O D_Reqs_-_Sec_8_-_Program_Management_Office_Support_-_Final_v.3_UPDATED_2-28-14.pdf

Federal Student Aid, O&D To-Be Requirements 8-1 Program Management Office Support

Section 8. Program Management Office Support Solicitation ED-FSA-14-R-0013

8.0 Overview

8.0.1 Purpose and Objectives:

The purpose of Program Management Office (PMO) Support is to address FSA’s need for program management and business management services and functions that help ensure the secure, efficient, and effective operation of the O&D System and related business operations and compliance with applicable policies, processes, and procedures. While the O&D System performs most of the O&D business functions in an automated fashion, PMO Support also meets the need to establish parameters, to validate, to reconcile and, if necessary, to make adjustments/corrections to the business operations and reporting functions performed by the O&D System.

8.0.2 Scope

PMO Support addresses:

• High level operations/functions required to promote and ensure the timely, effective, and efficient delivery of high quality contractor support services and transition support services. In addition; and, it

• High-level operations/functions required to support FSA in the areas of business process operations, audits, communications, system security and privacy, disaster recovery, incident/problem management and system volume data reporting.

Service delivery standards and work products and deliverables are covered in detail in the Appendix C: Compilation of Work Products/Reports and Appendix D: Existing Service Levels.

8.0.3 O&D Functional Framework

Figure 8-1 illustrates the role of the PMO Support function in the Origination and Disbursements Functional Architecture. The following support functions shall be responsible for ensuring effective program management and business management support for the O&D contract and business operations:

• Program Management shall provide the necessary support to ensure that effective controls and standards are applied to meeting the requirements of the O&D contract.

• Business Management Support shall be responsible for supporting FSA business operations functions to ensure compliance with regulations, policies, and procedures and meet the needs of program level business operations.

Federal Student Aid, O&D To-Be Requirements 8-2 Program Management Office Support

Figure 8-1: FSA Origination & Disbursement (O&D) Framework

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8.1 Program Management Support

8.1.1 O&D Program Management

Program Management Support ensures that the O&D Program is managed and operated in accordance with all requirements set forth in the O&D contract. These services also support the coordination of program activities, management of the FSA relationship, identification of key performance measures to evaluate the Direct Loan, Pell Grant, TEACH Grant, LDE and LDE Loan Consolidation processing operations, and identification of areas for process improvements.

8.1.2 Contract and Financial Management

FSA requires timely, efficient, and transparent contract and financial management support for the O&D contract, including effective subcontractor management. Contract management services shall be required to resolve questions of scope and to respond to FSA’s inquiries for information in a timely manner. FSA requires timely and accurate invoicing and time reporting in accordance with Defense Contracting Auditing Agency regulations and requirements. FSA expects a high degree of transparency in reporting contract performance, additional work, or enhancements, and providing complete and up-to-date O&D System and related documentation (i.e., work products, deliverables, SOPs, etc.).

8.1.3 Service Management

Service Management supports FSA’s requirement to ensure the proactive and highly responsive management and oversight necessary to meet the O&D service level agreements (See Appendix D for a listing of existing O&D service level agreements). FSA would like to apply more stringent and clearly defined service levels and measurements in the follow on contract and to develop a comprehensive plan for FSA’s monitoring and surveillance of approved service levels. In addition, FSA would like to incorporate provisions that require a periodic review of service levels with a view to continually improve the services and service delivery over the period of contract performance.

8.1.4 Quality Management

Quality Management supports FSA’s requirement for the execution of a clearly defined quality management approach and plan that describes what and how quality standards are to be applied to all aspects of service delivery. FSA requires that Quality Management encompass all work products, services, tools, processes, and deliverables. FSA requires that the Quality Management Plan include recommendations on the quality management surveillance methods and activities to be performed by FSA.

