NAC-G_JA - Redacted.pdf

Control Number VA-24-00072538

JA Template - FAR Part 16.5 _FEB_26_2021

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

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

Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed price delivery 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 procurement of brand name Nintex Automation Cloud for Government (NAC-G) subscription and maintenance support.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology (OIT), Infrastructure Operations Service (IOS) has a requirement for one brand name NAC-G subscription, which includes 300,000 executions, unlimited workflows and unlimited users. Maintenance support shall include website support, software updates and troubleshooting as needed. In addition, this effort includes 40 hours of training service and 40 hours of implementation services as well as optional tasks for additional subscriptions, training and implementation services. The NAC-G subscription will replace the current on-premises solution, Nintex Enterprise Edition. NAC-G allows VA organizations to automate both simple and sophisticated business processes, such as approving and signing documents, or hiring and onboarding employees. NAC-G provides an easy to use, no-code interface that allows VA employees the ability to design simple to complex workflows without needing to know how to code. This allows it to be more usable across the VA as most employees don’t have the training or time to learn to code a complex workflow. NAC-G shall seamlessly integrate with third-party platforms such as DocuSign and Salesforce to easily and quickly perform what was once time-consuming tasks that were difficult to track and maintain.

The period of performance shall include 1, 12-month base period and 2, 12-month option periods. The total estimated value of the proposed action is (inclusive of options).

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(a)(4), 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 FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), 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 upon market research, as described in Section 8, it was determined that limited competition is available among resellers for brand name NAC-G. Only brand name Nintex software will meet VA’s requirements due to proprietary code causing compatibility and interoperability

Nintex Automation Cloud Subscription and Maintenance Support constraints with using all other solutions. The required NAC-G software must be fully compatible and interoperable with the existing Nintex infrastructure, consisting completely of proprietary Nintex software and appliances, and fully-established connections to multiple SaaS products outlined below. NAC-G will also maintain current operability and capabilities for VA customers that spread between Veterans Benefits Administration, Veterans Health Administration, National Cemetery Administration, and Office of Information and Technology, allowing them to build upon existing no-code Nintex workflows that are currently in use across the VA. NAC-G, VA-sponsored through FedRAMP authorization and hosted in FedRAMP-approved Microsoft Azure Cloud, is the only product that integrates seamlessly and with no additional costs with SaaS products such as Salesforce, DocuSign, Box and Microsoft’s SharePoint, Entra ID, Teams, Exchange and OneDrive for Business. In many circumstances, use of another product would cause the VA to pay an additional cost for each user who needs to utilize a connection with one of these solutions. These integrations allows citizen developers to automate, scale, and improve business processes. A few examples are employee onboarding and offboarding for Human Resources; streamlining the review and approval of Community Care forms for Veterans Health; and expediating financial approval processing times for Financial Services. Without Nintex Automation Cloud, workflow processing times will lengthen. This affects the speed at which Veterans receive care, benefits, and answers to questions as well as increases employee workload causing a greater chance of errors being made. Additionally, only Nintex or its authorized resellers can perform the required maintenance and support on the brand name NAC-G software due to proprietary source code. Any other brand name software is unable to integrate with the currently fielded SaaS connections. Additionally, no other brand name software is interoperable or compatible with the current library of SaaS product connectors currently fielded with brand name Nintex Automation Cloud for Government software. Performance monitoring of Nintex Automation Cloud using VA’s Dynatrace application has been established ensuring reliability with minimal downtime.

Only the NAC-G annual subscription and maintenance support will meet the VA’s need for compatibility and scalability of existing Nintex workflows and integrations. In addition, full compabilitity with existing workflows is essential for those sites that currently utilize Nintex workflows to continue uninterrupted operation and functionality to support Veterans’ healthcare and benefits.

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 can meet the Government's requirements. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for brand name Nintex subscriptions, as well as software maintenance and support. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contract Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the market place that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research: The Government’s technical experts conducted market research from June – July 2024 by reviewing other similar, commercially-available no-code workflow solutions to see if any could satisfy VA’s requirements. Specifically, VA researched Intelliworx Cloud Workflow Platform and Datadog Workflow Automation Intelliworx Cloud Workflow Platform does not integrate with existing Nintex workflows running in VA and would render all existing workflows unusable, negatively impacting customer service delivery. Datadog Workflow Automation does not integrate with DocuSign, Adobe Sign, and Microsoft Entra ID and is unable to integrate with existing VA workflows. Additionally, Datadog is not FedRAMP authorized. Additionally, no other maintenance provider can provide the required maintenance support of the NAC-G software due to the proprietary nature of the source code. Based on this review it was determined that none of these products can meet the Government’s interoperability and compatibility requirements previously discussed in Section 5. Lastly, VA Subject Matter Experts regularly review industry trade publications and conduct internet research to ascertain if any other brand name software is available. Based on all of these market research efforts, the VA’s technical experts have determined that only NAC-G can meet all of VA’s needs.

Additional market research was conducted in July 2024 utilizing the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup Tool, which resulted in the identification of multiple Service- Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) resellers of Nintex brand name products. NASA SEWP provider lookup determined eight SDVOSB resellers can provide the brand name Nintex NAC-G solution. Therefore, limited competition is expected among SDVOSBs for this proposed action.

9. Other Facts: Not Applicable

10. Technical and 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.

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on on anticipated competition among NASA SEWP GWAC holders who are resellers of the required Nintex Automation Cloud solution. Additionally, NASA SEWP has already determined that the catalog prices on its GWACs are fair and reasonable. Finally, price analysis shall be conducted by comparing the successful quote to the Independent Government Cost Estimate.

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. As this contract action does not exceed $750,000, this document serves as the contracting officer’s basis for using an exception to the fair opportunity process in accordance with FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(A).

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of NAC-G subscriptions and maintenance 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 property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Department of Veterans Affairs