Microsoft_Entra_Identity_Services_–_Advisory,_Design,_and_Implementation_Support.pdf

SOLICITATION

26-0259-RFI

MICROSOFT ENTRA IDENTITY SERVICES – ADVISORY, DESIGN,

AND IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT

Pinellas County

Pinellas County Courthouse Annex Bldg., Sixth Floor

Clearwater, FL 33765

THE MISSION OF PINELLAS COUNTY

"Pinellas County Government is committed to progressive public policy, superior public service, courteous public contact, judicious exercise of authority and sound management of public resources to meet the needs and concerns of our citizens today and tomorrow."

ISSUE/RELEASE DATE: January 22, 2026

QUESTION SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 30, 2026

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE: February 19, 2026, 3:00 pm

RESPONSES MUST BE SUBMITTED ELECTRONICALLY VIA OPENGOV TO:

https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/pinellasfl https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/%7bproject.government.code%7d

Pinellas County

Microsoft Entra Identity Services – Advisory, Design, and

Implementation Support

Table of Contents No table of contents entries found.

Solicitation #26-0259-RFI Title: Microsoft Entra Identity Services – Advisory, Design, and Implementation Support

1. Notice

SUBMITTALS ARE OPENED PUBLICLY AND ARE ACCEPTED VIA OPENGOV

RFP - Informal / Formal

26-0259-RFI

Microsoft Entra Identity Services – Advisory, Design, and Implementation Support

ALL QUESTIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED IN OPENGOV WITHIN THE QUESTION & ANSWER SECTION.

SOLICITATION MEETINGS: Site Visit: None; Pre-Conference: None

SUBMITTALS MAY NOT BE WITHDRAWN FOR 120 DAYS AFTER OPENING DATE.

The Purchasing and Risk Management Division for the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners has transitioned to OpenGov Procurement for Contractor/Vendor registration, and for posting, submitting and receiving bids, quotes and proposals for active solicitations. Contractors/Vendors must register with OpenGov Procurement (https://procurement.opengov.com/signup) to participate in active County solicitations.

Should you need technical assistance with OpenGov, the following options are available:

Phone: (855) 680-4747, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday - Friday

Email:procurement-support@opengov.com

Chat is available in the OpenGov application

Web:https://help.procurement.opengov.com

Please Note:

From time to time, addenda may be issued to this solicitation. Any such addenda will be posted to https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/pinellasfl. Receipt of addenda confirmation is required in

OpenGov.

AUTHORIZED BY:

Merry Celeste, CPPB

Division Director of Purchasing https://procurement.opengov.com/signup mailto:procurement-support@opengov.com https://help.procurement.opengov.com/ https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/pinellasfl

2. Introduction

2.1. Summary

Pinellas County Business Technology Services (BTS) is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to gather information from qualified vendors with demonstrated expertise in Microsoft Entra Identity Services.

The objective of this RFI is to better understand available approaches, methodologies, and vendor experience in supporting large, complex, multi-agency identity environments. Information collected through this process will inform future planning and potential procurement activities. This RFI is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation or a commitment to purchase services

2.2. Background

Pinellas County operates a diverse and federated identity ecosystem supporting multiple constitutional offices, justice agencies, external government partners, and third-party applications. The County is standardizing Microsoft Entra as its primary identity platform while maintaining interoperability with

Okta, legacy identity systems, and external tenants, including government and justice-focused environments.

The County seeks vendors capable of providing strategic advisory services, architectural design, implementation support, and operational guidance across identity governance, authentication modernization, federation, security, and automation. Vendors should demonstrate experience operating at enterprise scale, particularly within government or regulated environments.

2.3. Contact Information

Kimberly Meador, CPPB

Procurement Analyst Lead

400 S. Ft. Harrison

6th Floor

Clearwater, FL 33765

Email: klmeador@pinellas.gov

Phone: (727) 464-3148

Department:

BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY SERVICES (BTS)

2.4. Timeline

Issue Date January 22, 2026

Question Submission Deadline January 30, 2026, 12:00pm

Proposal Submission Deadline February 19, 2026, 3:00pm mailto:klmeador@pinellas.gov tel:(727)464-3148

3. Scope of Work / Specifications

3.1. OBJECTIVE/JUSTIFICATION

Pinellas County Business Technology Services (BTS) is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to gather information from qualified vendors with demonstrated expertise in Microsoft Entra Identity Services.

The objective of this RFI is to better understand available approaches, methodologies, and vendor experience in supporting large, complex, multi-agency identity environments. Information collected through this process will inform future planning and potential procurement activities. This RFI is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation or a commitment to purchase services.

3.2. BACKGROUND

Pinellas County operates a diverse and federated identity ecosystem supporting multiple constitutional offices, justice agencies, external government partners, and third-party applications. The County is standardizing Microsoft Entra as its primary identity platform while maintaining interoperability with

Okta, legacy identity systems, and external tenants, including government and justice-focused environments.

The County seeks vendors capable of providing strategic advisory services, architectural design, implementation support, and operational guidance across identity governance, authentication modernization, federation, security, and automation. Vendors should demonstrate experience operating at enterprise scale, particularly within government or regulated environments.

3.3. REQUIREMENTS

Foundation, Enablement, and Tenant Strategy

The County is interested in vendors that can support foundational enablement activities, including delivery of Microsoft Entra Identity training at both administrator and advanced administrator levels.

Vendors should describe their approach to knowledge transfer and operational readiness. The County is also evaluating the design and implementation of a separate Entra test tenant to support preview features, early-access validation, and safe experimentation. Experience configuring cross-tenant access and synchronization is essential, including cross-tenant synchronization, federation, and multi-tenant

Azure AD Connect or Cloud Sync architectures. These capabilities must support ERP systems and like-to-like testing scenarios across tenants.

