Statement of Objectives Web Apps IOLA - 2032H5-24-N-00008.pdf

Department of Treasury

Internal Revenue Services (IRS)

Statement Of Objectives for Web Applications (Web Apps) Individual Online Account (IOLA)

– Inflation Reduction Act 6th IOLA Delivery Plan

March 7, 2024

1. Purpose This Statement of Objectives (SOO) describes the goals that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) expects to deploy via Web Applications (Web Apps) Individual Online Account (IOLA) services to enhance the taxpayer and tax professional experiences. The purpose of this acquisition is to obtain a Contractor with a comprehensive solution, which adheres to the agency’s standards and guidance, and aligns with and supports the Taxpayer Experience Strategy and Modernization Plan.

This is a new task order for FFP even though there is work under Section 3. Scope (3.1, 3.2 and 3.3) with different plan start date and end date. Vendor’s proposal could include a monthly breakdown with same monthly invoice amount for 14 months as IRS expect vendor to manage their resources.

2. Background The IRS created Web Apps in 2015 to build secure, high-quality online experiences for taxpayers, tax professionals, and related stakeholders. Over the past seven years, Web Apps has successfully delivered 30+ self-service online capabilities to taxpayers and tax professionals, including new capabilities to deliver on legislative mandates and modernized replacements of legacy tools and infrastructure.

On July 1, 2019, Congress enacted the Taxpayer First Act (TFA) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to codify, expand, and strengthen taxpayer rights and transform the IRS into a more taxpayer-friendly agency by, among other things, developing a comprehensive customer service strategy, more modern technology, and enhanced cybersecurity.

The TFA mandates that the IRS prepare strategic plans affecting the agency’s core missions and activities. On January 11, 2021, the IRS sent the Taxpayer First Act Report to Congress; a comprehensive set of recommendations on how the agency can transform the IRS into modern, efficient, and taxpayer-centric centered agency. The report outlines three (3) overarching strategies:

o Strategy 1: Enhance the taxpayer experience o Strategy 2: Enhance the employee experience o Strategy 3: Improve operational efficiencies

This SOO focuses on Strategy 1: Enhance the taxpayer experience

The Taxpayer Experience Strategy (TXS) identified the taxpayer experience as the “cornerstone” of the IRS’ mission and goes beyond customer service to solving the problems. TXS encompasses all taxpayer transactions within the IRS; additionally, it crosses services, compliance, and other program areas throughout the lifetime of interactions with the organization.

2.1 The Taxpayer Experience Strategy

The strategy identifies various stakeholders that rely on the IRS for information and services.

This SOO focuses on individual taxpayers and tax professionals and the areas below to improve the taxpayer experience.

2.1.1.1 Expanded Online Services: IRS online accounts and services for taxpayers to access their tax information, make changes to their information, and communicate with the IRS online.

o Secure Two-Way Messaging: Give taxpayers the ability to communicate with IRS employees through their online accounts.

o Taxpayer View History: Allow taxpayers to see information about their tax histories (such as refunds, payments received, amounts owed, returns filed, etc.)

through their online accounts to ensure transparency and accessibility of records.

o Change Account Information (“Self-Correct Entity”): Allow taxpayers to update contact information and other key details.

o Online Notifications: Provide taxpayer notices and letters through online accounts. Taxpayers will be able to opt in to receive personalized notifications about changes to their tax situation, payment reminders and status updates on refunds or audits.

o Payment Options: Provide taxpayers the ability to make payments through all channels including telephone, online accounts, mobile apps, and walk-in assistance. Electronic funds transfer (EFT) and credit and debit cards interactions will remain available as well.

o Installment Agreement Options: Provide taxpayers the ability to set-up and manage payment plans through online accounts. Payment plans will include Regular Installment Agreements (RIA), Direct Debit Installment Agreements (DDIA), and Short Term Installment Agreements (STIA).

o Secure Document Exchange: Allow taxpayers, businesses, tax professionals and IRS employees to securely upload and access documents in a centralized repository.

o Digital Signatures: Allow authenticated individual taxpayers and representatives to submit electronic signatures via online accounts.

Note: The IRS has already implemented several of these capabilities for IOLA on the Taxpayer Experience Platform (TXP).

Desired Results:

• Additional IOLA capabilities for taxpayers and tax professionals

• Convenient, simple, and secure way to access tax information, make changes to accounts, make payments from any device, establish and manage installment agreements, and communicate with the IRS that will significantly increase the functionality of existing self-service channels

• Notifications about changes to tax situation, and audit status and payments through IOLA

• Secure upload and sharing of files with the IRS

2.1.2 Seamless Experience: Provide taxpayers personalized online experience.

o Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Powered Informational Web Chat (Virtual

Assistance): Allows for an AI-powered chat bot to attempt to answer questions or direct the taxpayer to helpful information on IRS.gov or to their online account based on a taxpayer’s browsing preferences on IRS.gov. Chat bots will also be able to connect taxpayers to an IRS assistor for a web chat. If the chatbot cannot resolve a taxpayer’s issue, contact routing will guide the taxpayer to live support from an IRS employee.

o AI-Powered Self-Service Appointments: Allows taxpayers to speak with an assistor or schedule an appointment if the chatbot is unable to resolve a taxpayer’s issue.

o AI-Powered Employee Assistant: Supports IRS employees when answering taxpayers’ questions with an AI-powered knowledge base that will make suggestions based on a taxpayer’s experience, questions or pages visited on IRS.gov.

