PHA APP DEV. Platform

The USGS Cooperative Research Units Program (CRU) requires a reliable, secure, and highly customizable, web-based data collection and reporting system that allows us to collect data ranging from routine activities related to scientific productivity (publications, presentations, invited seminars, etc.) and to subsequently build customized reports to collate and summarize data to meet the diversity of needs at all levels of our organization. USGS intends to renew service with vendor Watermark to maintain the customized web-based data collection and reporting capabilities that have been realized under Watermark Faculty Success System.

Period of Performance will be a 12-Month Base Period plus Four 12-Month Option Periods.

Watermark is to be awarded this action on a sole source basis under the authority of authority FAR Part 13.106-1. Vendors are invited to contact the Contract Specialist, Miranda Blankenship via email at mblankenship@usgs.gov no later than 1:00PM EST, Friday, July 26, 2024, with any questions or comments.

Sole Source Justification States the Following:

The Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey (USGS), National Acquisition Branch, plans to contract by means other than full and open competition. This document sets forth the justification and approval for use of one of the exceptions to full and open competition allowed under the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) of 1984.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Cooperative Research Units (CRU) requires continued implementation of Watermark¿s Insights, LLC., (Watermark) Faculty Success instrument which is a web-based platform for tracking and reporting on the productivity and accomplishments of Government projects. Faculty Success allows for extensive customization of data entry screens and fields, data retrieval, and report formats. This application was initially adopted by the USGS Cooperative Research Unit Program (CRU) in 2008 and has been highly customized over the past 16 years to facilitate collection of data and subsequently meet numerous internal and external reporting requirements for our program and our staff. A significant CRU customization of this platform was the development of the Personal Hazard Analysis which was adopted by the Occupational Safety and Health Management Branch (OSHMB) of the Office of Management Services. As such, for the past five years, the USGS Occupational Safety and Health Management Branch (OSHMB) contracted with Watermark to support the customized PHA feature that was implemented for the entire bureau. The CRU program seeks to renew the contract with Watermark to continue the use of the Faculty Success Instrument. The duration of the contract will be five years (one base year with
four option years).

Watermark provides a web-based database storage platform, Faculty Success, to achieve desired functionality in terms of customized data entry screens and fields and dynamic report generation of both turn-key and ad-hoc, user defined reports. The application provides fully customizable and scalable capabilities adaptable to meeting the tracking and reporting needs of our scientists (annual productivity to support performance reviews, consolidating information for their Research Scientist Record, and Curriculum Vitae type reports), our units (annual reporting of accomplishments to regional supervisors, reports for annual coordinating committee reports; and the CRU program for responding to reporting needs of the Mission Area, the bureau and OMB budget office.4

The proposed action may be awarded on a sole source basis under the authority FAR Part 13.106-1.

The Faculty Success application for the USGS CRU is a data management and tracking and reporting application that¿s been highly customized and currently in use by the USGS. A change in service provider would cause an interruption in service and require substantial duplication of cost to recreate (if possible) the already customized screens and reporting functions. The current system has been extensively customized to meet our needs in terms of data entry screens and the underlying data schema. Vendors providing seemingly similar applications or similar business management platforms do not offer the ability to customize specifically to the USGS application criteria, nor allow for the modular functionality to incorporate USGS data fields, data, and report formats currently in use.
Transferring the information to another vendor¿s platform would require the same amount of customization of their platform, as well as require us to transfer our existing data set accumulated over the past 16 years to a new platform. This would take considerable effort, thus resulting in increased time and resources spent on working with the vendor to customize their platform to meet USGS application criteria, testing the customized platform, entering data that was previously entered and utilized on the customized Faculty Success platform. Faculty Success is a proprietary on-line system of Watermark. All requests for modifications must be made through an internal work request and tracking system. Modifications to the existing system can only be performed by Watermark staff. This application could not be transferred to a new vendor. If another system were adopted, similar sole source maintenance would be required in short order.

Market research was conducted but no other vendor can meet the Government¿s minimum needs without starting over with a new system, as noted in paragraph 6. A new system would create a duplication in costs not in the best interest of the tax payer. Watermark does not have any authorized resellers among whom competition can be obtained.