Sources Sought Notice – Centralized Correspondence Management System/Solution

Notice Type: Sources Sought Notice

Posted Date: 10-MAY-14

Office Address: Railroad Retirement Board; Acquisition Management Division, OA; Procurement Section; 844 North Rush Street, 9th Floor NE Chicago IL 60611-2092

Subject: Centralized Correspondence Management System/Solution

Classification Code: 70 - General purpose information technology equipment

Solicitation Number: RRB14S0001

Contact: Paul T. Ahern, Chief of Acquisition Management , Phone (312) 751-7130, Fax 312) 751-4923, Email [email protected] - Karen J. Haskins-Brewer, Contract Administrator, Phone (312) 751-4615, Fax (312) 751-4923, Email [email protected]

Setaside: N/AN/A

Place of Performance (address): 844 North Rush StreetChicago, IL

Place of Performance (zipcode): 60611-2092

Place of Performance Country: US

Description: Railroad Retirement Board

Acquisition Management Division, OA

Procurement Section

I. Introduction The U. S. Railroad Retirement Board ("RRB") is an independent Federal agency that administers a retirement and survivor benefits program for railroad employees and their families. The RRB was established by the Railroad Retirement Acts of 1937 and 1974. Its benefits program was the forerunner of the more familiar Social Security System. The Railroad Retirement System is unique inasmuch as it is the only federally administered benefits program covering a single private industry. The RRB also administers the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act, which provides unemployment and sickness benefits to railroad employees. The RRB's headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois.

The RRB does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this request for information or to pay for the information solicited. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION FOR OFFERS OR BIDS. The RRB shall not transmit acknowledgements of receipt of potential offerors' submissions

II. Background

The RRB seeks a turnkey automated solution to work in conjunction with RRB's Microsoft SharePoint 2013 environment upgrade anticipated for the development, installation and maintenance of a centralized correspondence solution that scans, logs, routes, tracks and stores incoming and outgoing Agency correspondence from and to members of the public, private, and governmental sector.

III. Objective and Requirements

The RRB seeks information regarding centralized correspondence management solutions that are structured and integrated within a Microsoft SharePoint 2013 environment for approximately 300 end users. The solution should possess several important functionalities, including but not limited to those outlined below: * The application must be able to efficiently capture and track incoming and outgoing correspondence and associated communications electronically from initial receipt to final approval; * The application must allow users to route correspondence sequentially or simultaneously to the appropriate office or division with subject matter expertise for approval or edit as appropriate; * At any point during the process RRB staff should be able to determine the location of the response and the office/individual with possession/edit authority for the response; * The application must be able to capture, store, index, and archive incoming correspondence and associated documents to allow users to find and retrieve correspondence and associated history quickly; * The application should allow RRB system users to search for and retrieve correspondence by: (1) correspondent and/or constituent, (2) date received, (3) deadline to respond, (4) current location within or outside the RRB, (5) originating office, (6) approval date, (7) disapproval date, (8) issue and (9) subject; * The administrator of the application must be able to compartmentalize the information seen or accessed by the various users, so that access can be restricted to only offices/divisions and their staff with a need to view or edit responses at any particular stage of the process; * The application user interface must be intuitive to allow a user to launch the application, create a correspondence record, search and view the status of correspondence, update correspondence status, and approve and disapprove correspondence with minimum "hands-on" training;

* The application must allow for access controls to designate individual users and/or groups to have privilege to perform specific actions on the correspondence;

* The application must allow audit controls to be configured during workflow in order to preserve the security and integrity of finalized correspondence stored in the repository;

