J_A_Redacted.pdf

CONTROL NUMBER VA-26-00010829

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

Description of Action: This proposed action is for the award of a firm-fixed-price task order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government-wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for the renewal of existing brand name robotic process automation (RPA) UiPath software subscriptions, software maintenance and support, procurement of additional subscriptions to increase the capacity of the A Intelligent Automation and Agentic AI (IAAI) UiPath Platform, and the ability for procurement of Professional Services for automation development and maintenance.

Description of the Supplies or Services: This requirement is to renew approximately 4,300 existing rand ame UiPath subscriptions to support enterprise automation and orchestration capabilities. Under existing Order NNG15SD66B 36C10B23F03074, VA maintains a base requirement of 2,000 subscriptions and has exercised additional subscriptions the last two years in the amount of 2,300 per year, for a total of 4,300 current subscriptions. The rand ame UiPath Enterprise Automation tool shall enable organizations to design, configure, integrate, orchestrate, deploy, manage, and optimize business process automation, process discovery and optimization, document and data processing, software robots, AI -enabled and agentic automation capabilities, and process and operational analytics and insights across applications, integrations, platforms, and environments throughout the VA Enterprise.

Software maintenance shall include software patches, upgrades and Major/Minor releases as well as access to telephone support, email support and online self-help.

Support shall provide for the analysis, troubleshooting and resolution of any UiPath product related software issues, and is available five days a week, Monday through Friday. This software maintenance and support will ensure the currently fielded UiPath software is continually updated and remains fully operational.

The Period of Performance shall consist of a 12-month base period with 2 12-month option periods, and 3 optional tasks for up to an additional 5,500 UiPath subscriptions per year, to include software maintenance, technical support, and services. These optional task subscriptions primarily support the Veterans Experience Office (VEO) Call Centers and are split between base and optional tasks in case VEO decides to reduce the amount needed by turning off automations that are only used in one call center. All other customers purchase their subscriptions through optional tasks based on demand. These optional tasks are included to allow for program growth over the course of the total contract and limit incurrence of costs for unused subscriptions. The total estimated value of the proposed action is , including all ption and ptional asks.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation Overhaul (RFO) VA Deviation 16.507-7, the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by RFO 16.507-6(b)(2), entitled �Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized�.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on market research, as described in Section 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is available among resellers of the UiPath RPA software. The VA IAAI RPA Platform is in production and supports IAAI RPA Automation Projects for VA. UiPath has been on the VA IAAI RPA Platform since 2020. The VA IAAI RPA Platform is an integrated automation environment built on the UiPath ecosystem. Although other RPA products can automate many of the same business processes, they are not interoperable with the VA�s existing UiPath platform components and automation assets, including UiPath-developed workflows, Orchestrator-managed scheduling, centralized asset and credential management, logging, monitoring, reporting, and reusable libraries. An alternate RPA solution cannot natively execute or leverage these existing components.

Replacing the UiPath platform would therefore require redevelopment of all existing production and in-development automations, recreation of shared components and integrations, reconfiguration of platform management capabilities, comprehensive testing and validation, and retraining of personnel. No other RPA platform could interoperate with the VA�s established UiPath-based automation environment without substantial re-engineering, resulting in significant cost, schedule delays, and operational risk as described in detail below.

In addition, no other brand name software can meet all of VA�s functional requirements.

Some of the programs being supported by the VA IAAI RPA Platform include the VEO Call Centers and VA Enterprise Service Desk. VA requires RPA software that has the capability to develop and run attended and unattended robots, Process Mining, Automated Testing, AI teaching modules, Machine Learning teaching modules, and handwriting Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Only the UiPath subscriptions can meet all of these . UiPath subscriptions will be used to create, maintain, and run automations within the VA IAAI RPA Platform to help improve the increased need for PACT Act Automations. The VEO group requires UiPath handwriting OCR (Document Understanding) for development of Call Center automations benefiting the Veterans impacted by the PACT Act. UiPath subscriptions for RPA Platform are in support of the expected burn pit and toxic exposure dataflows. RPA assists call center and appeals staff by automating data transfer and collection to shorten the time needed to adjudicate claims. The required support ensures that RPA processes are scalable to the enterprise level upgrades and modernizations now required by law and will be coordinated across VA to bring platform and automations fully in line with PACT Act mandates. This effort will reduce the time needed to enter information into the claims system, gather data for the claim, and provide a shorter overall process for the Veteran to access the benefits of the PACT Act. Without

NUMBER CONTROL VA-26-00010829

will be shut down, and the time savings will be lost.

