Pilot IRS Request for Proposal

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a Request for Proposal for the requirement titled, Pilot IRS - Treasury-wide Data Governance and Analytics (DGA) Initiative.

Responses to this call are due NLT 10:00 am on Wednesday, 4 September 2019, and are to be submitted via email to the Contract Specialist, Brady Gariano, at brady.a.gariano@irs.gov.

Provided in the RFP package are;

1. Solicitation
2. Provisions and Clauses Attachment
3. Pilot IRS Artifacts

We do understand that this period of time includes a federal holiday and is a time during which some may traditionally spend time away from the office - in order to meet the stated goal of FY19 awards and provide sufficient time for firms to prepare for oral presentations, it is necessary for responses to be received at the stated time. Thank you for your understanding.** THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT RESPOND TO PHONE CALLS. **

Thank you for your interest.

Contracting Office Address:
IRS, 1111 Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20024
United States

Primary Point of Contact:
Marcy Almeida, Contracting Officer
marcela.a.almeida@irs.gov
Phone: 202-317-4087

Secondary Point of Contact:
Tim Shaughnessy, Program Analyst
tim.shaughnessy@irs.gov
Phone: 202-622-6585

Wednesday August 7, 2019
Pilot IRS - Treasury-wide Data Governance and Analytics (DGA) Initiative
FBO Announcement - DATA Act Draft RFP Input

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will hold a listening session teleconference to review questions and comments submitted under the Pilot IRS - Treasury-wide Data Governance and Analytics (DGA) Initiative. (see August 2, 2019 FBO posting):

RFI_Treasury_wide_Data_Governance_and_Analytics_DGA_Initiative

The call will be held from 1:00-2:30 PM EST on Wednesday, August 14, 2019, via conference call dial-in. Each interested company or organization that is registered will be limited to one call-in line, so that we can address all questions/comments in a thorough and succinct manner. The IRS will answer groupings of the questions already submitted via e-mail in summary fashion, rather than addressing each individually. If time permits, we will also accept questions during the call - instructions on how to submit questions will be included with the confirmation e-mail referenced below.
Interested participants must submit an email request to Anna Pacheco at Anna.J.Pacheco@irs.gov with a cc: to Marcy Almeida at Marcela.A.Almeida@irs.gov NLT 4:00PM EST on Monday, August 12, 2019. The subject of the email must state "DATA Act Draft RFP Teleconference." Please include the following information: name, title, email and phone number of participant, name of company/organization. A confirmation email will be sent to each participant with instructions for dialing into the teleconference.

The Government is not liable for any expenses incurred by a responder/participant.

Friday August 2, 2019

DRAFT SOLICITATION The IRS requests input from industry regarding the attached draft solicitation. Questions and comments about this draft solicitation must be submitted to the following email address: marcela.a.almeida@irs.gov no later than 7:00am EST August 9, 2019. The subject of the email must state "DATA Act Draft RFP Input". The Government is not liable for any expenses incurred by a responder. Disclaimer This draft solicitation is solely for information and planning purposes. It does not constitute a solicitation (Request for Proposal or Request for Quotations) or a promise to issue a solicitation in the future. This draft solicitation does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Furthermore, the Government is not, at this time, seeking proposals. The Government will not be obligated to pursue any particular acquisition alternative as a result of this draft solicitation. Links to non-Federal Government Web sites do not constitute endorsement of any product, service, organization, company, information provider, or content. The Government reserves the right of not responding to any question or comment during the listening session.

The purpose of this posting is to provide an update on the status and intended path forward for this RFI.

