Q and A from vendors - 1-24-2020.pdf

No Questions FCSIC Answer

1 Would FCSIC be open to Public Cloud options?

Yes, but all the terms of the requirements must be met, including, requirement 21 which requies the vendor to provide evidence of an existing FedRAMP moderate certificaiton.

2 Is FCSIC open to a custom development or is looking for a COTS product ? Yes, FCSIC is open to custom development.

Refer to Appendix A (Page 23): There are 4 different source systems mentioned (but 4th one is missing in the list).

‐ Are there any need for blending data from these 4 data sources and make any reports?

We have updated the solicitation to include the 4th source data. There is a need for blending of data. See also response to question 5.

We understand, you plan to grab the CSV, EXCEL files for reporting instead of connecting to source systems.

‐ Will there be a scenario where you wish to generate reports that are historical in nature?

Yes, the system should have the capability to generate reports that are historical in nature.

We understand, there are 15 Day 1 Reports expected from this engagement.

‐ These seem to be factual reports, independent of each other. Will there be any need for creating dashboards with connected reports etc?

Some of the reports from Appendix A are interconnected. For instance, the key statistics report (attachment 1 of appendix A) is connected to attachment 2 and 3. There will be a need to create dashboards with connected reports.

We understand, the reports listed in Appendix A are GRC reports (Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance) ‐ How about AFR Reports? (Annual Financial Report)

We do not consider the reports in Appendix A as GRC reports. The Appendix A reports are part of objective 1 (business intelligence capabilities). The GRC component of reports relates to reports around internal controls, such as risk control matrices, process narratives, flow charts, and other similar internal control documentation. We view the AFR report as part of objective 1 (business intelligence capabilities) as well and not part of the GRC component.

On page 6, Requirements section, Table 1: There are references to many reports in this table. Are they included in the 15 reports in Appendix A, or are these additional reports?

Yes, these requirements apply to the reports in Appendix A. However, the requirements also relate to future reports that users might want to create. The system should be user friendly for users to create new or ad hoc reports; the reports on the Appendix A make up many of the known reports that FCSIC wishes to have the vendor design to be produced in an automated fashion.

Ref. 1.14 Importing of Data on Table 1, on page 6: Ability to import existing data from SQL, Adobe Acrobat, and Microsoft applications without manual re‐typing of the data.

‐ Please share sample data files (PDF, MS Applications, SQL etc) ‐ Do you expect to store the data in a database for reporting purpose?

See response to question 24. We expect the data from these reports to be stored in the solution for reporting purposes.

Ref. 1.21 System flexibility:

‐ Please give an example of type of report types and report styles that you expect to create from the reporting tool.

Users should have the ability, after training, to easily create and set up reports such as those in Appendix A to be automatically generated after importing source data into the tool.

10 Ref. 1.33 Data Linking: What would be the expected frequency of Report refresh?

Generally our reports are run on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The frequency should be flexible (i.e., ad hoc ) and configurable.

We understand FCSIC would own the private cloud environment to host the solution and the vendor shall provide the services as per this engagement. Is that understanding right?

FCSIC would not own the private cloud environment; the vendor is responsible for hosting the cloud environment in a FedRAMP moderate certified environment. The solution must also be FedRAMP moderate certified.

Ref. Section 21. Solicitation Fixed‐priced bid, inclusive of all costs, provided in the Pricing Chart section above. Bids with annual costs in any given year over $75,000 will be excluded from consideration.

Is this correct that Total Prices on Page 7 Pricing chart for each year of the contract cannot exceed $75K per year, or is that per month?

The annual price cannot exceed $75,000 for any given year as indicated in Section 21.

Ref. Section 21. Solicitation The SOW states " Past performance reference for similar cloud based software solution for at least two US Federal or state gov't.

Would not having this experience exclude me from consideration even if I have a plethora of private sector financial reporting?

Yes, if the vendor had no experience implementing the proposed software solution for at least two U.S. Federal or state government clients, the bid response will be excluded from consideration per paragraph 21 of the statement of work.

This SOW looks all encompassing in regards to collaborating on the (AFR) and is not exclusive to PowerBI (or other BI tool). Are we able to bid on part of this? Or do we need to have a complete solution?

Partial offers will be excluded from consideration. The solution offered by the vendor must be an integrated solution for the business intelligence activities (i.e., AFR) and the governance, risk management, and compliance capabilities around internal control tracking and monitoring. The vendor must have a complete, integrated solution to address both of the Statement of Work's objectives highlighted in section 2.

Ref. Section 5. Requirements Table 1 1.2 Microsoft is FedRamp compliant throughout the office 365 suite. This includes Power BI. Would I be able to use this cert? Or would I need to get myself compliant as well, even as a consultant to the product?

The agency currently has PowerBI and Qlik as enterprise business intelligence tools installed in its environment. However, the vendor must offer a solution that is 100% cloud based and managed by the vendor as a FedRAMP moderate certified product.

