Market_Survey_FRB-18-003_Time_Tracking_Tool.pdf

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MARKET SURVEY

FRB-18-003 DATE: October 18, 2018

From: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Subject: Time Tracking/Resource Management Solution

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY AND YOUR RESPONSE IS NOT

AN OFFER. THIS REQUEST FOR INFORMATION DOES NOT COMMIT THE

GOVERNMENT TO PAY ANY COSTS INCURRED IN PREPARATION OF ANY

SUBMISSION TO THIS MARKET SURVEY, OR TO CONTRACT FOR SERVICES.

IT IS REQUESTED THAT THE ABOVE INFORMATION BE PROVIDED NO

LATER THAN 12:00 PM EASTERN, NOVEMBER 16, 2018. RESPONSES

SHOULD BE EMAILED TO LISA.M.BOUCHELLE@FRB.GOV.

1. OBJECTIVE:

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (“Board”) is seeking to learn about the Time Tracking/Resource and Portfolio Management products that are available to address the following objectives:

• Have one integrated system which will serve as a single source of record for all human resource time

• Standard and customized resource and demand reporting should be a core capability of the tool

• Ability to categorize work and report on time spent (actual) and projected

(forecasted) for operational and strategic priorities and objectives

• Ability to plan for and track time and resources at the individual, project, task and portfolio levels

• Ability to produce what-if scenarios to evaluate resource impacts on planned work when new work enters the project portfolio

2. MARKET SURVEY RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS:

Respondents are requested to provide a detailed response, addressing each of the following questions. Respondents should also be prepared to address these questions and any other questions the Board may have at any on-site demonstration that is subsequently scheduled as outlined below.

Part A – General Questions:

a) Name of organization, cage code/DUNS, name, telephone number, street and email addresses for the primary point of contact.

mailto:LISA.M.BOUCHELLE@FRB.GOV

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b) State if the organization could provide a no-cost demonstration of the product and its capabilities at the Board’s offices in Washington, D.C., if requested by the Board.

c) State if the organization could offer a free trial of the product, and if so, for how many days.

Part B – Functional Questions:

How does your solution support the following high-level requirements?

B1. Time Management:

a) Time logging (Project level/task, salary, hourly, exempt/non-exempt, overtime tracking capabilities)

b) Time sheets

c) Time approvals (notifications of unapproved time)

d) Ability to enter hours or percentages

e) Import/export time records

f) Tracking of missing time (notifications)

g) Historical tracking

h) Customized alerts and notifications

B2. Resource Management:

a) Interactive cross-project workload management

b) Individual work calendars

c) Capacity planning

d) Compare Planned v/s Actual utilization

e) Resource Forecasting / reporting

f) Load chart with 'real-time' workload projections

g) Classification of non-project work / overhead

h) Ability to manage team/department resources

i) Skills tracking / resource and demand management

j) Threshold triggers / notifications

B3. Project Portfolio Management:

a) Project portfolio reporting and tracking

b) Multi-year planning

c) Ability to track project phase activities and time

d) Configurable for various project methodologies (Waterfall, Agile, DevOps)

e) Consolidated demand management

f) Project classifications - capital or operations project

g) Time spent at the application and portfolio levels

h) Multiple classifications / categories, sub-categories

i) Planned (estimates) vs actual and ability to link with other tracking systems

j) Show/Configure project codes by team / project / individual

k) Ability to import/export leave calendars (from other systems) into/out of tool, to use for forecasting of resources

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B4. Integration / Import-Export with:

a) Excel

b) XML format

c) MS Project

d) Phire (PeopleSoft) (or other Service Management tools)

e) ETL capability

f) Flexible, web-based API to integrate with popular tools like SharePoint & other legacy applications

g) Outlook/Email

h) Tableau or other BI Tools

i) Financial/ERP system integration

j) Ability to save timesheets / reports as .pdf files

B5. Security:

a) Role/Group based security

b) Global and project level security settings

c) Web https: security

B6. Reporting:

a) Multiple data visualizations

b) Customized report capability

c) Drill down / roll-up capability

d) Estimated vs Actual reporting (multi-level grouping and sorting)

e) Dashboards at various reporting levels

f) Sharable reports

g) Time-phased reporting

h) Resource reporting (by project/individual, etc.)

i) Project portfolio reporting

j) Schedule report capability

k) On-demand, real-time reporting

l) Mobile reporting capability

m) Save reports in various formats, .csv, .pdf, XML

B7. Technical/System Capabilities:

a) Users can enter and approve time via mobile phones

b) Web-based / cloud solution

c) Easy to maintain system records, set up new projects, new employees

d) Section 508 Compliant

B8. Other Questions:

a) Is your system a web-enabled environment (preferred browsers, plug-ins, etc.)?

b) Are there any known constraints, technology or otherwise?

c) What are the planned future enhancements/roadmap for product development?

