Electronic Handbooks (EHBs) Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Office of Information Technology (OIT) Division of Enterprise Solutions and Applications Management (DESAM)

This is a SMALL BUSINESS SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE (hereafter referred to as "notice) issued for the purpose of planning and market research. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations and this does not obligate the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to award a contract now or in the future. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding the availability and capability of qualified small businesses only (including 8(a), service-disabled-veteran-owned-small business (SDVOSB), Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) small business, small disadvantaged business (SDB), veteran-owned small business (VOSB), and women-owned small business (WOSB) to provide contractor support services for all Electronic Handbooks (EHBs) enterprise system operations and maintenance (O&M) requirements necessary to sustain HRSA at the highest levels of service and availability consistent with cost, schedule, and performance objectives. This sources sought is seeking responses from small businesses from the following source: - GSA IT Schedule 70 No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement and any follow-up information requests. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the capability assessment. All information submitted in response to this announcement must arrive on or before the closing date. THIS IS STRICTLY MARKET RESEARCH. HRSA WILL NOT ENTERTAIN QUESTIONS REGARDING THE RESULTS OF THIS MARKET RESEARCH. REQUESTS FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION WILL NOT BE HONORED. Background The mission of Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is to improve health and achieve health equity through access to quality services, a skilled workforce and innovative programs. HRSA works to expand access to quality health care for low income, uninsured, isolated, vulnerable and special needs populations. To coordinate the resource planning across programs, HRSA implemented a standardized, paperless, end-to-end enterprise solution called the HRSA Electronic Handbooks (EHBs). The web-based EHBs, is a mission critical system designed to ensure that programs are managed efficiently and in compliance with mandated Agency-wide and Federal policies, procedures, and legislation. The EHBs is one of HRSA's major IT investment that supports the agency goal of integrating existing program and grant support systems into one transparent enterprise-wide system. HRSA awards more than $9.1 billion dollars in Federal grants on an annual basis. These grants are administered by various programs that collectively work to improve access to care for millions Americans who are uninsured and who live in medically underserved areas. The EHBs system facilitates selection of appropriate grantees, monitoring on-going progress, and dissemination of the program results, all of which collectively contributes to HRSA meeting its strategic goals and objectives. The EHBs is the enterprise system that supports over 90 programs including Health Centers, Ryan White HIV/AIDS Programs, Maternal and Child Health Programs, Health Professions Training Programs, Rural Health, Organ Donation, and Poison Control Center programs. The EHBs automates HRSA's program administration needs and workflows, supports performance reporting of HRSA-funded programs, and the sharing of data within the organization. The system encompasses nearly all of the HRSA grant program administration processes starting from forecasting, planning, application, review, pre-award, award, post-award monitoring, closeout, and performance reporting. It improves business efficiencies and program management oversight by providing performance reporting and tracking features. The EHBs ensures compliance with mandated Agency-wide and Federal policies, procedures and legislation for HRSA's programs and serves as a "system of record." EHBs is used by approximately 44,000 external and 2,000 internal users to manage numerous Program Management activities. The following attachments provide a more detailed overview of the EHBs system: 1. Attachment A - HRSA EHBs Performance Data 2. Attachment B - Enterprise EHBs User Roles 3. Attachment C - EHBs Modules and Sub Systems 4. Attachment D - EHBs External Interfaces 5. Attachment E - EHBs Core Architecture 6. Attachment F - EHBs Tools and Technologies 7. Attachment G - EHBs O&M Workload Metrics Project Requirements 1. The Office of Information Technology (OIT), Division of Enterprise Solutions and Applications Management (DESAM) is responsible for managing HRSA's EHBs platform. The contractor will be required to have an extensive background in the grants award life cycle, which encompasses application submission (Grants.gov integration), application review, funding, awards (ACF GATES Integration), grant administration, post-award monitoring, and closeout processing. 2. Contractors must demonstrate its compliance with Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Level 3 processes and provide written proof of CMMI Level 3 certification. This means that vendor's engineering processes are defined for process areas such as Decision Analysis and Resolution, Integrated Project Management, Organizational Process Definition, Organizational Training, Product Integration, Requirements Development, Risk Management, Technical Solution, Validation, and Verification. 