ID15170001_EVS_DRAFT_PWS_2017-10-19.pdf

IAE Entity Validation Services ITSS Solicitation #: 15170001

PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT

For

Entity Validation Services

A procurement by the U.S. General Services Administration on behalf of Office of Systems Management (QD) Integrated Award Environment (IAE)

Washington, D.C.

RFI # ID15170001

NAICS 561450 - Credit Bureaus

Product Service Code: R611 Support - Administrative: Credit Reporting

Contents

1 Background: 6

Integrated Award Environment (IAE)/System for Award Management (SAM) 6

Organizational Mission 6

Procurement Objective 6

IAE/SAM Program History 7

IAE/SAM Current Status 8

2 Orientation 9

General Scope of Work 9

Resources 9

Placement and Management of Work 10

Customers 10

Performance Monitoring 10

General Definitions 10

Technical Definitions 12

3 Assumptions 12

4 Primary Performance Objectives (Technical) 12

Objective Group A: Entity Identification and Validation 14

Objective 1- Method to determine entity uniqueness and confirmation that the entity is unique 14

Objective 2- Validate information about the entity and provide information on entity responsibility 17

Objective 3- Identify Entity Organizational Relationships 21

Objective Group B: Entity Information 22

Objective 4 - Entity Information 22

Objectives Group C - Common Objectives 23

Objective 5- Customer support capabilities (including entity updates), for U.S. and non-U.S.

located entities 23

Objective 6- SAM Data Rights 25

Objective 7- Transition 25

Objective 8 - Technical Interfaces 26

Objective 9 - Data Sourcing and Handling 26

5 Meeting Objectives 27

Meeting Objective 1 – Initial Business/Kickoff Meeting 27

Meeting Objective 2 – Ad hoc Technical / Work Status / Administrative Meetings 28

Meeting Objective 3 – Contract Administration Meetings 28

6 Contract-wide Objectives 28

Contract-wide Objective 1 – Contract and Project Management 28

Contract-wide Objective 2 – Subcontract Management 28

Contract-wide Objective 3 – Business Relations 29

Contract-wide Objective 4 – Contractor Response 29

Contract-wide Objective 5 – Team Continuity and Employee Retention 29

Contract-wide Objective 6 – Professional Appearance 30

7 Additional Performance Requirements 30

Location of Work 30

Time of Work 30

Normal Hours 30

Holidays 31

Federal Service Desk Hours 31

Government Facility Closures 31

Performance at the Contractor’s Facilities 32

Travel 32

Limitations on Contractor Performance 32

Privacy Act Requirements 32

Personal Services 33

Rehabilitation Act Compliance (Section 508) 33

Avoidance and/or Mitigation of Actual or Potential Organizational Conflicts of Interest 34

8 Personnel Requirements 35

Personnel Qualifications – General 35

Key Personnel Definition and List 35

Key Personnel Qualifications 36

PROJECT MANAGER 36

TECHNICAL LEAD 37

Key Personnel Substitution 37

Staff Maintenance 38

Contractor Employee Work Credentials. 38

9 Security Requirements 38

Compliance with Security Requirements 38

Employee Security Requirements 39

Common Access Card & ID Badges 39

Facility Security Requirements 39

Personal Identity Verification 39

Unescorted Entry Authorization Certificate 40

Non-Disclosure Statement. 40

10 Period of Performance 40

11 Deliverables 40

Items, Time of Delivery, Place of Delivery 40

Data Requirements / Descriptions 43

Contractor Employee Non-Disclosure Agreement. 43

Quality Control Plan. 43

Staff Matrix. 43

Monthly Status Report (MSR) 44

Trip Reports IF REQUIRED 44

Other Reports 44

12 Quality Assurance and Quality Control 45

Contractor Quality Control Plan (QCP) 45

Government Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP) 46

13 Government Furnished Items 46

Data 46

Equipment – Tools - Accessories 47

Materials 47

Facilities 47

Safeguarding Government Furnished Property - Physical Security 47

Training 47

Government-Furnished Services 48

14 Government Delays in Reviewing Deliverables or Furnishing Items 48

15 Notices 49

Contracting Officer’s Representative 49

Government Technical Representative - Task Management 49

16 Contact Information 49

Contractor Contacts 49

Government Contacts 49

17 Additional Provisions 50

Data Rights 50

Limited Use of Data 50

Proprietary Data 51

Inspection and Acceptance 51

Contract Type 51

Ceiling Price Notification 51

Contract Funding 51

Productive Direct Labor Hours 51

Invoicing and Payment 51

Payment for Unauthorized Work 52

Payment for Correction of Defects 52

Attachments 52

1 QASP (Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan) 52 2 Organizational Conflict of Interest Provisions 52

1 Background:

Integrated Award Environment (IAE)/System for Award Management (SAM)

Organizational Mission

The mission of the GSA Office of Integrated Award Environment (IAE) is to support a common, secure business environment which facilitates and supports cost-effective acquisition of, and payment for, goods and services; effective management of federal acquisition and assistance awards; and consistent transparency into federal acquisition and assistance awards.

