R -- Request for Information (RFI): FMLoB Testing Strategy

1.0 Objective The General Services Administration (GSA) is requesting information in an effort to develop testing and evaluation strategies related to selecting commercial shared service providers (SSP) for the Financial Management Line of Business (FMLoB) Initiative. The objective of this Request for Information (RFI) is to obtain information on testing strategies from all interested businesses (large and small) to ensure that financial management systems are implemented efficiently and meet all of the Financial Systems Integration Office (FSIO) core system and agency defined requirements. Responses to this RFI will assist the Government in determining acquisition strategies for the Federal Government at large. All interested businesses are hereby invited to submit responses of no more than 25 pages that address Sections 2.0 and 3.0. In outlining your company?s response to this RFI, please provide a cover letter, which includes the following: ? Number of years of corporate experience ? Business Size ? Primary type of services provided ? Indicate whether services provided to previous customers were related to any of the following: Software or systems testing and evaluation ? Primary Point of Contact ? Address ? Telephone Number ? Fax Number ? E-mail address for POC All responses shall be handled in accordance with FAR 3.104. Vendors are encouraged to mark each page believed to contain sensitive information with the ?Proprietary Information? watermark. Vendors are requested to submit responses no later than 4:30 P.M. Eastern Time, September 21, 2007. The responses from this RFI may be used to assist the Government in developing evaluation criteria for a future procurement. 2.0 Problem Statement: Testing and Evaluation Method GSA wants to identify the most efficient and effective testing strategy for each of the evaluation phases listed in Table 1. This includes selecting financial software and the evaluation of shared service provider capabilities and proposed solutions. It also includes the evaluation of proposed agency solutions initiated during the procurement process and systems acceptance testing that is part of the implementation process. The goal is to develop testing processes that employ efficient methodologies to ensure financial management solutions are implemented in a timely and cost effective manner that meets both FSIO and agency defined requirements. Respondents are encouraged to think broadly about how to best achieve the desired objective. 3.0 Discussion of Testing Alternatives Below are the questions that shall be addressed in your response to this RFI: 1. What are the best overall testing methods to certify that the financial management software meets Federal FSIO requirements? 2. How can we best evaluate if a vendor is capable of installing/integrating/validating FSIO certified Financial Management Software and is qualified to be a shared service provider (SSP)? 3. What are the best methods for evaluating technical and management capabilities outlined in a proposed common solution? 4. In what stage of the acquisition process should testing be used for evaluating proposed solutions? 5. What testing and evaluation processes should be performed for agency acceptance testing that would build on the evaluation of a SSP?s capabilities? 6. What criteria should be used to evaluate a SSP?s proposed solution to the FSIO baseline requirements? 7. What is the best method to verify that vendors are employing the common standard solutions once they have been finalized and added to FSIO requirements? 8. Is there a better model for testing and evaluation than our current proposed model detailed in tables 1 and 2 below? 9. How can FSIO designate SSPs before the financial business process standards have been defined and how would you conduct the evaluation process? How could designated SSPs be evaluated once all the business process standards are defined? 4.0 Background In 2001, President Bush created the President?s Management Agenda to address the need for citizen-centered, results-oriented, and market-based federal government initiatives. The success of the President?s Agenda depends on agencies working as a team across traditional boundaries to better serve the American people and focusing on citizens rather than individual agency needs. Building upon the efforts of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Program to expand E-Government, the Office of Management and Budget launched the Lines of Business (LOB) initiatives with a goal of finding projects that fall into lines of business that were not originally identified as a part of the 24 e-government initiatives: financial management, grants management, and human resources management. Each of the lines of business identified core business requirements and processes. The Lines of Business initiatives afford agencies an unprecedented opportunity in a period of fiscal restraint to influence the direction of specific core business functions for the Government by leveraging technology to adopt industry and government ?Best Practices? and to standardize and eliminate redundant stovepipe and inadequately maintained systems throughout Government. The Office of Management and Budget and the established LOB Task Forces are focused on a business-driven, common solution and target architecture developed through an architectural framework. The definitions of these key characteristics of the LOB approach include: ?X Common Solution ? End to end shared service capabilities needed to achieve the LOB Statement of Objectives through a Target Architecture that includes business process, technology solutions, and data standardization. ?X Target Architecture ? End state toward which all efforts are directed; it will be the architecture for some future date and will be the target toward which integration efforts will be directed. ?X Business Driven (vs. Technology Driven) ? Solutions address distinct business improvements that directly affect LOB performance goals. ?X Developed Through Architectural Processes ? Solutions are developed through a set of common and repeatable processes and tools. The vision of the Financial Management Line of Business (FMLoB) is to establish the framework for government financial management solutions that are efficient and improve business performance while ensuring integrity in accountability, financial controls, and mission effectiveness. The FMLoB has several goals: ?X Achieve or enhance process improvements and cost savings in the acquisition, development, implementation, and operation of financial management systems through shared services, joint procurements, consolidation, and other means; ?X Provide for standardization of business processes and data elements; ?X Promote seamless data exchange between and among Federal agencies; and ?X Strengthen internal controls through real-time interoperability of core financial and subsidiary systems. 