State of California
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Solicitation RFI_ePERMITS_2014
RFI for Electronic Permitting System (ePermits)
Bid designation: Public
State of California
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State of California
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014 RFI for Electronic Permitting System (ePermits) Bid Number
RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid Title
RFI for Electronic Permitting System (ePermits)
Expected Expenditure $0.00 (This price is expected - not guaranteed) Bid Start Date
Jan 10, 2014 1:17:10 PM PST
Bid End Date
Feb 10, 2014 2:00:00 PM PST
Question & Answer End Date
Jan 21, 2014 2:00:00 PM PST
Bid Contact
Theresa Jones 916-227-6055
[email protected]
Standard Disclaimer The State of California advises that prospective bidders periodically check the websites, including but not limited to Bidsync, and/or other state department links for modifications to bid documents. The State of California is not responsible for a prospective bidder's misunderstanding of the bid solicitation or nonresponsive bid due to failure to check these websites for updates or amendments to bid documents, and/or other information regarding the bid solicitations. Failure to periodically check these websites will be at the bidder's sole risk. The information published and/or responded to on these websites is public information. Confidential questions/issues/concerns should be directed to the contact on the ad.
Description *
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State of California
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
.
Department of Transportation
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) RFI_ePERMITS_2014
for Electronic Permitting System (ePermits)
January 10, 2014
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State of California
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
(INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK)
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________ I. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW This Request for Information (RFI) is released by the State of California, Department of Transportation (Caltrans), Division of Procurement and Contracts (DPAC), on behalf of the Information Technology Project Management Office (ITPMO). This RFI will survey the marketplace to understand what products or services may be available and to approximate the dollars that may be needed for procurement. I.1. Purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) Caltrans’ Division of Traffic Operations (Traffic Ops) is seeking vendor input for potential products and suggested approaches to assist in implementation of an electronic permitting system. The responses to this RFI may be used to develop bid requirements. The State plans to procure the software, services, and any necessary hardware through a competitive bid. Interested parties are invited to describe potential products and suggested approaches to assist the State in determining if a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS), Modified-Off-The-Shelf (MOTS), integrated product set (i.e., integration of multiple products), COTS Configurable, or custom solution would best address the required functions described in this RFI. Multiple products may be described in the response. Section II of this RFI describes the background, vision, and scope of the ePermits project. I.2.1. Required Information Responses to this RFI should include the following information:
Name of the vendor
Address of the vendor (Street, City, State, Zip)
Name and title or position of the individual submitting the response
Contact information including a telephone number and email address
A statement by the individual certifying the information in the response is true and accurate to the best of his/her knowledge at the time of the submittal
The proposed tool and solutions and some high level strategies to implement them.
Itemized and total estimated costs for the proposed solutions and strategies (see I.2.2., Voluntary Cost Information).
If your response includes implementation of existing software (not custom development), please include: o Length of time the proposed product been on the market. o The number of successful implementations of the product. Please provide names and contact information for companies with previous successful implementations.
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________ o Information regarding previous implementation in any public sector agencies. Please provide entity names and contact information. o The technical platform of the software. o The amount of customization required or done for a normal standard implementation. o Whether any customization will be done by your company or a separate vendor. Respondent may also submit supplemental materials, if desired (e.g., additional product literature). I.2.2. Voluntary Cost Information Caltrans is requesting cost information from Respondents to this RFI. This request is not a requirement. Caltrans understands that the costs provided are non-binding and will be used for informational budgeting purposes only. I.3. Contact Information Theresa Jones, Caltrans’ representative, is designated as the contact person for this RFI. Organizations responding to this RFI that require clarification of any matter must contact Theresa Jones via email:
[email protected] or by telephone at (916) 227-6055. No other representative of the State is authorized to communicate with Respondents with respect to this RFI. Neither the project team nor the State is taking any steps in a competitive bidding process and the State is under no obligation to Respondents in any manner whatsoever. Neither this RFI nor any information provided by any Respondents hereto shall or shall be deemed to create any legally binding obligations upon the State. This RFI is solely designed to provide Caltrans with meaningful information to enable Caltrans to determine how to proceed with its activities. I.4. Submission of Response Responses to this RFI will be received at the following location until 4:00 p.m. at the close of business, Pacific Standard Time (PST) on Monday, February 10, 2014. The responses shall be hand-delivered, or sent via US Post, to the address below or by e-mail to the Caltrans contact listed below: Theresa Jones, Caltrans’ Representative 1727 30th Street Sacramento, CA E-mail:
[email protected] _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Page 4 of 13
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________
I.4. Key Action Dates Listed below are the important key actions and dates. If Caltrans deems it necessary to make changes to this schedule, it will do so by posting changes to all interested parties via Bidsync at www.bidsync.com. Table 1. Actions / Dates Action
1. Release of RFI 2. Last day to submit questions 3. State’s response to questions 4. RFI Responses Due
Date
January 10, 2014 January 21, 2014, 2:00 p.m., PST. January 27, 2014 February 10, 201, 2:00 p.m. , PST.