Desired Results:

• Issues resolved swiftly, easily, and conveniently

• Efficient and definitive interactions with the IRS making the journey for assistance as painless as possible

• Information from the very first engagement with the IRS will be transferred seamlessly to the next assistor, negating the need for the taxpayer to repeat information

2.1.3 Focus Strategies for Reaching Underserved Communities: Provide online services to underserved communities are not limited to but include:

o Translate Forms, Publications and Notices: Support translation of forms and tax information to taxpayers with limited English proficiency. Increase the languages (Spanish, Chinese Traditional/Simplified, Korean, Russian, Vietnamese) available online.

o 508 Compliance: Support taxpayers with disabilities, including taxpaying populations needing special assistance due to sight, hearing, dexterity, limited mobility, and cognitive challenges.

o International Online Account Authentication: Support access identity proofing options to allow authentication of taxpayers abroad.

Desired Results:

• Tailored outreach, education, communications, products, and services

• Communication in preferred language through preferred communication channels

• Understanding of tax obligations and easier access to the tools that lead to compliance

• Increased emphasis on the fairness of the tax system

2.2 Modernized IRS Operations

Provide services using innovative technologies and processes:

• Taxpayer Experience. The IRS will continue to expand self-service options, improve traditional channels, and provide simplified and proactive services for taxpayers and their representatives.

• Core Taxpayer Services and Enforcement. Tax experience relies upon integrated case management, account management, and real time tax processing so that employees and taxpayers have a complete view of their interactions and history, regardless of the channel or the employee assigned.

• Modernized IRS Operations. The IRS will use innovative technologies and processes, such as Cloud, Agile, DevOps, APIs, robotic process automation, and next generation infrastructure to reduce costs and manual effort.

• Cybersecurity & Data Protection. The IRS will protect taxpayer data using advanced analytics and tools, and align to government-wide cybersecurity standards and priorities.

Desired Results:

• Consistently provide superior service to taxpayers and the tax community.

• Enable a strong and secure systems platform for taxpayer-facing applications.

• Expand the digital conversion of paper case files and documentation.

• Leverage existing data to detect tax noncompliance earlier.

• Deliver long-term budget and personnel efficiencies as the IRS decommissions legacy IT applications, automates manual processes, and expands advanced analytics programs.

• Keep technology current and expand online services consistent with similar trends in the private sector.

2.3 Taxpayer Experience Office (TXO)

On March 4, 2022, the Agency created The Taxpayer Experience Office (TXO), dedicated to delivering and improving taxpayer transactions with the IRS across the service, compliance, and other program areas, working in conjunction with all IRS business units and coordinating closely with the Taxpayer Advocate Service. To help drive the IRS strategic direction for improving the taxpayer experience, TXO has identified key capabilities the IRS is focusing on over the next five years and captured this in the Taxpayer Experience Strategy (TXS) Roadmap. The roadmap outlines a high-level plan to advance TXS capabilities from FY2022- 2025.

In addition to the TXS and associated TXO Roadmap, the IRS Integrated Modernization Business Plan (April 2019), also known as the IT Modernization Plan, included initiatives to improve how the agency interacts with taxpayers and the tax community, while continuing to strengthen cybersecurity protections and information technology systems. The modernization plan needs to be used in conjunction with the TXS for the proposed solution.

3. Scope The Contractor shall provide a comprehensive solution that will adhere to the agency’s standards and guidance to support the Taxpayer Experience Strategy and Modernization Plan. The scope of this effort entails:

A. Taxpayer Experience Strategy

a. Expansion of online services

b. Providing a seamless experience

c. Crafting a strategy for reaching underserved populations

B. Modernizing IRS Operations

The comprehensive IOLA solution shall maintain the currency of IRS technology and expand online services consistent with similar trends in the private sector. The solution shall be coordinated and integrated across the IT partners listed below to ensure alignment with the agency’s mission, industry best practices, and in compliance with IRS guidance, Internal Revenue Manuals (IRMs), and IRS Target Enterprise Architecture.

Key IT Partners:

o Enterprise Services (ES): Solution Engineering (SE), Enterprise Architecture (EA), Enterprise Systems Testing (EST) o Application Development (AD): Corporate Data, Customer Service, and Technical Integration Office (TIO) o Enterprise Operation (EOps): Web Infrastructure Services o Enterprise Program Management Office (EPMO): Web Apps Individual Online

Account (IOLA) PMO o Cybersecurity

3.1 IOLA Technical Support

This SOO addresses technical contractor work associated with the deployment and maintenance of IOLA capabilities for IRA initiative, to include but not limited to the following solutions development activities:

1. Perform a full assessment of the environment and evaluate industry best practices and technology suitable for IOLA.

2. Evaluate current processes and procedures and make recommendations for streamlining/eliminating processes, documentation, etc. Implement process and procedure improvements through engagement with process owners and stakeholders.

