retrieving information to assist in making decisions

2.3.12. Provide capability to incorporate additional program data (i.e. Pell grants, Perkins loans).

2.3.13. Provide support for software upgrades, enhancements, and patches to the ADM application

2.2. Operations and Maintenance Objective

2.2.1. Operate and maintain the ADM database

2.2.2. Provide authorized users of the system with queries and capability to receive data

2.2.3. Ensure that the system is running efficiently and effectively so that quality data can be obtained to conduct FSA key business functions

2.2.4. Tune and enhance ETL jobs to ensure optimal throughput of data loads

2.2.5. Leverage new capabilities of the Microstrategy reporting tool to include the use of OLAP services

2.2.6. Optimize file storage in data staging area to reduce data storage

2.2.7. Tune Oracle Database to obtain maximum query performance and minimize storage requirements

2.3. Project Management Objective

2.3.1. Manage the team in an effective and efficient manner

2.3.2. Maintain highly-qualified staff

2.3.3. Collaborate with the Government, third-party contractors and additional stakeholders in order to meet the requirements of this contract within budget, schedule and scope.

2.4. Projects Enhancements

For project enhancements, the contractor shall use the Lifecycle Management Methodology (LMM) to provide requirements, design, testing, implementation and maintenance of the enhancements to the system.

2.4.1. Provide enhancements and changes required by regulatory changes.

2.4.2. Provide quarterly enhancements to provide Federal Student Aid with new functionality to include updated reports, expanded access to data

2.4.3. Provide annual enhancement to add reporting of new or additional program data

2.4.4. Provide recommendations to improve performance and data quality

3. Scope The scope of this contract is to provide Federal Student Aid with the operations and maintenance of the current ADM. Also as part of this contract, the contractor shall support future growth by providing additional access to different information and to collect additional program data through quarterly and annual releases. The contractor shall support collaboration with stakeholders to determine content and needs for scheduled releases. Enhancements shall also include development of applications to interface with external systems, process data and generate new reports.

3.1. Business Servicer Operations

The contractor shall provide Business Service Operations with day-to-day business operational support that is necessary to keep the current ADM running at optimal service levels. Support in this area of scope will maintain and improve the quality of ADM data and continue to serve the areas of FSA’s business operations that are supported by ADM.

3.1.1. Data Integrity

3.1.1.1. Assist data providers in correcting data errors and resolving data conflicts

3.1.1.2. Continuously inspect the ADM to proactively identify and correct errors and data inconsistencies and maintain a high-level of confidence in overall data quality.

3.1.1.3. Validate data – ensure compliance with system processing requirements and edits

3.1.1.4. Maintain the quality of ADM data in order to ensure a high-level of customer confidence

3.1.1.5. Maintain the quality of ADM data in order to provide accurate reporting for analysis of the aid portfolio.

3.1.1.6. Ensure standard/custom reports are generated for their intended purpose

3.1.1.7. Assistance to users with ad hoc query development and execution

3.1.1.8. Preparing annual data for use in management reviews, scorecard creations.

3.2. Operations and Maintenance, Configuration Management, and Support Software/Hardware upgrades The Contractor shall provide technical support to maintain the operations of ADM while completing system enhancements and correcting defects. It also provides the technical support to track and resolve software and operational issues.

3.2.1. Operations Support

3.2.1.1. Work with Enterprise Integrated Technical Architecture (EITA) , Access Identity Management Systems(AIMS), Virtual Data Center (VDC)and other data provider contractors to resolve processing problems/issues

3.2.1.2. Provide expert subject matter assistance to FSA staff, data providers, other government and non-government agencies and entities

3.2.1.3. Monitor production schedules and problems with system components and data provider interfaces Support hardware and software upgrades to support infrastructure and software

3.2.1.4. Ensure web components remain 508 Compliant and assist with 508 compliance testing with the Department’s Assistive Technology office

3.2.1.5. Execute caching strategy for report generation efficiency and coordinate caching activities with the VDC and provide enhancements to strategy

