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HomeMy WebLinkAboutRFP - 8333 UTILITIES RECORDS MANAGEMENTAddendum 1 – 8333 Utilities Records Management Consulting Services Page 1 of 9 ADDENDUM No. 1 SPECIFICATIONS AND CONTRACT DOCUMENTS Description of BID RFP 8333: Utilities Records Management Consulting Services OPENING DATE: 3:00 PM (Our Clock) July 11, 2016 To all prospective bidders under the specifications and contract documents described above, the following changes/additions are hereby made and detailed in the following sections of this addendum: Exhibit 1 – Questions & Answers Please contact Ed Bonnette, CPPB, CPM, Senior Buyer at (970) 416-2247 with any questions regarding this addendum. RECEIPT OF THIS ADDENDUM MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGED BY A WRITTEN STATEMENT ENCLOSED WITH THE BID/QUOTE STATING THAT THIS ADDENDUM HAS BEEN RECEIVED. Financial Services Purchasing Division 215 N. Mason St. 2nd Floor PO Box 580 Fort Collins, CO 80522 970.221.6775 970.221.6707 fcgov.com/purchasing Addendum 1 – 8333 Utilities Records Management Consulting Services Page 2 of 9 EXHIBIT 1 – QUESTIONS & ANSWERS 1) Under Section II, Task 2, B. Deliverables, item 1d – states “recommend training and awareness components which are realistic to maintain … and content for training components” – Is part of the deliverable to develop the actual training content and materials for the types of training mentioned? Answer: Yes, in partnership with Utilities records staff. After the records assessment is finished with all work groups and as part of the project plan, we would appreciate the opportunity to hear how other groups you have worked with are meeting their need for records management training, how often it should be delivered, in what type of format(s), etc. 2) Where (locations) will the work be expected to take place; i.e., for assessment interviews, reviews of collections/systems, etc.? Answer: Assessment interviews and reviews of collections/systems will take the chosen firm to all four manned Utilities sites at various points in the project as described in Current State (Page 4, second paragraph) and take place in primarily conference room settings. As part of the review of physical records collections, there will be more than one location at each of the four sites that you will be visiting and working within, such as individual employee offices, file rooms, storage buildings, etc. in order to assess volumes and other characterizing features of both active and inactive records collections at all four sites. 3) Are records and documents considered to be inactive stored in other locations? If so, where are these records located? Answer: See response to Question 2. 4) What is the estimated start work date for this project? Answer: Depending on whether the chosen firm and staff are available to conduct interviews the week of July 25-29, if we have to push interviews to the week of August 1-5 and allowing for time for execution of the contract, we anticipate start work date to be Tuesday, September 6. 5) What is the estimated date for completion of this project? (The RFP states “completion of work and presentation prior to December 1, 2016”.) Answer: We would like the firm to be prepared to deliver an executive summary and a preliminary project plan by December 1. Since the project is encumbered to a 2016 purchase order (PO), as the project unfolds, if volume and complexity of the project have prevented the completion of all interviews and planning work by the firm by this date, work based on the 2016 PO can continue into 2017 pending the approval of the Executive Director. 6) Is the “Preliminary Report to City” in Section D. Schedule, the draft of the project plan? Answer: Your question refers to the date stated in the RFP for the preliminary report of October 28, 2016. We do not expect the draft project plan by this date. The preliminary report should be a “telling picture” of what the chosen firm is experiencing thus far in the project. It should speak to the status of completing records assessments with the 40 functional work groups, any unexpected (and type of) challenges that the firm is encountering and whether the firm anticipates the need to extend the project work into 2017. In other words, is the process becoming bogged down in complexities (such as tangled business processes that staff are trying to fix through the records interviews [which is not the goal of the project], lack of group understanding about who the records owner of the collection is [either within Utilities or within the greater City organization], access to active Addendum 1 – 8333 Utilities Records Management Consulting Services Page 3 of 9 and/or inactive records collections, and this type of information. However, by this point in the project, the firm may be able to give an emerging picture of some elements of the project plan and would be expected to reveal these in the preliminary report if those elements are not likely to change greatly. 7) Is the “draft” of the project plan to be considered complete with the exception of comments or corrections to be provided by the City? Answer: Yes, if the firm has been able to complete work and write the project plan by December 1. If the scenario of extending into 2017 described in response to Question 5 unfolds, we expect an executive briefing in the early December time frame to share as much of the project plan as is developed to that point, and we would discuss a revised due date for the “final draft” project plan (and second executive briefing), which likely would still need completion based on comments, corrections and decisions to be provided by the City to the final draft. 