3. Identify and provide technical solution recommendations to include hardware, software, and tool(s). Recommendation can include requests to provide tools as contractor furnished equipment. The solution should align with current Solution Concept, Enterprise Architecture (EA) Roadmap and Target Status as defined by IRS. If aspects of the solution deviate from these, the contractor should provide solid business justification and engage the appropriate EA artifact owners to vet the recommendations for possible modification of target state. The associated operating model shall be efficient and enable efficient lifecycle development and delivery of new/changes features and capabilities.

4. Upon obtainment of IRS approval for the IOLA solution, initiate and coordinate development tasks/activities.

5. Provide online services that accommodate considerations from an enterprise perspective including impact on IRS business units, contracts, management, and technical components.

6. Develop a release management plan/roadmap that complies with IRS direction.

7. Design, architect, develop, test, and deploy the solution.

8. Obtain approval of architecture and design and provide access to technical artifacts and code as needed by IRS technical personnel.

9. Support multi-cloud and cloud to on-prem integrations based on solution requirements.

10. Perform Section 508, unit, and integration testing and security code scans throughout development. Development may be conducted in a fully accredited vendor provided development environment or an IRS provided development environment.

11. Perform systems integration testing, performance testing, penetration testing & security assessment, security code review, security code scans, and Section 508 testing in IRS environments. Systems integration testing and performance testing shall include testing with all interfaced systems. Provide testing and cybersecurity documentation to enable deployment solution to on prem or cloud environment.

12. Provide full operational production support once additional IOLA capabilities (applications, services, and/or components) are deployed to production for taxpayers use.

13. Leverage technology and capabilities to meet customer needs with timely and seamless access to the cloud-based infrastructure, business applications, and data.

This includes new feature offerings and new/innovative ways to provide value to agency customers, including, but not limited to, open sourcing components/libraries, and the extensive use and exposure of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

14. Provide support and services in compliance and alignment with FedRAMP standardized security assessment for the IEP Cloud, authorization, and continuous monitoring policies, as required by the scope of the project. Deliver a solution that fully addresses all non-functional requirements/ Reusable Program Level Requirement (RPLR), including but not limited to performance, mean-time-to-failure, quality standards including code quality, monitoring, alerting, tracing, and auditing.

3.1.1.1Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – Capabilities Vendor is responsible for delivering IOLA minimum viable product (MVP) capabilities listed in the tables below and coordinating with business and impacted application owners noted in dependencies to deliver integrated product capabilities by the target delivery dates.

The intent of this SOO is to obtain a fully functional and operational solution that implements IOLA capabilities. This includes a comprehensive solution which demonstrates a sufficient level of customer outreach to the individual taxpayers and internal IRS customers. The solutions shall also address external testing of user interfaces, solid understanding of IRS processes and environments and the new delivery model and enable the Agency to deliver enhanced customer experience through features such as advanced monitoring and issue resolution.

3.1.1.1 Mandatory CLINs - Capabilities to Implement in IOLA

Each IOLA capability in the table below is mandatory to be exercised by the Government.

Vendor shall provide pricing includes elaboration, integrated solution including automated interfaces with dependencies, and transition to O&M within two months of delivery.

IOLA Capability and Description

Target Delivery Date

Dependencies Comments

Authenticated Document Upload capability in IOLA:

This capability will allow taxpayers viewing their digital notices and using other planned features in future will be able to complete their user journey seamlessly and digitally.

Q4 FY25

(Jul 2025)

TDC/eGain

Email Opt-in/Out Redesign:

Enhancements to the design and experience for taxpayer's sign-up process to sign-up to receive email and scalable to add SMS test messaging sign-in in future

Q3 FY25

(June 2025)

None

IOLA Capability and Description

Target Delivery Date

Dependencies Comments

Information Return Documents in IOLA (Dynamic List of Forms):

capability will let taxpayers verify, download, and print their information returns with the IRS, which will lead to reducing errors and improving accurate tax filing. This will include adding a visual signal for taxpayers when a new or corrected information return is added to their account, showing the count of unviewed returns, and removing when there are no new or unverified returns to review.

Q4 FY25

(Sept 2025)

EAG, EDP, IRPS

Unpostables Identification in IOLA:

Identifies a transaction that failed the Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS) validity checks and therefore didn’t post; taxpayer may receive notification.

Q4 FY25

(Jul 2025)

ECLAS, IDRS

3.1.1.2 Optional CLINs - Capabilities to Implement in IOLA

Each capability in the table below is a separate option which may or may not be exercised by the Government. Vendor shall provide separate pricing for each capability. Pricing should include elaboration, integrated solution including automated interfaces with dependencies, and transition to O&M within two months of delivery.

IOLA Capability and Description

Number of Months to Deliver

Dependencies Comments

Make Credit/Debit Card and Digital Wallet Payments within IOLA:

For taxpayers who prefer to pay by credit/debit card, integrating card options into IOLA will allow taxpayers to submit payments using their credit or debit card within Individual Online Account.

9 Months (by Dec 2025) or sooner

BFS, EAG, TAMS, FSIG

This capacity may require COTS API integration.