Administrative Model and Access Control

Pinellas County seeks guidance on designing a scalable and secure administrative model within a flat

Entra directory. This includes the use of Administrative Units to enable delegated administration, such as agency-specific scopes and separation of sensitive functions like LAPS. Vendors should describe how they approach logical separation using Administrative Units and/or resource segmentation. The County is also interested in the development of a clear RACI and permissions model spanning Endpoint teams, Operations Center staff, the central Identity team, and agency IT administrators. Reducing reliance on

Global Administrator roles and implementing Entra RBAC roles strategically is a key objective.

MFA and Authentication Modernization

The County is actively modernizing authentication and intends to fully remove SMS as a multi-factor authentication method. Vendors should describe their experience validating and deploying stronger

MFA options such as YubiKeys, Windows Hello for Business, FIDO2, Microsoft Authenticator, and

Temporary Access Pass. Solutions must accommodate different MFA requirements based on stakeholder or agency needs and ensure compatibility across Entra and Okta federation scenarios, including multi-tenant authentication flows.

Self-Service and Identity Automation

Pinellas County is seeking to expand self-service identity capabilities while maintaining security and auditability. Vendors should outline their experience implementing VPN-less self-service password reset with writeback. The County is also interested in workflow-driven access request solutions integrated with Privileged Identity Management (PIM) to eliminate standing privileges and enforce just-in-time access.

Federation and External Collaboration

Beginning in March, the County plans to expand cross-tenant federation with other counties, courts, and external agencies. Vendors should describe their experience configuring Entra B2B federation, managing guest identity lifecycles, defining licensing strategies, and automating cleanup of external accounts.

Experience planning for Government Cloud (GCC) integration is desired. Where required, vendors should also be able to maintain interim Okta-to-Entra federation for legacy or smaller applications.

Group and Access Management

The County is evaluating governance models that restrict group creation to the central Identity team while delegating group membership management to agency IT under defined guardrails. Vendors should describe how they protect sensitive groups, such as those granting cloud platform or privileged access, from unauthorized modification. The establishment of dynamic group standards, including rule design, naming conventions, and base group structures, is of particular interest, especially for Clerk of Court use cases.

Conditional Access and Session Controls

Pinellas County is planning the phased implementation of advanced Conditional Access policies, including geo-based controls such as U.S.-only access and stepped-up MFA, with a target timeframe of

Summer 2026. Vendors should describe how they design session lifetime policies that support operational realities such as storm response and emergency access. Experience integrating existing authentication approaches currently in use across agencies—such as Windows Hello, YubiKey, Duo MFA, and Authenticator App—is important. Vendors should also address newer Conditional Access use cases identified through security audits, including device-based MFA enrollment and differentiation between managed and unmanaged devices.

Custom Domains and Okta Migration

The County seeks vendor input on planning and executing the transition of federated domains to managed domains within Entra. This includes validating Password Hash Sync readiness and authentication reliability. Vendors should also describe their approach to designing Conditional Access policies that meet agency-specific requirements, such as time-based access or specialized MFA requirements for constitutional offices.

Security Monitoring, Logging, and Governance

Pinellas County is interested in improving identity security monitoring by configuring alerts for sensitive identity events, including administrative changes, application registrations, and MFA resets. Vendors should describe their experience designing centralized Entra log retention strategies, including alignment with Azure subscriptions, resource groups, and retention policies.

Subscription and RBAC Governance

The County seeks guidance on defining a subscription-level RBAC and IAM governance model that aligns

Azure subscription permissions with Entra identity roles in a consistent and auditable manner.

Application Registration and API Management

Vendors should describe security best practices for application registrations, including governance models for granting API permissions and mitigating risks associated with excessive or poorly scoped access.

Legacy Identity System Transition

Pinellas County maintains integrations with justice systems and legacy identity platforms, including

Odyssey and NetIQ. Vendors should describe their experience replacing or integrating with these systems using Entra-based identity automation. Experience enabling Entra Domain Services to support legacy LDAP and Kerberos workloads in the cloud is also desired.

SCIM and On-Premises Integration

The County is evaluating SCIM-based provisioning for on-premises applications. Vendors should describe their experience with SCIM connectors and where Azure App Proxy is appropriate for supporting these integrations.

Advisory and Emerging Requirements

Finally, the County is interested in vendors that can provide advisory services for unplanned or emergent identity issues that arise during modernization efforts. Vendors should describe examples of foundational identity considerations or risks that were identified during similar engagements that were not initially anticipated.

3.4. DELIVERABLES

Vendors responding to this RFI should provide a general company overview, relevant certifications and partnerships, and experience supporting public-sector or government clients. Responses should describe comparable Microsoft Entra Identity engagements, particularly those involving multi-tenant environments, federation, and justice or regulatory constraints. Vendors should outline their delivery methodology, whether advisory, implementation-focused, or hybrid, and may include sample deliverables such as architecture diagrams, governance models, or RACI frameworks. Information about key personnel and their qualifications should also be provided.

4. Vendor Submission

4.1. Renumeration*

All costs for responding to this RFI will be borne by the responding firm.

☐ Please confirm

*Response required

4.2. Inquiries*

All inquiries for information shall be made through OpenGov within the Q&A section.

☐ Please confirm

*Response required

4.3. Summary*

This is a Request for Information (RFI), not a solicitation for proposals. Pinellas County appreciates your assistance with this RFI. Responses will not be treated as proposals.

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*Response required

4.4. Response Documents*

No email responses will be accepted. Please upload your complete response here:

- Sections "REQUIREMENTS" and "DELIVERABLES" from Section 3..

*Response required