3. The contractor is required to support the overall functionality of HRSA's Electronic Handbooks (EHBs), which includes all enterprise EHBs system operations & maintenance activities, system architecture, internal and external system interfaces, web sites (Intranet as well as public-facing), current and future adoption of software tools and technologies, and Program Management activities. Capability Statements In response to this Sources Sought Notice, HRSA is seeking capability statements from small businesses who can demonstrate experience in operating and maintaining enterprise systems of a similar capacity and complexity in a multi-vendor environment that impacts multiple stakeholders and contractors. Capability statements are NOT proposals and do not address price/cost. The contractor community is asked for information which proves that they have expertise and capacity to meet the requirements of this work. Respondents should provide enough information for HRSA to make an informed determination of their capability to perform the work as identified below. Please provide a list of contract numbers that your organization has had (if applicable), your role on the contract (prime contractor or subcontractor) and the dollar value/percentage of the work performed. If you were a subcontractor on a particular contract, please clarify the work that you did on that contract. No marketing literature should be submitted in response to this notice. When responding to this notice, vendors must demonstrate their experience in operating and maintaining an enterprise systems of a similar capacity and complexity in a multi-vendor environment that impacts multiple stakeholders and contractors. A mere statement that the vendor has a required capability is not sufficient. When answering the following questions, vendors must provide specific and detailed examples of work that was performed that demonstrate required capabilities and the level of effort that was involved. 1. Do you have experience in program and project management experience with operating and maintaining large IT systems that require (a) multiple tasks being performed with different client groups simultaneously; (b) operating and maintaining large databases from multiple extracts; (c) operating and maintaining analytical tools; (d) providing a broad range of analytic services; and (e) working with a large number of stakeholders? When answering this question, please reference your experience in comparison to data and requirements identified in Attachment A - as it relates to number of servers, users, lines of code, etc., Attachment C - as it relates to number of subsystems, Attachment D - as it relates to external interfaces, and Attachment G - as it relates to O&M workload metrics. 2. Do you have experience and the ability to provide domain expertise/knowledge of Grants Program, Grants Management and Reporting programs and their schedules, business objectives and expected outcomes? When answering this question, please reference your grant domain experience in comparison to the grant phases listed in Attachment A such as planning, applications, pre-awards, awards, post-award, and closeout. 3. Do you have ability and experience to manage and maintain enterprise-wide business processes through automation of functions using Confluence, JIRA and other infrastructure support tools and technologies? When answering this question, please reference your tools and technologies experience in comparison to those listed in Attachment F for EHBs Tools and Technologies. 4. Do you have the ability and experience in providing recommendations for various project efforts to document and improve code quality, system documentation, operational efficiencies, system performance, system architecture and security, and implement the selected architecture and security changes? 5. Do you have the experience and ability to develop and implement a transition plan (no more than 90 days) that permits for a transition period from incumbent Contractor to a new contractor? When answering this question, please address how the vendor will ensure continuous services and operational support with no disruptions in support services, including planned upgrades. 6. Do you have specific experience in the following? a. Defect and Patch Management - Describe the ability to address all defects found in large enterprise IT applications (such as the EHBs software). The description must include addressing production defects, application defects, system stabilization changes, and data fixes. b. Software Deployment Management - Describe the ability to plan, support, and deploy solutions in large environments hosted at multiple client Data Centers for both Production and Non-Production environments. c. Application Configuration Management - Describe the ability to implement and maintain a Software Configuration Management process that readily identifies the current version of software and documents any changes to the baseline. d. Change Management - Describe the relevant experience in planning and executing various change management activities to support successful implementation and adoption of a system that affect over 40,000 internal and external users. e. Application/System Security - Describe the ability to address the security weaknesses identified in the system security and vulnerability scans. Demonstrate working knowledge of OMB and NIST system security guidance. f. Application Documentation - Describe the ability to establish and maintain comprehensive documents reflecting the current architecture of the web application and database tiers system operations and program maintenance manuals, infrastructure diagrams, testing procedures, quality assurance documentation, and documents necessary to operate and maintain the enterprise applications similar to the EHBs. g. Application Integration - Describe the ability to develop and maintain interfaces to share data between multiple RSA systems. 7. Do you have experience with the following for large and complex IT Infrastructure Management? a. Database Management - Describe the ability to update and maintain data administration functions (i.e., data dictionary, monitoring performance, and enforcing organizational standards and security). b. System Management i. Describe the ability to provide 24x7 proactive monitoring, management, and issue resolution to production and non-production environments. ii. Describe the ability to provide application support for environments in both production and non-production (i.e., Training, Operational Support, Production Support, QA, Integration, and Test)? This includes application, upgrade and monitoring services, security support, installations, configurations, patching, technology upgrades, backups, restores, refresh performance optimization and maintenance. iii. Describe the ability to manage and support current and future adoption of operations and maintenance software tools. 