The COTS API is not contracted by this task order

Mobile Phone SMS Alerts:

Provide taxpayers the ability to sign up and receive SMS text messages on their mobile phones for all email

4 months by Dec 2025 or sooner

EDA Framework

This capacity may require COTS API integration.

The COTS API is not contracted by this task order notification sign up options that are available in IOLA at that time (including new digital notice is available, new authorization from tax professional).

3.1.2 Minimum Viable Product (MVP) - Interface Applications for IOLA Capabilities Vendor is responsible for delivering the changes to the interface applications listed in the tables below necessary to complete IOLA MVP capabilities.

3.1.2.1 Mandatory CLIN - Interface Applications for IOLA Capabilities The vendor should deliver the changes to the interface applications necessary to complete the IOLA MVP capabilities. Vendor should provide pricing by applications by capabilities.

IOLA Capabilities Applications Target Delivery None None None

3.1.2.2 Optional CLIN – Interface Applications for IOLA Capabilities At the Government’s option the vendor should deliver the changes to applications and services IOLA integrates with to complete the required IOLA MVP capabilities. Vendor should provide pricing by applications by capabilities. Each application by capability is a separate option which may or may not be exercised by the Government.

IOLA Capabilities Applications Target Delivery Unpostables Identification in

IOLA

Common Services (ELCAS, FSIG, or CBS)

Jul 2025

Make Credit/Debit Card and Digital Wallet Payments within IOLA

Common Services (ELCAS, FSIG, or CBS)

Nov 2025

3.2 IOLA Program Management Support

The Contractor shall also provide Program Management for IOLA including program delivery and program product planning.

3.2.1 Program Delivery Management Support

The task area 3.2.1 is applicable for work to start from Nov 23, 2024 to Nov 22, 2025

This includes, but is not limited, to Risk Management, Change Management, creation and/or updates of various program documents such as Requirement Management Plan; Program or Project Charters; Test Plan; CLM; Organization Readiness; Communication Plan; Prepare Executive briefings and status reports; Host and facilitate daily stand-up calls and ad-hoc meetings.

The Contractor shall also:

1. Evaluate current processes and procedures and make recommendations for streamlining/eliminating processes, documentation, etc. Implement these after working with process owners to make the needed changes.

2. Conduct regular retrospectives on existing Delivery Model and make updates as appropriate to include but not limited to the following:

a. Requirement elaboration

b. Capabilities development

c. DevSecOps practices

d. Test plan and test case development and execution of various types (i.e., 508, security, performance, integration, regression) and environments (SAT, UAT, user acceptance, etc.)

e. Code promotion from lower environment (DEV and TEST environments) to upper environment (pre-Prod and Prod environments)

f. Continuous delivery/deployment of capabilities that are efficient and exhibit optimal “time to market” agility.

g. Initiation and coordination of development tasks/activities, upon obtainment of IRS approval for the IOLA solution.

3. Develop a release management plan that includes the roadmap and estimated timeline for phased implementation for near (12 months) and long term (two to five years).

The release management plan needs to be aligned to IRS Taxpayer Experience, Roadmap and Target Enterprise Architecture. The roadmap shall show the alignment to agile methodology which includes capabilities to releases, increments, and sprints.

4. Develop an initial Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) in Microsoft Project listing the tasks, start and end dates for the tasks, and task dependencies necessary to deliver all the capabilities identified in this SOO. Updates to the IMS are to be provided on a weekly basis.

5. Develop the Organizational Readiness Plan to delineate full Production Support activities and roles and responsibilities.

6. Develop a Knowledge Transfer Plan to include standard operating procedures, process flows, network, and architecture diagrams for the purpose of transferring knowledge and training to IRS employees.

7. Meet with stakeholders in elaboration sessions to develop recommendations and approaches, to be approved by the Government that satisfy the objectives and purposes of this Task Order. Results of these sessions shall generate the Product Road Map, Epics, and User Stories, business logic and rules, functionality, and system documentation.

8. Create and socialize technical documentation (e.g., solution architecture, engineering design, API specs, security plan) with appropriate stakeholders. Final version of technical documentations shall require IRS stakeholders’ approval.

9. Deliver artifacts necessary to comply with current IRS release management model

(i.e., OneSDLC) to gain Governance Board approval for major milestones exit (as required). The Contractor shall be aligned and partnered with different IT organizations’ processes to acquire approval for milestone exits.

10. At a minimum, conduct the following Agile ceremonies and briefings for IRS

Business and IT stakeholders:

a. Release Status Meeting on a bi-weekly basis for IT stakeholders to provide the status of development efforts, dependencies, challenges, and risks associated with each capability under development.

b. End of Sprint Demo at the end of each sprint to demonstrate to all stakeholders the features and capabilities completed during the sprint.

c. Executive Demo to demonstrate all the front-end features and capabilities of a release to obtain IRS approval prior to the deployment of the release to the IRS pre-prod environment for full testing.

d. Technical Go/No Go to review results of testing and obtain IRS governance approval to deploy a release to the IRS Production environment using DevOps process.

e. Deployment Site Readiness Test (DSRT) conducted within 24 hours of the deployment to Production to verify with Business and IT stakeholders that all deployed capabilities are functioning as expected.

f. Transition to Operations & Maintenance (O&M) to review O&M Transition Checklist with Applications Development (AD) and Web Apps IOLA PMO technical leads and management to ensure all transition activities are completed within 2 months of deployment and release is ready for transition to AD for O&M.

g. Executive Oversight Team (EOT) briefing monthly to provide all Business and IT stakeholders an overview for each capability under development specifically focusing on the accomplishments in the previous 30 days, work to be completed in the next 30 - 60 days, and future plans for beyond 60 days.