I.6. Submittal of Questions Interested Respondents requiring clarification of the intent, content, or procedural matters may submit questions by email with a subject line marked “Questions Relating to Caltrans RFI for ePermits” to the Department Contact provided in Section I.3. To ensure a timely response, questions are to be sent no later than the date provided in Section I.4, Action Date # 2. Questions and answers will be made available to all Respondents via BidSync. The parties submitting questions will not be publicized in the question and answer document. I.6. Disclaimer This RFI is issued for information and planning purposes only, and it does not constitute a solicitation. Responses to the RFI will not be returned. A response to this notice is not an offer and cannot be accepted by Caltrans to form a binding contract. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. Caltrans will consider vendor responses in developing a Request for Quotation (RFQ), Invitation for Bid (IFB), Request for Proposal (RFP), Request for Offer (RFO), or other action. The submission of a response does not constitute any commitment on the part of the interested party except that the submitted information is correct to the best of the Respondent’s knowledge. Also, the right to compete in future procurements is not affected in the event that the party chooses not to submit a response to this RFI. Caltrans is also interested in learning the reasons for not submitting a response. The responses to the RFI are considered public documents and subject to the Public Records Act. Respondents should not include confidential or trade secret information in their response.
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________ II. PROJECT DESCRIPTION II.1. Background of the Program The Division of Traffic Operations (Traffic Ops), within the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), is responsible for the safe and efficient control and regulation of the State Highway System. Traffic Ops is predominantly focused on two of the Departments goals – Safety: Provide the safest transportation system in the nation for users and workers; and Mobility: Optimize transportation systems throughput and provide reliable travel times. The 12 District Offices of Encroachment Permits (EP), functional areas within Traffic Ops, review all requests from utility companies, developers, volunteers, nonprofit organizations, etc., wanting to conduct various activities that encroach upon the Caltrans highway-right-of-way. Outdoor Advertising (ODA), another functional area within Traffic Ops, is responsible for regulating the placement of outdoor advertising displays visible to California highways, a service that is essential for improving safety to motorists. The goal of ODA is to reduce motorist distraction by citing and removing illegal displays and ensure that new displays comply with the federal Highway Beautification Act. Failure to control outdoor advertising could result in a sanction of federal transportation funding, a requirement to repay up to $4.5 million in annual bonus payments received from the federal government, and a forfeiture of an additional $3 million in bonus claims. Currently, EP has an automated process, Encroachment Permit Management System (EPMS), for logging permits, with limited tracking capabilities. ODA uses a Lotus Notes-based application, Outdoor Advertising System (OAS). Both functional areas are limited by the capabilities of the existing software applications used to track permits for each area. EPMS and OAS require an extensive amount of manual intervention and manual functions that adversely impact the ability of the staff to conduct business. Caltrans Information Technology (IT) no longer supports Lotus Notes applications and EPMS was developed without the system documentation needed to support the application. As a result, workarounds and external substitutions for missing functionality are widespread and negatively impact the value and usefulness of the existing applications. The customer base for both functional areas range from: California residents wanting to erect a mailbox on a state highway to large commercial developments that impact the State Highway System; a small company wanting to advertise their business to large advertising companies with thousands of outdoor advertising signs along California highways; and internal Caltrans units needing information on portions of state highways requiring improvements to the external Office of Administration Hearing (OAH) adjudicating disputes arising from the enforcement of activities of ODA. Annually, EP oversees all necessary functions for managing approximately 14,000 permits, and ODA does the same for over 12,000 permits. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Page 6 of 13
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________ II.2. ePermits Project Vision The ePermits Project vision is to replace the current permit management systems, EPMS and
