FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(A) Urgent and Compelling J&A ICN_FINAL_All Signatures.pdf

THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS PROCUREMENT SENSITIVE INFORMATION INTENDED FOR NARA INTERNAL USE

ONLY. DO NOT MAKE ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION OR EXTERNAL DISCLOSURES WITHOUT PROPER

WRITTEN JUSTIFICATION TO AND WRITTEN APPROVAL FROM THE CONTRACTING OFFICER

LIMITED-SOURCES JUSTIFICATION

FAR 8.405-6(a), URGENT AND COMPELLING

National Archives and Records Administration 8601 Adelphi Road

College Park, MD 20740-6001

Internal Collaboration Network Software-as-a-Service

Technical or Requirements Personnel Certification:

I hereby certify that this limited-sources justification is made in good faith, that the supporting data and information are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief, and that I would not be making this request if it were feasible to compete this requirement. I further certify this request is not the result of a desire to expend funds while those funds are still available.

Eric Lovett Date Program Management Division (IG)

Contracting Officer Concurrence:

I have reviewed this justification and conclude that it is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Kevin Monahan Date Contracting Officer

General Counsel Concurrence:

I have reviewed this justification and consider it legally sufficient.

Stephani Abramson Date Legal Counsel

2/2/2023

WRITTEN JUSTIFICATION TO AND WRITTEN APPROVAL FROM THE CONTRACTING OFFICER

NARA Senior Procurement Executive Concurrence:

I have reviewed this justification and conclude that it is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Damon Nevils Date Senior Procurement Executive

NARA Competition Advocate Approval:

I have reviewed this justification and hereby certify that it is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. In accordance with FAR 8.405-6(d) and NARA 501, I approve this justification.

Mark Smith Date Competition Advocate

I. IDENTIFICATION OF THE AGENCY AND THE CONTRACTING ACTIVITY,

AND SPECIFIC IDENTIFICATION OF THE DOCUMENT AS A "LIMITED

SOURCES JUSTIFICATION."

See Page 1

II. NATURE AND/OR DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTION BEING APPROVED.

The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price delivery order to be issued under the General Services Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Special Item Number (SIN) 511210, Software Licenses for the procurement of Jive Software, Inc.

(Jive)1 Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) licenses and continued operations and maintenance support for NARA’s Internal Collaboration Network (ICN). The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) intends to restrict competition to the incumbent contractor, J.R. Reingold & Associates, Inc. (Reingold) to acquire the Jive SaaS licenses and continued operations and maintenance support.

III. A DESCRIPTION OF THE SUPPLIES OR SERVICES REQUIRED TO MEET

THE AGENCY’S NEEDS (INCLUDING THE ESTIMATED VALUE).

NARA has an ongoing requirement for the annual renewal of 3,000 Jive-N Enterprise SaaS licenses and operations and maintenance support including patching, configuration management, security management, submitting custom reports, and maintaining integrations with NARA specific systems for its ICN. The period of performance is March 1, 2023 through February 29, 2024 and the estimated total value is $1,158,652.92.

IV. THE AUTHORITY AND SUPPORTING RATIONAL (SEE 8.405-6(a)(1)(i) and (b)(1)), AND, IF APPLICABLE, A DEMONSTRATION OF THE PROPOSED

CONTRACTOR'S UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS TO PROVIDE THE REQUIRED

SUPPLY OR SERVICE.

In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 8.405-6(d)(2), the following requirement is being justified and approved to restrict consideration under the statutory authority of 41 U.S.C. 4104 as implemented by FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(A), “An urgent and compelling need exists, and following the procedures would result in unacceptable delays”.

Over the past ten (10) years, NARA has been developing, socializing, and integrating an employee community into its business processes. The Jive-based ICN platform has become a ubiquitous tool for internal agency-wide communications; dissemination of agency policies and directives; planning and coordinating agency business; and collaboration between geographically dispersed agency personnel. Furthermore, over the past five (5) years, Reingold has been providing critical integration, development, and

1 Jive Software, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Aurea Software, Inc.

support services to meet agency specific needs for ICN.

The current contract with Reingold for the ICN and History Hub (HH) expires on February 28, 2023. NARA began conducting market research in FY21 including a thorough review of its ICN requirements to continue to meet future needs of the agency.

One of the early results of the market research revealed the desire for a more robust integration of the ICN with NARA’s Cloud Email systems. As such, in late FY21, NARA made the decision to decouple the ICN and the HH services as originally competed in the current contract and pursue developing its requirements for ICN to be included as an integrated component of its Cloud Email and Records Management contract of which was already being targeted for recompete in FY22. While conducting additional market research throughout FY22 to finalize its requirements for the Cloud Email and Records Management recompete, NARA ultimately determined that absorbing its ICN requirements as an integrated component of itsr Email and Records Management contract was not a suitable option and that ICN should instead be competed as a separate, stand-alone contract. As a result of this strategy shift in late FY22, NARA determined the need to execute against the option to extend services clause in its existing contract with Reingold for a six (6) month extension from September 1, 2022 to February 28, 2023 to allow adequate time to conduct additional market research and finalize its requirements for a new competitive effort. While the results of the market research revealed other COTS SaaS collaboration tools have the potential to meet NARA’s ICN requirements, it also revealed that a transition to a new ICN by February 28, 2023 was not feasible without unacceptable delays. Specifically, the acquisition timeline for any recompete must factor in an award date that provides at least three (3) and, potentially, as much as five (5) months to allow sufficient time to migrate the data, system setup and configuration, account creation, and authorization to operate for a new SaaS in the event incumbent solution is not selected. Therefore, it is not feasible to compete and award a new contract while also allowing for adequate transition time to any potential replacement solution without incurring a disruption to the availability of the ICN. Any such disruption would bring critical internal communication capabilities to an immediate halt and result in unacceptable delays to NARA operations. As such, NARA initially explored the option of a short-term bridge contract (3 to 6 months) but was informed by Aurea/Jive that any renewal of the existing SaaS license must be for a minimum of 12 months.