11. Create and update epics, user stories, work items, and management dashboards and reports in Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) tools detailing technical performance of Agile teams. Ensure business sign off on all user stories upon completion.

12. Deliver artifacts (gap logs and workbooks) necessary to comply with IRS Enterprise

Organizational Readiness program requirements.

3.2.2 Program Product Planning Management Support

The program product planning management support is covered by current IOLA IRA Delivery task order up to 07/31/2025 and IOLA PMO will need contractor support to start transition 2 weeks before 7/31/2025 to continue the support thru the end of performance period of this statement of objectives.

The contractors should support product planning/re-planning cycle with IT and Business partners at minimum twice a year to deliver program plan for next 1- 3 years including prioritization, scope, rough estimation of size and duration, schedule incorporating dependencies and integration of applications, technical considerations, and acceptance criteria for program backlogs in support of WebApps IOLA PMO decision making process. Government program management office will be responsible for collecting interface cost estimates independently.

• Maintain IOLA program backlog and finalize priorities with business owners.

• Conduct kick-off meeting, conduct product planning meeting, conduct UWR Pre-coordination meetings, deliver high-level solution options, and drive the completion of product planning ready for IOLA PMO decision timely to meet the deadline

• Deliver Lean Business Cases (LBCs) with IT and Business Partners with status ready for VROM by capability by interface.

• Deliver finalized LBCs for scope baseline.

• Deliver briefing and report as well as utilizing SharePoint for tracking and communication to maintain associated documentation and demonstrate progress toward completion by deadline.

• Deliver delivery plan, dependencies, and timeline for approval.

• Deliver decision material in support of Governance Board and SD ESC meetings for approval.

• Conduct replanning as directed by IOLA PMO

3.3 Knowledge Transition and Onboarding Process

The objective of this task area is a designated period from 09/23/2024 to 11/22/2025 for onboarding process and knowledge transition as IRS experience backlog of IRS laptop orders for new contractors. Vendor will be required to deliver plan of knowledge transition and onboarding and execute thru October 22, 2024. The onboarding process consist of getting resources their MBIs, IRS laptop and set up to have accessibility to IRS environments and systems.

4. Objectives The IOLA objectives are delineated in the subsections below.

4.1 Business Objectives

• Fulfill directives and objectives outlined in the Taxpayer First Act, Taxpayer Experience

Strategy, IT Modernization Plan, and NTA 2020 Report.

• Serve as an IRS-hosted application that can be scalable to include additional value-added, taxpayer products and features in the future.

• Support cloud execution that will result in improved “time to market” agility, increase operational efficiency and resilience, increased innovation, and enhanced or maintained security posture by migrating workloads to cloud platforms and services.

• Increase overall online interactions with the IRS and reduce paper and phone volumes.

• Accelerate maturity of IRS Taxpayer Experience Platform by driving continued modernization of Web Apps IOLA services.

4.2 Program Management Objectives

• The Contractor will have the maximum flexibility to innovatively manage program cost, schedule, performance, risks, warranties, contracts and subcontracts, Contractors, and data required to deliver effective inventory services.

• Maintain clear government visibility into program cost, schedule, technical performance, and risk, including periodic reporting.

• Cultivate a positive, trusting, and cooperative working relationship with the Government and other Contractors that support IRS.

• Foster collaboration with workgroups, and stakeholders in requirements sessions in order to develop recommendations and approaches, to be approved by the Government that satisfy the objectives and purposes of this Task Order.

• Support Release Management by moving the IOLA program through the full development lifecycle with the oversight from IRS.

4.3 Technical Objectives

• The Digital Services (Web Apps) Individual Online Account PMO is highly interested in Agile or other similar rapid development concept thought leadership, innovative development methodologies, and proven delivery track records. Contractors must ensure that personnel quoted have enough knowledge, skills, and experience identified to accomplish designated tasks in the below Task Areas. Vendors should meet the following high level skill requirements:

• 7+ Years Previous Experience with Authenticated Portals

• 7+ Years of Experience with IRS Architecture, Portals, and Processes associated with

Digital Service and Common Service Platform with Taxpayers

• Demonstrated ability to rapidly staff teams in order to deliver capabilities per delivery plan.

• Be able to develop 5 or more capabilities from different value streams simultaneously.

• Vendor/Technical Leadership must have a minimum of at least five years Agile

Development Experience

• Demonstrate multi-year (3 plus) Cloud and microservice architecture, design, implementation and deployment experience with different cloud providers. Cloud certifications would be a plus.