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d) Please list and describe all the various functions / features / modules that comprise your solution.

e) Is your solution available on-premises or cloud-based, or both?

f) Describe what functional modules (components) are included in the base solution and what additional functional modules (components) are available, if any.

g) How is your solution scalable? What are the key elements that must be implemented first and what elements can be added on in priority?

h) What, if any, customization or configuration is required to operationalize the solution? Can the customer do this or does it require initial vendor set-up?

i) How does your solution support Federal regulatory requirements (e.g. FISMA, SOX, Section 508 compliance or Fed RAMP, if on the cloud)?

j) Does your solution interact with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Exchange? If so, how?

k) Out of the box, without customization, what kind of pre-programmed reports are available?

l) What product training and user support is available pre- and post- installation? Do you provide training, user manual and technical support?

m) In general, how much time would it take a user to become self-sufficient in using the solution?

n) What are the activities and the type/level of expertise that the Board would need in order to maintain the solution on an on-going basis?

o) What is available through your solution to ensure access control?

p) Is the solution used by other Federal government agencies? If so, which agencies?

q) How does your solution integrate with existing Commercial Off-the-Shelf

(“COTS”) computer solutions? Are any third-party COTS products necessary for the collection, processing, review or production components?

Part C – Technical Questions:

C1. Documentation:

a) What kind of technical documentation do you provide for your application (e.g.

white paper, installation and configuration instruction, release notes, user manuals, system administration guides)?

b) How do you provide solution documentation to your customers? Paper, CD/DVD, Web Site, in-tool Self-Help?

C2. Technical Platform:

a) What are the computing platforms for your solution? Please specify both server and clients, if any. If you support multiple platforms, please specify your preference.

b) What are the installation procedures for the product? Is it based on software installation onto the customer’s hardware or an appliance installation (is it pre-packaged, installed directly on hardware or through an appliance)? How will your solution be installed into a closed network environment (no internet connection)?

c) What is the minimum and recommended hardware configuration, for each computing platform, your solution supports, to support at least 80 concurrent users?

d) What database do you use to store the data? If you use a relational database, please specify the supplier and version number (e.g. DB2, MS SQL Server, Oracle, etc.).

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e) How often do you issue a new release and/or version? What is your release/version strategy? When will the next version of the product be released?

f) How do you keep up with platform vendors’ release/upgrade cycles?

C3. Application Technology

a) What is the minimum operating system required to run your product and which version (e.g., Windows 10)?

b) Describe how you integrate third party products in your applications, if any? If so, please specify which ones and their version number.

c) Are any third party/parties services needed for implementation and support?

d) Describe your application security features.

e) How does your solution support Single Sign-On (SSO) within Active Directory?

f) How do you implement 100% web-based technology in your solution? If so, does your application require any browser plug-in or add-ons?

g) What web browsers does your solution support and what versions of those browsers are required at a minimum to use the solution?

h) How long does it take, on average, to implement changes/updates in the solution? Is downtime required for updates? If so, how often and for how long?

C4. Data Migration and Integration:

a) Describe how you handle and implement data migration from an existing application/database to your solutions if you are given the data from an existing application/database.

b) Describe how data is imported into your application and what kind of data can be ingested?

c) Describe how data is exported from the application? Which file formats are supported?

C5. Deployment and Technical Support:

a) Give an overview of your organization, location, size, company history.

b) Describe how a typical solution implementation works and how you perform the actual implementation/installation of the solution? For example, how long will installation take, and do you provide on-site personnel for physical installation at the Board?

c) How many on-site staff are necessary to maintain and run the product at the Board after installation?

d) What kind of technical support model do you offer?

e) What are the hours of operation and response times of your support group (24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year)?

Part D – Pricing Questions:

D1. Pricing and Licensing:

a) How is your solution’s price constructed (e.g., site licenses, concurrent users, named users, third party module/database, etc.)?

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b) Describe your pricing model.

c) What kind of licensing model does your solution have (perpetual, annual, etc.)?

d) Is your solution available in an enterprise-license configuration? If so, please describe the conditions necessary to qualify for an enterprise license, including any minimum investment in terms of money or other licenses.

e) Provide a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost of the product based on your current pricing structure.

3. RESPONSES AND INQUIRIES:

Respondents are advised to clearly identify which portions of their response are proprietary. Respondents seeking confidential treatment of proprietary information must comply with the Board’s confidential treatment regulations at 12 C.F.R. 261.15.

The confidentiality of each Vendor’s response will be maintained to the extent possible by law.

Responses to this RFI will not be used to pre-qualify or otherwise restrict participation in any future procurement process (e.g., an RFP). Responses will not be formally evaluated.

The Board will not reimburse any expenditure incurred in preparing responses and/or participating in any on-site demonstrations related to this Market Survey.

In the event that a response is not sufficiently clear, the Board reserves the right to seek additional information from that Respondent at its sole discretion. If the Board finds a Respondent’s response to be unclear or lacking, it reserves the right to reject the response or otherwise decline to follow up on unclear responses.