The IAE vision is to continue to evolve and integrate the existing shared portfolio of ten

(10) electronic systems used for awarding and administering federal financial assistance (e.g., grants, loans) and contracts through Agile Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Development Processes on the Business Services Platform (BSP).

The largest and most complex of the e-Government initiatives, the IAE works on behalf of the acquisition and financial assistance communities to save money, be more efficient, reduce burdens on the communities we serve, and improve federal award management.

Procurement Objective

The purpose of this procurement is to obtain the necessary contractor support to perform Entity Validation Services for the express purpose of protecting the integrity of the taxpayer's dollars throughout the federal award process and to enable the GSA Office of Integrated Award Environment to fulfill its mission. Entity Validation Services are based on federal statute and policy regulations.

Definitions, for purposes of this procurement, include:

● Entity – refers to organizations or individuals applying for financial assistance, contract awards, loans, grants, or who need to register to do business with the federal government including but not limited to sole proprietors, corporations, partnerships, government agencies, non-profits, etc.

● Validation – objective verification; returning accurate information about an entity.

The data corresponds to the real world identity of the entity.

● Entity Validation Services – a method to determine entity uniqueness, which could include the assignment or use of a unique entity identifier, validation of certain data, and associated services.

This effort will require the contractor to collaborate with the Government and other contractor teams to provide support on Entity Validation Services.

IAE/SAM Program History

In 2002, Integrated Acquisition Environment was created as an e-Government (e-Gov) initiative under the President’s Management Agenda. As part of the e-Gov initiative, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) designated GSA as the executive agent of the Integrated Acquisition Environment. In 2013, the Integrated Acquisition Environment was renamed the Integrated Award Environment (IAE) by its governance to reflect its management of procurement, grants, and federal assistance data. In 2017, the organization was renamed The Office of Systems Management (QD), IAE/SAM.

The concept behind the IAE/SAM is to provide Federal Government agencies and contractors with a shared IT system to manage the acquisition and grants-making process from solicitation through closeout. The Goals of the IAE/SAM Program are to

(1) create a simpler, common, integrated Information Technology (IT) service that promotes competition, transparency, and integrity; (2) increase data sharing across the Government and with the public to enable better decisions in procurement, logistics, payment, and performance assessment; and (3) take a unified approach to obtaining modern tools to leverage investment costs across the Federal Government for award-related IT services.

The IAE/SAM enables all phases of the Federal awards management lifecycle, manages the common source of entity information for acquisition and financial assistance (grants and loans) communities, provides a market research source for contract administration to the Federal acquisition community as well as private and commercial firms that are interested in doing business with the Government, and stores information that the public in general seeks on how tax dollars are being spent. IAE provides subcontract reporting opportunities for Agency and Contractor communities. IAE provides data for Government and non-Government stakeholders including the general public.

IAE/SAM is governed by the Award Committee for eGov (ACE) structure which includes the Procurement Committee for eGov (PCE) and the Financial Assistance Committee for eGov (FACE). Additionally, all IAE operations are coordinated and prioritized through a Change Control Board (CCB) that consists of voting representatives from each of the 24 Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Act agencies. These same agencies contribute funding for the IAE operations.

IAE/SAM Current Status

IAE currently sees over $1 trillion and 3.3 million transactions in federal assistance and procurement awards across all the IAE systems. With growing numbers, IAE currently has over 3.4 million registered users and over 500 million hits or pageviews per month.

The current IAE systems were developed over several years as free-standing, web-based systems to fulfill different roles throughout the acquisition and grants-making process. Many are operated and maintained by independent contractors. Shared functional components of the application stack for these systems are limited to co-location services that cover some systems and a consolidated end-user help desk that supports a different subset of the systems.

Current IAE systems consist of the following:

1. System for Award Management (SAM)

2. Federal Procurement Data System – Next Generation (FPDS-NG)

3. Federal Business Opportunities (FBO)

4. Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System (eSRS)

5. Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) Subaward

Reporting System (FSRS)

6. Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS)

7. Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS)

8. Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS)

9. Wage Determination OnLine (WDOL)

10. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA)

11. Beta.SAM.gov

Entity Validation Services – Current State

The viability of each entity wishing to do business with the federal government, or receive assistance from the federal government, must be validated prior to its entering into a business relationship with the federal government.

The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Integrated Award Environment (IAE) maintains a contract for Entity Validation Services.

