RFI Fire Investigation Reporting System Vendor Response.docx

New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Office of Fire Prevention and Control

Request for Information (RFI) Fire Investigation Reporting Management System

Vendor Response

Please provide the following information electronically. You may provide the requested information as a completed attachment or in the body of an email.

1. Contact Information:

a. Name of individual responding

b. Name of agency/organization

c. Mailing address

d. Email address

e. Phone number

2. Provide a brief history of your organization and describe your experience developing, implementing, or supporting fire investigation report writing, case management, inspection, incident reporting, or comparable public safety information management systems.

3. Identify software platforms or systems your organization has developed, implemented, or provided that are comparable to the capabilities contemplated by this RFI. Include, where applicable; current development or implementation status, length of time in production, types and sizes of organizations served, number of users, relevant state, federal, municipal, fire service, law enforcement, or public safety experience, and experience supporting statewide or multi-jurisdictional operations; and customer references for comparable implementations.

4. Describe the proposed platform, including its overall architecture, hosting options, principal modules, system requirements, and core operational capabilities. Explain how the platform provides a centralized environment for managing multiple concurrent fire investigations while maintaining detailed, independently identifiable case records across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries. Address the system’s ability to provide authorized personnel with visibility into case status, investigative activity, assignments, deadlines, workload, approvals, and other operational impacts.

5. Describe the platform’s fire investigation report writing capabilities, including, configurable report templates and required fields, narrative development and formatting, supplemental reports, addenda, amendments, and supporting documents, spell-checking, standardized terminology, and data-validation controls, electronic signatures, certification, and report locking; and production of professional final reports suitable for administrative, legal, and court-related purposes.

6. Describe how the platform supports the complete fire investigation case lifecycle, including, case creation and numbering, intake and referral, assignment and reassignment, lead and assisting investigator designations, task and deadline management, investigative notes and activity logs, interviews and witness management, leads, requests, follow-up actions, and referrals, supervisor and peer review, returned reports and required corrections, approval and finalization, case status classifications, reopening and amending closed cases, report distribution, and administrative closure and records retention.

7. Explain how workflows, statuses, approval levels, required fields, and business rules can be configured to reflect the State’s investigative and supervisory processes.

8. Describe how the platform allows users to upload, organize, associate, retrieve, and manage photographs, videos, audio files, diagrams, laboratory reports, correspondence, permits, inspection records, external agency reports, and other supporting case materials. Address supported file types and sizes, metadata capture, indexing, version control, annotations, duplicate detection, links between related records, and the ability to associate a single record with multiple authorized cases without unnecessary duplication.

9. Describe the platform’s architecture and controls for protecting the integrity and authenticity of investigative records. Address encryption, authentication, version histories, audit trails, tamper-evident or immutable activity logging, tracking of record creation, access, modification, review, approval, export, and deletion, protection of original and finalized reports, prevention of unauthorized alteration, disclosure, or deletion, and documentation of amendments made after report approval or case closure.

10. Describe how the platform supports internal and external communications, notifications, alerts, and collaboration. Address case assignments and reassignment notices, task and deadline reminders, overdue report alerts, supervisor and peer review notifications, requests for information or corrective action, communication across agencies and jurisdictions, communication histories and activity logs, and support for email, SMS, and in-application notifications.

11. Explain how workflows, statuses, approval levels, required fields, and business rules can be configured to reflect the State’s investigative and supervisory processes.

12. Describe the platform’s role-based access controls, configurable user roles and permissions, user provisioning and deprovisioning, privileged-user controls, and supervisory and administrative access. Address multi-agency user management, jurisdiction-based restrictions, temporary access, separation of investigative and administrative functions, audit logs of user activity, and the ability to limit access to sensitive, confidential, criminal, personnel-related, or otherwise restricted investigations. Explain how authorized administrators can access and manage current and historical case information without compromising record integrity.

13. Describe the platform’s mobile and field capabilities, including functionality available through smartphones, tablets, laptops, or other authorized devices. Address case creation and field data entry, investigative notes, photographs, video, audio, and document uploads, voice-to-text or dictation, scene sketches, diagrams, and mapping, interviews and contact information, electronic forms and signatures, assignment and task updates, offline or limited-connectivity operation, synchronization when connectivity is restored, device and session security, accessibility and configurable interfaces, and features intended to reduce user burden and the learning curve.

