Procurement and Contracting Services
ADDENDUM # 1
RFP L171302
Request for Proposals
For
Web Development and
Mobile Application Development
Services
Please mark all proposal submission
Envelopes with the following information
Sealed RFP # L171302
Request for Clarification
RFP #L171102, Web Development and Mobile Application Development Services
1) Is this open to any qualified US business? Even if they have no registered office in state of Arizona? Yes.
2) Are there incumbent vendors providing the requested services? Third party vendors are currently leveraged for specific situations.
If so:
a) What are their names? No Response b) How long is the association? No Response c) Will they also respond? No Response
3) What are the respective percentages while determining the evaluation factors listed in clause 3.9.5 (pg 13/30)? Assessment of vendor qualification areas will be based upon the services vendors are proposing. See 3.9.8 for specific Evaluation Criteria.
4) We do not see any mention of cost/hourly rates for services. Is this not part of evaluation
criteria? Cost is the 4th bullet item in the Evaluation Criteria, 3.9.8. This is to be captured within a column of the attached spreadsheet.
5) Can vendors choose to respond to either web based or mobility based applications? Yes. In fact, a vendor can respond to any subset of services as well.
6) How many vendors are likely to be in the selected pool? TBD based upon number of qualified responses. The intent is to have several selected vendors. The expectation is to select boutique providers and full service providers.
7) We have cost effectively provided similar services utilizing our resources based in our
development centers outside of US. Can we articulate such a model to ABOR? We also do have staff locally based in US to correspond and reduce response time. Such a model will be considered based on the locally-based staff’s ability to respond promptly and address issues efficiently
effectively. Please refer to 5.3.1 and 5.3.2.
8) Are resumes included as part of the 40 page limit? No.
9) Can this be included as addendum after the 40 page response? Yes.
10) How many resumes are to be included in the Key personnel segment? It depends on how many services are being responded to. Every responded service should be covered somewhere in the resumes you provide.
11) Can these be sample resumes of our employee base? Yes.
12) Can you please clarify what specific certifications/forms need to accompany this proposal? Some of them seem not relevant to this solicitation. All the forms listed in Section 6.0 of the Request for Proposal must be completed and included in the response.
13) What was the total spend on similar services by ABOR in 2012? No process exists to track/aggregate spend on similar services throughout institution.
14) How many task orders/SOWs were issued to vendors for similar services in 2012? Four SOW’s were issued by our team in 2012. However, that number does not include teams throughout the institution. The demand for this effort is campus wide.
15) What is the anticipated budget for such services in 2013? The anticipated budget depends on demand. A significant demand is anticipated for web sites and mobile applications in which 3rd party vendors will be leveraged for delivery.
16) Would the University consider a proposal purely for Staff Augmentation strictly on a time and materials basis rather than “consulting” services for web and mobile application development, either as a sole solution, or as a sole offering but part of an overall solution? Yes.
17) If the University would consider a recruiting and staffing firm, rather than a “consulting” firm, would the University be willing to disregard bullet point number 5 under section 5.2.1 “Stable technology platforms, delivery and support services” since the recruiting and staffing firm would not provide the computing resources required but only the manpower? Yes.
18) On the submission spreadsheet under the ‘Services Inventory’ tab Row 4, it states Rates need to be frozen till 2015. However, in the RFP doc Terms of Agreement Sec 5.1, it specifies that the term is a “One (1) year with four additional One (1) year options”. We need to confirm if the rates for the additional 1 year options can vary. The spreadsheet states the rates should be provided through 2015, but they are not frozen. There is a process to request an increase under Section 4.31.
19) In the RFP document, Sec 5.4.1 “Complete the attached spreadsheet – do not exceed 10 pages”-- We need to confirm the context of 10 pages total in a spreadsheet. Do you mean 10 pages in a
print view? Would separately attached and supportive documents be accepted as well and in conjunction? Yes.
Are these 10 pages inclusive of the stated 40 pages quota? For clarification, is the expectation to be a 30 page RFP response document and accompanied by a 10 page total response
spreadsheet, or do we need to paste the tables from the spreadsheet in our response document itself with a cumulative total limit of 40 pages? The spreadsheet pages are not included in the 40 pages quota.
20) In section 4.23 it is asking about Commercial Automobile Liability insurance, is this required for off-site vendors that will be working remotely? No, it does not. However, should the need arise for the vendor to work onsite, it would be required.
