TA RFI 030321 Master.pdf

Request for Information:

USDA-NFC Time and Attendance Solution

March 9, 2021

I. Request for Information

II. Background

III. Current State ........................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

IV. Scope

V. Assumptions Associated with this RFI

VI. Prospective Vendors Business Information

VII. Instructions to Prospective Vendors

APPENDIX A

I. Request for Information

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Office of the Chief Financial Officer, National Finance Center (NFC) seeks input on establishing Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPA) with one or more vendors to provide time and attendance services Federal Government entities.

This is a Request for Information (RFI) issued solely for information and planning purposes. It does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP). USDA intends to assess the responses to the RFI and may then issue an RFP. Respondents are advised that the United States Government will not pay for any information or administrative cost incurred in response to this RFI. All costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the responding party’s expense.

II. Background

The National Finance Center (NFC) is a certified Human Resources Line of Business (HR LOB) Shared Service Center located within the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO). As a premier shared service provider in Federal Government, NFC designs, develops, implements, and operates financial, payroll, personnel management information systems and services that are aligned to the mission of USDA and other Federal Departments and Agencies. NFC has provided Federal Human Resources (HR) services for more than 35 years to over 170 Federal Government Agencies and quasi-Federal departments, agencies, boards, and commissions from all three branches of Government. NFC’s timekeeping and payroll systems/services currently disburse payroll for over 630,000 employees on a biweekly basis. We look to expand our existing portfolio by adding innovative time and attendance software solutions that allow us to easily support customers ranging in size from a small number to over 100,000 employees.

III. Current State

NFC is seeking a Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) Time and Attendance system that will enhance our ability to introduce new cost-effective and configurable offering to customers. NFC’s services and/or applications have many offerings including but not limited to:

1. Functions and Capabilities:

a. FedRAMP Approved Application Hosting (if off premise)

b. Disaster Recovery

c. Web-based accessibility

d. Automated Processing Interface (API)

e. Role based Security

f. Authentication options

g. Electronic workflow for Timesheets and Pay and Leave Administration

h. Event driven Email notifications

i. Flexible Accounting Structure and ability to match employee’s time to

Agency programs/projects.

j. Labor distribution capabilities

2. Support and Services:

a. User Group Support

b. Training Support

c. 24/7 availability

IV. Scope

The NFC is issuing this RFI to obtain information and market availability pertaining to technical characteristics, flexibilities, cost, and functionality of Information Technology (IT) tools, applications, or products capable of satisfying the Time and Attendance capabilities as described within.

V. Assumptions Associated with this RFI

• NFC may partner and collaborate with one or more vendors on satisfying its Time and Attendance requirements.

• Vendors must be flexible with pricing in order to allow NFC to successfully compete in the federal marketplace.

• NFC is in search of offerings that are fluid, adaptable and can be integrated into our existing framework.

VI. Instructions to Prospective Vendors

The Government intends to review both a written vendor response and conduct oral conferences (including vendor demonstrations) with prospective vendors as part of pre-solicitation market analysis. Both the vendors written response and their oral comments during the pre-solicitation market analysis will be used to assist the Government in preparation of more well-defined requirements should the Government move forward with a full Request for Proposal (RFP) at a later time. All information obtained through both the vendors written response to this Sources Sought and oral communications shall be deemed non-proprietary, unless specifically marked and stated in the documents. The vendor response shall leave no ambiguity as to confidentiality of the information provided.

Phase I – Written Response

A written response will be provided according to the following format. The following is established as the specific information required for any proposal submitted. Each offeror must submit one complete electronic original (all volumes) in PDF format. Any Pricing or Cost data is to be provided in MS Excel version 2016 or Adobe PDF as described below in formatting. The Government requests that all prospective vendors provide pricing information per the section c.

below. The pricing information will be listed in a separate volume then the technical response. Thus, technical response should be listed at Volume I, and Pricing Data Volume II. Prospective vendors are encouraged to provide as much pricing data as possible with their initial submission. If more information is required of the government for this, please submit your questions as soon as possible and not just prior to the date due. All proposals shall be emailed to Frank Hodo at the following email address, Frank.Hodo@USDA.Gov by the stated closing time listed below.