OAS, with industry proven solution(s) through a competitive procurement process. Caltrans is seeking information for demonstrated histories of successful implementations of similar solution(s). Should a future competitive process be completed, a new ePermits is anticipated to be deployed at the Department of Technology (CalTech) Tenant Managed Services (TMS) located in Sacramento. All 12 District offices, the HQ office and the public must have access to the server via a web portal. II.3. Functional Description The primary goal of the ePermits Project is to implement a browser-based Encroachment and Outdoor Advertising Permits application that optimizes processing, reporting, and monitoring of encroachment or outdoor advertising permits from the initial application through permit closeout. To that end, the system should include as many of the following functionalities and features as possible. Improving customer service through online access to customer functions by providing a method for online, interactive application completion and submission, along with associated application plan documents, and providing a method for electronic payment submission. Reducing the need for staff assistance on permit-related customer inquiries by providing access for external users to reasonable, authorized information search capabilities. Automating the use of standard hourly rates by maintaining standard hourly rates by type of function and applying the standard hourly rates for application and permit fees. Automating standardized permit fee calculations by applying standard hourly rates and providing capability to track time spent by permit. Improving automated fee collection capabilities by tracking outstanding balances by customer, preventing submission of applications by customers with delinquent accounts, by providing notification of permits requiring closure and final billing, and by providing customer statement generation and billing capabilities. Automating enforcement of procedures and standards by providing an enterprise-wide platform with internally defined and enforced business rules. Improving document management capabilities by providing an enterprise-wide method for indexing, retaining, and accessing permit files and documents. Improving reporting capabilities by providing an enterprise-wide platform for tracking all required information for encroachment and outdoor advertising permits, by providing standardized management reporting, and by providing extensive ad hoc reporting capabilities. Increasing the number of permits being approved or denied within 60 days of submission by enforcing internal business rules for application processing and allowing for concurrent review across functional areas.
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________ Improving efficiency and compliance with Caltrans Performance Measures by providing automatic notification and reminders of assignments and due dates. Improving access to public information regarding EP and ODA permits by providing ADA-compliant access to public information regarding in-process, existing and closed permits. Improving data analysis, research, and reporting by providing map-based displays of EP and ODA data with the implementation of a GIS-based interface.
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________ II.4. Technical Description II.4.1. Existing System Current Technology Used to Support EPMS -- Figure 1
EPMS System Architecture Caltrans Headquarters
Department of Technology Services TMS
Application/Web Server
Database Server SVDTSDB50.dot.ca.gov
SVCTCAP1.dot.ca.gov
Sun Fire T2000 32 GB memory Attached to an 500 GB EMC SAN Sun Solaris 10 zone PHP
Sun Fire E2900 64-bit sparcv9 sun4u Sun Solaris 5.9 MySQL 5.1.22-rc-log MySQL Community Server
TCP/IP Connection to Database and NFS connection for retrieving image files (attachments)
Access EPMS web pages over HTTP
EPMS users FTP images to the database server to render an “attachments” page. User includes the permit number in the file name.
Caltrans District Users
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________
EPMS Software EPMS Component
Description
Access Method
JavaScript enabled Web browser
Database
MySQL 5.1.22-rc-log / MySQL Community Server
Database Server OS
Sun Solaris 5.9 - Sun Fire E2900, 64-bit sparcv9 sun4u
Application/Web Server OS
Sun Solaris 10 Zone - Sun Fire T2000, 32 GB memory, attached to a 500 GB array
Web Forms
PHP
FTP Client
FileZilla
PDF Manipulation
FPDI and PDF2HTML PHP libraries
Location of Application
Department of Technology Services – Gold Camp
Location of Data
Department of Transportation HQ – 1120 N Street
The existing system is actually two separate and distinct systems. The EPMS and OAS have separate applications and database environments. The EPMS database server resides at the Tenant Managed Services (TMS) area at the Department of Technology (CalTech) Data Center, while the application server resides at Caltrans HQ offices. The OAS system is a Lotus Notesbased application that also resides at the TMS area of the CalTech Data Center.