21) Will the University provide remote access to the selected vendor (i.e. so that development tasks can take place at the vendor’s office, for remote support, etc)? Yes.
22) Is there a requirement for performing project tasks on-site at the University (other than on-site meetings, implementation/installation, etc)? There is not a requirement to perform tasks on-site.
However, some tasks may need to be performed on-site depending on the requirements of the project deliverables.
Overall Questions
23) What mixture of traditional and Agile process currently exists? Has the organization started or completed a transition to Scrum/Agile methodologies? The University has adopted an agile process methodology, but the specific methodology varies depending on the application platform. 24 ) Does UoA have a Project Management office within the technical organization? The UITS Web /
Mobile Services team will be responsible for most of the project management.
25) What standard compliance, security and/or regulations are adhered to internal to UofA. Expect that FERPA is included in addition to the PCI compliance. What others are expected? Depending on the particular business purpose of the web/mobile application, a number of regulatory and security standards may apply. This includes but is not limited to FERPA, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, FISMA, GLBA, and relevant state, local, and Federal legislation.
26) In pricing section of the excel spreadsheet can we specify a range from low to high for all resources. Example $55 to $75. Yes, but your pricing submission will be evaluated at the high price.
Web Development Questions
27) How will code-base be delivered - What source control if any is being used, and is this the expected delivery mechanism? Git is the primary source control platform, and it will be the expected delivery mechanism.
28) What Application server(s) will the web applications be running on? LAMP and ASP.NET are the primary web application servers.
29) What versions of each of the listed frameworks/technologies are being used? Drupal - Variable but primarily 6.0 and newer
PHP - Variable but primarily 5.3 and newer Java - Variable but primarily 1.6 and newer MySQL - Variable but primarily 5.0 and newer Oracle - Variable but primarily 11g R1 and newer
30) Does development completed in older versions of the above applications need to be supported? The versions of the applications will be project dependent.
31) Will development need to be done over VPN for access to items such as web services, data sources, and WebAuth integration? Yes.
Mobile Application Development Questions
32) Will applications be deployed to public app stores? It depends on the specific project. The University has apps deployed to the Apple App and Google Play stores. We also have some learning apps that are enterprise only apps.
33) What versions of IOS and android will need to be supported? iOS apps need to support version 5.0 and newer. Android apps need to support version 2.3 (Gingerbread) and newer.
34) Will these apps be targeting phone or tablet users, or both? It depends on the requirements of the specific project.
We will also need copy of their development standards documents.
35) Did the University of Arizona work with an outside agency on the current website design? If so, can you cite the name of the agency/firm? There have been outside agencies and internal designers that have contributed to the current website design.
36) What is the make-up of the University’s current marketing team? Can you give us a sense of the overall internal operating structure and who is the University’s overall web/brand manager? The UITS Web / Mobile team is the liaison to the various marketing teams of the University.
37) Who does the University consider to be its top three competitors from a cross-applicant/enrollment standpoint? N/A.
38) Are there any existing mobile applications in use? If so, please describe development specifics and the use/purpose of these applications. Yes, there are mobile apps currently in use.They are native apps for iPhone and Android. Please visithttp://www.arizona.edu/apps/mobile-weband
https://mobilematters.secure.arizona.edu/uappsfor more information on the use/purpose of the apps.
39) Is the University open to developing the new site using a responsive-design strategy? With very few exceptions, all new web design will be using responsive design.
40) Are there any sites within or outside of higher education that the University has reviewed that are indicative of the your preferences for overall look, style, functionality, navigational features, etc.? Reviewing the preferred look of our offerings is a project that is currently in progress.
41) Who are the members of the RFP review committee that will be evaluating and scoring the proposals to make the final determination of the right-fit partner(s) for the web, mobile and other online-based projects? N/A.
42) Do you currently have branding guidelines (UI navigation structures) in place that will need to be followed for website design and mobile development? Yes.
43) What level of security is currently being used on these websites / mobile applications? The level of security is dependent on the type of content.
44) Can you please elaborate on the types of these 2700 websites referred in the proposal? Are they mainly used for content publishing, informative sharing etc.? The websites are primarily content publishing.
45) Does the University prefer a single website theme across the all the websites within the University? Yes, but this is a long-term objective.
46) Does the University have any web services or server side infrastructure in place that can be utilized for mobile application development? Yes, and new web services are added when needed. 47) What services types (SOAP, REST, RPC etc.), protocols are currently used within various University
websites? SOAP, REST, and HTTP/XML protocols are used by the various University websites. 48) Does the University have any mobile applications in use? If yes, please can you name a few? Are
they available on public app stores? Please see the response to questions 38.