Proposals shall be neat, indexed and assembled in an orderly manner. Offerors must mirror the requirements document as much as possible, so a stated fact or reference may be directly attributed to a requirement. This does not mean your response should regurgitate the wording or phraseology used in the PWS.

Elaborate artwork, expensive paper/binding, and expensive visual and other presentation aids are neither necessary nor desired.

Page Limits Table 8 - Page Limits

Item Page Limit Notes Cover Letter/Transmittal/Table of Contents

Technical/Project Approach 25 The prospective vendor shall concisely identify their product/application, their approach to implementation, hosting options, whether license or subscription model, and or any other aspect of their service they expect to utilize related to this initiative. They should be able to describe their overall methodology for moving NFC mailto:Frank.Hodo@USDA.Gove forward in their time and attendance needs.

Additionally, the offeror should be able to describe typical implementation time frames for their federal clients based on size and complexity of each client.

Pricing Narrative 5 The prospective vendors pricing narrative should be used to expound on the expected pricing range for various federal customer implementations based on size and complexity. Again, the government understands every client is different, but we need a range to begin basing our market research estimates on. This pricing should include any additions or subtractions in cost related on premise use by the Government or vendor hosting.

These documents may be a combination of MS Excel and Adobe PDF.

Pricing Workbook 10 pages if PDF or No more than 3 separate excel workbooks (unlimited sheets within workbooks)

The government shall leave the pricing workbook to vendor discretion.

Formatting

Table 9 - Formatting Requirements

Element Requirement Page size 8.5 by 11 inches Margins 1 Inch Paragraph Single Space Minimum Font 10-point Times New Roman font for Text, 9-point font in the Arial family for Tables, and 8-point font in the Arial family for Graphics

Tables and Graphics May be landscape All other Text Portrait File Format The contractor should submit two copies of each file

– one that is a PDF to serve as a master submission, and copies that are editable softcopy using the MS Office Word and Excel 2016 or later according to volume.

Transmittal and Cover Letter

The offeror’s transmittal and cover letter for the quote must contain the name, phone number and email address of the person to be contacted concerning any matter related to the Sources Sought. The following are to be included:

• DUNS number

• Company name and mailing address

• Company contact for questions concerning the offerors response

• List of any associated FSS or GWACs that vendor is on including GSA STARS

II, NITAAC CIO-SP3 or CIO-SP4 (SP4 is coming soon…), etc…

• Date Submitted

Volume I – Prospective Vendors Technical Response

Interested and capable businesses should submit a copy of their company capability statement and a written response to the RFI per the instructions and content below. The submission shall include the following:

a. Company Overview:

i. A description of your company

ii. Business size and size standard/applicable North American

Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes.

iii. Dun & Bradstreet (DUNS) number

iv. Website address

v. Years in business, key personnel, annual company revenue from time and attendance services, as a value and as a percentage of total revenue.

vi. Applicable certifications and authorizations, such as Federal Information Security Management ACT (FISMA) compliance and Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorization for cloud service providers.

vii. Core product of your business.

viii. Commercial and government markets for which your company provides time and attendance services.

ix. Names of current or recent time and attendance Federal customers and a brief description of those engagements and your ability to meet or exceed customer’s requirements. Responses should include past performance references of similar size, complexity, and scope. Information should be pertinent and specific.

x. Federal government contract vehicles, if any, under which time and attendance services can be acquired.

b. Company Capabilities

Describe the services and/or product solution(s) provided by your company. The responses shall include an overall description of the proposed services and/or solution(s) and provide technical data and a demonstrated ability for those areas identified. Provide a brief overview of your products with a summary of the functionality. Indicate if the product was developed by your company or purchased. Describe the following:

i. System architecture to include hardware, middleware, and software requirements.

ii. Number of years the system has been in production and expected product life?

iii. Describe hosting capabilities related to time and attendance system

1. On premise

2. Cloud options

iv. Describe options available to potential customers:

1. Product demonstration

2. Allow NFC staff to conduct a comprehensive digital evaluation of your product.

3. Flexibility of core product to securely host multiple clients within the same environment while ensuring the privacy and security of each individual client.

