Inactive Total Small Business Set-Aside (FAR 19.5)

USDA is seeking potential small business sources under GSA Schedule 70 for continued development of the USDA Employee Performance Managment Application (EPMA). Overall Scope of the Project EPMA is the... USDA is seeking potential small business sources under GSA Schedule 70 for continued development of the USDA Employee Performance Managment Application (EPMA). Overall Scope of the Project EPMA is the USDA Enterprise Performance Management Application. This system will facilitate 80,000-100,000 USDA Employee and Supervisor users to complete the Federal and USDA Performance Management requirements on an annual fiscal year basis. High Level Objectives Enhance the existing EPMA architecture, scale it to add an employee role for approximately 80,000 employees. Modify existing workflows to ensure employee participation throughout the performance management cycle/process. Create an avenue for workflow and digital signatures capabilities within the system to reduce (not eliminate) the need to email, PDF/print, and sign, and upload plans that were signed outside of EPMA. Enhance the reporting and analytics capabilities giving each Agency better Insights into managing their Performance Management Programs and to ensure performance management program data is accessible to USDA Senior Leaders. Operations and Maintenance and help desk support to ensure EPMA System is reliable, available, and accessible to users. Provide Project/Program Management to ensure a smooth transition in the areas of Development O& M and Deployment support to coordinate the project from a broad approach to ensure continuity of operations to ensure this highly visible system is branded with a positive recognition. Known Timeline * Denotes: Items currently under development and to be completed under a current contract for EPMA. Due Dates Tasks *5/15/21 Expose EPMA to the Public Internet * 508 Compliance Assessment *5/15/21 Deploy NFC FESI file feed to push end of the year ratings to NFC Systems. *8/31/21 Deploy Disaster Recovery Ongoing for the O&M support for EPMA including – monitoring application and back-end infrastructure system performance; life of the system monitor, plan, and communicate outages and maintenance; monitor, perform intake, research, problem solve, and resolve tickets; Grant Enterprise System Administration permission assignments; provide help desk support M-F, no less than 12 hours per day, for approx. 80,000-100,000 users; update system and training documentation regularly; participate in ATU/ATO processes. Provide system usage reports on a Quarterly basis; perform maintenance to ensure Disaster Recovery is always up-to-date; Establish, coordinate, and communicate Permissions Review Process in collaboration with the EPMA Program Manager. Assess and monitor 508 compliance. *8/31/21 *Year 2, Milestone 1 Deploy New Features that culminated in Employees being able to participate and sign performance plans in EPMA. This includes standing up a new employee role and modifying workflow to include employee interactions in performance planning. Deploy EPMA Enhancement requests related to the planning phase. Address any 508 Compliance Issues related to the planning phase. *8/31/21-11/15/21 New Implementation support for Year 2, Milestone 1 including -creating wiki pages in the CMS tool within EPMA, recording video tutorials on new system features and posting them in the CMS tool. Creating, preparing, and facilitating training to introduce approximately 80,000 new employee users. Help desk support for 80,000-100,000 users. 11/15/21-1/15/21 Continued support of Year 2, Milestone 1 to roll the system out to 80,000-100,000 users – training & help desk intensive 12/15/21 Year 2, Milestone 2 Deploy new features that establish employee role and engagement, workflow, and participation in IDPs and Quarterly Conversations. Deploy EPMA Enhancement requests related to the IDP and Quarterly Conversations phase. Address 508 Compliance Issues related to the IDP and Quarterly Conversations phase. Deploy Next Generation Reporting and Dashboarding advancing reporting and analytics capabilities, both within the system and with connections to the CXO Dashboards. 12/15/21-2/1/22 New Implementation support for Year 2, Milestone 2 8/31/22 Year 2, Milestone 3 Deploy new features that establish employee role and engagement in the workflow and participation in the end of the year performance appraisals/ratings. Deploy EPMA Enhancement requests related to the appraisal/rating phase. Address 508 Compliance Issues related to the appraisal/rating phase. Deploy new Employee Profile, to include Development of an enhanced Employee Profile to collect, store and report on the specific data as outline in the USDA requirements document (such as work schedule, telework eligibility and defined scheduled telework days; office/building location, etc) 8/31/22-11/15/22 New Implementation support for Year 2, Milestone 3 Technology Currently Used Linux, Red hat, Open Shift, Python, Django EPMA is hosted at DISC in the ECP-PaaS. EPMA will be using DISC DR services EPMA has already been using Agile, 2-week sprint cycle development EPMA would like the ability to do bug fixes and fix minor issues or release minor enhancements in real-time, along with having 3 larger release cycles for deployment throughout the year to be released in a “just in time” fashion for when users need it. EPMA System Demonstration Job Aids and System recordings can be accessed at: https://ehrapps.usda.gov/epma-guides. Risks, Issues, Assumptions, Gaps Please impart any specific additional information regarding this RFI that the USDA should be aware of when reviewing this and other RFI responses. This section should include risks, issues, assumptions and/or gaps that solution evaluation teams may or may not be aware of at this time and should be considered in any upcoming procurements. Commercial Pricing Provide an Estimate/Rough order of Magnitude (ROM) of the prices associated with procuring, developing, and deploying the solution your company would propose in as much detail as possible. USDA is looking for a cost-effective solution. NOTE: This is not a request for proposal, it is purely for the USDA to set an expectation for pricing this work and to assess project viability given budget constraints. Responses Interested Parties Interested parties are requested to respond to this Sources Sought with an electronic response to Todd Lennox, at todd.lennox@usda.gov and Carlton Bradshaw, at carlton.bradshaw@usda.gov. Electronic Responses Sources Sought Responses shall include: • Name of the primary point of contact (POC) for the response • Business Title, Email Address and Phone Number for primary POC, • Firm Name or organization affiliation and Firm Dun and Bradstreet (DUNS Number) • Identification of other key individual(s) who collaborated on RFI • Estimate/Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) of the prices associated with procuring, developing, and deploying the solution your company would propose in as much detail as possible. RFI Response Format: • Responses can be in the following authorized formats, Adobe Acrobat • When emailing RFI responses, the required naming convention in the subject line should be the following: RFI Response [FIRM NAME] – USDA EPMA Electronic Responses are due no later than June 29, 2021 by 3:00PM EST. Additional Marketing Materials may be included with response; however USDA is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals. Industry Discussions USDA representatives may or may not choose to meet with Responders. Such discussions would only be intended to get further clarification of potential solution(s) or service(s) to meet the USDA EPMA requirements, especially any risks, issues, assumptions and/or gaps. Questions Questions regarding this announcement shall be submitted in writing by e-mail to the Contracting Officer, email address. Verbal questions will NOT be accepted. Questions will be answered by posting answers to beta.SAM.gov; accordingly, questions shall NOT contain proprietary information. The Government does not guarantee that questions received after June 22, 2021 by 3:00pm EST will be answered. Interested parties should send questions in regards to this RFI to both Todd Lennox at todd.lennox@usda.gov and Carlton Bradshaw at carlton.bradshaw@usda.gov by June 22, 2021 by 3:00pm EST. When emailing RFI questions, the required naming convention in the subject line should be the following: RFI Question(s) [FIRM NAME] – USDA EPMA. Summary THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT/REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY to identify service(s) or solution(s) that can provide service (s) or solution to support the USDA EPMA. The information provided in the SS/RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. USDA has not made a commitment to procure any of the items discussed, and release of this SS/RFI should not be construed as such a commitment or as authorization to incur cost for which reimbursement would be required or sought. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned.