Active

Contract Opportunity

This is Market Research Only in accordance with FAR Part 10. This is not a solicitation. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) NOTICE ONLY. This RFI is for informational and planning purposes only and it does not constitute a Request for Quote (RFQ) or a promise to issue an RFQ in the future. It is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government for any actual procurement of materials or services. Respondents are advised that the Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI. All costs associated with responding to this RFI are solely at the responding parties' expense. Respondents are solely responsible for properly marking and clearly identifying any proprietary information or trade secrets contained within their response. The Government will not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly marked and clearly identified. Proprietary information received in response to this RFI will be safeguarded and handled in accordance with the Trade Secrets Act (18 U.S.C. 1905). No determination as to the viability of this potential requirement has been made at this point and there is currently no solicitation for this effort. By responding to this market research you provide the Government permission to share your submitted capabilities and contract information with other Government organizations in relation to similar requirements for market research purposes.

The General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), Information Technology Category (ITC) would like to work with:

• Software as a Services (SaaS) providers (e.g., industry, vendors)

to assist in:

• Developing and validating the Ascend BPA Pool 2 scope and definition,


• Identifying key requirements (e.g., capabilities, functionality) to assist with future Performance Work Statement (PWS) development,


• Prioritizing and identifying the demand for the Pool 2 sub-pools, and


• Understanding the benefits, barriers, and challenges to the proposed sub-pool categories.

The Ascend BPA Pool 2 will focus on SaaS solutions. GSA has identified three priority Pool 2 sub-pools and is seeking feedback from SaaS providers.

Office Productivity Suite

The Ascend BPA plans to establish a Pool 2 sub-pool that requires a broad set of cloud-based (e.g., SaaS) office productivity suite, including the following capabilities and functionalities:

• Word processing


• Spreadsheet


• Slide presentations


• Scheduling / task management


• Relational database


• Email client and calendaring


• Personal cloud storage


• Peer-to-peer messaging


• Anti-virus


• System integrity software and advanced enterprise configuration and controls capabilities (e.g. policy-based user controls and configuration, and other and related enterprise-class security capabilities) for computing devices running with different operating systems.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The Ascend BPA plans to establish a Pool 2 sub-pool that provides cloud-based (e.g., SaaS) CRM including the following capabilities and functionalities:

• A single view of customers from citizens, other agencies, businesses, or staff


• Agency ability to inform customers of relevant services and events


• Improved relationships through a more complete view of constituents


• Facilitated provisioning of information to the public


• Improved business relationships by developing a complete view of the customers and services


• Enhanced and personalized service delivery and case management


• Improved operational efficiency and decision-making


• Support for agency and centralized call centers


• International (global) capabilities


• Simplified process for public and regulatory inquiries


• Improved effectiveness and consistency of service delivery


• Tailored message content for customers and customer feedback submission opportunities


• Diversity of customer choice for communication methods


• Support for centralized contact centers


• Scalability


• Support for multi-channel capabilities


• Mechanisms to automate workflows


• Web and voice self-service


• Integration and interoperability with internal systems and outside agencies


• Flexible analytics and reporting.

IT Service Management / IT Asset Management (ITSM / ITAM)

The Ascend BPA plans to establish a Pool 2 sub-pool that provides cloud-based (e.g., SaaS) ITSM solutions that will provide ITSM to include IT operations management (ITOM) and ITAM capabilities and functionality.

The ITSM system must be able to manage work across teams with one platform. The ITSM system must support project planning and tracking, service management, repeated and ad‐hoc tasks, and automated workflows. The solution should have the minimum features below:

• Request management


• Incident management


• Problem management


• Change management


• Asset management


• Configuration management


• Knowledge management


• Consolidates, manages, and prioritizes incoming tickets


• Automates ticketing management


• Provides multi-platform desktop sharing and remote control


• Allows remote access to sleeping and powered-off computers


• Facilitates multi-factor authentication

ITAM, aligned with ITSM and IT operations, oversees and manages Ascend BPA eligible users' Information Technology (IT) and Information Systems (IS) solutions. This includes keeping an inventory of eligible users' furnished equipment and distribution to eligible users' personnel. ITAM conducts project initiations, IT resource management, and prioritizes customer support. Ensuring that equipment setups follow specific guidelines and making note of any equipment changes are essential aspects of the role. ITAM’s ultimate objectives are to use technology assets efficiently, comply with all guidelines, ensure user satisfaction, and support smooth operations.

The ITSM / ITAM solution should have the following capabilities and functionalities:

• Configuration management database (CMDB)


• Asset discovery


• Asset tracking


• Inventory management
  
  
  
  • Software inventory
  
  
  • Hardware inventory
  
  
  
  


• Software license management


• Hardware asset management


• Compliance


• Procurement including purchase orders (POs)


• Asset lifecycle management


• Integration with ITSM tools


• Reporting and analytics

GSA encourages all SaaS providers who are interested in the Ascend BPA Pool 2 SaaS sub-pools to review and complete the applicable Market Research as a Service (MRAS) questionnaire by no later than 11:59 PM ET on March 29, 2024.

SaaS providers MRAS URL: https://feedback.gsa.gov/jfe/form/SV_4IbDNdeUEbsdViu

GSA will ONLY accept responses submitted by completing the RFI / MRAS questionnaire.

Please continue to monitor SAM.gov and the GSA Interact Cloud and Software Community (https://buy.gsa.gov/interact/community/205/activity-feed) for additional information.

Please send all email correspondence related to this procurement to: cloudenterprisewide@gsa.gov.

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