8.1.5 Transition Support Services

The purpose of this Transition Support Services is to assist FSA in transitioning the O&D processing activities, the O&D Customer Support Services Operations, or other components of the O&D solution to another FSA service provider. FSA requires services to provide transition support in O&D Web site account information, help-desk, data mitigation, RID transition and updates, O&D data transition, identification and clean-up of

Federal Student Aid, O&D To-Be Requirements 8-4 Program Management Office Support data anomalies, parallel processing /system implements, reports, data extracts, system documentation, and other areas that are mutually defined and agreed upon with FSA. FSA requires the definition of a Transition-Out Plan and a Transition-In Plan. The Transition- Out Plan shall describe in detail the approach, steps, activities, and timeline for the outgoing contractor to smoothly transition all operations, services, data, and documentation to the service provider(s). The Transition-In Plan shall describe in detail the approach, steps, activities, and timeline for the new service provider to assume full responsibility for the operations, services, data, and documentation of O&D.

8.2 Business Management Support

Business Management Support satisfies FSA’s requirement to perform business process operations, audits, respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, communications, change management, system security and privacy, disaster recovery, and incident/problem management.

8.2.1 Support FSA Operations Requests

FSA requires services to provide functional support to FSA Pell Grant, IASG Grant, ACG, National SMART, TEACH Grant, and Direct Loan Operations. Support tasks shall consist of responding to inquiries about a specific school, student, or O&D issue.

8.2.2 Maintain Program Level Options

FSA requires services to ensure the ability to update options via O&D Web. If the update functionality is not available via O&D Web, FSA requires that the option be manually updated following approval by FSA.

8.2.3 Program Level Business Operations Support

Program Level Business Operations Support helps ensure the successful execution of specific Direct Loan, Pell Grant, ACG, National SMART, and TEACH Grant business processes. These processes are defined and listed below.

A. Direct Loan Specific Business Processes

FSA requires services to perform and/or support Direct Loan business owners for the following Direct Loan specific business processes:

• School Account Statement (SAS) – The SAS report summarizes a school’s processing activity for each month and is designed to assist schools with their monthly reconciliation. Perform quality control (QC) checks prior to transmitting SAS reports. Resolve held SAS reports and transmit these reports to schools.

• Support research requests for SAS reconciliation issues identified in the monthly SAS/FMS reconciliation conducted by FSA resources.

• Year End School Account Statement (SAS) – Support Direct Loan’s annual process to generate and send a Year End SAS to DL schools.

• Final Direct Loan SAS Generation – Coordinate the execution of the Direct Loan SAS at the end of each Award Year with Direct Loan Operations. The final SAS shall be sent to all schools and provided to FSA Direct Loan Operations.

Federal Student Aid, O&D To-Be Requirements 8-5 Program Management Office Support

• Grad PLUS Totals Report – Provide a weekly report of Current and Previous program totals. The report should contain the following:

o Number of Loans Reported o Number of Linked Loans o Number of Loans set to Servicing o Amount of Originations (Original) o Amount of Disbursements o Number of Unique Schools o Number of Electronic P-Notes o Number of Paper P-Notes

• Provide assistance as requested for monthly reconciliation of Direct Loan school summary financial information between O&D and G5.

• Provide or maintain the capability to create an initial authorization file, if necessary, and subsequent global increases.

• At closeout, provide or maintain capability for to run global reduction jobs.

B. Pell Grant Specific Business Processes

FSA requires services to perform and/or support Pell business owners for the following Pell specific business processes.

• Administrative Cost Allowance (ACA) - Support the process to send ACA payments to schools per Award Year.

• Verification W - Support the Verification W preview, warning and update processes.

• Global Reduction - Support the Pell Global Reduction preview, warning, and update processes.

C. TEACH Grant Specific Business Processes

FSA requires services to perform and/or support TEACH business owners for the following TEACH specific business processes:

• School Account Statement (SAS) – The SAS report summarizes a school’s processing activity for each month and is designed to assist schools with their monthly reconciliation. Perform quality control (QC) checks prior to transmitting SAS reports. Resolve held SAS reports and transmit these reports to schools.