Volume II – Prospective Vendors Pricing Response

a. Pricing

Describe your standard GWAC or FSS Schedule Pricing per the descriptions listed below:

i. Describe Professional Service rates including but not limited to:

1. Hosting – on premise and cloud based

2. Implementation of new customers into solution

3. Installation support

ii. Licensing Options

Phase II – Oral Pre-Solicitation Conferences (including Product Demo’s)

The Government intends to use Oral Pre-Solicitation Conferences to better understand the overall approach the prospective vendor would have for implementing their solution, migrating NFC including any training strategy for system administrators, users, vendor testing strategy prior to implementation and the ability to receive transmissions from NFC’s database via daily and biweekly files.

It is expected that each vendor will have a different tool to approach this task. The Government intends to allow the Offeror to provide the means of communication it would like to utilize for their Oral Pre-Solicitation Conference (i.e. Zoom, MS Teams, Conference Call, etc..). Each Conference will be limited to no more than 2 hours initially, with follow up meetings scheduled accordingly.

The Government intends to use all information gathered during Phases I and II of this RFI to adopt a clear strategy and methodology by which to develop more specific requirements for a full solicitation in the future. The following questions should be answered either in the vendors written response or during the Oral Pre-Solicitation Conferences with the Government.

• System flexibility to allow the NFC, as a Shared Service Center, to configure the system to meet multiple customer needs without customization.

• Technical benefits of proposed services and/or product solution(s) in terms of:

o Existing technologies or resources o Improvements/enhancements

• Other support capabilities that provide service and/or product excellence or uniqueness

• Corporate approach for transitioning a new customer into your offered services.

o High Level software lifecycle management processes o Agile vs. waterfall o Standardized release schedules, upgrades, and version control o Timeliness of defect resolution o Incorporation of mandated/legislative requirements o Policy on adapting solution to meet customer unique enhancements o Single Line of Code with customer flexibilities or unique line of code for each customer o Communication Plan for scheduled releases o Prioritization and governance process for requesting software changes and/or new functionality o Testing plans and communicating results to customers

RFI Submittals

All Responses will be delivered via electronic mail to the designated address within this RFI. All responses must be submitted prior to the closing date and time as stated within this RFI. USDA will not accept responses received by email after the closing date and time as specified in this RFI. Any vendor providing estimated pricing or cost data should provide this in a separate volume as to the vendor’s written response. All pricing and cost data shall be considered proprietary and confidential whether stated or not by the vendor.

All final submissions are to be received electronically via email to Frank.Hodo@USDA.Gov by 5:00pm EST on April 8, 2021. The Government will be accepting questions related to this RFI and they are due no later than 3:00pm EST on March 18, 2021.

The Government plans to schedule Pre-Solicitation Conferences with prospective offerors beginning the 2nd week in April. In order to qualify for Pre-Solicitation Conference, the vendor must provide an initial written response as described above.

Based on the feedback received from Vendors, NFC will decide as to proceeding with an RFP. If there are any questions or concerns that require clarification, they must be addressed to the Contracting Office in writing, via email. Please reference the RFI Title and Number on all correspondence. Interested parties SHALL NOT contact USDA technical personnel about this RFI.

The deadline for submission of vendor information is no later than April 8, 2021 at 5:00 P.M Eastern Time:

U.S. Department of Agriculture Departmental Administration OCP/Procurement Operations Division Attn: Frank Hodo Contract Specialist/Contracting Officer Phone: 202-720-2538 Email: frank.hodo@usda.gov

Subject: USDA-NFC, RFI Time & Attendance Solution mailto:Frank.Hodo@USDA.Gov

APPENDIX A

Application Requirements

As a Shared Services Provider, the NFC has critical requirements on system availability, response time, ease of use and ever-increasing mobility. The following information defines some specific requirements for NFC hosted time and attendance solutions.

1. System Requirements

a. Web-based application

b. Compatible with multiple browsers

c. Multi-tenant capabilities

d. World class reputation, enterprise level, fail safe

e. .net application compatibility

f. Windows and Linux O/S compatibility

g. Capable of running in the cloud

h. Ability to run on a virtual server

i. Sustains performance levels documented by load testing

j. Ability to integrate with NFC’s systems.

k. Includes an Automated Processing Interface (API) to interact with software intermediaries.

2. Functional Requirements

At a minimum, the system must:

a. Comply with all OPM regulations and meet Federal Pay and Leave

Administration guidelines (i.e. leave programs, work schedules, etc.)

b. Electronically transmit time and attendance files to the National Finance Center’s payroll/personnel system.

c. Receive daily and biweekly files to create and/or update user records.

d. Contain a single sign on solution.

e. Contain multi-factor authentication or interface with other authentication solutions.

f. Comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

– the vendor must provide a current Section 508 Product Assessment Template

g. Contain user roles (Employee, Timekeeper, Supervisor, etc.) and allow the administration of roles with appropriate separation of duty.

h. Include the ability to email users based on particular triggers (i.e.

when leave requests are submitted/approved/denied, timecards are validated/certified/denied, etc.).

i. Include audit trails of all configuration changes made to the application.

j. Display starting, used, and ending balances of each leave category and update them bi-weekly.

k. Include the ability to manually create employee records.

l. Allow for the completion of timesheets to include selecting transaction codes and accounting codes.

m. Include the ability to enter time, leave and premium pay requests in

15-minute intervals.

n. Track and timestamp all steps in the approval/disapproval leave and premium pay processes.

o. Display appropriate warnings and/or errors (please provide a list of those in your current product).

p. Electronically validate and/or unvalidate timesheets and certify and/or decertify the timesheet.

q. Include search capabilities to include but are not limited to: by name, organization, SSN, transaction code, accounting code, etc.

r. Allow the addition and/or removal transaction codes and accounting codes from dropdown lists.

s. Include the ability to print documents.

t. Store timesheets for a minimum of 26 pay periods on a rolling basis.

u. Include On-Line help

v. Include the ability to:

i. create and submit corrected timecards.

ii. create leave audits.

iii. search active and inactive employee records.

iv. override timesheets with errors.

v. assign delegates.

w. Include reporting capabilities.

3. Security Requirements

a. Meets all Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements.

b. Meets National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800- 53, NIST 800-37 and other NIST guidance and USDA Security requirements.

c. Vendor’s cybersecurity policy, which shall be consistent with NIST SP (Special Publications) 800-39.

d. Encryption of data in all states except for user viewing, including encryption of data at rest, data in transport, and encryption of data in memory.

e. If providing hosting serves, Vendor will develop and maintain security documentation in support of achieving an Authority to Operate (ATO) in concurrence with NIST standards risk management framework, be FedRAMP certified and Inventory and vulnerability scanning tools must comply with the NIST Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP).Meets Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) rule requiring federal contractors to use E- Verify to electronically verify the employment eligibility of employees working under covered federal contracts.

f. Contains multiple user roles to ensure separation of duties when configuring and maintaining the application.

g. The Contractor shall ensure that USDA data is not stored on, or transferred, at any point outside the United States of America or its territories.

h. Meets the minimum-security requirements for federal information systems with a moderate security classification (impact level), in accordance with Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 200.

i. Contains the ability to track and log security-related configuration changes.