Associate_blog_RFI.doc

Request For Information (RFI)

Social Media

Exchange Internal Blog

Dear Sir or Madam, Oct 4, 2012

This letter is a Request for Information (RFI) only. The intent of the RFI is to gather information about potential vendors and each company’s ability to meet the needs of the Exchange. The Exchange is requesting information on an Exchange Internal Employee Community Site for Ideas. This information may be used in the preparation of a Request for Proposal (RFP).

The Exchange is a joint command of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, and is directed by a Board of Directors who is responsible to the Secretaries of the Army and the Air Force through the Service Chiefs of Staff. The Exchange has the dual mission of providing authorized patrons with merchandise and services and generating non-appropriated fund earnings as a supplemental source of funding for military Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) programs. Revenues generated in FY07 were $9.7 billion. AAFES operates more than 3,000 facilities worldwide, in more than 30 countries, five U.S. territories and 49 states. To find out more about the Exchanges' history and mission or to view recent press releases please visit our Web site at http://www.aafes.com/pa/default.asp.

The desired requirements are outlined below. Your responses may be used to further evaluate and/or refine our requirement.

If you are interested in this potential upcoming procurement, please provide:

1. Responses to the desired requirements and how you meet these.

2. Please provide a brief summary of your company including:

a. How long you have been providing this technology.

b. A white paper describing your technology.

c. List of major customers using this technology.

3. Is your company interested in receiving our Request for Proposal (RFP) should we issue one for this effort? If so, please provide contact information for your company.

Again, this is a Request for Information only. The Exchange is not seeking a firm price quote. However the Exchange does want to understand how the industry prices these solutions. Please provide budgetary pricing information with your response. Do not include a price quote. In the event the Exchange solicits, price quotes will be requested at that time.

Questions to the RFI are required by 12 Oct, 2:00 pm CST, via email to: whisenhuntt@aafes.com and cc: lutes@aafes.com

Responses to this RFI are required by 26 Oct, 2012 2:00 pm CST, via email to: whisenhuntt@aafes.com and cc: lutes@aafes.com Associate Blog Requirements

· Exchange Internal Employee Community Site for Ideas:

· Deploy ideas management application to the AAFES Employees (36,000 – 37,000 users)

· Application should be available to all Exchange associates, at work and from home within the Exchange firewall, requiring validation to authenticate user is active Exchange associate

· The application should be customizable to allow for Exchange branding / look and feel; company will provide a copy of the style sheet used to create the pages

· Provide spell check when users post comments

· Log In Screen:

· The login screen should display two separate fields – one field for returning users to log in and one field for users who have not registered. Both options should display on single page allowing user to select the appropriate option.

1....1. The login screen should include spaces for users to enter their email address and password.

1....2. The login screen should include an area that directs new users to account creation.

· There should be a link to assist with forgotten passwords.

· There should be a link that directs users to MK-StratCom’s mail ID in case they have a question or if there are problems with log in.

· If a login fails, user should see a screen indicating what caused the failed attempt (i.e. incorrect password, account not registered, etc.).

· For new accounts:

1....1. Once the user establishes the account; user should be allowed immediate access to the site.

1....2. If the account creation fails, the screen should indicate which required field was not entered correctly (for example, if the password is not 8 characters, if the y number is entered incorrectly, etc.)

· Home Page Layout:

· Allow users to view the most recent categories (topics)

· Allow users to see a brief description of the blog’s functionality in the form of icon representation

· See the different pages as links across the top of the screen/bottom of screen (so user does not have to scroll back to the top to find the different pages) 1..1..1. How It Works 1..1..2. Thoughts of the Week 1..1..3. Share 1..1..4. Comments 1..1..5. Comments in Action 1..1..6. Search

· See a brief description of the current week’s blog topic

· See a Top 10 most recently added comments list

· Posting Ideas:

· Allow users to post ideas to the online community

· Users should be able to participate (i.e. vote and/or comment), contribute, and easily post ideas to the community

· Users should be able to associate ideas with specific categories (i.e. date, subject topics)

· Voting on Ideas:

· Allow users to vote on ideas that have been posted

· Users should only be able to vote once for any given idea and then see their vote contribute to the number of points for the specific idea

· An automated points system should keep track of the highest voted ideas and elevate them to the top

· The higher the number of votes an idea has, the higher its position on the community’s list of ideas

· The system should provide a vote decaying algorithm with a vote half-life that can be customized. This allows for the most popular and most recent ideas to bubble up to the top, with always the freshest, most relevant ones at first glance.

· The points total should be located between the “up” and “down” voting buttons.

