RFI - BEP Tour Reservation Management System

This is a Request for Information (RFI) notice only. This RFI is for informational planning purposes only and it not to be construed as a commitment by the Government for any actual procurement of materials, machinery, or services. This notice does not constitute a solicitation or a promise of a solicitation in the future. This RFI does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service. Respondents are advised that the Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI. All costs associated with responding to this RFI are solely at the responding parties' expense. Respondents are solely responsible for properly marking and clearly identifying any proprietary information or trade secrets contained within their response. The Government will not be liable for, or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly marked and clearly identified. Proprietary information received in response to this sources sought will be safeguarded and handled in accordance with applicable Government regulations. Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract or agreement. The BEP will not be obligated to pursue any particular acquisition alternative as a result of this RFI. Responses to the RFI will not be returned. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future solicitation, if one is issued. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) offers free tours to the public at its Eastern Currency Facility (ECF) in Washington, DC and at its Western Currency Facility (WCF) in Fort Worth, Texas. BEP is seeking information from responsible sources that are capable of providing an on-line hosted reservation ticketing system. This capability shall be available as a Software as a Service (SAAS), meaning that it is 100% hosted by the vendor. BEP is primarily interested in services that currently exist. The basic and ideal concept of operation is that BEP will enter into a no-cost contract with the vendor to brand and operate this as a service for BEP. The public will be directed to the vendor site to obtain tickets. It is desired that a nominal fee be charged per ticket, i.e. <$2/ticket. This nominal charge via a credit or debit card per ticket is to ensure that a single user does not maliciously consume otherwise free tickets and fail to use them appropriately which would prevent persons who desire a tour from obtaining tickets they want. This fee is to be paid directly to and retained by the vendor. It is desired that this fee recovery by the vendor would fully cover the vendor costs to operate the site. For estimation purposes only, the following are tour hours of operation and estimated demand for tickets that could be processed at the ECF and WCF. Eastern Facility Tour Hours: ECF tours run every 15 minutes and can accommodate a maximum of 50 people per tour group. ECF offers tour tickets to the public March through August. September to April are walk-up tours and no reservation is required and no tickets to the public will be offered however, internal BEP management of tours is required through the system. During the month of March, tours for the general public run from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. with advanced reservations held for congressional offices and large groups at 8:15 a.m., 8:45 a.m., and 11:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. In March, the maximum number of visitors per day is 1,200. Of this amount, approximately 450 spots are reserved for congressional offices and school groups, leaving a balance of 750 slots for tickets, a percentage of which must be available for walk ups. March: approximately 500 ECF daily tickets would be available online ECF Extended Tour Hours At the ECF, extended tour hours are offered to the general public April through August, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., with the following tour times reserved for congressional offices and large groups: 8:15 a.m., 8:45 a.m., 11:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. The maximum number of visitors per day - April through August - is 2,200. Of this amount, approximately 650 spots are reserved for congressional offices and school groups, leaving a balance of 1,550 slots for general public tickets, a percentage of which must be available at the ticket booth for walkup visitors. April through August: approximately ECF 1,000 daily tickets would be available online Western Currency Facility Tour Hours: WCF tours have a maximum of 75 people per tour group. WCF tours run every 30 minutes, on the hour and half hour. During the months of August through May, the tour is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. August through May: 500 WCF daily tickets would be available online WCF Extended Tour Hours: At the WCF, extended tour hours are offered to the public during the months of June and July only, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. June and July: 1,000 WCF daily tickets would be available online High level attributes of the desired ticketing system are: - Website hosted reservation system. - Capable of managing 2 separate tour operations, ECF and WCF. - Capable of permitting BEP to control the number of reservations available for certain days, times of day per location and days or months in advance. - Capable of utilizing software to track all categories of tickets whether made available on line or not, i.e. school groups, VIP tours, etc. - Providing metric reports and real time status of tickets reserved and remaining available. - Tickets and confirmation information can be provided as on line downloads printable by the user; provided to a mobile device, or picked-up at Will Call by the requestor. - Providing internal protections to prevent a person from consuming more than a BEP specified allotment of tickets per unit time. Please limit your response to a total of 10 pages. Responses shall be in Windows compatible format (i.e. power point, Word, Excel). All responses shall be submitted in email attachment format. Include in your response the following information: 1. The Service/Software functionality description pertaining to the above requirements. 2. Whether help desks are provided for the public and/or BEP? 3. Other U.S. Federal Customers. 4. A description of the hosting environment, to include but not limited to: a. Is the hosting environment 100% located in the U.S.? b. What disaster recovery capability does the SAAS solution itself provide? 5. The security of the SAAS solution, to include but not limited to: a. The overall security and privacy of the SAAS solution. b. Has any assessment IAW NIST SP 800-53 R3 been performed? If so, is this data available from the provider? c. Has the solution ever been subjected to a Government Certification and Accreditation process? If so, is this data available from the provider? d. For whatever the provider does insofar as security and privacy, has a SAS-70 or any other kind of independent audit been conducted to verify performance and is that audit documentation available to potential customers? e. Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council Data Security Standards compliancy 6. The administration of the SAAS solution, to include but not limited to: a. A definition of the roles the solution supports, i.e. administrator, user, read-only viewer, etc. b. The number of such roles available to BEP users. 7. Any training or other professional services that may be offered. 8. Pricing description, to include but not limited to: a. Is the service available on GSA Schedule? If so, list Schedule, Contract number and term of the Schedule. If the GSA schedule is available, either provide the link or submit as an appendix to the submission, this is not included in the 10 page limitation. b. Discuss the pricing methodology and pricing, i.e; enterprise-unlimited user, concurrent user, named user, etc. c. Pricing of training and professional services. 9. Any Service Level Agreements that the vendor affirms will be met. 10. Whether the solution meets Section 508 accessibility requirements? 11. Business size classification and appropriate NAICS code. If an 8(a) firm, please include Small Business Administration (SBA) contact name, phone number, and email. 12. Business Point of Contact (POC) including name, phone number, email, physical address, web site address. Submission shall be directed to Kathleen Reidy, Contract Specialist, at Kathleen.Reidy@bep.gov. The email submission please note in the subject line "BEP-RFI-12-0005". This notice closes on January 5, 2012 at 2 PM EST.