The government received more than 50 responses to the RFI, and would like to voice its appreciation for the resources dedicated to those responses. They were very useful in informing the government's internal conversations, as well as its path forward. As noted in the original posting, the Department of Treasury planned on continuing the market research process via one-on-one meetings with a subset of the industry partners who provided responses to the RFI - those meetings are complete. In the interests of transparency, we are sharing the concepts discussed during all phases of market research (including RFI responses and one-on-one meetings) that are the most relevant/notable to the government are shared below:

1) Sharing and communicating the relative importance of near-term improvement with the scope and cost of efforts will be very important. I.e., does / to what extent does the government prefer the improvement of a singular data field in the near term over a larger number of data fields in the long term?;
2) The government will need to consider rights to the solution offering when making award decisions. I.e., if a solution offering will not allow for use across the Department of Treasury or other government agencies, but is available in the near-term and at a low cost, is that a ‘deal-breaker'?;
3) This approach will require a greater and more frequent level of engagement with many of the industry partners who receive funding. Decisions, access to data and SMEs, and truncated timelines to provide funding will be necessary in order to be successful;
4) Industry and government must have a common understanding of the potential and likelihood for subsequent funding streams - contract period options are often perceived as ‘sure bets' by industry partners and that will not be the case here; and,
5) It is quite possible that a solution which does not directly improve the data contained within Treasury systems or directly decrease manual rework will be a good candidate for funding, depending on the costs associated with it. This was contrary to some of our initial assumptions.

In terms of the path forward and timelines, the Department of Treasury will focus on potential solutions relative to the Internal Revenue Service, as opposed to the entire Department at one time. An FY19 (i.e., prior to September 30, 2019) solicitation and award for multiple solutions is still anticipated. Initial funding amounts and timelines will be very short term (i.e., 30 days and $25K), and the aspirational goal for the portfolio of funded projects is that multiple funding decisions will occur prior to December 30.

By August 2, the Internal Revenue Service plans to release a draft solicitation, which is expected to be less than 20 pages. Roughly one week later, a teleconference will be held that will include a ‘listening session' where government employees will discuss topics around the potential solutions, background information regarding FPDS-NG and how data enters the system, as well as potential areas for focus in terms of specific FPDS-NG data fields. Questions from attendees will also be answered at that time. Roughly one week after that, a final solicitation will be issued with a condensed response time, likely 2 weeks or less. It's important to note that the maximum allowable page limit for the initial response is anticipated to be 10 pages or less, and that a subset of responses will be selected for an oral presentation/pitch, which will be no more than 30 minutes.

** THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT RESPOND TO PHONE CALLS. **

Thank you for your interest.

Contracting Office Address:
IRS, 1111 Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20024
United States

Primary Point of Contact:
Marcy Almeida, Contracting Officer
marcela.a.almeida@irs.gov
Phone: 202-317-4087

Secondary Point of Contact:
Tim Shaughnessy, Program Analyst
timothy.shaughnessy@irs.gov
Phone: 202-622-6585

This RFI is associated with an earlier Special Notice titled "SN-TREASURY-DATA-ACT-MAY2019".

Department of the Treasury
Office of the Procurement Executive

Request for Information - Treasury-wide Data Governance and Analytics (DGA) Initiative.
Response Date: JUNE 17, 2019

TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES

Sources Sought - THIS REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) IS RELEASED PURSUANT TO FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (FAR) PART 10, MARKET RESEARCH.

Disclaimer - This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes. This notice should not be construed as a commitment by the Government for any purpose other than market research. This announcement does not commit the Government to any contractual agreement. The Government is not seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals.

No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement or any follow-up information requests.

Respondents will NOT be notified of the results of the analysis. All data received in response to this Sources Sought synopsis that is marked or designated as corporate or proprietary information will be fully protected from release outside the Government. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly identified. Proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with all applicable Government regulations. All documentation shall become the property of the Government and will not be returned.

High-Level Summary
The Department of Treasury, Office of the Procurement Executive is requesting information about potential automation approaches/tools that will help it analyze and automate multiple data sets regarding contract and obligation data. We are primarily interested in three things: 1) are we on the right page / are we missing anything in our pursuit of solutions for improving the integrity of financial and non-financial data elements; 2) are there any existing examples of tools deployed and in use in this space?; and, 3) what's a rough estimate of how much tools would cost, relative to their ROI? Although there is no guarantee, we currently plan on issuing a solicitation and awarding one or more contracts to support this effort; additionally, based on the responses to this RFI, we currently plan on performing additional market research (via one-on-one meetings) with a subset of the parties that respond.