• Provide technical advisory services as necessary to fully elaborate, develop and deliver services for IOLA.

• Provide application elaboration, development and deployment services that account for the systems lifecycle, ranging from elaboration, development, testing, and deployment into production. Provide services that include operating and maintaining new/modified capabilities/services/components post-deployment.

• Leverage technology capabilities to meet customer needs with timely and seamless access to the cloud-based infrastructure, business applications, and data.

• Vendor to act as the technical integrator to ensure integration points follow taxpayer experience platform standards.

• Code delivered has substantial test coverage including unit, integration, performance, Section 508, security, and Privacy, Government Liaison and Disclosure (PGLD).

Tests are automated to the extent practical with a goal of at least 90% of tests being fully automated.

• Industry accepted standards for the specific languages used are used with automated code style and formatting used where appropriate, e.g., VSCode, Eclipse, GITHook.

Code delivered with 0 linting errors and 0 warnings.

• Applications are fully compliant with IRS Online Design Guide, Federal and IRS Section 508 Policy, requirements, and standards. Zero errors reported using automated scanning and zero errors reported through any manual testing.

• A highly automated Continuous Integration and Continuous Deliver (CICD) pipeline that deploys the same set of application components to all lower and upper environments, including production.

• All dependencies, including licenses, are documented. Major functionality in the software/source code is documented. Individual methods are documented inline in a format that permit the use of tools such as JavaDoc, JSDoc. System diagrams are provided to clarify key design aspects. Utilize proven practice such as documentation as code, e.g., JavaDoc, JSDoc, PlantUML, MermaidJS, etc.

• Where practical, APIs are documented using OpenAPI and/or other similar industry standard documentation approach. APIs include sufficient documentation and tools

(e.g., sample code) to allow developers to rapidly understand and integrate with services via the published APIs.

• Compliance with all applicable Federal and IRS security standards and policies, e.g., OWASP Application Security Verification Standard 3.0. Code submitted is free of all static and dynamic security vulnerabilities. Conduct clean tests from a static testing SaaS (such as Snyk or npm audit), OWASP ZAP, AppScan, NexusIQ, current IRS scanning tools, etc., and along with documentation explaining any false positives.

• Support the performance, documentation, and management of Privacy & Civil

Liberties Impact Assessments (PCLIAs) consistent with IRS requirements.

• Usability testing and other user research methods are conducted at regular intervals throughout the development process (not just at the beginning or end).

• Systems, applications, and components are architected and designed in a manner consistent with industry proven patterns and that are highly reusable.

• Systems, applications, and components are integrated with IRS approved systems and processes for production monitoring, auditing, alerting, and reporting as appropriate to allow IRS IT to achieve high availability and low mean time to repair once it assumes operations and maintenance responsibility.

• Vendor Production Support is efficiently integrated with the IRS Production Support and Operations and Maintenance teams so that any incidents are rapidly identified, communicated, and resolved and proactive maintenance is likewise performed in an efficient and comprehensive manner with no unintended gaps or inefficiencies.

• Existing services and code are reused to the maximum extent practical, where doing so doesn’t negatively impact stated objectives.

• Implementation of an “inner-source” and where applicable open-source model that allows a high degree of developer collaboration and code sharing. This is critical as the full scope of IRS modernization and digital acceleration requires multiple teams of IRS/vendor developers to efficiently use/modify the same applications/services/components at the same time.

• Design clearly identifies and promotes service, library, and code-level re-use.

• Existing services and code are reused where practical or the architecture and design proposed explicitly address the reason for not doing so.

• At least 25% of new services and associated code are designed and made available as reusable services/components/libraries by other teams/projects.

• Transition materials should include developer documentation and tools necessary for new developers like Getting Started, Process, Standards, Playbooks, Onboarding, Permissions Setup, Tools and Licenses Required, Sample Code, CICD pipeline process, Simulators, and setup, etc.

• Transition materials including documentation of all testing (unit, integration, performance, Section 508, security, and PGLD) like test plans, test cases, test results, etc.

• Transition materials should include knowledge articles and a history of production incidents (with root cause and resolution detail) as appropriate to assist systems administrators, production support specialists and developers with operating and maintaining capabilities/services/components transitioned to the government (or it’s designated support vendor) for operations and maintenance.

• Knowledge tools including documentation for systems administrators, production support specialists and developers should be organized logically and use a collaborative format such as Wiki, OneNote, ReadMe files, etc.

• All code developed by the vendor will transition to government ownership upon delivery of the code to the IRS.

• Vendor will conduct an End of Sprint Demo at the end of each 2-week sprint to demonstrate to all stakeholders the features and capabilities completed during the sprint. Vendor will coordinate an Executive Demo to demonstrate all the features and capabilities of a release to obtain IRS approval at least two weeks prior to the deployment of the release to the IRS pre-prod environment for full testing.

• Vendor must demonstrate adherence to QASP for all deliverables

4.4 Measurement Objectives

• Utilize relevant tools and analysis techniques for analyzing, evaluating, and presenting information gathered throughout the IOLA lifecycle phases. Describe approach and examples of relevant tools and analysis techniques for IOLA development and delivery.