8. Do you have the ability to provide guidance and support for optimization on high availability and redundancy for web applications, database servers, security/network infrastructure and backups on systems? 9. Do you have the ability to develop, integrate and use application performance monitoring tools to monitor system health (including web servers, database servers and applications) to ensure the reliability, availability and responsiveness of the various modules supported? 10. Do you have experience with conducting significant technology upgrades and the ability to recommend upgrades, updates, and patches to the system to incorporate new hardware technology and software as it becomes available in the market place? 11. Do you have the experience and ability to conduct extensive system testing and acceptance activities for large IT systems? a. Prior to any defect patches/minor enhancements being deployed into production and become operational, describe your ability and experience in conducting test readiness reviews. b. Demonstrate the ability to coordinate, conduct, and/or participate in comprehensive User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of defects/enhancements prior to deployment to allow time for the development vendor to fix/remediate defects found during the UAT. 12. Do you have experience with developing custom reports and dashboards and the ability to maintain and develop business process metrics to help improve business performance to showcase the development of user-friendly and high-impact dashboards using tools such as Tableau that drive transparency into business operations and performance? 13. Do you have experience with providing and supporting ad hoc data sets that are required for special reporting, analyses, or one of a kind, quick-response type calls for data and reports? 14. Do you have extensive experience in providing support to address complex data analysis needs where data need to be analyzed to address mission important questions and scenarios? 15. Do you have experience with providing onsite support to ensure that the power users (users with advanced privileges and knowledge of the system modules to support their respective offices) in various offices and bureaus continue to receive timely information and help in supporting all end users? 16. Do you have experience with supporting Tier I and Tier II Customer Support vendors to address escalations, employ best practices for triaging issues, maintaining a knowledge database for resolved issues, developing workarounds, release support, changes to operating procedures, or any system availability problems? 17. Do you have experience with ensuring that all system capabilities are Section 508 compliant? 18. Do you have experience with cloud computing knowledge and migrating large IT systems (similar to EHBs in size) and the ability to create, implement and manage enterprise production and non-production environments (e.g., UAT, test, development, etc.) in the Cloud? 19. Do you have experience supporting DevOps, agile development, automated testing, continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery? Responses Requested Please submit your responses by 5:00pm EST on December 14, 2018, to LaTarsha Rogers at contact@example.gov in the following format: - Microsoft Word (or PDF) document with page size 8.5 by 11 inches, with a minimum of 1" margins. - Times New Roman, font size 12 with single spacing between lines. - Submission shall not exceed 25 pages. Cover page is not included in the total page count Respondents are requested to state their capabilities and expertise in clear and concise language. Respondents are strongly encouraged to avoid use of excessive marketing and sales language. Note: Language in any resultant RFP will require all small businesses to recertify their size status at the submission of proposal. You are not required to respond to this sources sought notice if you cannot recertify your size as small. Cover Page Vendors shall include the following Business information on the Cover Page: a) Sources Sought Notice number, title, and date of issuance b) DUNS c) Company Name d) Company Address e) Company Point of Contact, Phone and Email address f) Current GSA Schedules appropriate to this effort g) Validation of small business status under NAICS: 541519 - Other Government Related Services (Size Standard: $27.5 million). Additional information on NAICS codes can be found at: http://www.sba.gov. Confidentiality No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s). Disclaimer and Important Notes This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed. Information provided will be used to assess alternatives available for the potential requirement and may lead to the development of a solicitation. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. Respondents will not be notified of the results of this market research. Capability statements will not be returned, and will not be accepted after the due date for responses. Teaming Arrangements Firms seeking to respond to this notice as a team or to rely on subcontractors to perform any portion of the work must include the above-requested information and certifications for each entity on the proposed team or each proposed subcontractor. Since this is a small business sources capability assessment, the proposed teams' demonstrated key capabilities related to the scope must reside with the small business respondent(s) only. Responses must also clearly indicate the nature of the teaming arrangement. The contractor and any subcontractors must not have any relationships or arrangements through business operations or its employees that could be considered as possibly lessening the company's objectivity concerning any aspect of the proposed tasks. If such relationships or arrangements exist, contractors or subcontractors shall be required, during the procurement process (if one occurs), to identify potential conflicts of interest and discuss how the conflicts will be addressed and mitigated.