South Carolina Department of Education

Request for Information (RFI) No. 5400018614

Comprehensive Grant Management System

September 10, 2019

1. PURPOSE

The South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) is interested in learning more about comprehensive grant management systems that are web-based, providing unlimited remote access to the SCDE offices and all South Carolina school districts and schools, and that support the processing of state and federal formula, competitive and discretionary/non-competitive grants. The system should be specifically designed to support the development of district and school strategic plans, management of federal and state grant applications, compliance monitoring and grants accounting functions. The system will have the ability to interface with existing financial systems, upload locally created documentation and provide a robust reporting function, including configurable dashboards.

2. REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

The intent of this RFI is to provide interested contractors with information about current needs, while seeking information for exploratory purposes. Information gathered will be used to determine the availability of contractors capable of providing desired products and services. This RFI is an information gathering and market research tool, not a formal solicitation of a specific requirement (such as in a “Request for Proposals” document) and; therefore, no contract will be awarded by the S.C. Department of Education from this RFI.

3. INTRODUCTION

The SCDE provides annual grant funding allocations to school districts through either a formula or competitive process to meet the needs of students throughout the state of South Carolina. SCDE offices, school districts and schools are currently utilizing a web-based grant management system to maintain strategic plans and grant applications. The grant management system does not interface with the state-developed grants accounting system (GAPS), resulting in dual budget entry, and a separate, non-integrated system (Title1Crate) is used for compliance monitoring. Claims are entered into GAPS and then uploaded into South Carolina’s Enterprise Information System (SAP SCEIS) for reimbursement to the school districts.

The SCDE has implemented management of funds for federal Title 1 through 5 programs within its grant management system for all school districts. Currently, fifteen of the school districts enter their strategic and school renewal plans in the system and compliance monitoring documentation is uploaded into Title1Crate by all of the districts. The vision is to implement one comprehensive system that includes strategic planning, grant application processing, grants accounting and compliance monitoring functionality for use by the

SCDE offices, school districts and schools for the majority of the state and federal grant programs that

SCDE administers.

4. INFORMATION REQUESTED

The SCDE seeks information about available grant management systems and welcomes responses to this

RFI and creative suggestions and feedback to enhance and streamline the grant management process.

Respondents are not required to submit responses pertaining to every question, but the SCDE encourages interested parties to respond to any or all relevant aspects of the RFI.

This Request for Information (RFI) 5400018614 is intended to seek information for exploratory purposes.

A contract will NOT result from this RFI.

The RFI is intended to explore an overarching question: Can a single grant management system provide the necessary flexibility to meet the needs and nuances of individual programs while maintaining a level of consistency, eliminating duplication, providing robust reporting features and the ability to exchange data with the state’s financial systems?

The SCDE seeks detailed yet succinct responses that demonstrate the respondent’s experience and familiarity with the subject matter. As this is not a competitive RFP process, respondents should not provide any specific cost or customized pricing documentation in their response.

A. General Information A.1. Provide a brief overview of your organization.

A.2. Please identify your experiences in providing grant management systems.

A.3. Please describe your organization’s knowledge of and experience with Federal Grant Programs, such as IDEA, ESSA and Perkins, and include how your organization is remaining current with changes in these regulations.

A.4. Provide contact information for any your clients with whom we can discuss the functionality of your system.

B. Components, Functions and Features

B.1. Describe in detail the components, functions and features available in your comprehensive grant management system, not limited to, but including:

B.1.1. Functions related to strategic planning, grant application management, grants accounting and compliance monitoring, as applicable.

B.1.2. Additional features, such as, email notifications, workflow and whether it is client-configurable, download features, correspondence and contact management.

B.1.3. Document storage and storage of attachments.

B.1.4. Application and document search.

B.1.5. How common data elements are integrated between the functional areas of the system.

B.1.6. How the system assists users in entering the data required for a particular function and how it ensures standardization of the data entered.

B.1.7. The data model used, for example, one strategic plan per district, one application per funding source per district, activities link to strategic plan.

B.1.8. The reporting capabilities in the grant management system (e.g. canned reports, ad hoc reporting, configurable dashboards).

B.1.9. Any analytics provided.

B.1.10. Any tracked Key Performance Indicators (KPI).

B.1.11. System checks and balances and reconciliation features.

B.1.12. System navigation.

B.1.13. The grant closure process.

B.1.14. Data archiving features.

B.1.15. What data standards does your system adhere to?