5.0 FMLoB Shared Service Provider (SSP) Strategy Common Solution A shared services model using competition among private sector and federal shared service providers (SSPs) is the desired outcome. A small number of high performing Federal agencies and commercial vendors would ultimately provide the entire Federal Government with Financial Management (FM) services. The SSPs will provide IT hosting, application management, and system implementation services to Federal agencies. Each SSP will provide these services to multiple agencies using a common solution. The common solutions must align with the vision, goals, and objectives of the FMLoB and be flexible enough to support agency specific requirements. The SSP must comply with all federal financial management laws and regulations. Other criteria sought from the SSPs are: ? Use of core financial management software that was tested and certified by the Financial System Integration Office (FSIO). ? Provide common data exchange interfaces for common government interfaces (e.g. payroll or e-travel). ? Use of ?best practice? approaches and methodologies for standardized implementation tasks (e.g. change management, project management, training, data conversion, and interface development). ? Compliance with the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) requirements. The key to the Shared Service Provider approach is the competitive process. The movement to these providers will reduce redundant approaches currently used in the management of financial systems across the Federal government. The migration to SSPs will also reduce the risks and resources needed to implement modern core financial management systems by leveraging implementations that have proven to be successful. Agency migrations will occur in a phased approach and follow the system development life cycle for FM. Agencies that are planning to purchase a new financial management system or planning a significant upgrade to an existing system will be required to evaluate the common solutions provided by SSPs. Reliance on Standards The long-term objective for FMLoB is to standardize core financial business processes as well as financial data. Agencies will adopt these standard business processes as they migrate to new financial management systems. SSPs are expected to offer solutions that implement these standards. The FMLoB is taking a collaborative, cross-government approach to developing standard business processes. The definition of standard data elements, data definitions, nomenclature, etc., and the creation of standard interoperability among core FM systems and subsidiary systems will be the output of the FMLoB data standardization effort. This standardization will facilitate the exchange of data with other lines of business and common application E-Government (E-Gov) efforts such as E-Travel, E-Payroll, and the Integrated Acquisitions Environment (IAE) will promote seamless data exchange and improve internal controls. In addition, the standardization effort will improve federal financial management by: 1) Developing additional requirements to support the standard processes and data requirements building on and enhancing the standardization efforts of the central agencies OMB and Treasury, and other commonly used systems at GSA etc. 2) Allowing financial management personnel across the government to learn and speak the same ?language?, enhancing common core competencies, and providing ?economies of skill?. The development and implementation of these standards will, by themselves, improve the integrity of financial management at both the individual agency and government-wide levels and will help agencies to comply with financial management laws and regulations such as the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (FFMIA). Standardization also provides additional benefits. It will facilitate the development of additional systemic internal controls (business rules) through the identification of required relationships among processes and data. Adopting these new process and data standards to manage financial information, will also involve changes to the existing financial management operations. Other Benefits A significant weakness of current FM systems is the unavailability of financial information on a real-time basis to allow management to make pertinent decisions in a timely manner. Currently available solutions are highly configurable and depending on the configuration chosen during the implementation, the system may no longer meet FSIO requirements. SSPs will be expected to offer solutions that address these issues. The solution proposed will meet the FMLoB vision and goals by: 1) Resulting in significant reductions in duplicative investment and redundant operating costs 2) Reuse of best practices, proven approaches and methodologies for executing business processes within a given business function, especially where the agency has a current gap or need for improvement 3) Faster and more consistent deployment of financial management capabilities 4) Improved standardization of practices and processes, leading to improved accountability and auditability Current Testing and Evaluation Methods FSIO currently tests commercial off-the shelf core financial management software packages to ensure they comply with FSIO core financial system requirements. Software testing is performed following FSIO testing policy, and software that has passed all mandatory test steps is certified. Additional software test information can be found at http://www.fsio.gov/. OMB Circular A-127 requires federal agencies to purchase only FSIO certified core financial management system software when upgrading or migrating to new financial management software. Agencies typically require vendors to demonstrate that the solution being offered for their financial system acquisition can meet the agency specified requirements prior to selection. This is typically done through a capability demonstration. Once the selected software is configured, the agency will perform acceptance testing as part of the implementation process. The need to designate commercial shared service providers, and provide agencies with an acquisition vehicle to purchase services from those designated providers introduces an additional evaluation phase. The SSP evaluation process includes the requirement that vendors complete a due diligence check list to indicate their capabilities and readiness to offer service. The types of evaluations in the current model are depicted in the following section: Table 1. Evaluation Phases Pre- Selection - FSIO Responsibility ? Product Qualification Test - Comprehensive tests of common requirements compliance and document configuration ? Provider Capability Demonstration - Federal financial event scenarios using baseline configuration Selection - Agency Responsibility ? Agency Technical Evaluation - Fit/gap analysis of SSP offerings and Agency non-core applications Risk/cost analysis Post-Selection ? Agency Responsibility/Governance ? Agency Acceptance - Operational test in actual system environment (Agency Responsibility) ? Independent Verification & Validation - Confirms functionality delivered meets task order terms and acquisition goals (Governance) Table 2. Purpose and Scope for Each Phase of Evaluation Product Qualification Test ? Comprehensive testing of FSIO Core Requirements Service Provider Evaluation ? Assess common requirements and policy compliance o FISMA security assurance o Accessibility section 508 policy Agency Technical ? Comparison acceptance o Agency mandatory requirements o Agency desirable requirements o Agency non-core applications Agency Acceptance Test ? Authority to operate o Agency and select core requirements o Agency specific integration o Access control o Performance 6.0 Instructions for Responding Hard copy or E-mail responses shall be submitted to the following: Arthur Brunson, Financial Management COTR General Services Administration 1800 F Street NW, Room 2015 Washington, DC 20405 E-mail: FMLOB@gsa.gov