Questions and Responses Document (Amendment 1) Final.pdf

Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund

RFQ-CDF-23-FS&R

Amendment 1 – Solicitation Questions and Responses

1. Is there an existing vendor? If yes, are they allowed to submit a response?

Response: No; this is a new requirement.

2. Can the government disclose the allocated budget for this effort?

Response: No; the Government is not able to discuss the budget at this time.

3. In the background section of RFQ, it is mentioned: “Finally, the CDFI Fund’s Financial Strategies and Research (FS&R) is dealing with an unprecedented volume of reports due to increased program funding and new COVID-19 related programs. This has created a need to have additional support to handle the processing of recipient reporting until additional permanent staff can be hired. FS&R is the data steward for the majority of the CDFI Fund’s data collection efforts and author of its research reports.” (emphasized by us)

a. Can you provide us a better understanding of the enormity of the volume of data (e.g., how many databases/data warehouse, etc. that the data needs to be extracted from)?

Response: The reports are typically based on information stored in three (3) major databases.

b. How many reports and type of reports (e.g., routine/canned reports vs customized reports per week/month, etc.)

Response: The number and types of reports varies by year and could range from more than ten but less than 100 annually. The Government will provide the Contractor an opportunity to review historic and current report requests after award to determine what's appropriate at the beginning of the task work.

c. Do these reports need to be uploaded in an existing portal/dashboard in existing format/tools

(e.g., MicroStrategy, Tableau, or MS Excel?)

Response: At this time, the CDFI Fund does not use MicroStrategy. In this RFQ, it is important to distinguish between recipient reporting which are the reports that we receive from certified CDFIs and award recipients as part of their Certification requirements and/or Assistance Award Agreements. The CDFI Fund already has a system in place for the collection and storage of those recipient reports. Any additional support in regard to these recipient reports is on the data cleaning and data quality checks after the report has been submitted into our system and before it can be used for any analysis.

The other reports are the reports created in response to external and internal data requests which are based on the recipient reports described above. The CDFI Fund is looking to the contractor(s) to provide us with recommendations on where these reports could be stored and the best format/tools for developing/reproducing them. The CDFI Fund does have access to Tableau and Excel.

4. The government identified nine (9) positions? Is the expectation that due to volume of work, all of these positions will be engaged in full time capacity?

Response: The CDFI Fund does not anticipate a need for all positions listed on a full-time basis.

However, at this time, we can not specify which ones would be full-time versus part-time.

5. Could you please provide prime contractors information those who are interested or working on this RFQ for teaming partnership opportunities, subcontracting opportunities purposes (bidder view list)?

Response: No; the Government is not able to provide this information.

6. Is there an incumbent providing these services? If yes, can they also submit a response?

Response: No; this is a new requirement.

7. What is the motivation/reason behind issuing the RFQ?

Response: As stated on page 6 of the RFQ, Section 1.0 Overview/Background, the aim is to better understand our collected data, determine what data needs to be collected, and learn about the best ways to collect, manage and analyze this self-reported recipient data.”

8. Can the positions be remote?

Response: The Contractor shall perform the majority of the work off-site at their location and, if needed, come on-site at the location identified on page 6 of the RFQ, Section 3.0 Place(s) of Performance.:

9. Technical Environment:

a. Can you please provide a description of the technology landscape? (what type of database, network – on-prem/cloud/hybrid)

Response: The technology landscape includes Salesforce Government Cloud Plus and Microsoft SQL Server (on prem).

b. Tools – Tableau is mentioned for reporting. Are you expecting the vendors to provide the tools or you would provide them?

Response: The CDFI Fund intends to provide any needed Tableau licenses.

c. What type of ETL tool is in place? (or expected to be used)

Response: To be determined.

10. Database:

d. How much data volume is in consideration?

Response: Roughly 50GB of data, but not all are needed for this effort.

e. How many years of historical data are in play?

Response: The CDFI Fund has data from the mid-1990s forward. Salesforce was deployed in September 2015.

f. How far back of the data will be considered (for example, are the vendors expected to do a two-year look back data for reporting purposes?)

Response: Please refer to the response provided to question 10.e.

11. Reporting:

g. How many reports are expected?

Response: Please refer to the response provided to question 3.b.

h. Type of Reports (how many are routine/canned and how many are customized)?

Response: The Government will request the Contractor to assist in making this determination after award and as part of working through the tasks.

12. Data Governance:

i. Is there Data Governance in place?

Response: Currently, data governance is informal and ad hoc. The CDFI Fund has plans to start putting formal data governance in place in 2023.

j. Is there a Data Steward for Metadata management?

Response: There are plans for establishing data stewards.

k. If not, is the vendor expected to play that role?

Response: No

11. Contract Type:

i. Can this contract be set aside as 8a?

Response: No; this requirement will not be set-aside for 8(a) vendors.