8.2.4 Audit Support Services

FSA requires Audit Support Services to help respond to variety of special, annual, and ad hoc audit requests that are transmitted by the Contracting Officer Technical Representative (COTR) or designated authority via the Service Request Process with mutually agreed upon lead-time for an effective response.

Federal Student Aid, O&D To-Be Requirements 8-6 Program Management Office Support

A. Government Accountability Office and Department of Education Inspector General Audit Support:

FSA requires O&D System audit support to respond to inquiries from the Department of Education's Inspector General and the U.S. Congress' Government Accountability Office or other authorized oversight bodies of the U.S. Federal Government. Audits of the O&D System shall include LDE System and LDE Loan Consolidation System components.

B. FSA Annual Audits:

FSA requires O&D System audit support to address FSA's Annual Fiscal Audit (including the IT Control sub-Audit), Annual Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Audit, and the Annual Office of Management and Budget (OMB) A-123 General Controls Audit. Audits of the O&D System shall include LDE System and LDE Loan Consolidation System components. Any audit findings shall be responded to and/or fixed within 6 months of discovery.

C. Ad Hoc Audit and FOIA Request Support:

FSA requires support to address ad hoc/special audit and FOIA requests. This shall include providing support to all unique audit and FOIA requests requiring 50 hours or less of support. In addition, this support shall include providing a maximum of up to 300 hours of support each for up to six additional ad-hoc audits per fiscal year. Any additional ad hoc audit and FOIA requests shall be funded by FSA via the Change Control process.

8.2.5 Communications Support

Communications support addresses FSA’s requirement to communicate specific technical and functional information to the school community on a daily and quarterly basis throughout Award Years. FSA would like to designate a single point for delivering notifications to schools rather than going through multiple channels. FSA would like to develop a more efficient and effective way to inform schools and third party developers of system and process changes.

Communication mediums shall consist of outreach initiatives, daily processing updates, and the O&D Technical Reference.

A. Outreach Initiatives Support FSA requires services to provide support for their sponsored and business related conferences and meetings. This may consist of presentation development, webinar development, question and answer panel participation, and conference attendance.

Travel and other ancillary expenses for school visits, conferences, and other special travel shall be negotiated before the subject event.

B. Processing Updates FSA requires services to provide input for processing updates and post processing updates to the O&D Web site.

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C. O&D Technical Reference

The O&D Technical Reference is an important operational guide that informs schools and third-party vendors how to transmit Pell Grant, TEACH Grant, IASG Grant, and Direct Loan Origination and Disbursement data to the O&D System. In particular, the Technical Reference provides the record layout and data elements that are required for the O&D System to successfully process submitted records as well as the record layout and data elements for the receipts and responses that are returned to participants by the O&D System.

FSA requires services to update and maintain the O&D Technical Reference. Each major update of the O&D Technical Reference, which takes place at least annually, shall include an Overview of Changes from one year to the next. FSA shall review and approve O&D Technical Reference updates prior to publication.

In addition, FSA requires services to facilitate the publication of the Direct Loan, Pell Grant, ACG, National SMART, and TEACH Grant Combination System Supplement and Direct Loan Tools sections of the O&D Technical Reference. These volumes are currently provided by FSA.

D. Communicate System Status

FSA requires ongoing monitoring and communication regarding the status on information for funding for the Direct Loan, Pell Grant, IASG Grant, and TEACH Grant programs. FSA also requires ongoing monitoring and communication on the status of O&D System interfaces, system balancing, and processing statistics.

8.2.6 System Security and Privacy

A. O&D Security Compliance

FSA requires that O&D System be in compliance with the Handbook for Information Security Incident Response and Reporting Procedures, OCIO-14 (March 2011). FSA also requires services to maintain, update, and keep current the O&D System's Security Plan, Contingency Plan, Business Impact Analysis (BIA), and numerous other documents provided by FSA. FSA will require strict adherence to service level requirements for system security and privacy. FSA has expressed concern that adequate resources be available to support the system security and privacy requirements in a timely and effective manner.