Entity Validation Services currently include the assignment of a unique identifier and objective verification (validation) of entity-provided information against authoritative sources for data associated with the unique entity. Initial validation currently occurs within 24 hours. Validation services include:

1. Address Standardization – a properly formatted and postal service-recognized address, to include international addresses

2. Address Verification – the stated address must be tied to a business entity, established at that specific location

3. Business Legitimacy – established as entity name + Address Standardization and verification that is independently verified from a specified number of independent data sources

4. Confirmation of the existence of and/or assignment of a unique identifier formatted as a 9-digit numeric value

5. Corporate Hierarchy – maintained and updated with changes for the duration of the contract

The unique entity identifier is currently the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS®) number with which entities register in the System for Award Management (SAM). The unique entity identifier is tied in SAM to the legal entity name, ‘doing business as’ name, and the physical address that corresponds to it. Entities awarded Federal procurement and grants actions, with limited exceptions, are required to register in SAM. The information from SAM is used throughout the government, to include all aspects of the procurement and financial assistance processes.

2 Orientation

General Scope of Work

This Performance Work Statement (PWS) defines program support objectives for Entity Validation Services.

Work will be performed over the period of five years, with an anticipated Base Period of 12 months and four Option Periods of 12 months each.

Resources

Under this contract/task order, unless otherwise stipulated (see Section 13 – Government Furnished Items), the Contractor shall furnish or provide all personnel, personnel management and supervision, all related internal supporting business functions (including background and “overhead” personnel), materials, supplies, equipment, and facilities to perform the full range of technical and administrative services required by this contract/task order.

During the course of this contract/task order, the Government may make additional Government Furnished Items (GFIs) -- materials, equipment, and facilities -- available upon receipt of a written request from the Contractor to the Government Technical Representative. These GFIs, if provided, would be in addition to those initially set forth in Section 13.

The contractor shall provide fully trained personnel. (Reference “Staff Employee Requirement” in Section 7 of this PWS.)

Government personnel will be made available to provide technical input, answer Contractor questions, review completed draft deliverables, provide feedback, and provide shipping directions for deliverables.

Placement and Management of Work

All work under this Task Order is either specifically described in this PWS or shall be assigned to the Contractor in writing by the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) using a Technical Directive form. Contractor employees shall perform work as specified in this task order as directed by the Contractor’s designated project manager, who shall have full responsibility for the assignment and monitoring of Contractor employee activities. All work shall be performed within the scope of this PWS and the Government will not ask or require the Contractor to perform work that is outside of the scope of this task order.

Customers

The customer and recipient of all work performed under this contract or order is the Office of Systems Management (QD), IAE/SAM located at 1800 F Street NW HUB 4323 Washington, DC 20405.

Performance Monitoring

Contractor performance shall be monitored by the Government representatives in accordance with the Contractor’s Quality Control Plan (QCP) and the Government’s Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP) (see Section 12, below).

General Definitions

CO – Government Contracting Officer (also PCO – Procuring Contracting Officer)

COR – Contracting Officer’s Representative (See Section 15, below)

FTE – Full Time Equivalent, the number of labor hours equal to those that would be worked by one employee in a year. For this procurement action 1960 hours is considered an FTE.

CPARS – Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System – This is a system that generates reports which are created by the government evaluators to document contractor performance.

Entity – refers to organizations or individuals applying for financial assistance, contract awards, loans, grants, or who need to register to do business with the federal government including but not limited to sole proprietors, corporations, partnerships, government agencies, non-profits, etc.

Entity Validation Services – a method to determine uniqueness, which could include the assignment or use of a unique entity identifier, validation of certain data, and associated services.

IAE – GSA Office of Integrated Award Environment

IAE PMO – GSA Integrated Award Environment Program Management Office

Normal Workweek - A workweek is 40 hours.

Overtime - Time worked by a contractor’s employee in excess of the employee’s normal workweek. (Note: The government will not reimburse for premium pay under this contract/task order for overtime work.)

Quality Assurance - A planned and systematic pattern of all actions necessary to provide confidence to the government that adequate technical requirements are established; products and services conform to established technical requirements; and satisfactory performance is achieved.

Quality Assurance Personnel (QAP) - A functionally qualified government person(s) responsible for surveillance of contractor performance and providing communications to the contractor(s) and PCO.

Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP) - A plan detailing the contract surveillance procedures and containing the Objectives, Measures and Expectations that will be used to evaluate contractor performance of the PWS objectives.

Quality Control - Those actions taken by a contractor to control the production of outputs to ensure that they conform to the contract requirements.

TO – Task Order

Unique Entity - An entity or part of an entity whose identifying information does not match that of any other entity registered to do business with the federal government

UEI - Unique Entity Identifier

Unusual Exception - A rare circumstance that requires validation outside the normal process. This should occur in less than 1% of cases.

Validation – objective verification; returning accurate information about an entity.

The data corresponds to the real world identity of the entity.

Technical Definitions

API - Application program interface

BSP – GSA Business Services Platform – The next generation IT platform for hosting multiple Government–wide acquisition applications “on the cloud.”