8) Replacement of SIRE by IT: a. Are the results of this consulting engagement intended to be used to formulate the business requirements for the replacement procurement being addressed by IT? Answer: Not expressly. However, our colleagues in IT who manage SIRE are including us in pre-surveys for the system replacement, and if we learn of desired system requirements as a result of this records assessment, we can submit those requirements to them for consideration in the system replacement. The IT group is not far enough along in their process for us to know if either our Records Coordinator or the Utilities supervisor to the Coordinator position will serve on the selection team. b. Is upgrading to an OnBase product rather than an entire replacement of SIRE being considered? If not, are migration issues to be addressed in this engagement? Answer: These decisions are under the purview of the IT department. At this time, IT is choosing to issue an RFP to look at other system options. Due to the number of questions submitted about our Utilities RFP for a records assessment about SIRE and the system replacement, I would like to clarify that neither the replacement of SIRE with a new system nor migration issues between old and new systems are related to the core purpose and goals of this records assessment engagement for Utilities. c. Are you planning on using the replacement product solely as a store/scan/retrieve location or are you looking to implement workflow functionality, improving the management and governance of your information/documents with new technology? Answer: SIRE does have capability for workflow functionality, but City IT opted not to active it. If IT follows the same approach for the replacement system, it will be used solely as a store/scan/retrieve location. However, if the IT group’s ultimate selection for system replacement offers other workflow functionality, it remains to be seen whether we would be required by City IT to implement that functionality or whether it would be provided to us as another tool to consider using in Utilities. The Utilities group’s workflow functionality options seem to be occurring with the emergence of SharePoint in some work groups of the Utility. Other than SharePoint, there are shared network areas and other systems that may or may not contain their own workflow functionality features unknown to us as records staff at this time. 9) With the vast majority of all records/documents being created and stored electronically, will you be looking to implement a trusted electronic content system for storage of your official records consistent with ISO 15801 or AIIM Recommended Practice 1? Addendum 1 – 8333 Utilities Records Management Consulting Services Page 4 of 9 Answer: To date, the Utilities records program has not matured to the point where we are pursuing purposeful alignment with ISO 15801 or any AIIM practices. Utilities is required to use the electronic document management system as chosen for the City enterprise by City IT, so we are not seeking to implement a separate content system. 10) Information gathering: a. You indicate that interviews will take place with record coordinators and key staff or up to 40 functional work groups – how many persons do you anticipate will need to be interviewed? Answer: I anticipate that there would be between 3-8 personnel participating in each of these 40 group interviews. The senior managers will be asked to specifically determine the names of their records owners and other key staff who can help the firm and records staff characterize their records collections. b. Are you anticipating that questionnaires could be substituted for any interviews? Answer: No, we do not feel it will be effective to wholly substitute questionnaires for in- person interviews. We do anticipate the need for an initial planning session between records staff and the chosen firm to determine how to prepare the interview participants to arrive at the interviews with meaningful information and expect that some type of pre- interview information collection would occur via the use of a pre-survey. 11) Budget/Timeline: a. Were informal quotes received to assist in developing the budget and timeline? Answer: Yes b. Is it more important to stay within the not to exceed $30k budget, even if there are areas that are requested or recommended to be examined but due to limited time frame cannot be adequately covered? Answer: Some of the deliverables (i.e., preliminary report and regular check-ins between firm and records staff) are designed as part of the assignment in order to have an ongoing sense of whether additional time and funds will be needed to fulfill all aspects of the desired work as the project is unfolding. If that becomes apparent, there will be the option to consult with the executive director on approval or disapproval of additional funding, based upon some type of report from the firm that describes the remaining work and costs associated to complete the project. 12) The RFP Scope of Work mentions accomplishing interviews with records custodians and other key staff from up to 40 functional work groups within utilities. Can you provide clarification on how many people would actually need to be interviewed? Do these workgroups handle the same types of records? Given the budget requirements of the RFP, we are wanting to make sure enough time is allocated appropriately. Answer: We foresee 40 functional work group interviews, with each interview being made up of a small group of 3-8 records custodians and other key staff. This equates to approximately 120-320 individuals that will likely come to the table for these interviews. We know of distinct differences in the types of records across some of these groups, but you will discover some similarities in general types of records collections in more than one group (memos, reports, letters, etc.). 13) If selected will the City share copies of existing policies, procedures, spreadsheet inventories, and existing indexing procedures? Answer: Yes Addendum 1 – 8333 Utilities Records Management Consulting Services Page 5 of 9 14) What is status of the Records Management Committee? Is it functioning as an ongoing support or is it currently not active? What is the makeup of the members of the committee? Management or staff? Answer: The Records Management Committee is inactive at this time (meeting for the last time in 2012). At that time, the make-up of the committee was comprised of representatives from legal, IT and each of the Utilities service units/departments, as well as the records staff. The representatives were primarily managers but a few were front line staff. 