P03 - J_A SmartSheet Final.pdf

CONTROL NUMBER VA-24-00025578

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 Task Order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), for the procurement of brand name Smartsheet.gov Software as a Service (SaaS) licenses with optional tasks for consulting services.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services:

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Board of Veterans’ Appeals (BVA) and Veterans Health Administration Innovation Ecosystem (VHA IE) have a requirement for brand name Smartsheet.gov SaaS licensing and optional tasks for consulting services.

Smartsheet.gov provides a centralized mechanism for task tracking and project management for BVA and VHA IE. The requirement will provide annual licenses and will also include incidental services for professional and technical support. Historically BVA and VHA IE has managed tasks and projects through emails and spreadsheets, which are housed in various places through email, shared folders, and SharePoint. Due to the volume of work BVA and VHA IE manages, it is imperative to have a centralized hub for task tracking and project management, which allows for tracking capabilities of multiple workflow streams, flexibility for future changes to workflow, reporting capabilities and specific paths for delivery and/or completion for dashboards.

The software solution must provide a centralized hub on the Government Community Cloud for task tracking project management, to include tracking capabilities for multiple workflow streams. The software must have the ability for BVA and VHA IE The software must provide for flexibility for future changes to workflow, that allows for automated scalable management of portfolio resources and projects. In addition, the software must have reporting capabilities, to include building Ad-Hoc reporting capabilities that has dashboard options for end users to share information without providing access to the underlying data. It must be able to provide specific paths for delivery and/or completion and allow for unlimited file size attachments due to the complex and sensitive nature of the projects the software is used to support. For oversight purposes, the software must have identity and access management that aligns with VA’s requirement for a single sign-on with the ability to implement Multi-factor authentication approved for use within VA. The software will also offer the ability for data egress to protect information through controls on how data can be exported. The software must have the ability to allow for BVA and VHA IE to be configured to utilize VA email domain for notifications from the software. This ensures that data from BVA and VHA IE remains secure due to the sensitive nature of their mission. The software also must provide tracking at user and supervisor levels with the ability for task assignment, and program management

Smartsheet.gov SaaS Control Number VA-24-00025578 capabilities with dependencies that can be rolled up; down to individual projects/people.

Additionally, the software solution must integrate with VA’s existing environment applications including Box.com, Adobe, and DocuSign for securely signing and transferring documents. This is a critical feature as it negatively impacts BVA and VHA IE for timely, seamless transfer of Veteran and new employee records. Most critically, the VA requires the software to be hosted on a Government Community Cloud with a moderate FedRAMP approved security designation.

The period of performance for this effort shall be a 12-month base period with two (2) 12-month option periods. The total estimated value of the proposed action is $1,642,871.64 inclusive of all 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 on market research beginning in 2022 and and conducted most recently in April of 2024, performed by BVA and VHA IE along with the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) Digital Transformation Center, Smartsheet.gov is a commercially available off the shelf that requires no coding or programing in order to perform the automated tracking and program management tasks and meets all requirements. In addition, Smartsheet.gov brand name SaaS is currently the only project management SaaS that meets the VA’s requirement in the Fed Ramp SaaS Digital Marketplace approved for Moderate security level designation. Failing to obtain the services described have a direct impact to BVA’s mission to conduct hearings and dispose of appeals properly before the Board in a timely manner. 38 U.S.C. § 7101 (a). BVA issues approximately 104,000 decisions annually, which impacts an equal number of Veterans and their families/caregivers.

Smartsheet.gov is the only software that is interoperable with VA’s existing configured environment that includes Box.com, DocuSign and Adobe platforms which BVA and VHA IE rely on to accomplish their missions. Smartsheet.gov is the only SaaS that meets all of the requirements identified in Section 3 of this document.

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 through the RFI process that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for brand name Smartsheet.gov SaaS software licenses, as well as any optional add-on services. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate parties.

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 annually 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 2024. They issued an RFI to NASA SEWP, asked the Digital Transformation team to revisit their previous Analysis of Alternatives, and leveraged the Office of Strategic Sourcing’s contractual relationship with Gartner.com analysts to do a deep dive of possible vendors with and without the appropriate level of FedRAMP certification to satisfy the BVA’s use case.

BVA’s use case cited two main functions required of their SaaS solution: collaboration and project management. VA Subject Matter Experts did an initial review, identifying 14 tools that advertised as supporting either project management or collaborative work environment. Nine (9) of the 14 products were excluded as they failed to demonstrate that they had the ability for Ad-Hoc reporting, dashboards, identity and access management and the ability to customize the software based on individual needs. Five products were determined to meet those requirements. Of the remaining five, three were further eliminated for failing to meet security, scalability, reporting, and ease of use for non-code personnel. Smartsheet and Monday.com were the only products remaining. VA SMEs re-engaged the Digital Transformation Center to request an updated Analysis of Alternatives to ascertain changes the VA Digital Marketplace. This analysis returned two additional tools: Trello and Microsoft 365.

The following deficiencies were found among the remaining software products that were rejected:

Trello software lacks capability for dashboard and ad hoc report creation, task dependencies, cross-project resource and summary views, and custom graphs and charts.

Monday.com does not provide automated change management, limited automated project creation and roll ups. Their software does not have automated provisioning of multiple objects or global updates which can cascade updates across an entire portfolio.

Only board and column templates for standardization which can be updated for future use but all deployed projects must be updated manually. Additionally, the ability to utilize VA email domain is not possible with Monday.com without additional integrations that are required to enable email notifications with anything other than the Monday.com email domain.

Finally, Microsoft 365 would require extensive coding and programing in order to interoperate with BVA and VHA IE’s existing infrastructure. To integrate tracked data, the Government would have to purchase Power Platform add-ons and licenses for both the individuals creating the data linkages as well as anyone viewing the data. With an organization of 1,300+ employees, the additional costs for manpower, add-ons, and licenses would not be attainable in the current budget landscape.

Smartsheet.gov brand can be provided by multiple resellers; therefore, limited competition is anticipated. Based on the market research only Smartsheet.gov SaaS can meet all the Government’s requirements.

9. Other Facts: None

10. 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.

Meredith Jansen

____07/24/2024_______ Date

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 anticipated competition and discounts among NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Additionally, NASA SEWP determines that all catalog prices on its GWAC’s are fair and reasonable. Additional price analysis may be performed in accordance with FAR15.404-1(b).

Mary Accomando Date Contracting Officer

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

Mary Accomando Date Contracting Officer

Approval In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of Smartsheet.gov SaaS 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.

Jason Bullen Date Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistic Department of Veterans Affairs