Background
The Department of the Treasury, Office of the Procurement Executive (OPE) is releasing this Request for Information (RFI) to address the potential for introducing innovative technologies, tools, and processes to support Departmental and Bureau-level compliance with the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum M-18-16 entitled "Appendix A to OMB Circular A-123, Management of Reporting and Data Integrity Risk." This memo calls for, in part, a plan for improving the integrity of financial and non-financial award data elements reported in accordance with the DATA Act.

The Department of the Treasury, the Office of the Deputy Chief Financial Officer (ODCFO), OPE, and the Office of Performance Budgeting (OPB) are working collaboratively to address our governance structure, reporting design, policy and guidance, as well as our processes and controls in support of the above requirements. In addition, we are focusing on testing plans to address high-risk reported data and to ensure an effective Internal Control Over Reporting (ICOR) process across all Bureaus. To that end, we are keenly interested in tools that are able to automate the data sets in an agile manner, supporting the requirements of OMB Memo M-18-16 to effectively manage data integrity risk.
The RFI also encompasses our requirements and process for performing verification and validation of award elements reported to the Federal Procurement Data System - Next Generation (FPDS-NG). The Treasury Senior Procurement Executive (SPE) and all Bureau Chief Procurement Officers (BCPOs) perform quarterly independent validation and verification (V&V) of FPDS-NG data elements and submit annual certifications of data accuracy to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP). This V&V supports both the Data Act and the quarterly certification process as well as providing additional Procurement-related data checks of publicly available FPDS-NG data.

Goals of our RFI
Our goal with this RFI is to gather information on potential areas of focus for contractor support to improve near and midterm (FY 2019, 4th quarter and FY 2020) data accuracy results. Three primary areas are being addressed:

• Improvement in DATA Act reporting across three primary factors - completeness, timeliness, and accuracy;
• Reduction in manual processing times and FTE hours associated with review, correction, and reporting of data elements; and,
• Congruent with the President's Management Agenda (PMA), approaches to leverage data as a strategic asset across the Department and shift from low to high-value work, with an emphasis on technology enablers and enterprise-wide tools for facilitating oversight and promoting transparency.

Current Process
The Treasury has created a Data Quality Plan which is intended to bolster the integrity of DATA Act reporting in service to taxpayer constituents, vendors, recipients of federal award dollars, and other stakeholders, as well as for meeting various leadership needs in management decision-making. The government-wide DATA Act Program Management Office (PMO) has identified 57 data elements as part of core DATA Act reporting requirements.

The Department utilizes a Prioritization and Remediation Framework to address DATA Act quality issues, which includes a six-step process for prioritizing and reviewing all 57 reported DATA Act elements. The six steps are:

1. Start with a population of audited data elements;
2. Sort the data elements based on management's discretion of relevancy;
3. Further sort the data elements by risk (e.g., placing emphasis on data where direct entry occurs);
4. Assess the state of existing controls related to the data elements;
5. Determine if any further controls are needed; and
6. Identify and implement targeted remediation actions for data elements that fall below a specified audit accuracy rate.

The 57 data elements contain a mix of financial and procurement elements, and there is some overlap. Procurement focuses on elements reported from agency contract writing systems through interface with FPDS-NG.
The following are examples of FPDS-NG data errors which are candidates for automated correction:

1. In the case of a commodities purchase, the Place of Performance ZIP+4 field value incorrectly indicates the address where a product will be used instead of where it was manufactured or supplied from stock.
2. The Date Signed entry is later then the Effective Date of Contract when the reverse is actually true of the contract document.
3. The Current Completion Date, Estimated Completion Date or Last Date to Order (for IDVs) is a clear typographical error; i.e.: "2109."
4. A Blanket Purchase Agreement awarded against a General Services Administration contract lacks a Reference IDV entry.
5. The Description of Requirement field does not provide a brief description of the contractual requirements and/or only describes the instant contracting action and not the requirement.