B.2. Has the development of system functionality been tailored to meet the state’s variety of program needs while maintaining a consistent look and feel among all components? Please describe how this is accomplished.

C. Infrastructure

C.1. What are the available hosting options, including but not limited to, cloud hosted and on-premises?

This Request for Information (RFI) 5400018614 is intended to seek information for exploratory purposes.

C.2. Describe the overall security structure.

C.3. What safeguards have you implemented to secure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your system and its data? Provide a SOC 2 or 3 report, if available.

C.4. How often are system and application updates provided?

C.5. Describe any risk analysis tools provided.

C.6. How/Does security work with Active Directory?

C.7. Describe the level of flexibility available in granting access to the functions and data in the system? For example, can a school or district be restricted to viewing or updating only its own data?

C.8. Please identify the interfaces that you have implemented between your grant management system and existing financial and monitoring systems. Also identify any potential barriers to integration.

C.9. Describe the system implementation process including the migration of existing data.

C.10. Describe your integration processes and services.

C.11. With which browsers is your application compatible?

D. Training and Support Services

D.1. Describe the parameters of offered training. For example, is user training provided remotely via webinar, face to face onsite sessions and is the data used for training relevant to the state’s work?

D.2. Describe user application support, online help and 24/7 technical support availability, including severity levels and response time. Do you have a product user’s group?

5. INTERPRETATIONS/CORRECTIONS/AMENDMENTS

If you find an ambiguity, conflict, discrepancy, omission, error or if you have any questions related to this

RFI, please notify the Procurement Manager indicated herein. ANY CHANGES TO THIS RFI WILL BE

MADE ONLY BY WRITTEN AMENDMENT, ISSUED BY THE SCDE PROCUREMENT OFFICE

AND SHALL BE INCORPORATED INTO THIS RFI.

CONTRACTORS ARE REMINDED TO CONTACT THE PROCUREMENT MANAGER

INDICATED HEREIN TO OBTAIN ANY AMENDMENTS ISSUED PRIOR TO THE CLOSING

DATE AND TIME.

6. GENERAL INFORMATION

The state shall not be liable for any costs incurred by the contractor in connection with the preparation and submission of this or any response to this RFI or any product demonstrations provided by the contractor.

All responses and accompanying documentation submitted will become the property of the state and will not be returned.

7. ESTIMATED TIMELINE

Listed below is the estimated timeline for the RFI. Dates and times indicated below are estimated and may be changed at the discretion of the Procurement Manager.

A. September 10, 2019 – Release of RFI

B. September 24, 2019 - 2:00 p.m. EST – Last day for questions related to RFI

C. October 8, 2019 - 2:00 p.m. EST – Closing date for RFI

This Request for Information (RFI) 5400018614 is intended to seek information for exploratory purposes.

8. RESPONSE

Interested contractors should send a letter of interest to the Procurement Manager indicated below. Responses may be emailed to the Buyer, Elsie Montgomery at emontgomery@ed.sc.gov no later than 5PM October 8, 2019.

Contractor shall:

a) Complete the Grants Management RFI Response Form and return with your response.

b) Printed Copies - If printed material is sent, please provide three (3) copies. Printed copies should be mailed to: SCDE, Attn: Elsie Montgomery, Procurement Director, 1429 Senate Street, Columbia, SC

29201

c) Electronic Copies - Electronic copies are acceptable and should be in MS Word or Adobe PDF format and can be e-mailed to emontgomery@ed.sc.gov.

THE ABOVE REFERENCED INFORMATION IS THE ONLY INFORMATION REQUESTED FOR

THIS RFI AT THIS TIME.

REMINDER: This is not a Request for Proposal (RFP) and therefore no contract will be awarded by the S.C. Department of Education from this RFI.

DO NOT SEND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, SUCH AS BROCHURES, ETC UNLESS

REQUESTED BY THE PROCUREMENT MANAGER.

**For additional consideration, any potential offeror must be a registered vendor to participate in any future

RFP response:

a. Register with the SC Enterprise Information System (SCEIS) at:

http://procurement.sc.gov/PS/vendor/PS-vendor-registration.phtm;

b. Register with the Federal System for Award Management (SAM) at https://www.sam.gov/SAM/ mailto:emontgomery@ed.sc.gov mailto:emontgomery@ed.sc.gov http://procurement.sc.gov/PS/vendor/PS-vendor-registration.phtm https://www.sam.gov/SAM/