This is not a Notice of Solicitation. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) currently has a requirement to consolidate and align Information Technology (IT) Service Management software. VA requires an enterprise wide software solution that can meet some or all of the following desired characteristics: Service Management 1. Compatible with Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) v3 framework. 2. Ability to provide users a self-service web interface. 3. Ability to easily differentiate between ticket types (Request, Incident, Problem, etc.) based on reference number. 4. Ability to capture and manage contact information to include alternate Point of Contact (POC). 5. Ability to identify and alert Tier 1 technicians of Very Important People (VIP) customers and their delegate(s). 6. Ability to provide cascading selection capability to specify contact organizational data including Region/Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN)/Site/Location/Department details. (For example, initial selection of Region 1 would present VISNs belonging exclusively to Region 1). 7. Ability to classify tickets using pre-defined categories. 8. Ability to manually assign or configure automatic ticket assignment to individual analysts or groups based on ticket categorization, requester location, and analyst's scheduled tour. 9. Ability to attach documents to tickets and to limit the number of attachments to a ticket. 10. Ability to identify/configure file size thresholds and file types (extensions) of attachments. 11. Ability to insert a hyperlink into a text field of a ticket. 12. Ability to include the ticket Uniform Resource Locator (URL) in a ticket notification. 13. Ability to provide configurable e-mail notifications based on activity types, service levels and other user-defined criteria. 14. Ability to display timestamps based on the current time zone of the customer viewing the information. For example, if the application server is in Eastern Standard Time (EST) and the customer in Central Standard Time (CST), the timestamp should display CST. 15. Ability to maintain parent/child relationships between tickets and to configure automatic data updates from parent tickets to child tickets. 16. Ability to generate and populate a new ticket by copying an existing ticket. 17. Ability to generate tickets based on pre-defined templates. 18. Ability to create/modify ticket statuses. 19. Ability to configure Service Level Agreements (SLAs) based on ticket categorization, business workdays, hours of operation, and holidays. 20. Ability to measure and report SLA compliance for all tickets. 21. Ability to relate tickets to other ticket types, change requests and configuration items (assets). For example, relating incidents to problems. 22. Ability to return a singular list of all ticket types based on search criteria. For example, searching tickets based on group or category would return a list of all ticket types (Request, Incident, Problem, etc.) 23. Ability to sort ticket search results by each field presented in the result set and export results. 24. Ability to identify and report on system outage start/stop times. 25. Ability to perform a simple or complex query using any one or combination of fields on a ticket, including free text fields such as description and summary. 26. Ability to create, save, modify and delete individual custom ticket queries and ad hoc reports. 27. Ability to customize user interface to capture additional data based on business needs. For example: additional patient safety fields and ability to restrict changes to patient safety data based on prior field selections within the ticket. Incident Management 28. Ability to determine ticket origin/source. For example, phone, email, event monitoring tools. 29. Ability to generate notifications to group managers when tickets are transferred. 30. Ability to configure automation of immediate notification (via email, System Management Server (SMS), Information Message (IM), page, call) for priority or emergency requests. 31. Ability to remotely connect to customer client machine and log remote control activity within the ticket. 32. Ability to input resolution and close ticket in a single step. 33. Ability to determine First Contact Resolution (FCR) rate. 34. Ability to configure/generate automated customer surveys. 35. Ability to manually generate Tier 1 customer surveys on demand. (Does not eliminate the requirement to generate automated surveys mentioned previously. The app should provide the ability to generate multiple tier-based surveys per ticket). Knowledge Management 36. Ability to submit knowledge articles to the Knowledge Base (KB). 37. Ability to upload attachments/URLs to a knowledge document. 38. Ability to approve knowledge documents submitted to the KB. 39. Ability to categorize knowledge documents. 40. Ability to create knowledge libraries. 41. Ability to establish expiration dates on Knowledge Documents. 42. Ability to email, subscribe, bookmark, and collect feedback on knowledge documents. 43. Ability to display knowledge report card and/or report on last hit, hit count, customer rating, and other Key Performance Indicators (KPI)s. 44. Ability to perform simple or complex queries using any one or combination of fields on a Knowledge Document (KD) to include attachments (and text within). Change and Release Management 45. Ability to create customizable workflows via graphical interface in a non-linear fashion (i.e. decision tree). 46. Ability to apply and enforce permissions on workflow tasks. 47. Ability to create/configure task dependencies. 48. Ability to dynamically apply appropriate level of approvals based on change origin, priority, and/or type. 49. Ability to route tasks to multiple change review boards utilizing one change order workflow. (Facilitate assignment of a change order to one of many existing change review boards). 50. Ability to generate email notifications based on creation, modification, and the various statuses of the change order workflow tasks. 51. Ability to group change requests in a release. 52. Ability to display a schedule of changes calendar. 53. Ability to define blackout/maintenance windows. 54. Ability to alert the change initiator when a change to a Configuration Item (CI) has been scheduled outside an established maintenance window. 55. Ability to assess the risk of a change. 56. Ability to conduct change order impact analysis. 57. Ability to define priority and impact based on service CI associated with the change. 58. Ability to notify change requestor of potential CI conflicts due to change order scheduling. 59. Ability to generate and customize change management reports. 60. Ability to detect unauthorized changes. Configuration Management 61. Ability to manually create CIs. 62. Ability to create/modify CI classifications. 