3.2.1.6. Provide system support during off hours (including weekends) to support application/system issues

3.2.2. Operations and Maintenance

3.2.2.1. Provide technical resources to keep the system working efficiently and effectively

3.2.2.2. Ensure availability of all ADM functions

3.2.2.3. Provide new and/or update existing documentation to reflect any changes to software, processes, or procedures

3.2.2.4. Provide technical support to resolve application/system production problems

3.2.2.5. Ensure all system, application, and procedural documentation is complete, updated and accurate

3.2.2.6. Provide application and database administration and coordinate with the Virtual Data Center (VDC) to make necessary changes

3.2.2.7. Ensure the data mart is secure and is used for authorized purposes only to protect the Personal Identifiable Information (PII) data from unauthorized exposure

3.2.2.8. Provide application software maintenance

3.2.2.9. Perform validation of programming for both results and performance

3.2.2.10. Perform system testing, integration testing and support FSA with user acceptance testing

3.2.2.11. Participate in system performance monitoring and capacity planning activities

3.2.2.12. Participate in disaster recovery test activities by testing recovered application software, and fully document recovery test scripts. Documentation may include test plans, test cases, and scope documents.

3.2.2.13. Monitor and manage data feeds with providers to resolve issues

3.2.2.14. Support software and hardware upgrades

3.2.3. Configuration Management

3.2.3.1. Provide and maintain a Configuration management Plan according to FSA Technology Office Configuration Management process

3.2.3.2. Manage application software changes

3.2.3.3. Control configured application components

3.2.3.4. Provide inventory control of government items

3.2.3.5. Migrate configured items through life cycle stages in strict accordance with change and quality control measures

3.2.3.6. Perform verification of production status migrations

3.2.3.7. Perform appropriate de-commissioning and archiving of ADM data, functionality and interfaces as required by FSA

3.2.3.8. With FSA assistance, retrofit legacy (prior to enhancements of FY2010) requirements of the ADM and document in FSA - Rational Tool.

3.3. System Enhancements

ADM system enhancements include changes to the queries that generate canned reports for the end user. Federal Student Aid is expanding the data attributes held in the ADM to include all loans as well as future growth to include all Title IV aid.

3.3.1. Define and implement enhancements to the ADM to keep pace with changes in legislation, policy, business, and technology requirements that must be met

3.3.2. Define and implement enhancements to maintain proper interfaces with internal and external systems and technical infrastructure components

3.3.3. Manage functional requirement changes

3.3.4. Work through FSA’s Change Management Process(s) to implement new requirements

3.3.5. Determine a quarterly release schedule for each year with proposed level of requirement changes to support system enhancements

3.3.6. Review FSA Business Operations or EOCM Change Management Requests to provide accurate assessments for changes to ADM

3.3.7. Support stage gates as defined in the LMM standards

3.3.8. First live batch support and post implementation review support

3.4. Customer Service

ADM customers and users include guaranty agencies, lenders, the Department of ED, other federal agencies and contractors. ADM Customers require a central source for summarized loan data to conduct research to assist with default aversion activities, monitor the Department’s loan portfolio for compliance, and create standard and customized reports the contractor shall:

3.4.1. Provide and track customer service issues using a tool that can maintaining at a minimum the following: issue, when reported/resolved, who reported and annotations regarding issue/resolution. Coordinate helpdesk support between users and the Operations and Maintenance staff

3.4.2. Customer support services between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

3.4.3. Provide customer service support to create, modify, delete and maintain user ids and passwords

3.4.4. Provide formal training for FSA staff on the ADM, its functions and uses, including how to write ad hoc reports and run reports on a semiannual basis. Provide training materials, prepare presentation materials, and conference support as needed

3.4.5. Provide customer service support to power users in developing/maintaining custom reports

3.4.6. Prepare documentation, external communication materials and provide associated customer service

3.4.7. Provide tracking and reporting regarding customer service metrics on a monthly basis

3.4.8. Provide input, take minutes and participate in a bi-weekly users group meetings

3.4.9. Support and respond to inquiries through a generic email box

3.4.10. Provide advance query support to ED Users who are unable to access the Micro strategy Desktop client due to 508 Compliance failure

4. Project Management and Quality Control

The Contractor shall perform the work described in this section in support of each of the requirements for the Operations and Maintenance Contract as described in the SOO and in accordance with the terms, conditions of this contract. This section describes the ADM Contract project requirements for Project Management and Quality Control program. Additionally, this section contains a brief description of the general management approach. The Contractor shall:

4.1. Follow FSA’s process for Life Cycle Management, and shall adhere to the Project Management Institute (PMI) methodologies. The contractor project manager, designated as Key personnel, shall be PMI Project management Professional (PMP) certified

4.2. Provide a Contractor Project Management Plan to include the activities outlined in this section as well as any other activities deemed necessary to provide the best value to the Government, manage the requirements of this Contract, and address the constraints identified in Section xx Constraints. The Contractor shall coordinate its activities with FSA’s Systems Integration Division personnel as required.