Geocode - Geographic coordinates (latitude, longitude) which you can use to mark a location on a map

JSON - JavaScript Object Notation

PII - Personally identifiable information

Real Time Response - Responses to interface requests that return a response within a few seconds of submission.

REST - Representational State Transfer

3 Assumptions

The contractor shall employ a staff with sufficient experience and expertise to perform each of the tasks in this PWS.

4 Primary Performance Objectives (Technical)

The overall objective of this Contract/Task Order is for the contractor to provide Entity Validation Services. The proposal must clearly identify all data elements or other information or materials, to include deliverables to be provided to the Government under this Contract/Task Order, which the offeror intends to provide with limited or restricted rights (as such terms are defined in the FAR 52.227-14), and restrictions on the Government’s data rights will be considered in the proposal evaluation as it relates to the overall value to the Government. The Government intends to assert unlimited rights in any deliverables and work products that are not so identified unless agreed upon between the government and contractor. Therefore, deliverables and work products shall be provided in a format that will allow the Government to edit them after the conclusion of this Contract/Task Order.

In summary, the overarching objectives of this requirement are as follows:

Business Objectives

● A method to determine entity uniqueness, which could include the assignment and/or use of a unique entity identifier in perpetuity, validation of certain entity data, and associated services.

● Validation of information about an entity to aid awarding officials in making responsibility determination in regards to a prospective awardee

● A method to determine the hierarchy and family tree of an entity

● A method to determine relevant information about an entity that is being excluded from doing business with the government

● Help desk support for entities in ensuring their core data validates in SAM to register to do business with the government

● Proper information assurance policies and processes are in place to ensure any sensitive or PII is not improperly disclosed.

● Contractor’s methods and sources for validating entity data and determining uniqueness is independent of federal government systems utilized by IAE and

SAM

Technical Objectives

● Data transmission is done in real-time for all uniqueness and validation services

● All data is sent in machine readable formats and does not require the government to build custom parsers

● Contractor meets GSA and BSP security requirements for system access to SAM where needed for authenticated activities

● All data is encrypted in transmission and at rest

● Meet Service Level Agreement (SLA) standards/metrics

It is anticipated that specific entity validation data will change over the life of this contract. This will result in GSA modifying capabilities to incorporate changes within the general scope of the contract.

Objective Group A: Entity Identification and Validation

Objective 1- Method to determine entity uniqueness and confirmation that the entity is unique

The contractor shall meet this objective by determining that a registering entity is unique and assigning a unique identifier to that entity. The unique identification service shall support local and globally-located entities seeking to register to do business with the federal government without requiring direct government review and approval during initial registration and ongoing monitoring.

Entity Uniqueness Interface Process:

In order to determine if an entity is unique, the government will pass information for validating uniqueness of an entity or part of an entity, and the contractor will pass back information confirming whether or not the entity is unique.

Additionally, the contractor will pass back a unique alphanumeric identifier that will remain indefinitely with SAM.

The contractor shall interface electronically in real time with SAM.gov and/or Beta.SAM.gov to accomplish this task. The determination of uniqueness will be based on data elements sent from SAM to the contractor. The contractor should clearly identify what data elements are necessary for it to determine uniqueness and assign a UEI. See a sample data transmission below.

Sample Data Elements Passed to Determine Entity Uniqueness

Data Element Format Max Length

Legal Business Name String 120

Doing Business As Name

String 120

Company Division String 60

Physical Address Line 1 String 150

Physical Address Line 2 String 150

Physical Address City String 40

Physical Address Province or State

String 55

Physical Address Zip/Postal Code

String 20

Physical Address Zip Code + 4

Numeric 4

Physical Address Country Code

String 3

UEI (if one currently exists)

String 20

Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) Assignment Services:

Part of the validation services involves creation or assignment of a unique entity identifier (UEI) for newly registering entities, entities updating their registration, all existing active entity registrations, and active “firm” exclusions in SAM. This UEI should be a numbering system that is:

1. Available for public use at the federal government’s discretion.

2. Not restricted for federal government use. The federal government requires the right to use the UEI without restriction for an indefinite period, including after the completion of this contract.

3. Not restricted for follow-on or additional EVS provider use. A potential follow-on contractor providing EVS, of similar services to this contract, must have full rights to continue using the assigned UEIs for purposes of uniquely identifying entities to meet requirements set forth by the federal government.

4. Assignable for entities in as near real-time as possible and as part of the initial validation process.

5. Interoperable with the SAM system and data.

6. Not reusing previous (not cancelled) DUNS Numbers or CAGE Codes, assigned to any active or inactive entity in SAM or any awardee in FPDS or USA Spending. The government’s APIs or public extracts may be utilized by a contractor to determine the availability of a UEI value.

7. Preferably structured and developed in a manner that limits or avoids mistakes in data entry from human error.

8. Not reused or recycled. Values should be unique and the numbering system should be sufficiently sized to avoid such duplication.