16 Will you be hosting a Q/A session prior to 1/27, or have a list of answers to questions posed during the procurement phase?

There will not be a verbal Q/A session prior to the solicitation closing; however all questions and answers have been provided in this document.

17 Once access is granted to the product/solution, will billing for the full 12 month term upfront be acceptable?

Pricing will be a review component that the assessment team will analyze. The vendor should submit pricing terms as they are directed by the Statement of Work but may also submit alternative pricing proposals for the assessment team to consider.

Ref. Table 3 3.8 Requirement 3.8 Notes a requirement to track four (4) distinct audit resolution processes, however only 2 are listed, will you provide the two (2) other processes?

Section 3.8 should reference only two distinct audit resolution processes. We have made changes to the solicitation document. Please refer to the updated edits in the statement of work that were made on 1/23/2020.

Ref. Appendix A Notes four (4) main sources where FCSIC get information to create reports however only three (3) sources are noted (FedInvest, Financial statements, Trial Balance), please provide the fourth source.

The fourth source data noted in Appendix A should read: “Bank data on loans at farm banks. The information comes in a PDF format.” We have added this information in the solicitation. Please refer to the updated edits in the statement of work that were made on 1/24/2020.

Please confirm whether FCSIC is looking for a single software solution to support the requirements for this solicitation, or if multiple software solutions within a single cloud environment would be sufficient?

We will consider solutions that have multiple software solutions integrated into one product suite as long as the requirements of the statement of work are met.

21 When do you expect the contract to officially be awarded? We expect to have the award issued within 60 days of the bid deadline.

Is there an expectation that applicants already have similar systems in place, or would FCSIC expect a new system to be built from scratch?

Yes, it is expected that applicants already have a similar system in place. Please see past performance requirements in section 21.

23 Do you know what the approximate budget for this project is?

We have not disclosed this information, but we have indicated in Section 21 that the annual costs cannot be more than $75,000 in any given year.

Are you able to pass along examples of the documents that are used as the basis to generate the reports? It says in the specification that these are often Excel documents currently, and that they will need to have version control, security access, etc., but we don't see any examples. It would also be valuable for us to understand the total number of different types of documents there are, as we would need to create a dashboard entry system for each of them.

Yes. Attached as “Attachment A ‐ InvestmentDetailSourceDataExample” csv file is an example of the FedInvest investment source data file. Attached as “Attachment B ‐ FinancialStatementandTBSourceDataExample” is an example of our financial statements, which includes a tab as our example Trial Balance. Attached as “ Attachment C ‐ BankDataSourceDataExample” is a similar report to think kind we receive from the Funding Corp and used as source data. Note the amounts and accounts included in these files are example information and are for illustrative purposes only. Please refer to the 1/24/2020 updated Statement of Work that now includes these attachments.

Do opportunities such as this one (setting up dashboards, content generation, using AI to surface insights, etc.) come up very often at the Credit Bureau?

Within FCSIC, no.

Ref. Page 2, Paragraph 3. Scope Based on similar implementations with over 20 Federal customers, we would suggest the tool would be operational in 3‐6 months depending upon the results of discovery and business analysis of FCSIC’s environment.

Is there a particular driver(s) behind your implementation timeframe?

We believe that most of the reports being generated are from fairly simple data sets (i.e., csv files). We have included examples of the source data in response to question 24.

There is no particular driver behind the implementation timeframes; they are based on our understanding of the complexity of the work.

Ref. Page 12, Paragraph 7. Pricing The chart does not include labor categories or expected hours by labor category.

Would the Government please provide labor categories and the estimated expected hours by labor category?

The following information has been removed from the soliciation: "The chart below is a guide with estimates based on the Corporation’s expected hours by the labor category during the base year and each option year. The vendor shall propose any labor categories they deem appropriate for the scope of work.” Please refer to the updated edits in the statement of work that were made on 1/24/2020.

Ref. Page 18, Paragraph 21. Solicitation On pages 4‐10, para 5. Requirements. Table 1 – Solution Requirements, there is a Requirements Matrix but no instruction on how to complete it or the format for doing so.

Would FCSIC please provide instruction on how to meet this requirement?

The vendor should indicate how their solution meets each requirement by either indicating whether the requirement is met from the 1) baseline product capabilities of the solution, 2) configuration capabilities of the solution, or 3) configuration (i.e. , code changes). We have added clarification and a spreadsheet that each vendor should complete in an Excel file labeled "Requirements Response Sheet".

Please refer to the updated edits in the statement of work that were made on 1/24/2020.

Ref. Page 4, Section 1.2 Would you be willing to consider our offer without this requirement being met at the time of submission, and contingent on obtaining the ATO within the next 6 months?

No. We will only consider offers from solutions that have evidence of an existing FedRAMP moderate certification for the solution being offered.

30 Will you be willing to extend the date of the deadline Yes. We are extending the deadline until 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, Feburary 3, 2020.