4.3. Institute and maintain an effective, efficient, and responsive management organization that shall oversee all Contractor personnel and subcontractor resources used in the performance of this Contract. The Contractor shall be responsible for ensuring that all tasks and work activities are performed in a timely and cost-effective manner, while maintaining the highest quality of performance.

4.4. Incorporate the appropriate plans, Stages, activities, products, and stage gate reviews into its project plan for this Contract. The Contractor shall incorporate only those components that are relevant to the size, scope, and complexity of the activities for this Contract.

4.5. Provide detailed month status briefings (see Management Deliverables CL.010 and CL.030) and monthly project reports identifying the project’s schedule, budget, quality, milestone status, risks, and any other issues necessary for Government attention.

4.6. The Contractor shall identify and maintain a management structure and organization with overall control and authority for the performance of work under this contract. The Contractor's management structure and organization shall be capable of ensuring, at a minimum, that the following functional and personnel requirements are met:

4.6.1. A technically proficient and professionally capable staff is established and maintained throughout the life of the contract.

4.6.2. Personnel turnover is minimized and individuals are motivated to achieve excellent performance throughout the life of the contract.

4.6.3. Seamless phase-in of contractor personnel without interruption.

4.7. Effective management of contractor personnel to ensure an adequate level of staffing at all times.

4.8. Consistent and accurate reporting of performance to the Government.

4.9. Problems are resolved with minimal disruption to the activities being performed under the contract.

4.10. All resources used for performance of work under the contract are identified and their roles are clearly defined and communicated.

4.11. Process improvements are made on a continuous basis in an effort to improve both the timeliness and quality of work products.

4.12. Risks are identified, assessed, and mitigated on a continual basis.

4.13. All contractual requirements are met.

4.14. Quality management is in accordance with the Contractor’s Quality Control/Quality Assurance and Performance Management plans.

4.15. The Government may conduct other technical stage gates with the Contractor during the course of the Contract as appropriate.

4.16. The contractor shall comply with the Federal Student Aid Lifecycle Management Methodology (LMM), which defines the high level activities and a minimum set of documentation requirements to successfully oversee the development and implementation of a solution. Refer to the Lifecycle Management Methodology Section of the Federal Student Aid Technology Office Reference Library for additional information

4.17. The contractor shall have no expectation that they will be able to deviate from the LMM. The LMM requirements may be tailored based on the size, scope and complexity of the unique IT project being proposed. Tailoring recommendations may be suggested to Federal Student Aid post award but the contractor should have no expectations they will be accepted. Any expectations or assumptions requiring exemptions, modifications or tailoring of Federal Student Aid standards must be included in the proposal and explicitly accepted by Federal Student Aid at the time of award.

4.1. The contractor shall follow the Federal Student Aid Lifecycle Management Methodology for all Management and Technical Stage Gates. Refer to the Lifecycle Management Methodology Section of the Federal Student Aid Technology Office Reference Library for additional information.

4.2. The contractor shall deliver specific project IT deliverables in a format prescribed by the FSA LMM templates provided within the LMM artifact library. Project deliverables and work products not specifically identified as requiring LMM Template compliance may be delivered in accordance with a contractor’s proposed methodologies.

4.18. The contractor shall provide a Lifecycle Management Methodology Compliance Matrix that details how their Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC), SDLC activities and deliverables/ work products trace to the Lifecycle Management Methodology Stages, Core Deliverables and Stage Gate Entry/Exit Criteria.

5. FSA’s Life Cycle Management and CMMI Level 2

The Contractor shall follow FSA - Lifecycle Management Methodology (LMM), and shall adhere to the Project Management Institute (PMI), and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) methodologies. The Contractor shall have CMMI Level 2 certification or higher and shall produce CMMI Level 2 documentation throughout the life of the contract. In addition, the project manager, designated as Key Personnel, shall be PMI Project Management Professional (PMP) certified.

