QA-_Part_3.pdf

RFP: OPIC-18-R-0007 Questions and Answers – Part 3

Answers in RED Below

Statement:

Question: Is there an incumbent for this effort? If so what is the level of effort for the prior contract period and who developed the original source code? The original 10 scorecards currently in Excel were developed by Moody’s Analytics under a previous contract with OPIC. The effort lasted approximately 2 years, completed in 2014.

Statement:

Question: Is this opportunity going to be a small business set-aside? No Will there be a vendor meet-and-greet? This is a possibility for those selected for oral presentations. Is this a new requirement or a continuing requirement? New requirement.

Statement:

Question: After the delivery of the initial version release of the application/website, is there an expected release frequency of subsequent versions? No - the timeline for the subsequent scorecards will be based on the time necessary for the development and testing of the initial scorecard. The project plan developed as part of Task 2 may need to be modified for Task 4 depending on the complexity and length of time for completing Task 3.

Statement: Enable integration with OPIC applications to include Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS), Oracle- LNS (custom Oracle Loans application), reporting warehouse, Salesforce, MS .Net solutions, OPIC’s financial statement spreading application, and other existing reporting capabilities Question: What language(s) are the current APIs written in? Will the selected contractor have full access to all current environments or APIs for integration purposes)?

Current integration mechanisms use a variety of programming languages, integration/ETL tools and database platforms. There are integration APIs that have been written using the .NET platform and implemented as WCF services, ETLs in Informatica and ODI, PL/SQL routines for database level integration etc. These integration mechanisms are not by any means part of an organization API toolkit (they are not generic APIs) and have been implemented to satisfy certain unique business/data integration needs between OPIC’s business information systems.

Statement:

Question: Is there a required or preferred programming language for this project? No, we are open to all types of platforms and technologies, as long as they support APIs and Web Services for integration with other OPIC systems.

Statement:

Question: From an architecture standpoint what freedom does responder have to select programming languages, database technologies, and caching technologies. Does the offeror have control over the frameworks for front end and business logic? Yes, the offeror has control over the entire framework, as long as it supports integration with other OPIC systems.

Statement:

Question: Is there already a set of rules surrounding caching and how long it needs to persist? Is there a preferred caching technology?

There are no rules surrounding caching and no preferred caching technology. OPIC anticipates that the vendor would have taken into consideration industry guidelines/best practices with respect to how and when to cache, the scope of cache (private vs. shared), cache expiration/invalidation, concurrency and data protection/security.

Statement:

Question: What are the operating systems of the hosting environment?

a. Windows (what version) – Windows 2008, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 2012

b. Linux (what distro)

c. Unix (which distro)

d. Other: (please specify)

Statement:

Question: What are the web service technologies in use and at what version are they currently maintained?

a. Apache (which version)

b. IIS (which version) 7.0, 7.5. 8.0

Statement: The Contractor shall develop and deliver all training materials, and conduct training per the delivery of the implementation deployment. The Contractor shall deliver a detailed user guide that documents navigating the system, system functionality, all facets of the user interface, processes specific to OPIC's use, FAQ's and where to find further information on the system.

Question: What is the preferred format for documentation (e.g. in-page, user manual, etc.)? If a separate manual, are there style guides that must be abided by? No preferred style guides. Does the user guide need to be digital and interactive or can it be a single document (i.e. PDF)? If Digital, does OPIC have a preference on the User Guide software used? No preference. Will OPIC require maintenance and updates to the User Guide by the selected vendor after hand-off or will this be updated in-house? In-house updates envisioned. If User Guide maintenance services are needed, will this be contracted separately after the delivery and hand-off of the application?

Statement: Extract data from the production environment and move it to a retention environment that will preserve all data older than 10 years based on OPIC retention policies.

Question: How many total environments need to be configured? Not sure how the question relates to the statement. But Risk Scorecards are considered Federal records and need to follow the OPIC Records retention policy. OPIC currently uses HPRM as a records management solution. The Risk Scorecards need to be easily exportable for a user to upload into the HPRM.

Statement:

Question: Is there a user account hierarchy (e.g. users, supervisors, departments/divisions, etc.)? What does it look like? What is the preferred authentication methodology (single factor authentication, multi-factor authentication, CAC, or other)?

Yes, there is an account hierarchy, and OPIC expects that the vendor’s solution provides the ability to configure account/role hierarchies and use that to configure applicable permissions within the solution.