Specific Areas of Input Requested
The Department respectfully requests input from industry partners and other parties regarding the following questions/topics:

1. Provide summary background on any existing instances of automation tools/ Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions in the federal space that you have deployed to support comparable data sets to improve decision-making and accountability. In particular, instances of automation tools/RPA relevant to policy-making, innovation, oversight, and learning, especially those gathering data sets from disparate systems and sources. Address implementation strategies used, challenges and impediments encountered, project timelines, and performance metrics.

2. Provide recommendations regarding our primary areas of focus (examples provided below, but feel free to expand as applicable). Also offer any overarching recommended approaches for introducing data management technologies in this space.

a. Is this area of DATA Act and FDDS-NG compliance and reporting a target-rich environment for applying RPA/BOTS/AI tools? Does the assumption that publicly available data sets are riper for automation tools hold true?
b. Are there known infrastructures/interfaces that will make this effort more difficult or easier if utilized? I.e., is a particular tool not offered in a cloud /on-prem environment?
c. What is a reasonable progression for introducing technologies under this initiative in order to manage risk and demonstrate sustainable return on investment (ROI) (e.g., initiate a non-credentialed tool across limited data elements, followed by an attended automation solution, followed by an unattended tool set across one or more data elements)?

3. Identify where a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) for contract cost to support this initiative would fall, with any notations for development, hosting, and operations and maintenance. Please utilize the following three dollar ranges, instead of generating a specific dollar amount:

a. $25,000-$250,000 per year;
b. $250,000-$500,000 per year; or,
c. $500,000 plus per year.

4. Provide potential ROI summary information that the Department could reasonably expect to attain with the adoption and implementation of automation in this space. Include any appropriate references to the implementation strategies presented in item 1 above.

Summary
Treasury OPE is extremely interested in available RPA and AI tools that will aid in increasing overall data accuracy while also increasing operational efficiencies and reducing personnel resources. We encourage all interested vendors to respond to this RFI and provide us with your valuable insight and expertise in supporting this critical initiative. Additionally, it is likely that the Treasury OPE will perform additional market research efforts with a subset of the industry partners who respond to this RFI.

The deadline for responses to this RFI is 5:00PM EDT, June 17, 2019. Responses should be forwarded via email to both the primary and secondary points of contact below. Responses shall not exceed 5 pages and shall not contain any brochures, advertising or any other type of extraneous, graphic literature or documents that have not been requested and are not relevant or essential in demonstrating the company's ability to provide the required services. Vendors may provide links to relevant websites, as appropriate.

Vendors shall reference "RFI_Treasury_wide_Data_Governance_and_Analytics_DGA_Initiative" in the subject line of their response as well as in the subject line of any other e-mail correspondence referencing this notice.

** THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT RESPOND TO PHONE CALLS. **

Thank you for your interest.

Contracting Office Address:
IRS, 1111 Constitution Ave. NW
C7-NCFB
Washington, District of Columbia 20024
United States

Primary Point of Contact:
Sandra R. Anderson, Contract Specialist
sandra.r.anderson@irs.gov
Phone: 240-613-7462

Secondary Point of Contact:
Tim Shaughnessy, Program Analyst
Treasury Office of the Procurement Executive
timothy.shaughnessy@treasury.gov
Phone: 202-622-6585

This RFI is associated with an earlier Special Notice titled "SN-TREASURY-DATA-ACT-MAY2019".

Department of the Treasury
Office of the Procurement Executive

Request for Information - Treasury-wide Data Governance and Analytics (DGA) Initiative.
Response Date: JUNE 14, 2019

TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES

Sources Sought - THIS REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) IS RELEASED PURSUANT TO FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (FAR) PART 10, MARKET RESEARCH.

Disclaimer - This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes. This notice should not be construed as a commitment by the Government for any purpose other than market research. This announcement does not commit the Government to any contractual agreement. The Government is not seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals.

No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement or any follow-up information requests.