Provide a Contractor Project Management Plan (see LMM) as part of the Project Management Plan to include the activities outlined in this section as well as any other activities deemed necessary to provide the best value to the Government, manage the requirements of this Contract, and address the constraints identified in Section 8 Constraints in this task order. The Contractor shall coordinate its activities with Systems Integration Division staff as required.

Institute and maintain an effective, efficient, and responsive management organization that shall oversee all Contractor personnel and subcontractor resources used in the performance of this Contract. The Contractor shall be responsible for ensuring that all tasks and work activities are performed in a timely and cost-effective manner, while maintaining the highest quality of performance.

Incorporate the appropriate plans, stages, activities, products, and stage gate reviews into its project plan for this Contract. The Contractor shall incorporate only those components that are relevant to the size, scope, and complexity of the activities for this Contract.

6. Government’s Quality Assurance and Surveillance

The Government will inspect for compliance with contractual terms throughout the life of the Contract. Evaluation will be based on the Contractor’s compliance with the requirements set forth in the Performance Metrics Summary outlined in the Section 8 of this task order. The Government will evaluate the Contractor's performance under this task order by monitoring performance, deliverables, and the Contractor’s ability to meet the objectives outlined in Section 3 Objectives.

The performance metrics are used to determine if the Contractor is meeting the quality and schedule of all required outputs. Measurement of Contractor performance against the standards established in the Performance Metrics Summary, through implementation of the Government’s quality assurance and surveillance process, is a significant input into the determination of the quality and timeliness of the Contractor’s performance.

6.1. Quality Assurance and Surveillance Methods

The surveillance methods listed below shall be used in the administration of the Government’s quality assurance and surveillance process:

Periodic Reviews: Performance Management Reviews (PMRs) will be conducted on a recurring basis (at least monthly). The three objectives of the PMRs are as follows:

6.1.1. Monitor the Contractor’s performance to ensure compliance with the performance requirements set forth in this task order,

6.1.2. Ensure an open communication channel between Federal Student Aid and Contractor, and

6.1.3. Identify and resolve potential issues that may impact the level of performance in the services required (i.e. risk management).

7. Performance Requirements Summary

The Contractor shall provide services to meet the performance requirements of this task order. To measure achievement of the functional objectives defined in the SOO, Section 3, the Contractor shall propose performance metrics as part of the Contractor’s proposal. A complete set of contract performance metrics shall be defined as part of the Performance Work Statement (PWS), as developed by the Contractor and approved by the Government.

The Performance Metric table below identifies:

· Performance Category: Key result areas that reflect the Contractor’s set of responsibilities.

· Performance Objective: Key outcomes and goals that the Contractor’s efforts will affect.

· Acceptable Quality Level: Minimum level of satisfactory performance.

· Method of Surveillance:

· Sampling: Appropriate for frequently recurring tasks. Evaluate randomly selected samples of the lot to determine the acceptability of the entire lot.

· 100 Percent Inspection: Appropriate for tasks that occur infrequently. Inspect and evaluate performance each time task is performed

· Periodic Surveillance: Evaluation of samples selected on other than 100% or statistically random basis. (I.e. monthly, quarterly, semi-annually etc.)

· Validated Customer Complaint: Complaints must be validated.

Federal Student Aid suggests the following performance metric categories. The contractor is encouraged to suggest additional metrics to the following:

Table 1: Performance Metrics

Draft Documents shall meet the following standards as appropriate:

Meet the standards set forth by FSA

Represents the majority of the content expect in the document

Reasonably deficient of grammatical errors

Comments provided by FSA are satisfactorily incorporate after first draft 100% Inspection

# Critical Path Milestones Actually Completed on time/ # of Critical Path Milestones

Routine – responded to within 24 hours and provide status updates in the tickets at least once per day

Urgent – responded to within 12 working hours and provide status updates every 4 hours

Emergency – responded to within 4 hours and provide status updates every two hours Validated Customer Complaint

Urgent – closed within 60 days

Emergency – closed within 30 days Validated Customer Complaint

Updates are informative and provide meaningful information to FSA

8. Deliverables

Federal Student Aid encourages collaboration during the deliverable development phase whereby early pre-views are delivered for review and comment. Utilizing this concept, Federal Student Aid would review the “preview” deliverable and provide comments to the contractor according to the Deliverable Schedule in Section 8.2. All deliverables shall be developed in accordance with the Federal Student Aid’s Lifecycle Management Methodology (LMM), which establishes a common lexicon for project-related work products for all parties involved in initiative planning, delivery, and management.