15) Would responding to this Records Consulting RFP disqualify the vendor from also responding to the Document Management RFP when that is released? Answer: We are assuming that you are referring to this from page 4 of the RFP: “SIRE has been purchased by OnBase; therefore, the City’s IT department is going out to bid for a new EDMS system and plans to have a vendor selected by end of 2016, with implementation planned for late 2017/early 2018.” No, this would not disqualify your firm from responding to the later RFP. The Utilities RFP is for Records Management Consulting Services; the later one will be managed by IT for procurement for a replacement system solution, although with some of their timing unknown on their RFP, we can’t say for certain that the execution of project work would not potentially conflict with each other. 16) Would the City be willing to utilize a pre-negotiated contract standard, such as US Communities, instead of requiring firms agree to the City's contract form? Answer: No. We are looking for a solution customized to our needs as spelled out in the RFP. 17) Does the City's SIRE system currently allow mass uploads, and if so, what file and index format? Answer: The City’s SIRE system does allow uploads by “batch”, but each file then must be indexed individually. Currently, SIRE has a maximum file size limit that can be uploaded into a batch at once. The limit is around 150.0MB (IT hasn’t determined or communicated what the exact limit is and it is something that the user discovers at the time of uploading). Any big batches being uploaded into SIRE Capture tend to bog the system down, resulting in SIRE to freeze up and shut down. SIRE accepts many file types, but the ones that Utilities primarily has the most of include PDFs, TIFs and JPEGs. The Utilities has established indexing standards that are provided to groups who are going through the cabinet creation process or are populating a new or existing cabinet. Each group is also encouraged to establish any work-group-specific indexing standards for consistency with their document indexing, and we ask that those are shared with records staff. 18) Will the City consider other data collection methods other than in-person interviews for all departments and stakeholders, such as remote surveys? Answer: See response to Question 10b. 19) Will the chosen firm be able to leverage the Records Management Committee (est. in 2011, not currently maintained)? Answer: Not for the scope of work being requested in this RFP. One reason is that membership needs to be refreshed, and another reason is that it is not essential to involve the Records Management Committee for the central element of this RFP’s scope of work, i.e. a comprehensive records assessment. Addendum 1 – 8333 Utilities Records Management Consulting Services Page 6 of 9 20) Will the chosen firm have access to and leverage the preliminary records inventory spreadsheets created in 2013? Answer: See response to Question 13. 21) Will the chosen firm need to visit all 5 sites or would the City consider a more representative approach? Answer: Yes, Utilities anticipates that it will be essential for the chosen firm to visit all 4- 5 sites in order to validate some of the information being shared by the work groups as they characterize their collections. 22) Will an instance of SIRE be maintained or are all records housed therein expected to be migrated to the new system in 2017? Answer: It is our understanding in Utilities that SIRE will be inactivated once all files are migrated to the new replacement system. This is based on the fact that the SIRE application will no longer be supported at a certain point by the company that purchased it. We assume that IT will keep SIRE for a specific time period after the migration has taken place to ensure no loss of records has occurred. Once migration has taken place, IT will communicate to us what that will look like. 23) Please provide a list of Utility SIRE applications and which you consider greenfield and which brownfield. Answer: We’re not quite certain what this question is about, and this consulting engagement does not require us to characterize SIRE. We apply the concept of “greenfield” versus “brownfield” to records collections, not to SIRE applications. We can confirm though that we are using SIRE only to archive permanent records, not any types of records that are part of ongoing work flow activities. Once a SIRE cabinet has been created for a group to archive their permanent records, it is possible that they have “caught up” and entered all of their “brownfields” records AND that going forward, as they create the same records, they are taking a “greenfields” approach and adding these to the collection. 24) Does Utility intend to expand the use of SIRE or will you wait for its replacement? Answer: Utilities does not intend to expand our service area’s use of SIRE and will continue to use it solely as a repository for permanent records of historical or enduring business value. 25) Which schedules from the Colorado Municipal Records Retention Manual (CMRRS) are being used by the Utilities division? Answer: The Utilities service area adopted the CMRRS in its entirety, and we have records pertaining to many of the schedules contained therein with the exception of obvious schedules that don’t pertain to the work of Utilities, such as cemetery records, election records, library and museum records or municipal court records. 26) Is the goal to follow ISO 14001 for all groups? Answer: As part of records management, Utilities is not pursuing ISO 14001 certification for all groups or our program as an overarching endeavor at this time. Some of our work groups (primarily those involved in regulatory activities such as water and wastewater treatment) have pursued and been awarded ISO 14001 certification. In the process of their records management efforts, we strive to make certain as records staff that the elements we Addendum 1 – 8333 Utilities Records Management Consulting Services Page 7 of 9 have in place with the program are not in conflict with their certification. Additionally, if there are such conflicts or gaps, staff of those work groups have the opportunity to work with records to address them. 27) Are the standard operating procedures (SOPs) documented? Answer: There is one guiding records management policy that has some standard procedural content* embedded within it. At this time, we do not have additional SOPs beyond this policy. (*This procedural content includes instructions for the records destruction approval process and the process for requesting an exception of the Colorado State Archivist to keep a records collection for a shorter period of time than is stated in the CMRRS). a. If not, are we expected to document the procedures? Answer: No, but as part of the project work and ultimate project plan, it would be helpful to hear your recommendation as to whether stand-alone SOPs need to be created to address glaring gaps. b. If not, which procedures are not yet documented? Answer: We have not identified that other procedures need to be documented at this time, given the maturity of our program at the point of this RFP project. As our program grows in maturity, we may identify the need for additional procedures. 