The government reserves the right to use the contractor’s unique entity identifier solution (as provided) throughout the IAE and government systems, or to provide for data mapping to the contractor’s unique identifier and implement a distinct government identifier/numbering system across IAE systems (in which case the contractor’s unique identifier would not be published for identifying entities). The government use of a government identifier/numbering system does not remove the contractor’s requirement to interoperate with SAM via a unique identifier that can provide data transfer between contractor and government systems, nor the requirements that a contractor be able to develop and provide UEI assignment services to the government under this contract.

Volume of Registrants Between 6,000 - 9,000 new entity registrations are activated each month (average 7,000) in SAM. Between 43,000 - 65,000 registrations are renewed per month (average 53,000) in SAM. Currently, there are more than 618,000 active and 1,445,000 expired entity registrations overall in SAM.

The following table is a snapshot of the 10 countries as of October 2017 with the highest volume of international entities registered in SAM.

Additional Entities In addition to those registering in SAM, unique entity identifiers will need to be created and assigned at the discretion of the government for purposes such as

(1) testing, (2) training, (3) identification of excluded entities, or (4) to be used in the ordinary course of government business in a production environment, including creating records for non-existent entities that will not have real world data, e.g. for testing purposes. The contractor must have a mechanism to know that these entities do not exist in the real world.

Excluded Entity Identification Entities need to be identified at times for the creation of exclusions within SAM where the entity is not already registered in SAM. The contractor will need to identify the entity based on a subset of information provided by the government to the contractor (e.g. organization name and country) that may not be as complete as an entity registering itself in SAM.

Validation of Uniqueness Turn Around Time The contractor will make a determination of uniqueness and assign, or facilitate the assignment of, a unique entity identifier in real-time, except by unusual exception, but shall do so in no longer than 24 hours of submission from SAM.

All such transactions between SAM and the contractor's system must be automated and electronic.

Objective 2- Validate information about the entity and provide information on entity responsibility

The contractor shall meet this objective by validating information regarding an entity that an entity enters into SAM, both at initial registration and as an entity maintains their registration in SAM with subsequent updates, and providing additional information about an entity that has been accumulated by the contractor and would be of interest to the federal government in its awarding process.

Initial Entity Registration This service is for the initial confirmation of data provided by the entity during their registration in SAM. Data submitted by registrants during the initial registration process in SAM is validated as accurate and verified as legitimate through real-time interfacing services to facilitate registration entities registering within 48 hours. Data elements that can not be validated at initial registration shall be flagged as such and returned to SAM with appropriate codes detailing the issue.

Data elements that the government is interested in validating at initial entity registration are:

❖ SAM core data including:

➢ Legal Business Name

➢ Business Information

■ Business Start Date

■ Fiscal Year End Close Date

■ Corporate URL

■ Company Division Name

➢ Physical Address

➢ Mailing Address

➢ Immediate Owner/Highest Level Owner*

➢ Predecessors*

➢ Subsidiaries*

➢ Doing Business As

➢ Country of Incorporation

➢ State of Incorporation

➢ Entity Structure

❖ Additional information the contractor believes could assist the federal government in registrant identification

*This ownership and organizational structure information will drive the role-based hierarchy. The contractor should provide daily updates to the initial registration information.

Contractors should specify which of the registration items they can provide validation for and describe how such validation will occur. A sample workflow of this process is shown below.

Entity Registration Updates This service is for the periodic validation of data provided by the entity during their registration update in SAM. Data submitted by registrants during the update process in SAM is validated as accurate and verified as legitimate through real-time interfacing services similar to initial registration. Data elements that can not be validated shall be flagged as such and returned to SAM with appropriate codes detailing the issue.

On-Going Monitoring Contractor will monitor for any updates/changes to verified entity information.

Entity data in SAM is refreshed or flagged regularly if changes in authoritative formats take place (for example, postal address, zip code) or new verifications are determined of an entity by the contractor. The entity/registrant shall be afforded the opportunity to confirm any changes in data (i.e. if address is updated to match postal format) and track progress within SAM.

Data elements that the government is interested in validating via on-going monitoring:

❖ SAM core data including:

➢ Legal Business Name

➢ Business Information

■ Business Start Date

■ Fiscal Year End Close Date

■ Corporate URL

■ Company Division Name

➢ Physical Address

➢ Mailing Address

➢ Immediate Owner/Highest Level Owner*

➢ Predecessors*

➢ Subsidiaries*

➢ Doing Business As

➢ Country of Incorporation

➢ State of Incorporation government in entity information validation.

A sample workflow for this process is shown below.

Standardize Entity Address To ensure other functions with SAM work correctly for an entity, the government is looking for entity address information to be standardized to the USPS or Geographic Entity Names and Codes (GENC) Profile of the ISO 3166-1 format.