B. Correction of Security and Privacy Deficiencies

FSA requires thorough and timely responses to security and privacy deficiencies identified by authorized Federal agencies/independent auditors/Office of Inspector General (OIG). These deficiencies shall be recorded in the Operational Vulnerability Management System (OVMS) or the Automated Audit Resolution Tracking System (AARTS), the authorized FSA corrective action tracking repositories. Services are required to respond to the Information System Security Officer (ISSO) via the FSA Contracting Office or the Contracting Office Representative (COR) for security related issues.

Federal Student Aid, O&D To-Be Requirements 8-8 Program Management Office Support

FSA requires services to support tasking/queries for information of a security nature to O&D by the FSA Office of the CIO (OCIO) and/or OIG relating to security/Privacy Act issues.

C. Security Breach FSA must be made aware of an attempted security breach of the O&D System by phone and email. Notification of an attempted security breach shall be reported within 1 hour and a detailed incident report submitted to FSA within 24 hours of becoming aware of the attempted O&D System security breach. FSA requires that a security and event report be filed in OWMS, including any resolution to the event.

D. Security Awareness Training

The following security awareness training requirements must be met: annual security training to Contractor staff; specialized security training based on access level; and, Department of Education security training.

8.2.7 Disaster Recovery Support

A. Disaster Recovery Capability FSA requires services to maintain and update the O&D System’s capability to continue core processing and operations functions (these consist of Web site availability, customer service support, front end editing, processing batches from schools, backend financial processing, and the recovery of O&D System data) in the event of a declared disaster in compliance with the FSA and O&D Disaster Recovery Plans.

There is a requirement to possess backups, housed off-site, of critical databases and other key files necessary to operate the O&D System (which includes the LDE and LDE Loan Consolidation components), O&D Web, and O&D Customer Service Center after the disaster has occurred. FSA requires the review of critical path jobs to ensure that they are included in the disaster recovery vault.

B. Disaster Recovery Planning

FSA requires services to maintain and modify, as needed, the O&D System, O&D Web, and O&D Customer Service Center disaster recovery plans. FSA maintains the right to review changes to these plans to determine if the changes are in compliance with the FSA Disaster Recovery policies.

C. Annual Disaster Recovery Test

FSA requires services to participate in the annual test of O&D’s Disaster Recovery capabilities for the O&D System Data Center, O&D Web, and O&D Customer Service Center. At the completion of the test, disaster recovery plans covering the O&D System, O&D Web, and O&D Customer Service Center shall be updated to include observations identified during the test and submitted to FSA for review.

Federal Student Aid, O&D To-Be Requirements 8-9 Program Management Office Support

8.2.8 Problem / Incident Severity Definition and Resolution Process FSA requires services to support O&D’s Problem/Incident Severity Definition and Resolution Process. The severity level definitions shall be applicable to incidents and problems related to the O&D System, LDE System, LDE Loan Consolidation System, and systems that interface with the O&D System. The severity levels shall also apply to incidents being tracked by O&D Incident Management for O&D, LDE and Servicers systems. The definitions outlined below shall serve as a guide for assigning severity level to the incident, or problem.

Severity of tickets shall be based on the agreed upon severity assignment criteria. Severity assignments will be mutually adjusted, as necessary.

A. Critical Impact Incidents and Problems:

Criteria: A software incident or problem shall be categorized as Critical when one or more of the following apply:

Critical service is severely degraded or unavailable to a large number of users and no workaround in place.

Resolution Process:

For incidents or problems, prioritized as “Critical Impact”, there shall be a requirement to utilize the following resolution process:

• Conduct a root cause analysis to determine the problem and correct it from recurring again or propose a viable workaround that is mutually agreed to by

FSA.

• If applicable to the incident or problem, develop a data cleanup plan to correct data impacted by the issue. These plans will be reviewed and approved with FSA in accordance with our existing processes.

• Work critical incidents or problems continuously (24x7) until resolved.

• Implement fixes on an emergency release.