• Provide meaningful reporting and analytics that provide IRS with up-to-date and comprehensive information regarding technical and management performance.

• Contractor to track and monitor defects throughout the lifecycle of IOLA (development phases to O&M support). At any time, IRS can access and generate reports with real-time status that include defects priority (P1, P2, P3, etc.), age of defects, status of defects (i.e., open, assigned to, closed), etc.

5. Constraints and Assumptions Relevant constraints and assumptions are listed below:

• The Contractor has the option to develop and test codes at their external secured lower (DEV and TEST) environments that are approved by IRS. The Contractor’s external environments will be used at no additional charge to the government.

• Product vision, target-state architecture/design, and cybersecurity standards/expectations will be provided by IRS and specific business/technical requirements shall be elicited by the contractor.

• IRS and contractor will define clear integration boundaries and responsibilities between systems and Contractors; full integration test shall occur in prod-like environment prior to deployment.

• Contractor personnel shall create and socialize technical documentation (e.g., solution architecture, engineering design, API specs, security plan) with appropriate stakeholders.

Final versions of technical documentations shall require IRS stakeholders’ approval.

• IRS Product Owner will provide approval of UX designs and requirement; OLS is the Business Partner responsible for providing guidance, taxpayers inputs from market research, perform useability test, etc.

• Per The Taxpayer Experience Strategy (TXS), support 9.6.1.2 Objective: Understand Taxpayers Needs o Capability Group: Reach Underserved Segments o Follow Enterprise Multilingual Application Standards (EMAS) for guidance on supporting the UX designs and requirements o IRM 2.5.3, Systems Development – Programming and Source Code Standards

(irs.gov)

• Contractor shall coordinate user acceptance and useability tests as needed with the

Product Owner and Business partners on UX designs and functional behavior

• Contractor shall provide stakeholders with access to backlog management application

6. Performance Requirements, Standards, Surveillance, and Incentives This section describes the desired outcomes, performance requirements, standards, surveillance methods, and incentives. The tables below reflect the guidance and methods for determining metrics and Acceptable Quality Levels.

All deliverables, documents, and services shall satisfy IOLA requirements, and comply with IRS CMMI standards, IRS standards and guidelines, and integrate with IRS, security requirements (including FISMA, NIST SP800-XX, IRS Pub 4812 - Vendor Security Controls, Audit Login security standards), and Section 508.

6.1 Deliverables

All deliverables considered “Unacceptable” and not in accordance with the elements of Documentation Quality as stated below will be returned to the contractor for rework, correction, and updates. The Contractor shall re-submit the deliverables to the Government within (5) five business days at No Additional Charge to the Government.

Deliverable 1: Orientation Briefing Desired Outcomes: Introduction of key task order participants (Program Office, Procurement, and Contractor Personnel), explain roles, review communication ground rules, and assure common understanding of task order requirements and objectives.

Required Services: Conduct an orientation briefing for the Government. The intent of the briefing is to initiate the communication process between the Government and contractor by introducing key task order participants, explaining their roles, reviewing communication ground rules, and assuring a common understanding of task order requirements and objectives.

Performance Standard Acceptable Quality

Level (AQL) Monitoring Method

Prepare and present an orientation briefing that encompasses all aspects of the PWS requirements and the Contractor’s organization.

(e.g., slides/notes to be presented at the briefing)

Within 10 business days of task order award, the Contractor shall conduct an Orientation Briefing.

The briefing will be provided to the COR 3 business days prior to the scheduled Orientation Briefing

The Government Program Manager and the COR shall attend the briefing on a mutually agreed upon date and document validation of attendees.

Meeting minutes will be evaluated against the items discussed during the meeting to ensure all action items are identified, due dates are recorded, and responsible parties are aware of the due dates.

Prepare a Personnel Roster of all Contractor resources that will be working on the task order

The Contractor shall provide a listing of all personnel that will be working on the task order, which will include the individual’s name, labor category, telephone number, email address, and location.

Prepare Meeting Minutes after the completion of the Orientation Briefing

The Contractor shall deliver the meeting minutes and “Sign-In” sheet to the COR within 2 business days after completion of the Orientation Briefing.

Deliverables and Work Products received according to schedule 100% of the time with no errors.

Deliverables and Work Product Submission Deliverables and Work Products received according to schedule errors.

Deliverable 2: Knowledge Transfer Plan Desired Outcomes: The contractor provides a Knowledge Transfer Plan that is accepted by the Government and successfully completes knowledge transfer in accordance with the plan.

Required Services: The Contractor shall develop a draft Knowledge Transfer Plan (KTP) and present it to the Government within the first 15 business days after award. The KTP shall identify the Contractor resources and roles involved in the transfer process, provide a list of risks and mitigation strategies for the transfer, and contain a detailed resource balanced project schedule developed with Microsoft Project. The project schedule shall identify tasks, dependencies, deliverables, and milestones. The project schedule shall be at a sufficient level of detail to track progress on a bi-weekly basis, (i.e., all tasks will be detailed to a level such that no task has duration of more than ten (10) workdays).