Domestic address standardization should include valid ZIP Codes with the associated ZIP+4, valid city/state pairs, and street addresses in proper formatting. This shall be accomplished by interfacing between the contractor’s system and SAM. International address standardization should include country-appropriate address formatting.

Congressional District Determination For entities located in the U.S. and its outlying areas, the government utilizes the physical address information validated by the contractor to determine and assign the precise congressional district in which an entity is located. To facilitate this process, the usage of the ZIP Code with its ZIP+4 extension is the primary check for assigning a congressional district. The secondary check is utilizing the entity’s geographic coordinates (latitude, longitude) to determine the correct congressional district.

Geocodes Contractors should describe if and how they can pass the geocodes for an entity as part of the validation information returned. Geocodes should be in a machine readable format that can be utilized by the government to precisely locate an entity’s physical location.

Entity Information Validation Interface Process In order to validate the information of an entity or part of an entity, the government will pass information regarding the entity, and the contractor will pass back information confirming whether or not the information is correct and any discrepancies the contractor knows of.

For on-going monitoring, the contractor may push new or updated information from its system to SAM, or send a notice to SAM to make a pull request from the contractor’s system, as the contractor becomes aware of changes or is able to validate additional information. This data will be stored in SAM for government use.

Volume of Monitoring Includes all entities registered for monitoring, active and those which expired in the past six months. This is an average of 750,000 entities on monitoring across the entity primary data elements.

Objective 3- Identify Entity Organizational Relationships

The contractor shall meet this objective by identifying the entity’s organizational hierarchy or “family tree,” and relationships of registered entities in SAM. This includes, immediate owner and highest level owner, predecessor, subsidiary, parents, and global parents of entities. Relationships between entities applies to entities registering to do business with the government and non-registered related entities.

Hierarchy Maintenance Current and historical organizational relationships must be monitored, updated, and made available for federal government use. This data must be provided in a machine readable format with explicitly parsed data elements and will be maintained in U.S. Government systems. This data will be shared with federal agencies for government business purposes. Additionally, the government will maintain full rights to data on current and historical entity relationships provided to SAM for an indefinite period to use for government business purposes. Any data collected by the government directly from entities regarding their own hierarchy will be considered government data and may be published at the government’s discretion. Presently and going forward, the government displays to the public certain entity organizational information related specifically to an entity and that entity’s highest level owner for applicable federal awards.

Entity Hierarchy Information Interface Process

In order to determine the hierarchy information of an entity, or part of an entity, the government will pass information regarding the entity and the contractor will pass back information regarding its hierarchy.

For updates, the contractor may push new hierarchy information from its system to SAM, or send a notice to SAM to make a pull request from the contractor's system, as the contractor becomes aware of changes or is able to validate additional information of the entity’s hierarchy.

Volume/Number of API Calls Between 6,000 - 9,000 new entity registrations are activated each month (average 7,000) in SAM. Each new registration currently gets an organizational structure created in SAM upon initial submission. Some entities are single-level, but the call is made for them all.

Objective Group B: Entity Information

The government is interested in information about an entity that can assist government officials in making informed decisions.

Objective 4 - Entity Information

Entity Information Contractor will provide information about an entity that will aid government officials in making informed decisions. This is related to addressing information provided by the entities in their SAM record or providing commercial financial or business information about an entity that would assist government officials in understanding more about the entity.

Data elements that the government is interested in via on-demand requests:

❖ SAM core data including:

➢ Entity Structure

➢ Profit Structure

➢ Entity Type

❖ Other Information:

➢ Date of Incorporation

➢ Number of Employees at Location

➢ Line of Business (Industry)

➢ Names of Entity Executives

➢ Entity Bankruptcy Status

➢ Entity Convictions

➢ Tax Liens and Debt Subject to Offset

➢ Foreign Control or Ownership government in understanding more about the entity.

On-Demand Monitoring The government is interested in making this information available to SAM users by an on-demand service, but is open to other contractor solutions that can meet the overarching objective of a rapid turn around with relevant information.

A sample workflow for this process is shown below.

Objectives Group C - Common Objectives

The common objectives are objectives that apply to both group A and group B regardless if the contractor is responsible for one or both groups. Contractors should be able to independently accomplish objective group C for either group A or group B.

Objective 5- Customer support capabilities (including entity updates), for U.S. and non-U.S. located entities

The contractor shall meet this objective by providing entities located in the U.S. and its outlying areas, as well as international entities, access to customer support if there are questions on identification or validation of their initial registration data they provide to

SAM.

This customer support capability shall include entity updates for U.S. and non-U.S.

entities and shall accommodate entities through multiple communication channels (e.g.

phone, internet chat, local offices, etc.) with multiple language support as reasonable. All services provided, and products delivered, must comply with the government security, accessibility (Section 508), and specified information architecture requirements.