Respondents will NOT be notified of the results of the analysis. All data received in response to this Sources Sought synopsis that is marked or designated as corporate or proprietary information will be fully protected from release outside the Government. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly identified. Proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with all applicable Government regulations. All documentation shall become the property of the Government and will not be returned.

High-Level Summary
The Department of Treasury, Office of the Procurement Executive is requesting information about potential automation approaches/tools that will help it analyze and automate multiple data sets regarding contract and obligation data. We are primarily interested in three things: 1) are we on the right page / are we missing anything in our pursuit of solutions for improving the integrity of financial and non-financial data elements; 2) are there any existing examples of tools deployed and in use in this space?; and, 3) what's a rough estimate of how much tools would cost, relative to their ROI? Although there is no guarantee, we currently plan on issuing a solicitation and awarding one or more contracts to support this effort; additionally, based on the responses to this RFI, we currently plan on performing additional market research (via one-on-one meetings) with a subset of the parties that respond.

Background
The Department of the Treasury, Office of the Procurement Executive (OPE) is releasing this Request for Information (RFI) to address the potential for introducing innovative technologies, tools, and processes to support Departmental and Bureau-level compliance with the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum M-18-16 entitled "Appendix A to OMB Circular A-123, Management of Reporting and Data Integrity Risk." This memo calls for, in part, a plan for improving the integrity of financial and non-financial award data elements reported in accordance with the DATA Act.

The Department of the Treasury, the Office of the Deputy Chief Financial Officer (ODCFO), OPE, and the Office of Performance Budgeting (OPB) are working collaboratively to address our governance structure, reporting design, policy and guidance, as well as our processes and controls in support of the above requirements. In addition, we are focusing on testing plans to address high-risk reported data and to ensure an effective Internal Control Over Reporting (ICOR) process across all Bureaus. To that end, we are keenly interested in tools that are able to automate the data sets in an agile manner, supporting the requirements of OMB Memo M-18-16 to effectively manage data integrity risk.
The RFI also encompasses our requirements and process for performing verification and validation of award elements reported to the Federal Procurement Data System - Next Generation (FPDS-NG). The Treasury Senior Procurement Executive (SPE) and all Bureau Chief Procurement Officers (BCPOs) perform quarterly independent validation and verification (V&V) of FPDS-NG data elements and submit annual certifications of data accuracy to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP). This V&V supports both the Data Act and the quarterly certification process as well as providing additional Procurement-related data checks of publicly available FPDS-NG data.

Goals of our RFI
Our goal with this RFI is to gather information on potential areas of focus for contractor support to improve near and midterm (FY 2019, 4th quarter and FY 2020) data accuracy results. Three primary areas are being addressed:

• Improvement in DATA Act reporting across three primary factors - completeness, timeliness, and accuracy;
• Reduction in manual processing times and FTE hours associated with review, correction, and reporting of data elements; and,
• Congruent with the President's Management Agenda (PMA), approaches to leverage data as a strategic asset across the Department and shift from low to high-value work, with an emphasis on technology enablers and enterprise-wide tools for facilitating oversight and promoting transparency.

Current Process
The Treasury has created a Data Quality Plan which is intended to bolster the integrity of DATA Act reporting in service to taxpayer constituents, vendors, recipients of federal award dollars, and other stakeholders, as well as for meeting various leadership needs in management decision-making. The government-wide DATA Act Program Management Office (PMO) has identified 57 data elements as part of core DATA Act reporting requirements.

The Department utilizes a Prioritization and Remediation Framework to address DATA Act quality issues, which includes a six-step process for prioritizing and reviewing all 57 reported DATA Act elements. The six steps are:

1. Start with a population of audited data elements;
2. Sort the data elements based on management's discretion of relevancy;
3. Further sort the data elements by risk (e.g., placing emphasis on data where direct entry occurs);
4. Assess the state of existing controls related to the data elements;
5. Determine if any further controls are needed; and
6. Identify and implement targeted remediation actions for data elements that fall below a specified audit accuracy rate.