B. High Impact Incidents and Problems

Criteria: A software incident or problem shall be categorized as High when one or more of the following apply:

• Number of Students Affected:

o Affects a large number of Student records but there is no workaround in place o Affects all Student records but there is a workaround in place

• Number of Schools Affected:

o Affects a large number of schools’ ability to receive funding but there is a workaround in place

• Service Degradation of Unavailability o Service is not available or severely impaired but there is a workaround in place

Federal Student Aid, O&D To-Be Requirements 8-10 Program Management Office Support

• FSA Operations/Trading Partners Affected:

o Total failure of Interface or Operations tools but there is a workaround in place

• FSA Financials:

o Material exception that will single-handedly prevent FSA from receiving a clean audit but there is a workaround in place

Resolution Process:

There shall be requirement to use the following resolution process for items that have been identified as “High Impact”:

• Conduct a root cause analysis to determine the problem and correct it from recurring again or propose a viable workaround that is mutually agreed to by

FSA.

• If applicable to the incident or problem, develop a data cleanup plan to correct data impacted by the issue. These plans will be reviewed and approved with FSA in accordance with our existing processes.

• Incidents and problems will be worked continuously during business hours until resolved.

• Any severity level can be re-categorized when mutually agreed upon based upon additional information identified during the issue resolution processes.

C. Moderate Impact Incidents and Problems:

Criteria: A software incident or problem shall be categorized as Medium when one or more of the following apply:

• Number of Students Affected:

o Affects a moderate number of Student records

• Number of Schools Affected:

o Affects a moderate number of schools’ ability to receive funding o Affects a large number of schools but not in regards to funding

• Service Degradation of Unavailability o Partial service degradation which impacts normal processing and end users

• FSA Operations/Trading Partners Affected:

o Significant impact to Interface and Operations tools but daily operations continues

• FSA Financials Affected:

o Incident or problem will cause a noticeable impact to FSA’s ability to receive a clean audit

Federal Student Aid, O&D To-Be Requirements 8-11 Program Management Office Support

Resolution Process:

There shall a requirement to use the following resolution process for items that have been identified as “Moderate Impact”:

• Conduct a root cause analysis to determine the problem and correct it from recurring again or propose a viable workaround that is mutually agreed to by

FSA.

• If applicable to the incident or problem, develop a data cleanup to correct data impacted by the issue. These plans will be reviewed and approved with FSA in accordance with our existing processes.

• Any severity level can be re-categorized when mutually agreed upon by FSA and Accenture based upon additional information identified during the issue resolution processes.

D. Low Incidents and Problems:

Criteria: A software incident or problem shall be categorized as Low when one or more of the following apply:

• Number of Students Affected:

o Affects only a few student records

• Number of Schools Affected:

o Incident or problem affects only a few schools’ ability to receive funding o Affects a moderate number of schools but not in regards to funding

• Service Degradation of Unavailability:

o Minimal service degradation and minimal impact to both normal processing and end users.

• FSA Operations/Trading Partners:

o Minimal impact to Interfaces or Operations tools

• FSA Financials:

o Incident or problem will cause minimal to no impact on FSA’s ability to receive a clean audit

Resolution Process

There shall be a requirement to use the following resolution process for items that have been identified as “Low” impact: conduct a root cause analysis to determine the problem and correct it from recurring again or propose a viable workaround that is mutually agreed to by FSA.

Federal Student Aid, O&D To-Be Requirements 8-12 Program Management Office Support

8.2.9 System Processing Volume Data Reporting

To facilitate FSA volume forecasting and system requirement projections, FSA requires timely and complete reporting on O&D System data. The data shall include processing volume data for Originations, Disbursements, MPNs, PLUS requests, Entrance, Financial, and Exit Counseling, Applicant Service and School phone calls and emails, credit appeals, correspondence, and message class utilization. Reporting shall also be required to include a daily report to track and compare actual system processing volumes for Originations, Disbursements, MPNs, PLUS requests, Entrance, Financial, and Exit Counseling, and Applicant Service and School phone calls to projected volumes.

8.2.10 Lifecycle Management Methodology