If there are issues with the registration in SAM, entities may initially contact the supporting Federal Service Desk (FSD) helpdesk. All issues with international entity identification or validation will be routed directly to the contractor, and will not be handled by the FSD, unless the issue is in SAM (e.g. account access). The contractor is expected to provide rapid, ready support through multiple communication channels for worldwide registrations so as to meet the 48 hour initial registration timeframe in SAM.

Help Desk Statistics The contractor shall be able to provide statistics related to the overall service quality and volume of the help desk services being provided. Examples of statistics desired include:

● Number of Calls

● Number of Abandoned Calls

● Number of Emails Answered

● Average Speed to Answer

● Average Handle Time

● Total Touchpoints - Month/year

● Customer Satisfaction percent

● Call Distribution

Help Desk Service Conduct Help desk services in support of this contract/task order are considered to be conducted on behalf of the federal government. Branding, marketing, and sales of the contractor’s products or services to callers is strictly prohibited. The contractor may also obtain information regarding entities during help desk service that is not otherwise publicly available. Such data should not be used for marketing purposes or resale by the contractor while it is not publicly available either through SAM or other sources.

Objective 6- SAM Data Rights

The federal government has full rights in perpetuity to the data entered in to SAM by entities during the entity registration process and any entity reporting process. Such data can be re-used by the government without limitations and can be made public at the government’s discretion. SAM supports data sharing with other efforts for reasons such as due diligence or supply chain.

Objective 7- Transition

Transition In The contractor shall meet this objective by providing a seamless transition in the validation processes and identification that minimizes disruption to entities, creates no disruption in entity registration, and supports continued historical analysis for the government. Transition plans, shall include but not be limited to:

● Identify methodology and data fields for creating or populating a new unique identifier for all existing active SAM registrations.

● Identify schedule/timeframe for transition

● Plans for maintaining continuous entity registration during the transition period

● Updating of API interfaces from existing services to the contractor’s services without a downtime.

● Analysis and management of SAM data as necessary to support validation of existing entities in SAM.

● If necessary, transitioning entities from the proprietary DUNS number to a UEI system of the government’s choosing (see objective 1 for additional detail) that will remain with the government indefinitely. Contractor should describe how to do this while minimizing impact to the entities currently registered in SAM.

● Transparency of the process to users (Federal and registering entities) and change management

● Setting up of customer support

Note: SAM currently has data restrictions related to the use of Dun & Bradstreet data, which must be followed by any contractor in their solution that prohibit use of D&B data elements or reverse engineering or otherwise deriving D&B methodologies for determining linkages.

Transition Out The contractor shall provide a plan for transitioning out their services at the end of the contract/task order. This should include, but not be limited to:

● Plans for maintaining continuous entity registration during a transition period to another contract or other service solution

● Shut down of system interfaces between SAM and the contractor’s system(s) and any services setup for executing this contract/task order (e.g. help desk service)

● Removal of government furnished information (GFI) from the contractor's systems in accordance with GSA information management policy

● Removal of GSA system access, facility access, and system accounts

Objective 8 - Technical Interfaces

Real Time Interfaces The government would prefer such interfaces be conducted via REST API, however contractors may propose alternative transmission methods, but those solution(s) must meet all other business requirements set forth in this PWS and provide timely, accurate, real-time responses. Data transmissions will be transmitted in a manner that is machine readable and simple for the government to parse into SAM (e.g. an address should be broken down into street address, city, state, ZIP Code, country elements and not sent as a single element). All transmission of data, storage of data, and interfacing with GSA systems must be secure and in accordance with all security and data policies set forth in this PWS and RFP.

Batch Transmissions Where the government does not have real time needs, batch transmissions of data are acceptable so long as they are are machine readable and meet all security and data policies set forth in the PWS and RFP.

Objective 9 - Data Sourcing and Handling

Data Security and Storage SAM may be passing information to the contractor for determining uniqueness, validating entity information, determining the entity hierarchy, or exclusions management that is considered sensitive or PII. Any such transmission or storage of such data must be done in a secure manner in accordance with GSA and other federal information assurance policies (see attachment 3).

Data Validation Source The contractor's sole source of validating entity uniqueness information, validating entity information, determining the entity hierarchy, and validating exclusions should be as independent as possible of federal government systems, particularly those used by or interfacing with SAM (e.g. DLA and Treasury systems). The federal government is seeking outside sources of information for purposes of determining uniqueness.

Contractors should demonstrate in their proposal specifically how and from where they source validating data. Contractors should also provide refresh rates of their source data (e.g. monthly for xyz data element).

Commercial Use of Entity Data Via the nature of the uniqueness determination, validation, hierarchy management, and exclusion support services in this contract/task order, the contractor may obtain data regarding entities that is not otherwise publicly available. Such data should be considered non-public and not be used for marketing purposes or resale by the contractor while it is not publicly available either through SAM or other sources.