Furthermore, it was determined that the ongoing operations and maintenance support services being provided by Reingold could not be seamlessly transitioned to another contractor by February 28, 2023, and that any such transition would also result in unacceptable delays. During the deployment of the Jive SaaS for the ICN, the contractor was required to integrate the SaaS with NARA’s SecureAuth infrastructure to provide Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD)-12 compliant login for all NARA employees. Reingold played an integral role in helping to rebuild the automated process for the addition and removal of users through the HSPD-12 integration, and due to internal staff turn-over and the transition to a new NARA IT Security support contractor, they are currently the only entity with the legacy knowledge of the integration with the single-sign on and user authentication. Therefore, there is no other entity which would be capable of bringing the single sign on back online in a timely manner in the event of failure of this integration. In addition, Reingold has developed customized scripts to provide responsive information from data exports run by the SaaS. These proprietary scripts are required to generate custom filtered group engagement reports to display group data as well as total users from the ICN system which are not readily available through the SaaS. These reports, which are critical to the ongoing operations and management of the system, and which will be critical to the preparation of the current system data for migration to another SaaS, cannot be delivered by another vendor without first having to reproduce its own scripts for which there would be duplicative time, effort and cost. Ultimately, if any other vendor was to take over operations and maintenance support for NARA’s existing Jive implementation at this point in time and while NARA is actively pursuing a new competitive effort targeted for award within this one–year proposed performance period, any such transition would not only result in unacceptable delays to ongoing operational activities but could also delay critical migration and transition activities to a new ICN SaaS platform.

Therefore, in order to maintain continuity of services and avoid unacceptable delays to mission critical operations, only the renewal of its existing Jive SaaS licenses, operations and maintenance services from the current contractor can meet NARA’s requirements over the next 12 months. There is insufficient time for NARA to compete this requirement, execute the migration, and implement a different SaaS solution, if an alternative SaaS is selected, for its ICN by February 28, 2023.

V. A DETERMINATION BY THE ORDERING ACTIVITY CONTRACTING

OFFICER THAT THE ORDER REPRESENTS THE BEST VALUE

CONSISTENT WITH FAR 8.404(d).

The SaaS licenses and direct labor categories are available through the Reingold’s GSA multiple award schedule (MAS) contract. The hourly rates and the SaaS license prices are listed at fixed unit prices. In accordance with FAR 8.405(d), the hourly rates and the SaaS license pricing has already been determined fair and reasonable by GSA. The incumbent has been providing these services through an open market contract, the nature of the operations and maintenance support is not changing, therefore, NARA expects that it will receive the appropriate labor categories, mix, and level of effort to receive the best value under these circumstances. The solicitation will require the Vendor to propose only GSA Schedule priced items and NARA will seek further discounts.

VI. A DESCRIPTION OF THE MARKET RESEARCH CONDUCTED AMONG

SCHEDULE HOLDERS AND THE RESULTS OR A STATEMENT OF THE

REASON MARKET RESEARCH WAS NOT CONDUCTED.

NARA has conducted extensive market research efforts starting back in FY21 seeking commercially available solutions for ICN as well as a suitable procurement strategy.

NARA published a request for information (RFI) on SAM.gov in September 2022 to obtain additional and updated market research information concerning the commercially available solutions for ICN and sought information regarding the transition and migration timeframes required in the event a new ICN platform were to be implemented. While the results of the market research revealed other SaaS solutions do exist that could potentially meet all NARA requirements, it was determined that there is insufficient time for NARA to compete this requirement, execute the migration, and implement a different SaaS solution, if an alternative SaaS is selected, for its ICN by February 28, 2023. NARA researched the GSA schedules to verify the licenses and labor are available under Reingold’s GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract and determined that this strategy is the most effective to ensure adequate time for a competition under the circumstances outlined in Section IV.

VII. ANY OTHER FACTS SUPPORTING THE JUSTIFICATION.

When a new AOTUS is nominated, confirmed, and appointed, the ICN must be available to that individual from day one. The ICN will enable the newly appointed AOTUS to engage with employees immediately as well as to leverage existing institutional knowledge; thereby supporting the upcoming leadership transition.

VIII. A STATEMENT OF THE ACTIONS, IF ANY, THE AGENCY MAY TAKE TO

REMOVE OR OVERCOME ANY BARRIERS THAT LED TO THE

RESTRICTED CONSIDERATION BEFORE ANY SUBSEQUENT

ACQUISITION FOR THE SUPPLIES OR SERVICES IS MADE.

NARA is currently planning on conducting a competitive acquisition to update the ICN and to provide sufficient time to transition the ICN to a new SaaS provider should a transition be necessary.

IX. THE ORDERING ACTIVITY’S CONTRACTING OFFICER'S CERTIFICATION

THAT THE JUSTIFICATION IS ACCURATE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST

OF THE CONTRACTING OFFICER'S KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF.

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X. EVIDENCE THAT ANY SUPPORTING DATA THAT IS THE

RESPONSIBILITY OF TECHNICAL OR REQUIREMENTS PERSONNEL (E.G.,

VERIFYING THE GOVERNMENT'S MINIMUM NEEDS OR REQUIREMENTS

OR OTHER RATIONALE FOR LIMITED SOURCES) AND WHICH FORM A

BASIS FOR THE JUSTIFICATION HAVE BEEN CERTIFIED AS COMPLETE

AND ACCURATE BY THE TECHNICAL OR REQUIREMENTS PERSONNEL.

See page 1.