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________ II.4.2. Proposed New System The proposed production system is expected to reside in the TMS portion of the CalTech Data Center in a virtualized environment. All 12 district offices and HQ must have access to the server via a web portal. In addition, there should be development (in the case of a custom development), testing and training environments. Permit applicants are expected to access the system via Caltrans’ web site using standard web browsers. II.5.1. Development Approach For a COTS or MOTS solution, Caltrans envisions a solution that will require minimal customizations. Respondents should take into consideration what has been defined in the requirements and provide feedback on ways to minimize any customizations. Please provide information regarding your solution’s ability to meet the requirements with minimal customizations. II.5.2. Data Conversion Approach Caltrans needs to retain the current data from the existing EPMS and OAS systems. Caltrans also wants to transfer the existing data to the new ePermits system. The type of data to be converted consists of an a initial one-time load of: approximately 265,000 permit records currently residing in the EPMS, approximately 20,500 active records residing in the OAS, and an unknown number of records residing in District-specific FoxPro and MS Access databases. II.5.3. Testing Approach Caltrans Traffic Ops Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and IT staff are anticipated to perform acceptance testing. II.5.4. Technical Interfaces Caltrans would like the proposed solution to interface with the following applications: Internal to Caltrans Document Retrieval System (DRS) for archiving permit documents. To review an archived file, ePermits staff will access the DRS application directly. This interface will be done on a monthly schedule. The DRS is a web-based system, using proprietary tsaADVET Falcon/DMS v6 software, with an underlying Oracle database, to manage project files and data. The Falcon API allows other applications to access the DRS data. The DRS environment consists of two Windows application/web servers and two Sun database servers located at the HQ Farmers Market Plaza I location on 29 th Street in Sacramento. Caltrans’ e-mail for workflow management (MS Exchange/Outlook). ePermits will provide work notifications via the e-mail service. E-mail addresses will be recorded in the user profile for authorized users. The work notifications will be sent as needed. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Page 11 of 13
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________ E-FIS to obtain information regarding the account status of ePermits customers from EFIS and to pass payment information to E-FIS when a customer pays via the online payment service. This will also be used to obtain staff and overhead costs associated with permit issuance. The interface will be performed on a weekly basis. Postmile Web Service to provide permit customers with the ability to link to a separate postmile web page and identify the Caltrans-required postmile identifier of the location of the requested permit. This information will be returned to ePermits upon completion of the identification process. This interface will be done on an “as requested” basis. The Caltrans Postmile Web Service is web-service residing on a Linux server, located at the TMS environment at the Office of Technology Services Gold Camp Data Center in Sacramento. Caltrans’ Staff Central for timekeeping/tracking. ePermits will pass recorded staff time spent on each permit for the purposes of tracking time. The data will be used for pre-populating permit activities for Caltrans staff involved in the issuance of EP and ODA permits. This interface will run weekly. Staff Central is a department wide PeopleSoft system that is a central repository for employee data, including history. It integrates payroll and leave with personal services cost accounting processes. Staff Central is located on UNIX servers for the database, web servers, application servers and process schedulers. There is one Windows 2003 Reporting server used for specific reporting, and the database platform is Oracle 10.2.0.4.0. The system is physically located in the TMS area of the CalTech Data Center. Adopt-A-Highway (AAH) for receiving and processing AAH permit applications. AAH receives and processes applications to adopt specific areas of state highways. When AAH has processed and approved the application, the data required for an encroachment permit will be extracted from the AAH database and imported to ePermits for permit processing. When the permit is approved, ePermits will forward a .pdf copy of the permit to the appropriate staff in AAH. The AAH is an Access database and is physically located the Caltrans’ HQ offices.
External to Caltrans California Film Commission (CFC) database for the coordination, issuing, and tracking of film-related encroachment permits. CFC will pass required permit information to ePermits for recording and tracking. The CFC database has an Oracle back end, with a Java interface. The interface between ePermits and the CFC database will run daily. Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) database for the support of adjudication involving permitting issues. This may be through the establishment of a role within ePermits for the OAH, which authorizes the OAH to access and download specified permit documents. This interface will run by request.
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of California of Transportation State of California,State Department REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
______________________________________________________________________________ The following context diagram illustrates the technical interfaces required for ePermits:
Postmile Web Service
Staff Central Request for Service
E-FIS
County Route Postmile
Payments Received
Account Status
Caltrans eMail
Hours by Staff/ Permit Number Permit Application
ePermits
Workflow Notification
Adopt-AHighway
Approved Permit
Film Permit Information Permit Files for archiving
Document Retrieval System
LEGEND
Permit file request
California Film Commission
Office of Administrative Hearings
New Caltrans Application Caltrans Applications External Applications
II.6. Implementation and Deployment Description II.6.1. Rollout Approach Caltrans anticipates the ePermits project will be completed in a single phase, but is open to receive suggestions as to how the system should be deployed and implemented.
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State of California
Bid RFI_ePERMITS_2014
Question and Answers for Bid #RFI_ePERMITS_2014 - RFI for Electronic Permitting System (ePermits)
OVERALL BID QUESTIONS There are no questions associated with this bid. If you would like to submit a question, please click on the "Create New Question" button below.
Question Deadline: Jan 21, 2014 2:00:00 PM PST
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