MFA with CAC support will be the preferred authentication methodology.

Statement: Following Task 5 completion, OPIC will assess Contractor delivery and needed consultancy services, and award the option year(s) Task 6 for ongoing support if determined necessary and as appropriate.

Question: What consultancy services and activities are possibly needed or desired through the option years that are not satisfied by the OPIC IT O&M team? It is assumed that the OPIC IT O&M team will not be able to perform code bug fixes or make enhancements to the solution.

Statement: The Contractor shall be responsible for transitioning the ownership of operations and maintenance (O&M) to the OPIC IT O&M team. This entails providing the required documentation outlined in the OPIC SDLC and conducting transition meetings with all relevant parties to ensure a smooth hand-off.

Question: Would OPIC be interested in an Operations and Maintenance option from vendors? Yes.

Statement: The Contractor is responsible for the planning, costing, and establishment of the appropriate hosting environment for the Risk Scorecard solution (i.e., cloud vs. OPIC on premise). They are required to ensure the OPIC IT infrastructure properly facilitates environment(s) appropriate for development, testing, and implementation.

Question: Is OPIC interested in receiving hosting options from vendors certified to provide hosting solutions for federal government applications? Yes.

Statement: General Requirements. In-house maintenance enhancements to existing scorecards (refinements to weights, calibration, etc.), creation of new scorecards (Funds) Question: Does this refer to the ability for Scorecard solution users to be able to refine weights, calibration, etc. through the solution interface? Yes – but this back-end functionality would be limited to administrative users only.

Statement: General Requirements. The server operating system is congruent, or interfaces will with OPIC’s existing architectural standards, O&M model and IT policy/processing Question: What are the existing architectural standards, O&M model, and IT policy/Processing? Please disregard this requirement.

Statement: General Requirements. Historical Data Question: Is there a requirement stating that historical data must reside in a different environment than active production? Who is responsible for provisioning this environment? Who is responsible for enforcing the data retention policy? OPIC would prefer that the historical information is migrated to the same environment as the active data. At this point OPIC anticipates the platform would have its own data warehouse where historical and active data reside. The Vendor would provision it, and OPIC will enforce the data retention standards. The single data warehouse is a separate initiative and once that is constructed, OPIC will figure out how to push the Scorecard data into it.

Statement: General Requirements. Auditing.

Question: Is there a preferred auditing methodology? How are audit logs to be reviewed and at what frequency? There is not a preferred audit methodology. Audit logs should be easily accessible via a query.

Being a Government entity, OPCI is subject to multiple types of audits that occur on a regular basis and varies depending on the audit.

Statement: General Requirements. Implementation The solution is cloud-based.

Question: Is there a preferred cloud environment? Please list all compliance requirements for the cloud environment. There is not preferred cloud environment, as long as it is FedRamp compliant and certified.

The requirements can be found at FedRamp.gov.

Statement: General Requirements. Integration Question: Please detail the required integrations between the solution and each of the following: Oracle EBS, Oracle LNS, Oracle database, OBIEE, MS Access, SharePoint, Tableau. Without knowing the data the Risk Scorecard solution will ultimately capture, we cannot provide that information at this time. That level of detail should be captured during the requirements and design phase of this effort.

Statement: General Requirements. Security Version control is available Question: Please detail the requirements for version control. For instance, do users need to be able to roll back a version? There are two elements of version control: 1) when updates are made to the scorecard templates they can be deployed within the application seamlessly (i.e. the user would not need to re-enter the data from the previous version into the new version); 2) Final versus draft information within a scorecard. Users need to be able to distinguish between scorecards that are in draft (awaiting approvals) and those that are final (final approval received).

Statement: Attachment 2. Travel Cost Reimbursement Limitations.

Question: What locations will the contractor personnel be required to travel to? Contractor personnel are required to travel to OPIC’s offices located at 1100 New York Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20527. If travel locations are outside of the U.S., will Government travel reimbursement include costs for Passports?

No. Overseas travel is not anticipated.

Statement: General Requirements.

Question: Should vendors submit multiple bids, given that some of the requested functionality is listed as nice to have? Yes – that would be helpful, or stipulate that proposal is based only on critical requirements.

How should vendors present “nice to have” requirements in the proposal? We leave that up to the vendors’ discretion.