14. Describe how the platform supports APIs, system-to-system data exchange, and imports and exports using standard formats. Identify capabilities for integration with existing and future federal, state, local, and enterprise systems, including: identity and access-management environments, computer-aided dispatch and records management systems, National Fire Incident Reporting System/National Emergency Response Information System data environments, where applicable, GIS and mapping platforms, inspection and code-enforcement systems, laboratory or forensic systems, digital evidence management systems, document and records management platforms, data-visualization and business-intelligence tools, email and notification systems, and mobile, camera, or scene-documentation technologies.

15. Describe the platform’s search, reporting, dashboard, and analytics capabilities. Address full-text and structured-data searches, saved and advanced searches, configurable reports and dashboards, real-time or near real-time information, case volume and status, open and closed investigations, aging and overdue cases, investigator assignments and workload, time from assignment to completion, supervisor and peer-review timelines, fire causes, classifications, contributing factors, and trends, fatalities, injuries, property losses, and geographic patterns, historical and comparative reporting, administrative and supervisory views, scheduled report distribution, and export of data for authorized analysis. Explain whether authorized users can independently configure dashboards, reports, filters, and performance measures without vendor programming.

16. Describe any currently available or planned artificial intelligence, machine-learning, rules-based automation, or decision-support capabilities. Examples may include; transcription and voice-to-text, narrative assistance, automated field population, data quality and completeness checks, identification of contradictory or inconsistent entries, classification and indexing, advanced search and summarization, redaction assistance, duplicate record detection, workflow automation and prioritization, workload monitoring; and identification of patterns or trends across investigations. Describe human-review requirements, audit functions, privacy and security controls, explainability, accuracy validation, and the ability to enable, disable, or restrict individual AI functions. Address whether State information would be retained by an AI provider or used to train vendor or third-party models.

17. Describe how the proposed platform would be implemented to meet the objectives of this RFI. Address implementation methodology and project phases, project governance and staffing requirements, requirements validation and workflow configuration, system configuration and customization, testing, acceptance, and validation, migration of existing investigation records, reports, attachments, and metadata, data cleansing, mapping, reconciliation, and integrity verification, cutover and change management, anticipated implementation timeframe, deployment approach; and methods for minimizing disruption to active investigations and ongoing operations.

18. Describe administrator, investigator, supervisor, and end-user training, including training materials, user guides, system documentation, new-user training, and refresher training. Also describe ongoing maintenance, updates, technical support, system monitoring, issue resolution, service levels, escalation procedures, upgrades, and post-implementation assistance.

19. Describe the platform’s ability to accommodate growth in users, agencies, jurisdictions, investigations, reports, attachments, data volume, file sizes, storage requirements, and concurrent system activity. Address system performance and availability, redundant infrastructure, backup methods and frequency, recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives, disaster recovery testing, service-restoration procedures, data replication and geographic redundancy, scheduled maintenance and notification, continuity during outages or disruptions, and methods for maintaining authorized access to critical investigative information.

20. Provide a summary of available cost structures, packages, licensing models, and associated capabilities. Identify costs related to implementation, configuration, users, storage capacity, data volume, retention periods, migration, API or system integrations, training, technical support, maintenance, archival storage, data egress, professional services, optional modules, AI capabilities, and other one-time or recurring expenses. Explain how costs may change based on changes of the number of users, storage requirements, functionality, or level of service selected.

21. Explain how costs may change based on the number of users, agencies investigations, storage requirements, system functionality, or selected service level. Identify foreseeable technical, operational, cybersecurity, migration, integration, bandwidth, staffing, implementation, legal, records management, and cost challenges or dependencies. Disclose known product limitations and potential vendor lock-in considerations.

22. Describe how State-owned reports, investigative data, attachments, metadata, audit histories, version histories, workflow records, and configuration information can be exported or returned upon contract expiration, termination, or transition to another system. Include available formats, anticipated timeframes, transition assistance, and associated costs. Identify any limits on State access, retrieval, use, copying, or export of its information.

23. Identify emerging technologies, industry developments, capabilities, risks, or other considerations relevant to a statewide fire investigation reporting and case management system that have not otherwise been addressed in this RFI.

24. Provide a summary of available cost structures, packages, licensing models, and associated capabilities. Identify costs related to implementation, configuration, users, storage capacity, data volume, retention periods, migration, API or system integrations, training, technical support, maintenance, archival storage, data egress, professional services, optional modules, AI capabilities, and other one-time or recurring expenses. Explain how costs may change based on changes of the number of users, storage requirements, functionality, or level of service selected.

How to Respond

All respondents should respond to this RFI with the information requested above no later than the deadline indicated on the first page of the announcement. Responses to this RFI must be made via email.

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