Performance Standard Acceptable Quality

Level (AQL) Monitoring Method

Knowledge Transfer Plan Deliver draft Knowledge Transfer Plan (KTP) within 15 days after award

Deliver final KTP within 60 days after award

Executes knowledge transfer in accordance with the KTP on agreed upon dates

The Government will inspect all deliverables and work products to minimize the effects of any misunderstandings to determine if the Contractor has provided the necessary information to meet this requirement.

Deliverable and Work Product Submission Deliverables and Work Products are received 100% of the time with no errors and documentations are in final version that have been reviewed and approved by IRS.

Each deliverable and work product shall be accompanied by a Contractor Task Deliverable/Work Product Receipt (TDR) and Task Deliverable/Work Product Acceptance Form (TDPAF).

Upon receipt of the TDPAF, the COR will sign the TDR and return it to the Contractor certifying that the IRS has taken possession of the work product or deliverable and will review it for deficiencies.

Any work product or deliverable will be reviewed by the Government within 10 business days of receipt of the TDPAF.

Deliverable 3: Product capability and feature (functioning code and associated artifacts)

Desired Outcomes: The contractor delivers functioning code and associated artifacts for each product capability and feature developed and delivered to the IRS per the Release Management Plan/Roadmap.

Required Services: Contractor to provide functioning code and associated artifacts for each product capability and feature per the Release Management Plan/Roadmap. The associated artifacts shall include business requirements, business rules, user stories, git repositories, process and technical documentation, code demos and reviews, test cases and reports, etc.

Performance Standard Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) Monitoring Method

Code Demos & Reviews Bi-weekly between IRS IT and vendor senior technical resources. Vendor can assume IRS IT will review the source code prior to this meeting. Meeting will allow for detailed technical discussions. Meeting time will be sufficient to raise concerns and discuss any findings by IRS AD. Meeting will be collaborative. Vendor will track all concerns and action items identified during the reviews, resolve those assigned to the vendor, coordinate, and periodically report on the status of each action item through resolution (regardless of stakeholder assignment).

The Government will inspect all deliverables and work products to minimize the effects of any misunderstandings to determine if the Contractor has provided the necessary information to meet this requirement.

Each deliverable and work product shall be accompanied by a Contractor Task Deliverable/Work Product Receipt (TDR) and Task Deliverable/Work Product Acceptance Form (TDPAF).

Upon receipt of the TDPAF, the COR will sign the TDR and return it to the Contractor certifying that the IRS has taken possession of the work product or deliverable and will review it for deficiencies.

Source code access Vendor will grant IRS IT access to all branches of all source code in a git-based source code repository (within 24 hours of commit). Includes application code, application configuration, DevSecOps configuration and scripts, automated test scripts, simulators, stubs, documentation as code, infrastructure as code, networking as code, policy as code, configuration as code, security as code. Commit date and committer's name will be accurate. Source code repository and associated processes and CICD pipeline should efficiently enable collaboration with other development teams on shared services/components/libraries.

Open technical communication Vendor will provide offline communication channels to allow free flow of discussion between IRS IT technical leads and vendor senior technical leads. Purpose is to discuss architecture, design, code, testing, and performance. Vendor is expected to respond within 24 hours.

Any work product or deliverable will be reviewed by the Government within 10 business days of receipt of the TDPAF.

Technical Documentation as code Vendor will develop documentation as code, including system diagrams, architecture diagrams, sequence diagrams, written technical design, Getting Started guides, Process guides, Standards, Playbooks, Onboarding materials, Permissions Setup, Tools Required, CICD pipeline process, Simulators, developer environment setup, and other documentation. Documentation will follow patterns set by IRS IT. Utilize standard tools, such as Wikis, README, asciitext, markdown, JavaDocs, JSDoc, OpenAPI/Swagger, PlantUML, etc. Documentation as code will co-reside with the source code.

All dependencies are documented, including licenses.. Major functionality in the software/source code is documented. Individual methods are documented inline in a format that permit the use of tools such as JavaDoc, JSDoc.

Alignment with IRS technical guardrails Vendor will ensure deliverables align with IRS architecture and code guardrails, including Enterprise Application Roadmap (EAR), Taxpayer Experience Platform as a Service (TXP PaaS), source code style and formatting and documentation patterns.

Applications/services/components delivered into production are integrated with IRS approved enterprise tools for monitoring and alerting. Vendor engaged with IRS operations and maintenance stakeholders to validate integration and create necessary monitoring/alerting rules that enable efficient operations, high availability, and low mean time to repair.

Industry accepted standards for the specific languages used are used with automated code style and formatting used where appropriate, e.g., VSCode, Eclipse, GITHook. Code delivered with 0 linting errors and 0 warnings.

Code delivered has substantial test coverage including unit, PGLD, integration, performance, Section 508, and security testing. Tests are automated to the extent practical with a goal of at least 90% of tests being fully automated.

Applications are fully compliant with IRS Online Design Guide (ODG), Federal and IRS Section 508 Policy, requirements, and standards. Zero errors reported using automated scanning and zero errors reported through any manual testing.

Systems, applications, and components are architected and designed in a manner consistent with industry proven patterns and that are highly reusable.

Alignment with IRS Security guardrails…