No other vendor can meet the Government�s requirements without redevelopment of the current 12 automations in production and the 14 automations in development. UiPath RPA software is currently fielded and is the only software that can continue to build upon VA�s existing RPA projects. Purchasing any other RPA software would require up to an estimated two and a half years of development for the existing 12 automations and 14 automations currently in development, plus the estimated additional development cost of $5.5 that would not be recovered through competition and would cause the VA IAAI RPA Platform UiPath Projects to shut down as of September 14, 2026.

These estimates are based on previous similar efforts. Since this is a platform, there is an installed Application Server that contains proprietary tools that developers use to create these automations. The UiPath RPA software is essential to the Government�s requirements and market research, as identified in Section 8 , indicates other companies� similar products each have their own proprietary language used to develop and run code/processes and do not meet, or cannot be modified to meet V HA needs. Switching to a new RPA software would be more akin to platform migration than a simple tool swap, because RPA implementations are deeply embedded in business processes. Converting to different tools also means converting to different coding methods for those tools even if the new tools have the same functionality as the previous tool. There are also revisions that would be needed to the A , all documentation, and any coding processes needed by the development team. The estimate is based on previous acquisition history and does not include the costs of running simultaneous software subscriptions until a new solution is fully functioning. The estimated costs to run a simultaneous software subscription solution reflect the IGCE estimate of $45 m , for the estimated 2.5 years to complete additional development. In total the estimated costs not anticipated to be recovered through competition are in excess of $50 m . Users would need to go back to manual processing and lose the efficiencies that they had gained, resulting in increased costs to VA and delays in delivery of Veteran benefits and care.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in Section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that could meet the Government's requirements. In accordance with RFO 16.507-7(c)(1)(i), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with RFO 5.301, 16.507-6(f), and 16.507- 9(c)(1), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on Contracting Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: In order to remove or overcome barriers to competition in future acquisitions for the requirements described herein, the Government�s technical experts will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research: The Government�s technical experts conducted market research in April 2026 by reviewing similar software providers such as Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism to ascertain if other providers existed within the marketplace that could meet VA�s requirements identified above. The research was completed by reviewing vendor websites and vendor interviews for the specified requirements for current and future use cases. None of these software products meet all of VA�s requirements as outlined in ection 5 of this justification. Specifically, the VEO group requires handwriting OCR (Document Understanding) for development of Call Center automations directly benefiting the Veterans impacted by the PACT Act. This functionality is not available with any other RPA vendors that have been reviewed. Purchasing another vendor�s RPA software would require that all the existing automation coding be redeveloped. The proprietary software languages used in Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism are incompatible with the current infrastructure. These other companies� similar products each have their own proprietary language used to develop and run code/processes and do not meet VHA�s needs for these projects. No other software is compatible with the existing UiPath automation portfolio. Transition to any other provider would require rebuilding all existing automations, recreating system integrations and workflows, conducting full testing and validation, retraining developers and administrators, thereby creating unnecessary disruption, additional costs, and delays to mission-critical operations. No other vendor can meet the Government�s requirements without the substantial duplication of time and costs described above. Due to the proprietary data and code, the Government�s technical experts have determined that only UiPath or authorized resellers can provide the RPA brand name software maintenance and support and can meet all of VA�s needs.

Additional market research was also conducted in April 2026 by posting a Request for Information (RFI) SEWP # 375159 to contract holders on the NASA SEWP V GWAC to identify UiPath resellers. Three NASA SEWP contract holders responded to the RFI including two Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs) and one Wom n Own Small Business. There were no responses submitted that proposed alternative software. The technical experts determined that the resellers met VA�s requirements, and they demonstrated their ability to provide the required software.

Furthermore, market research was conducted in May 2026 by utilizing the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provide Lookup Tool. The results identified 65 contract holders that provide UiPath software maintenance and support, 14 of which are SDVOSB resellers of UiPath products on the NASA SEWP V GWAC. Therefore, limited competition is expected for this proposed action on NASA SEWP V GWAC.

9. Other Facts: None

Technical/Requirements Certification I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Fair and Reasonable Price Determination I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on historical pricing of previous orders, anticipated competition and discounts among NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Additionally, NASA SEWP V determined that the catalog prices on its GWACs are fair and reasonable.

Finally, the Contracting Officer shall further determine fair and reasonable pricing based upon a price analysis of the officer�s quote as compared to the Government�s Independent Government Cost Estimate.

Contracting Officer Certification I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Office of General Counsel (OGC) Review I have reviewed this document and find it legally sufficient, based on the representations set forth in the documents and, if any, attachments. The Head of the Contracting Activity�s approval is an independently supported decision not wholly reliant on the legal sufficiency determination.

HCA Approval In my role as Head of the Contracting Activity, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition for renewal of existing brand name UiPath RPA software subscriptions, software maintenance and support on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.