· Voting should be anonymous

· There should be four ways to view the comments:

1..1..1. Recent – View of most recently posted comments 1..1..2. Top All Time – Ranking determined by the number of votes 1..1..3. Responses - which are the comments that others have comment back to

1..1..4. Popular – Ranking determined by the number of votes combined with how recent the comment is

· Posting Comments:

· Allow users to post comments related to ideas

· Allow users to easily jump into conversations and post comments in response to ideas through a comments function. The comments are then visible to the entire community, inviting further discussion from others.

· View Top Ideas:

· Application should provide two views into the community’s top ideas:

· The most popular ideas view enables users to see the ideas with the highest number of votes, weighted by how recent they are

· The top all-time ideas view enables users to see the ideas with the highest number of votes, cumulative and irrespective of recent votes.

· Pagination should be displayed at the bottom of the page for easier navigation

· View Recent Ideas:

· Allow users to view a summary of the community’s most recently posted ideas

· Allow users to jump to the latest posted ideas through a recent ideas tab, which makes it easy to glance at and weigh in on the most recent ideas.

· Pagination should be displayed at the bottom of the page for easier navigation

· View Recent Comments:

· Allow users to view the community’s most recently posted comments.

· Allow users to jump to the latest comments posted in the community.

· Pagination should be displayed at the bottom of the page for easier navigation

· Track Ideas Posted:

· Allow users to view at a glance the ideas they themselves posted.

· Provide a “my inbox” feature which allows a direct view into the ideas that each user has posted to the community. The user can then keep track of the latest vote count and comments in one easy to access location.

· View Community Votes:

· Allow users to view the other users who have voted for the idea.

· Provide a “last 100 votes” feature for Admin users, which give each user a view into the last 100 community members who have voted for each idea.

· Soft Delete:

· Allows for deleted ideas to be retrieved

· Admin users can delete and easily retrieve deleted ideas in a recycle bin.

· Search Ideas and Comments:

· Ideas and comments should be fully indexed and searchable making it easy to build up a knowledgebase over time that users can go to as a reference.

· Reporting:

· Allows for different views into the community’s activity

· Allow content to be exported to an Excel document

· Allow for slicing and dicing of data as well as the ability to create dashboards that provide multiple views into the community, including:

· Most Popular Ideas

· Most Discussed Ideas

· Top Contributors

· Total Number of Votes, by day

· Total Number of Ideas Posted, by day

· Voting by Category

· Watchlists

· Time Out Screen:

· Screen should display message stating system timed-out and renewed log on is required.

· Screen should provide link back to Exchange intranet home page.

· Screen should provide StratCom email link for additional assistance.

· API:

· Provide a fully documented API which allows for an extract of all ideas and comments

· API should make it easy to extend the Ideas functionality to external systems:

· Retrieve Data Objects: Objects such as votes, ideas, and comments can be retrieved by the API, which facilitates the display and flexible manipulation of data in other systems.

· Access to Custom Data: Provides a flexible set of tools to create custom application leveraging Ideas data.

· Implementation / Configuration

· Configure the ideas application UI to the level provided by the Exchange.

· Configure the application with the categories and topics that are provided by the Exchange

· Configure necessary reports and dashboards that are desired by the Exchange

· Configure necessary application functionality to allow internal Exchange administrative users to manage and track “Ideas in Progress.”

· System Architecture / Security / Scalability

· Multi-Tenant Architecture

· Facility – Physical security for the hosting site should include; video monitoring, Fire and water detection, biometric access screening, 24/7 security guards, dual floor trap designed raised floor.

· Data Redundancy: Vendor provides multiple levels of data redundancy.

· Power Redundancy: N+1 UPS with complete backup, N+1 standby generators.

· Network Redundancy: No single point of failure for network architecture.

· Server Class and Redundancy: No single point of failure in server architecture.

· Firewalls: Multiple firewalls at different levels of architecture.

· Application Response Monitoring: Application monitoring executed from the end user perspective with root cause analysis for fastest problem resolution.

· Intrusion Detection: Intrusion detection must be deployed at various points in both internal and external networks.

· Web Application Security: Secure Session Cookies (no user id/password on client) and protection against cross-site scripting and SQL injection.

· Password Storage: Application architecture must store passwords in MD-5 hash.

· Disaster Recovery: Disaster recovery services should be part of any contract and should be provided by the vendor.

· System should have proven scalability for supporting similar environments with hundreds of thousands of users.

· System should allow verification of current Exchange associate status via y-number or username login.

· System should support Internet Explorer 6. Additional functions may be available based on web browser upgrade.

· Additional Application Development:

· Contract will include additional 200 hours of additional application development yearly.

· Contract will be possibly renewable on a yearly basis based on vendor performance.