The 57 data elements contain a mix of financial and procurement elements, and there is some overlap. Procurement focuses on elements reported from agency contract writing systems through interface with FPDS-NG.
The following are examples of FPDS-NG data errors which are candidates for automated correction:

1. In the case of a commodities purchase, the Place of Performance ZIP+4 field value incorrectly indicates the address where a product will be used instead of where it was manufactured or supplied from stock.
2. The Date Signed entry is later then the Effective Date of Contract when the reverse is actually true of the contract document.
3. The Current Completion Date, Estimated Completion Date or Last Date to Order (for IDVs) is a clear typographical error; i.e.: "2109."
4. A Blanket Purchase Agreement awarded against a General Services Administration contract lacks a Reference IDV entry.
5. The Description of Requirement field does not provide a brief description of the contractual requirements and/or only describes the instant contracting action and not the requirement.

Specific Areas of Input Requested
The Department respectfully requests input from industry partners and other parties regarding the following questions/topics:

1. Provide summary background on any existing instances of automation tools/ Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions in the federal space that you have deployed to support comparable data sets to improve decision-making and accountability. In particular, instances of automation tools/RPA relevant to policy-making, innovation, oversight, and learning, especially those gathering data sets from disparate systems and sources. Address implementation strategies used, challenges and impediments encountered, project timelines, and performance metrics.

2. Provide recommendations regarding our primary areas of focus (examples provided below, but feel free to expand as applicable). Also offer any overarching recommended approaches for introducing data management technologies in this space.

a. Is this area of DATA Act and FDDS-NG compliance and reporting a target-rich environment for applying RPA/BOTS/AI tools? Does the assumption that publicly available data sets are riper for automation tools hold true?
b. Are there known infrastructures/interfaces that will make this effort more difficult or easier if utilized? I.e., is a particular tool not offered in a cloud /on-prem environment?
c. What is a reasonable progression for introducing technologies under this initiative in order to manage risk and demonstrate sustainable return on investment (ROI) (e.g., initiate a non-credentialed tool across limited data elements, followed by an attended automation solution, followed by an unattended tool set across one or more data elements)?

3. Identify where a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) for contract cost to support this initiative would fall, with any notations for development, hosting, and operations and maintenance. Please utilize the following three dollar ranges, instead of generating a specific dollar amount:

a. $25,000-$250,000 per year;
b. $250,000-$500,000 per year; or,
c. $500,000 plus per year.

4. Provide potential ROI summary information that the Department could reasonably expect to attain with the adoption and implementation of automation in this space. Include any appropriate references to the implementation strategies presented in item 1 above.

Summary
Treasury OPE is extremely interested in available RPA and AI tools that will aid in increasing overall data accuracy while also increasing operational efficiencies and reducing personnel resources. We encourage all interested vendors to respond to this RFI and provide us with your valuable insight and expertise in supporting this critical initiative. Additionally, it is likely that the Treasury OPE will perform additional market research efforts with a subset of the industry partners who respond to this RFI.

The deadline for responses to this RFI is 5:00PM EDT, June 17, 2019. Responses should be forwarded via email to both the primary and secondary points of contact below. Responses shall not exceed 5 pages and shall not contain any brochures, advertising or any other type of extraneous, graphic literature or documents that have not been requested and are not relevant or essential in demonstrating the company's ability to provide the required services. Vendors may provide links to relevant websites, as appropriate.

Vendors shall reference "RFI_Treasury_wide_Data_Governance_and_Analytics_DGA_Initiative" in the subject line of their response as well as in the subject line of any other e-mail correspondence referencing this notice.

** THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT RESPOND TO PHONE CALLS. **

Thank you for your interest.

Contracting Office Address:
IRS, 1111 Constitution Ave. NW
C7-NCFB
Washington, District of Columbia 20024
United States

Primary Point of Contact:
Sandra R. Anderson, Contract Specialist
sandra.r.anderson@irs.gov
Phone: 240-613-7462

Secondary Point of Contact:
Tim Shaughnessy, Program Analyst
Treasury Office of the Procurement Executive
timothy.shaughnessy@treasury.gov
Phone: 202-622-6585