63. Ability to create/modify CI statuses. 64. Ability to create/modify CI relationships. 65. Ability to create relationship types. For example: one-to-one, one-to-many, peer-to-peer, and hierarchical. 66. Ability to upload CI relationships into CMDB. 67. Ability to associate one or more CIs to all ticket types. 68. Ability to associate Change Order, Request, Incident, and Problem history to a CI. 69. Ability to federate to Management Data Repositories. 70. Ability to import data into the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) from external data sources in real-time and apply reconciliation rules to maintain data integrity. 71. Ability to display dashboard of overall CI status (Active, Inactive, High/Medium/Low, etc.). 72. Ability to display number of CIs updated daily, monthly, etc. 73. Ability to display log of changes to CI's (Old value, new value, date changed, who made the change). 74. Ability to create and view CI relationship diagrams. Reporting 75. Ability to support industry standard third party Business Intelligence toolsets. 76. Ability to provide ad hoc reporting web interface capabilities. 77. Ability to display real-time metrics in a dashboard interface. Architecture (reliability, availability, and throughput) 78. Application must be Section 508 compliant. 79. Capable of supporting IPV6. 80. Application must provide a seamless integration between applications and processes including Incident Management, Problem Management, Knowledge Management (with customer self-service option), Change Management, Service Level Management, CMDB, Service Request Management, and IT Asset Management. 81. System must be highly available and capable of executing both Disaster Recovery (alternate-site) and automatic, seamless failover contingencies. 82. System must provide true, real-time redundancy to include contingency failover to include Disaster Recovery (alternate site) and a Seamless failover (clustering, primary/secondary servers) 83. System must be scalable (capable of adding secondary servers in multiple geographic locations). 84. System must provide multiple environments that include pre-production and development. 85. Application must offer multi-tenancy to support multiple business units. 86. Application database must be cluster aware. 87. Application must be capable of being hosted on virtual machines. 88. System must be capable of leveraging a replicated Management Database (MDB) to process recurring and ad hoc reports. 89. System must be compatible with industry standard backup/recovery methodologies and applications. 90. Application must be highly serviceable with minimal custom functions, streamlined administration functions, direct migration paths, and supported via dedicated maintenance (see Operations & Maintenance Section). 91. Application must leverage roles for the various functions to be performed by analysts using the system. Security and Privacy (type and degree of security/privacy) 92. Application must meet all minimum requirements of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and VA Information Security Directives/Handbooks and must be capable of passing Certification and Accreditation requirements leading to an Authority to Operate. 93. Application must be capable of encrypting all traffic via Secure Sockets Layer. 94. Application must be capable of securely housing Personally Identifiable and Sensitive Information. 95. Application must be capable of limiting access to restricted data based on roles. 96. Application must be capable of providing audit/access logs. 97. Application must be capable of preserving four years of data and be capable of archiving and purging expired data. Learning Management (skill levels, duty cycles, training needs on people using the system) 98. System must provide a learning content development platform capable of multiple modes of delivery: a. Hands off instruction (demonstration) b. Interactive instruction c. Skills test determination d. Hard copy training manual Supportability (system availability, backup/recovery, monitoring, tuning) 99. Support/Maintenance agreement providing 24/7 technical support on all software and software upgrades and releases with the following maximum response times: a. Priority 1 - 2 business hours b. Priority 2 - 4 business hours c. Priority 3 - Next business day d. Priority 4 - Future release 100. Support Availability - vendor liaison who maintains in-depth knowledge of environment and business priority and who brokers resolution of support issues. 101. Dedicated technical support - designated support technician (by name) providing a central point of contact, regular status updates, guidance on new technology, and remote assist in problem resolution. 102. Application upgrades and patches. Integration (other systems that provide information to or receive information from this system) 103. Application must be capable of creating/modifying auto-generated tickets from third-party event monitoring systems. 104. Application must be capable of integrating with Active Directory (AD). 105. Application must be capable of integration with third party data collection tools (SCCM, Orion, SolarWinds, CiscoWorks, etc.) 106. Application must be compatible with mobile devices. Interested parties are requested to submit the following information in a clear and concise manner: a. Corporate/Company information to include company name, address, points of contact (name, phone number, and email address), DUNS number, Tax Identification Number, and business size. b. Current contract ordering vehicles. c. Capability statement demonstrating a commercially available product that can meet the specific requirements identified above. For each requirement listed, identify if the product can meet the requirement "out of the box" or through "customization". d. Commercially available price information for the product, including enterprise wide pricing and standard licensing terms and conditions. This information shall be submitted via email to
[email protected] no later than 3:00pm Central Time May 1, 2012. 52.215-3 Request for Information or Solicitation for Planning Purposes. (a) The Government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this solicitation or to otherwise pay for the information solicited except as an allowable cost under other contracts as provided in subsection 31.205-18, Bid and proposal costs, of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. (b) Although "proposal" and "offeror" are used in this Request for Information, your response will be treated as information only. It shall not be used as a proposal. (c) This solicitation is issued for the purpose of market research. (End of provision) OFFERORS ARE ADVISED THAT THIS REQUIREMENT MAY BE DELAYED, CANCELED, OR REVISED AT ANY TIME.