TEAM Performance Testing Services

The Texas Teacher Retirement System (TRS) issued an RFP for TEAM Performance Testing Services (Solicitation No. 21-0000096) with a proposal submission deadline of December 21, 2020, at 3:00 p.m. Central Time. A Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) Subcontracting Plan is mandatory; all proposals valued at $100,000 or more over the contract life must include a completed HSP form regardless of subcontracting intent, with failure to comply resulting in payment stoppage.

The scope encompasses performance testing of the myTRS web self-service portal application, including development of a performance test plan, execution of test scripts, results analysis, defect logging, and knowledge transfer to TRS staff regarding the performance testing tool. Testing deliverables include portal load testing, batch load testing, stress testing simulating 10,000 virtual users, and scalability testing across low, medium, and high load conditions in a pre-production environment. Critical business functions to be tested include member account inquiry, demographic updates, appointment scheduling, document viewing, benefit estimates, refund applications, and tax calculations. TRS will provide access to its existing LoadRunner 2020 Professional instance with perpetual licensing and will procure an additional 5,000 LoadRunner licenses if proposed; alternative performance testing toolsets are acceptable and TRS will consider purchasing vendor-recommended software at selection time.

The contract term runs March 1, 2021, through February 28, 2023, with no renewal options. Minimum qualifications require at least two years of Agile testing experience, successful completion of two or more performance testing engagements as prime contractor, prior performance testing for a WSS application with membership size comparable to TRS (1.6 million), three years in business, U.S.-based staff and hosting, and all proposed staff working from within the United States. Evaluation weighs Statement of Qualifications (15 points), Key Personnel Qualifications (35 points), Technical Approach (30 points), Pricing (20 points), and optional Oral Presentations (20 points). Insurance requirements include Professional Liability ($2 million per occurrence, $5 million aggregate) and Security and Privacy Cyber Liability ($2 million per occurrence, $5 million aggregate). A pre-proposal conference was held December 4, 2020; nine companies attended, including three HUB-certified vendors.