49) What application server environments (IIS, Apache, WebSphere, Joomla etc.) are currently used for existing websites? The University web server environments are mostly Apache and IIS. Please see the skills inventory spreadsheet for additional detail on the technologies used.
50) Would you have any preference over native vs. hybrid for mobile applications? We need the ability to support both, native and hybrid, depending on the app requirements.
51) What would be the scope of the mobile apps based on the existing websites hosted in the UA? OR would respective project stakeholders provide that later? The various University stakeholders with the app requirements will be provided when the development is approved.
52) Would these mobile applications have offline capability? Offline mode is supported for the mobile apps that require it.
53) Is the University also targeting iPads, iPods as well or the mobile applications are limited to iPhones and Android smartphones? The reason we ask this is that if University decides to go for native application development there may be additional porting effort involved for porting a smartphone application to tablet user experience. It is dependent on the requirements of the app. The University has apps that are phone only, tablet only, or both phone and tablet.
54) Is multilingual support required for the mobile applications? No.
55) Would these mobile applications be hosted on public app store or to University’s own portal? The University currently has both types of mobile apps, and we will need to support both models in the future.
56) What is the average web traffic hit count for the existing websites? The average monthly hits on Arizona.edu are approximately 1 – 1.5 million.
57) What is the user load on the server for the existing websites currently? The user load is dynamic depending on the web site and the academic calendar.
58) Are the existing websites based on an open source CMS (Content Management System) or a custom CMS/ enterprise database? Most of our websites are base on the Drupal content management system.
59) Do you require a pricing model for each of these website/mobile applications or just the
the pricing will be required at a later stage when respective project stakeholders publish more details of the projects. Please clarify. For this RFP, we require the all-inclusive hourly rate for the skills that your company would like to provide.
60) Are you expecting vendors to quote this on a Time & Material (T&M) or a fixed bid basis? It will depend on the services being requested by the project stakeholders.
61) Is there any target budget proposed for this project? The budget depends on the individual business case, but the demand is high.
62) Engagement Model - Could you please elaborate on the preferred engagement model (Time and Material, Fixed Price, Output Based etc.) for providing skilled resources on Just in Time (JIT) basis? The preferred engagement model is dependent on the individual business case.
63) Engagement Model - What is the preferred lead time to staff resources? The preferred lead-time is 1 – 6 weeks depending on the project.
64) General - The vendor already has a MSA (Master Service Agreement) signed with the University for a different engagement. Can we assume the terms of that MSA will be applicable for this engagement in the event we are selected? The existing MSA would have to be reviewed for applicability to new engagement.
65) Mobility - Does the University already have any product/component/framework/tools for mobile applications development, which can be leveraged or is the Vendor responsible for defining a standardized platform, frameworks tools and technologies to implement various applications? The University will define the toolset for the mobile application development for the particular
project. The toolset will change depending what devices are supported and the project requirements.
66) Service Inventory - The service inventory spreadsheet does not have a way to provide different rates for onsite and offshore resources if the vendor has resources located both within and outside the US. Will you consider amending the template to provide rates separately for onsite and offshore resources? The University will not amend the service inventory at this time.
67) General Information, question #24 - What do you mean by "Do you well with other providers?" Are you asking how well we coordinate with other vendors while working in a project? Yes, that is correct.
68) Web Development - Cross browser – Which ones in specific and the minimum that should be supported? The required browsers are Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer v8 or newer, and Opera.
69) Web Development - Google Search Appliance - What level of expertise is required? The level of expertise is dependent on the project.
70) Web Development - Is the scope restricted only to web site development/maintenance or will be extended for integration to Content Management Systems, LMS, ERP etc.? Yes.
71) Web Development - Can you provide the number of web applications that are currently in production and basic frameworks/platforms supported? No, please seek the skills inventory spreadsheet for the supported frameworks and platforms.
72) If our company is submitting for both Web Development and Design and Mobile Application Development, do we need to submit two separate proposals or can we combine everything into one? You should combine all the services you want to provide that match our skills inventory into this RFP.
73) Following up on our first question, if we are able to combine everything into one, would it be best to combine the pricing or show what the individual costs would be? Please fill out the skills inventory with the all-inclusive hourly rate.
74) Would we be able to submit graphic design samples as part of our proposal? Yes, as long as the samples are 10 pages or less.
