Justification and Approval FAR 13.5 Sole-Source Justification_FINAL All Signatures.pdf

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

FAR 13.501(a), Brand-Name

National Archives and Records Administration 8601 Adelphi Road

College Park, MD 20740-6001

Presidential Libraries Visitor Services System (VSS)

Technical and Requirements Personnel Certification:

I hereby certify that this justification for other than full and open competition 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.

Marlon Guinn Date Management and Program Analyst (L)

Contracting Officer Concurrence:

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

Jean-Claude Amisial Date Contracting Officer (Z)

General Counsel Concurrence:

I have reviewed this justification and consider it legally sufficient.

Stephani Abramson Date Legal Counsel (NGC)

08/10/2020

8/3/2020

August 10, 2020

NARA Senior Procurement Executive Concurrence:

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

Willie Mae Johnson Date Senior Procurement Executive (Z)

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 13.501(a)(2)(ii) and NARA 501, I approve this justification.

Donna Forbes Date Competition Advocate (B)

NARA Chief Acquisition Officer 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 NARA 501, I approve this justification.

La Verne A. Fields Date Chief Acquisition Officer (Z)

08/18/2020

8/18/2020

8/18/20

I. IDENTIFICATION OF THE AGENCY AND THE CONTRACTING ACTIVITY,

AND SPECIFIC IDENTIFICATION OF THE DOCUMENT AS A "SOLE

SOURCE JUSTIFICATION."

See Page 1.

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

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) intends to restrict competition for this requirement to ACME Technologies, Inc. (ACME). ACME is the only company capable of meeting NARA’s needs for its Presidential Library Visitor

Services System (VSS).

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 a ticketing solution for admissions, and a visitor and event management system. The system must integrate onsite and online sales;

individual and group reservations; and resource management and reporting into a single, user friendly, system. The goals of maintaining a single, integrated VSS are to ensure consistency and automation of the reporting of attendance and sales data; simplify financial processing; simplify operations and maintenance of the system; and make visiting any Presidential Library as convenient as possible for the general public.

NARA has a requirement for a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software as a service (SaaS) ticketing, payment, event, and resource management solution. The SaaS application must include tenants for 13 of the Presidential Libraries and Museums.

Currently, eight (8) libraries use the system to support onsite ticket sales, handled through a “box office” model where NARA personnel handle the transactions onsite through a point of sale (POS) application. Libraries that do not use the POS front-end for POS, use the system to collect information for statistical review, including ticket sales and admissions information from other ticketing systems.

Additionally, the system must include functionality to reserve school groups and other group tours at each Presidential Library and Museum across the country and to manage facility rentals and equipment reservations for those rentals. The system must support online ticketing. Finally, NARA requires the system to have the capability to extend the POS for ticketing to a kiosk through an open application programming interface (API).

The period of performance is September 30, 2020 through September 29, 2021 and four

(4) option years. The total estimated value of the contract for the base and four (4) option years is $5,448,488.98.

IV. AN IDENTIFICATION OF THE STATUTORY AUTHORITY PERMITTING OTHER

THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION.

Procedures in FAR Subpart 13.5, Simplified Procedures of Certain Commercial Items were used in accordance with 41 U.S.C § 1901.

V. A DEMONSTRATION THAT THE PROPOSED CONTRACTOR’S UNIQUE

QUALIFICATIONS OR THE NATURE OF THE ACQUISITION REQUIRES

USE OF THE AUTHORITY CITED.

NARA has conducted market research to determine what, if any COTS SaaS solutions, are available that can meet all of the requirements through a single solution. ACME has the only solution that is capable of addressing all of NARA’s requirements. The following information outlines ACME’s unique capabilities as compared to others on the market that make it the only viable solution:

NARA’s current Visitor Services System (VSS) is ACME’s software as a service (SaaS) ticketing, payment, event, and resource management solution. ACME is the only company capable of meeting all of NARA’s requirements without substantial transformation or configuration and the addition of third party applications to fulfill specific needs for this system, except self-service kiosks. ACME has a complete ticketing, payment, event, and resource management solution. NARA is required to be the merchant of record and ACME’s system is configured to enable this requirement. The current system provides a full, robust point of sale system, complete with order management capability, a back office environment for each library to book orders and manage events as well as full scope of reports to fulfill daily, monthly, quarterly and annual needs.

ACME’s SaaS also allows full integration for library-specific online ticket sales sites that are managed independently by each library that chooses to sell its museum general admission through online ticket sales as well as the traditional admissions desk purchases using other systems. In order to accommodate ticket sales processed through the foundations’ various ticket sales platforms, NARA uses a data importer tool developed by ACME to meet this requirement. The data importer gives users complete ability to assess their data importing needs and fully manage the program attendance data received from foundations who run their library admissions and ticketing, which differs greatly from a “standard” or generic importer tool that other companies are offering.

In our market research, we found that companies offered a solution with a “per transaction” cost. This solution is not sustainable or practical to NARA since ticket cost must also include an added fee for each individual transaction. With every transaction having a fee, Libraries would be charged even for the managing of non-revenue generating events and activities. In addition, ACME has a very specific fallback process for internet outages, called “Off-line Mode”, which enables the POS user to continue normal practices, like cash and credit card transactions, on all ticket orders being sold during such an outage. The POS app allows these sales to be recorded within their Back Office tenant once internet connectivity is restored. NARA could not identify any solution capable of fulfilling all requirements that also included an “off-line” mode.

NARA is required by the U.S. Treasury to use WorldPay, which ACME works with to provide today’s standard of Europay, Mastercard, Visa (EMV), and wallet-pay services for credit card payments. EMV compliant credit card purchase processing is a consumer-facing product and ACME has implemented this functionality at NARA’s Presidential Libraries. Most companies in our market research did not allow NARA to be the merchant of record, which as stated above, is required by the U.S. Treasury. While one company other than ACME did allow NARA to be the merchant of record, this company did not offer its own ticketing system, and rather used a third party broad business system that does not specialize in reservations or ticketing. Additionally, NARA requires the system to be fully integrated with its Great Plains system and the U.S. Treasury’s Vantiv

Payment processor. ACME Technologies has fully integrated its COTS SaaS with these interfaces.

Based on Presidential Libraries’ specific needs and in conformity with the complex ticketing agreements with the foundations, data must be imported into the VSS from any ticketing solution. Most Libraries manage the ticketing component and some do not. For those Libraries whose Foundations manage ticketing, the ACME platform allows NARA to use the ACME data importer tool which offers accuracy in the data management while giving the user the flexibility to fully customize the data import files. The data importer is user-oriented and works from user-designed scripts, making it a very manageable and easy tool to use. This is the only COTS ticketing and event management solution that addresses all of the requirements and is able to import ticket sales data from other ticketing systems.

ACME’s ticket sales websites are built within the library-specific back office tenants giving full ability and authority to the users and allows for continual customization whenever needed. These online ticket sales websites operate only through links from each library website so accessibility and integrity are maintained and fully controllable.

NARA’s current system has been configured to enable access only through NARA authorized users using the lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) user credential verification system. The integration of the current system’s POS and Back Office with the LDAP ensures that agency continues meeting its requirements for operating secure technology systems within or connected to the NARAnet environment. Any new system would require a duplication of effort to implement configurations to enable the login through NARANet. Additionally, the current system POS are iPads which have been configured for Ethernet connections and the POS application was configured to work with the receipt printer and the ticket printers currently onsite.

VI. A DESCRIPTION OF EFFORTS MADE TO ENSURE THAT OFFERS ARE SOLICITED

FROM AS MANY POTENTIAL SOURCES AS IS PRACTICABLE, INCLUDING

WHETHER A NOTICE WAS OR WILL BE PUBLICIZED AS REQUIRED BY

SUBPART 5.2 AND, IF NOT, WHICH EXCEPTION UNDER 5.202 APPLIES.

This J&A will be posted on FedBizOpps with the solicitation as a combined synopsis solicitation in accordance with FAR Subpart 12.6. Furthermore, this will provide other software publishers notice of the requirement.

VII. A DETERMINATION BY THE CONTRACTING OFFICER THAT THE ANTICIPATED

COST TO THE GOVERNMENT WILL BE FAIR AND REASONABLE.

NARA developed an Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) and will use it as a basis for determining a fair and reasonable price.

VIII. A DESCRIPTION OF THE MARKET RESEARCH CONDUCTED (SEE PART 10) AND

THE RESULTS OR A STATEMENT OF THE REASON MARKET RESEARCH WAS

NOT CONDUCTED.

NARA conducted market research through researching commercial sources for commercially available off the shelf (COTS) software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions capable of fulfilling NARA’s requirements. NARA met with representatives from the Department of Interior’s National Park Service. Additionally, on February 11, 2020, NARA posted request for information (RFI) 88310320RFI00003 on the Governmentwide Point of Entry (GPE) at www.beta.sam.gov to obtain information on sources capable of fulfilling this requirement. NARA reviewed the information received and determined that ACME is the only company capable of fulfilling this requirement for the reasons cited above.

IX. ANY OTHER FACTS SUPPORTING THE USE OF OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN

COMPETITION.

The current system meets all of NARA’s requirements in a single solution with customized integrations to meet limited government specific requirements, NARA does not require a “system of systems” or a patchwork of third party applications customized to function as a ticketing system on top of a customer relationship management (CRM) SaaS. NARA requires a ticketing and events management system that is integrated with the U.S. Treasury and NARA’s financial systems.

Additionally, on March 23, 2020 NARA significantly limited access to all of its facilities because of the COVID-19 National Emergency in order to protect its employees, contractors, and visitors. The deployment of the existing ACME ticketing system required extensive travel including a week on site at each facility. Although some training could be done remotely, a new Visitor Services System would still require extensive travel of staff for installation of hardware at each physical location, and training of staff on technical topics that cannot be completed remotely. ACME is the only company to meet all of our technical requirements. Independent of that, remaining with ACME also eliminates the need for staff travel and training associated with a new technical system deployment.

X. A LISTING OF THE SOURCES, IF ANY, THAT EXPRESSED, IN WRITING, AN

INTEREST IN THE ACQUISITION.

1. Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.

2. Acumen Solutions, Inc.

3. Capgemini Government Solutions, LLC, and

4. ACME Technologies, Inc.

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

REMOVE OR OVERCOME ANY BARRIERS TO COMPETITION BEFORE ANY

SUBSEQUENT ACQUISITION FOR THE SUPPLIES OR SERVICES REQUIRED.

NARA will continue to monitor the marketplace for SaaS offerings capable of fulfilling NARA’s requirements, based on its needs, without significant customization.

XII. CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION THAT THE JUSTIFICATION IS

ACCURATE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF THE CONTRACTING OFFICER’S

KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF

See Page 1.