The standards established within the LMM are the measure by which contractor work products will be validated for alignment with Federal Student Aid’s enterprise architecture standards and envisioned technical architecture. The Contractor shall utilize the latest version for each deliverable.

8.1. Deliverable Requirements

8.1.1. All deliverables shall be submitted electronically, be aligned to LMM standards, and in their native and editable forms, such as Microsoft Office tool formats: Word, Excel, Visio, PowerPoint or Project.

8.1.2. The source files for any artwork present in any document are to be delivered in an editable or native format (such as Microsoft Visio or Adobe Illustrator).

8.1.3. Textual / tabular requirements shall also be submitted electronically in an editable form that is capable of being imported into Requisite Pro.

8.1.4. Use case, data, interface, process, and other forms of models shall also be submitted electronically in a structured format that can be imported into Telelogic System Architect 10.6.

8.1.5. UML 1.4 is the preferred language for all models although other modeling techniques may be used where necessary subject to the approval of Federal Student Aid’s Enterprise Architect.

8.1.6. All sequencing plans and project schedules shall be submitted electronically in a form that may be used by Microsoft Project.

8.1.7. Any source code to be delivered in a format appropriate for the implementation language (e.g., Java, COBOL, XML, BPEL, SQL DDL, SQL DML, ETL tool-specific language, HTML, Perl, UNIX shells script). All source code comprising an executable shall be delivered along with supporting scripts or the equivalent necessary to build, deploy and operate the executable system on the required hardware.

8.2. Deliverable Schedule

The tables below identify scheduled due dates, deliverable alignment with the Federal Student Aid Lifecycle Management Framework (ADM) appendix D, and the type of review required, classified as either Delivery Standard (DS) or Delivery Extended (DE). The breakdown of each Review Schedule is provided below. All deliverables will be accepted according to the deliverable review and acceptance guidelines. Please note that update cycles will repeat until Contractor deliverables are accepted.

8.2.1. Delivery Standard (DS)

· 5 work days for Federal Student Aid to review and comment

· 5 work days for Contractor to respond with updates

· 5 work days for Federal Student Aid to accept/reject updates

8.2.2. Delivery Extended (DE)

· 10 work days for Federal Student Aid to review and comment

· 7 work days for Contractor to respond with updates

· 7 work days for Federal Student Aid to accept/reject updates

8.3. ADM Operation and Maintenance Enhancement Deliverables and Acceptance Criteria The Contractor shall provide the deliverables identified in the following Deliverable Table below in accordance with the schedule approved by the Government. The Contractor may be required to provide additional deliverables either upon Government request or as proposed by the Contractor. In addition, the Contractor shall update deliverables throughout the life of the task order as necessary or as directed. The contractor shall take into account with deliverables the need for FSA staff to review and provide feedback when developing a schedule for the bi-annual review as well as enhancement deliverables.

Document approval is based on FSA approval and written acceptance. The documents will be reviewed and determined acceptable by the following criteria:

Table 2: Operations and Maintenance Deliverables List

DS

DS

DS

DS

DE

Operator Manual 33Solution User Manual Bi-Annual

DE

DS

DS

DS

DS

Monthly

or As Needed

DS

Table 3: Enhancement and Release Deliverables List

Monthly

9. Constraints

This section lists constraints under which the ADM and the Contractor shall operate. The following list summarizes applicable constraints:

9.1. The Contractor shall be responsible for maintaining a full understanding of all pertinent laws and regulations and ensuring that all aspects of the work performed shall be in compliance as changes occur. The Contractor shall provide solutions that are flexible to incorporate new requirements generated by Congress and responsive to legislative mandates and policy changes.

9.2. The Contractor shall provide deliverables as specified in the Section 8 of this SOO, and in compliance with the Federal Student Aid Lifecycle Management Methodology.

9.3. The Contractor shall utilize FSA IBM Rational tool suite for support of Change and Configuration Management

9.4. The Contractor shall maintain the latest project artifacts in Rational ClearCase repository accessible to authorized Federal Student Aid groups and contractors.