5 Meeting Objectives

To accomplish the Meeting Objectives of this Contract/Task Order the contractor shall participate in the following meetings. Nothing discussed in any meetings or discussions between the Government and the contractor shall be construed as adding, deleting, or modifying contractual agreement without written authorization from the Contracting Officer.

Meeting Objective 1 – Initial Business/Kickoff Meeting

Within five (5) business days following the Contract/Task Order award date (or other time mutually agreed between the parties), the contractor representatives will meet with the GSA Contracting Officer, GSA COR, and Government program manager or designee to review the contractor’s understanding of the requirements, goals and objectives of this task order. The contractor shall also address the status of any issues that will affect contractor start-up/ramp-up toward achieving full service/support capability. The Government will be responsible for taking minutes of this meeting.

Meeting Objective 2 – Ad hoc Technical / Work Status / Administrative Meetings

The contractor shall, if requested by the Government, participate in monthly status meetings or ad hoc technical meetings or ad hoc work status meetings at a mutually agreeable time and place to discuss tasking, work progress, technical problems, performance issues, or other technical matters. During these meetings the contractor shall at least provide accomplishments, problems and issues and planned actions. The contractor shall take minutes of these meetings and include them in a Monthly Status Report. These meetings will occur at a time and place mutually agreed upon by the parties.

Meeting Objective 3 – Contract Administration Meetings

The Contracting Officer (CO) may require the authorized contractor representative to meet or participate in a teleconference with authorized Government personnel as often as deemed necessary to discuss contract performance or administrative issues. The contractor may also request a meeting with the CO when deemed necessary. The content of meetings shall be documented in writing. Minutes shall be approved by both parties and shall be included in the Government contract file.

6 Contract-wide Objectives

Contract-wide Objective 1 – Contract and Project Management

The contractor shall be solely responsible for managing the work performed in the execution of this contract/order. This includes the responsibility to –

● assign appropriate resources to each task,

● maintain clear organizational lines of authority,

● ensure effective contract task management and administration

● establish and use proven policies, processes, analyses, and best practices

The Contractor shall maintain project milestones for each assigned task. The Contractor shall coordinate all work with the Program Office. At a mutually agreed upon interval, the Contractor shall update Government representatives on work progress and task milestones throughout the contract/task order period.

Contract-wide Objective 2 – Subcontract Management

The Contractor shall be fully responsible for management, control, and performance of any Subcontractor used on this contract/task order. If a Subcontractor is being used to perform direct services to the government, the Prime Contractor must inform the Government in writing. Use of a Subcontractor on the Contractor’s team shall not relieve the Prime Contractor of responsibility nor accountability in the execution of this contract/order.

Contract-wide Objective 3 – Business Relations

A primary element of project success is the business relationship between the Contractor and Government representatives. Within this context the Government will monitor the Contractor’s contribution to business relations and provide feedback when required. The Contractor shall make every effort to establish and maintain clear and constant communication channels with the Government primaries (CO, COR, and Government Technical Representative) of this contract/task order for the purpose of:

● Promptly identifying PWS and/or business relationship issues of controversy and the bilateral development and implementation of corrective action plans.

● Ensuring the professional and ethical behavior of Contractor personnel.

● Maintaining effective and responsive Subcontractor management.

● Ensuring the Contractor support team is fully aware and engaged in strengthening the interdependency that exists between the Contractors and their Government counterparts.

● Facilitating Contractor–Government collaboration for continuous improvement in the conduct of PWS tasks, reducing risks, costs and meeting the mission needs of the program.

Contract-wide Objective 4 – Contractor Response

The contractor shall ensure prompt response to Government inquiries, requests for information or requests for contractual actions.

Contract-wide Objective 5 – Team Continuity and Employee Retention

The Government recognizes the benefits in maintaining the continuity of contractor team members. These benefits include but are not limited to retention of corporate knowledge, minimizing contractor familiarization, maintaining/increasing performance levels, schedule adherence, and preserving organizational interfaces developed over time. These benefits also accrue to the Contractor. Within the context of effective and efficient personnel management, the Contractor shall take reasonable and appropriate steps to retain the qualified employees staffed against this contract/task order to maintain continuity and performance while effectively reducing costs borne by the

Government.

Contract-wide Objective 6 – Professional Appearance

Contractor employees shall present a neat and professional appearance appropriate to the work being performed at all times when interacting with Government representatives, working in Government facilities, or representing the Government at meetings or before third parties.

7 Additional Performance Requirements

Location of Work

Performance will take place primarily at the contractor’s facility. On occasion, placing a Contractor employee in Government facilities may be necessary for efficient execution of a task. Meetings will be held at either the Government’s or the Contractor’s location depending on availability and circumstances.

Time of Work

Normal Hours

For any Contractor employees working on Government facilities, their normal duty hours shall be 8 AM…