* Upon initial receipt, the application shall provide RRB users with fields to record the name and address of the correspondent, the associated RRB office, the subject and issue identified, the date received and the recommended action; * The application should generate a unique identifier for each document entered into the system and any associated documents that would enable RRB users in the tracking correspondence actions related to the given piece of correspondence; * The application should provide RRB users and systems administrators or managers the ability to use/configure fields in application screens to standardize entry of information into the database; * RRB staff should be able to readily search the application on any fields with exact or partial keywords or dates with Boolean logic including searches of subject and issue fields as well any text or date fields; * The application should provide RRB staff with a report that shows the current status, background information (remarks/notes) and location of the pending or finalized RRB responses; * The application should provide RRB the ability to generate due dates and a production timeline by identifying the level, code, or priority of the response. The application should then be capable of producing Due Date alerts, including desirably emails notices; * The application should have the ability to download emails from RRB's Microsoft Exchange system to the correspondence database for processing; * The application should have the ability to integrate with and accept documents in formats including Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF's; * The application user interface must satisfy the legal/regulatory requirements identified by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which establishes requirements for access to information by persons with disabilities;

* The application must provide RRB staff the capability to save scanned documents into the correspondence database or to connect to and read such documents as stored data on other sites of the RRB's data network; * The application should provide RRB staff with capability to produce automated reports; and * The application should have an archiving function

IV. Request for Information Submission Requirements

Interested parties having the ability to furnish such a system/solution are requested to submit an information packet, detailing the proposed solution(s) to the RRB. Potential offerors should respond by providing, at a minimum, the following:

* The name and Contract email and phone number for the company's contact person for the information packet submission;

* A detailed descriptive narrative of the system/solution/services being offered, and accompanying brochures, pamphlets, diagrams and illustrations detailing how the submitter's proposed system/solution/services meets the RRB's required and desired capabilities and functionalities outlined above;

* A description of how the solution provides, integrates with, or extends SharePoint 2013 electronic records management technologies to automate records and retention categories for correspondence workflow and final correspondence stored in the application's repository to ease the burden of records management on RRB end users, and managers and ensures compliance with Federal records management laws and regulations;

* An estimated timeline for the submitter to deliver, install, configure and test the proposed system/solution to the RRB, given a fully deployed RRB Sharepoint 2013 environment at the RRB;

* An estimated level of effort of RRB resources for the offeror to accomplish delivery of the proposed solution, including RRB task steps and a timeline ;

* A list of hardware, software, storage, services, and technical specifications, Contractor-provided or RRB-provided (specify which) necessary for the provider to complete implementation and then support the proposed solution;

* A list of training services necessary for RRB employees to operate and maintain the solution following implementation by the provider;

* Interested/capable parties shall provide "fully loaded" estimated prices [rough order of magnitude (ROM)] for (1) Implementation of your solution/services and (2) ongoing Contractor -provided operations and maintenance of the installed and accepted system for a basic and four (4) option years. The RRB defines "fully loaded" as the price inclusive of direct wages, fringe benefits, all overheads, general and administrative (G&A) costs, profit and fees, and all travel and per diem costs for the contractor's employees to perform necessary services at the RRB headquarters facility, located in Chicago, Illinois; and remotely from Contractor facilities, as appropriate

* Other costs not included in the pricing details.

The RRB does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this request for information or to pay for the information solicited. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION FOR OFFERS OR BIDS. The RRB shall not transmit acknowledgements of receipt of potential offerors' submissions.

Responses to this RFI shall be submitted on or before Thursday May 22, 2014 at 1:30PM CST. Mark outside of the envelope or email subject line "RRB14S0001 Information Packet Enclosed" and offeror's name and address on physical packet submissions. Interested / capable parties shall send email submissions to [email protected]. Interested parties shall send physical information packet responses to:

U.S. Railroad Retirement Board Acquisition Management Division RFI # RRB14S0001 844 N. Rush St.Chicago, IL 60611-2092

Any questions regarding this solicitation must be submitted to the RRB via email on or before Thursday May 15, 2014 at 1:00PM CST to [email protected]. The agency will accept MS Office 2007 format or Adobe PDF format documents in electronic submissions.

Link/URL: https://www.fbo.gov/spg/RRB/BSS/PD/RRB14S0001/listing.html