9.5. The contractor will be expected to structure interaction with Federal Student Aid SMEs to maximize effectiveness of interactions and minimize the time burden on the parties involved. FSA will ensure that government and FSA contract support staff members are available when needed for meetings, consultation, reviews and decisions to meet the project schedule. Interactions must include, but not be limited to, clear communications, tight coordination, adequate preparation, and post-interaction verification.

9.6. The Contractor shall comply with requests to be audited and provide timely (as defined by Federal Student Aid) responses to requests for data, information and analysis from the Office of Inspector General, General Accounting Office and management.

9.7. The Contractor is required to use Federal Student Aid tools to receive and track requests for changes to the VDC applications and infrastructure.

9.8. The contractor will have access to FSA licensed applications, tools and other software or systems needed to perform this work. This will include access to the VDC and EITI hardware systems and tools. The VDC or EITI will configure, adjust or tune any hardware or tools as needed for the contractor to perform this work. Major upgrades or tool replacements will not occur during this project work, or if it occurs, will not impact this project work.

9.9. The Contractor shall submit, manage, track, and maintain appropriate documentation for clearances and background investigations for all personnel in accordance with the Department of Education’s policy and provide security training to staff annually.

9.10. The Contractor shall ensure that all contractor personal complete background screening requirements as soon as possible.

9.10.1. All personnel are required to complete a federal background clearance based on their position risk level. Background clearances are submitted on line via Office of Personnel Management (OPM)'s Electronic Questionnaire for Investigations Process (e-Qip). Contractor employees who have undergone appropriate personnel security screening for another federal agency may submit proof of personal security screening for validation. (Attached Security Attachment A -Department of Education's Directive for Contractor Employee Personnel Security Screenings.)

9.10.2. Preliminary clearances must be completed for high-risk positions prior to working on FSA systems or data (This process can take 2-6 weeks). Moderate and low risk positions must submit background clearance paperwork prior to working on FSA computer resources.

9.10.3. Non-U.S. Citizen may be assigned to a High Risk IT (6C) level position, provided: he/she is a Lawful Permanent Resident of the United States and has resided continuously in the United States for a minimum of three (3) years. Non-U.S. Citizens living outside of the United States cannot have the capability to access Federal Student Aid systems or data.

10. Period of Performance

The period of performance is for one contract year with the option of an additional four years and will commence on the award date.

11. Place of Performance

The work specified shall be performed at the Contractor's facility. Connectivity from the Contractor’s facility to the VDC systems needed to conduct the activities of this task will be provided by FSA in a timely manner to meet the contractor project schedule No additional office space will be provided at the U.S. Government facility. The contractor will not host or maintain any PII data at its facility or on its servers.

The Contractor shall normally work the same days as Federal Student Aid staff unless approved by Federal Student Aid, maintain office phone coverage from 8:15 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST and be available for routine meetings during normal Department working hours (8:15 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Monday - Friday). All other required work will take place at contractor facilities.

12. Reference Material

The Contractor is responsible for ensuring that the latest version of each document is obtained and utilized. The referenced material is organized by:

1. Standards - Documents which are Standards for the Preliminary and Detailed Design Stages of the Definition and Development Stage of a development lifecycle. Standards are intended to be firm requirements that should be traced to as a part of compliance verification.

2. Guidance - Documents which provide guidance to the Preliminary and Detailed Design Stages of the Definition and Development Stage of the development lifecycle. These documents provide technical information that is used to guide this phase of development.

3. Information - Documents that are provided for informational purposes only. This includes technical baseline information relative to existing Federal Student Aid systems or relative to Federal Student Aid’s Target State Vision. This information is provided here for development convenience.

4. Operations & Maintenance Documents –Documents which provide guidance to the Preliminary and Detailed Design Stages of the Definition and Development Stage of the development lifecycle. These documents provide technical information regarding the Enterprise Service Bus and the Portal that is used to guide this phase of development.

The documents referenced below are released as part of the acquisition and are available at the Federal Student Aid Technology Office Library website (http://federalstudentaid.ed.gov/business/library.html). In some cases document access may be restricted and controlled by the Contracting Officer (CO). The reference materials pertinent to this contract are listed below:

Table 4: Reference Material List