This announcement was amended to correct the e-mail address for Mr. John T. Gallagher (
[email protected] ). The United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Marketing Service, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20250 is seeking vendors who can provide Operations and Maintenance for an AMS hosted Microsoft CRM (Customer Relationship Management) COTS solution. This solution, titled Country of Origin Labeling Functional Analysis for Compliance and Trends System (COOL FACTS) is an operational CRM solution that supports Country of Origin Labeling Program. Country of Origin Labeling is a labeling law that requires retailers, such as full-line grocery stores, supermarkets, and club warehouse stores, notify their customers with information regarding the source of certain foods. Food products, (covered commodities) contained in the law include muscle cut and ground meats: beef, veal, pork, lamb, goat, and chicken; wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish; fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables; peanuts, pecans, and macadamia nuts; and ginseng. Commodities are excluded from mandatory COOL if they are considered processed food items. The COOL program ensures compliance with the regulation by conducting retail surveillance activities (retail reviews) and supplier traceback audits in grocery stores across the country that meet the requirements of COOL. The COOL FACTS application consists of an internal CRM solution that is utilized by AMS personnel to administrator the COOL Program and a secure externally facing .Net portal that is utilized by State cooperating agencies, (approximately 400 users). The portal includes functionality to manage retail review assignments; supervisor review capability; invoice submission; and user account update features. Both technical components of the solution are hosted locally on virtualized Windows 2008 servers. Other components of COOL FACTS include SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, CRM 2011 Enterprise, and a Microsoft Unified Access Gateway (UAG) device. AMS owns all software, hardware, and licenses to support this solution. AMS hosts both a Pre-Production and Production environment for COOL FACTS. This permits for comprehensive testing of any builds prior to production release. The COOL FACTS solution went live in April 2012. The support period with the incumbent expires in February 2013. AMS is soliciting vendors who have experience in maintaining large CRM solutions. AMS is not interested in teaming arrangements for this requirement. This is requirement includes: 1. Operations and Maintenance Support: The vendor shall be able to demonstrate a proven ability to support, maintain, and keep operational, a large, complex enterprise level CRM solution. The vendor should have a deep understanding of the CRM framework, relational databases, security implications, and customized workflows with CRM. AMS has onsite Tier 1 and Tier 2 support staffed by government personnel. This support is able to handle basic and intermediate COOL FACTS technical questions and problems. AMS is looking to compliment this with a deeper set of technical support services. These support services should be able to affectively understand initial report, diagnosis the problem, troubleshoot the problem, isolate, correct, test, and then deploy code fixes and/or minor changes to the system to keep the system operational and online. AMS believes that a mix of onsite and offsite support services would be optimum. AMS will provide onsite access, office space, and network access including a computer to work from. AMS does not believe that full time support is needed for this requirement. Major enhancements to the system are not included under item. Major enhancements will be undertaken periodically under a Fixed Priced Contract outside of Item 1. Those enhancements will be itemized and cost out separately. 2. Transition Period AMS will provide funding for the vendor to undertake a transition period of one month. This transition period will permit contractor support staff to familiarizes themselves with the COOL FACTS solution. This will allow more effective troubleshooting of the solution, once complete. A vendor/industry conference to view the system will be held on February 1, 2013 from 9:00 am - 11:00 am Eastern Standard Time at the U.S. Department of Agriculture South Building located at 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20250. Please contact Mr. John Gallagher via e-mail at
[email protected] if you plan to attend this conference. The conference will be approximately two hours (one hour to view the system and one hour for question and answers.) This is the only date vendors will be allowed to view the system. Vendors who are interested in this requirement are requested to submit the following information: (1) Capability statements regarding your company; (2) past performance information on contracts of similar size and scope of this project; (3) proven delivery history; and (4) three or four references. If available, please provide any available contracting vehicles such as Federal Supply Schedules (FSS), Government Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWAC) or existing Federal Contracts that can satisfy this requirement. Questions regarding this requirement must be submitted in writing to the Contracting Officer, Beverly Brown, at
[email protected]. All responses to this notice must be received by 2:00 pm EST February 8, 2013. Please send information to: Mr. John T. Gallagher, USDA, AMS, ITS, 1400 Independence Ave, SW, Room 1754 South Building, Washington DC 20250.