28) Is the Records Management policy documented? Answer: Yes. Chosen firm will be provided a copy of the policy. a. If not, are we expected to document the policy? Answer: Not applicable since already exists. 29) Is the Authorization to Destruct Records approval process documented? Answer: Yes, as noted above in the response to Question 3. a. If not, are we expected to document the procedures? Answer: Not applicable since already exists. 30) Are the General Utilities indexing standards documented? Answer: Yes. a. If not, are we expected to document the procedures? Answer: Not applicable since already exist. 31) Is the Scanning and indexing program documented? Answer: Not at this time since there are not records super-users embedded within each functional work group who have a role with scanning and indexing. a. If not, are we expected to document the procedures? Answer: No, we don’t believe that there will be a need for assistance with documenting this. 32) What is the definition of non-active records? Answer: For consistency in the RFP, we should not have used the term “non-active” records. The records management practice uses the term “inactive” records as opposed to “non- active”. Addendum 1 – 8333 Utilities Records Management Consulting Services Page 8 of 9 33) What is the definition of inactive records? Answer: “Records no longer needed on a day-to-day operational basis but may be required for future administrative, legal or historical reasons.” These could also be records which are being preserved until the end of the retention period is met. 34) What is the definition of non-record documents? Answer: Examples were provided on Page 5 of the RFP (drafts, worksheets, routine memos, convenience copies and any documents that have no retention value). Appendix A of the CMRRS also shares some examples of non-record documents and will be provided to the chosen firm. 35) How do documents get put into an inactive state? Answer: The answer to this can vary from group to group or type of document/record. For example, all Utilities contracts and agreements are digitized into a SIRE cabinet. Those for which the terms have expired continue to be retained within this collection even though they are inactive since we have decided to retain all contracts and agreements permanently. Other groups may box up inactive records to hold them until the end of the retention period in storage. 36) How will “owner” group for each system/repository be determined if there is not consensus? Answer: Some Utilities groups know inherently that they are the record owner. For other collections where it’s not as clear, discussions would take place with the functional work groups involved with each records collection in question who each have a stake in those records collections. 37) Has the security around the existing digitized records been independently assessed? Answer: No. Those who are creating SharePoint sites and groups working to build their SIRE cabinets determine who will be accessing them and manage security through the permissions and access that they grant to the collections. Cabinets with sensitive documents have not been exposed on CityDocs (the City’s public portal) and cabinets with non-sensitive public information have been exposed on CityDocs after consulting with the City’s legal department. These practices also apply to our shared network drives. Access to folders on the shared network drives are given only to those who have a business need to access those folders. a. If so, were there any concerns that should be addressed in the RFP responses? Answer: It is our expectation when the records custodians and key staff who can characterize the records collections participate in the assessment interviews, they give indication of any security concerns (physical security concerns for paper collections that are not digitized, cyber security concerns, etc.). 38) Should the RFP response address security/privacy of digitized online records? Answer: I don’t know how the RFP responses could speak to any specific needs for security/privacy without knowing the characterization of our records collections. However, if your group has specific training in applying security/privacy principles that you anticipate would come into play with this type of project, it would be appropriate to speak to those in general in your RFP response. See our response to Question 37 in terms of managing security and permissions access for both public records and non-public records. Addendum 1 – 8333 Utilities Records Management Consulting Services Page 9 of 9 a. Digitized records stored in backup files? Answer: IT conducts backups of all networks on a nightly basis, including anything in SharePoint, all files stored on shared directories and records in SIRE. Backups of SIRE are kept offsite with another backup retained in another location. IT determines the security parameters for these backed-up files. 39) Should the RFP response include an assessment of the security configuration of SIRE and its supporting infrastructure? Answer: No. Security configuration and supporting infrastructure of SIRE comes under the authority and purview of the City IT department and a study of these elements is not part of this project scope of work. 40) Is SIRE segmented from other applications on the network? Answer: It is not connected to any other network applications, but other programs on the City’s network can pull information from or be integrated with SIRE.