Shelby County RFP Vendor Supplied Questions and Answers as of Nov 25, 2013
Q. Is the County going to provide an estimate of the number of images that need to be scanned in each department by the file type i.e. juvenile paternity docs or criminal case file docs or marriage books, etc. so that you can get an accurate comparison of costs?
A. No. We believe we have approximately 30 million total images that need to be scanned. The request for proposal included an opportunity to view the files to give the vendor ideas for their pricing schedules.
Q. Do you expect one single price for scanning of all document types & sizes & one price for indexing by field types for all files?
A. No.
Q. Are you going to provide the vendor with an amount/volume, by type of file, that will be required to be scanned onsite? This will be imperative to provide an accurate pricing, as any onsite work will definitely cost the vendor more to perform.
A. The only files that will likely be required to be done on site are those files that are confidential. They are probably less than 10% of all files to be scanned. Whether a file is scanned on or off site is relative to the confidence that the county will have in the vendor’s ability to maintain the file appropriately. Submissions that include two prices for on and off site are acceptable.
Q. Are you going to define the type of indexing you require for all of the different file types?
A. Yes, eventually but not before the bids are due. It would be acceptable to submit a proposal that includes different pricing based upon the number of indexes. Ex. 1-3 = $x price, 3-4 = $y price. Some of this depends upon the ability of the image to be processed by optical character recognition (OCR) software. If the documents are capable of being OCR’d, then the need for numerous indexes decreases.
Q. Do you have a document management software system that you want to put the images into once they are scanned? If so, what is it please?
A. At this point, we anticipate using open software such as Adobe or other PDF software.
Q. You are requiring documents to be scanned in the PDF format. With the Clerk’s files most are required by the State to be scanned in the Tiff Group IV format. Are you going to itemize what documents & approximate volume that need to be scanned as PDF or Tiff?
A. The State now accepts both TIFF and PDF. Given our preference for OCR, we wish to have most if not all of the documents in PDF format.
Q. Is Shelby County going to host the scanned images themselves?
A. Yes.
Or if your not is “Web Cloud Technology” hosting acceptable for the viewing documents, for all images not interfaced or imbedded in Shelby County systems or applications?
Q. Or are you going to need viewer software for each user.
A. Yes.
Q. What systems do you expect the images to interface too, and do you have the protocol information and image types required by the systems?
A. We intend that the images will be either TIFF or PDF and thus will be viewable by a number of platforms. At this point we are not sure whether we will integrate the images into existing county software programs. The vision at this point is to segregate the images by office and then each office will further segregate them as they see fit by traditional folders, etc.
Q. Do the systems have a document imaging viewing function within them?
A. Some do, some do not.
Q. Please explain “One Index record per file” in Section XVI-A3? Are you only wanting to be able to access the file by “one” searchable index? For example Case number only, verse Case number, Plaintiff, Defendant, etc.
A. There shall be at least one index record per file. More than one is acceptable and probably preferable.
Q. Is this to be assumed over all county government offices?
A. Yes, at least one index per file.
Q. Is there going to be an indexing scheme per county office provided before bids are due based on the variability of the documents, bound materials to be imaged we viewed on the site visit?
A. Not before bids are due. For example, if the success vendor is capable of delivering OCR documents, then the need for indexing is greatly reduced.
Q. In Appendix V you are requesting an “Index Building Cost” (Per Image) ranging from 2-6 indexing fields or more. Indexing cost is based on several factors number of characters, Alpha vs. Numeric indexing, variability of index locations on documents. Will this be more defined for bidding purposes?
A. No.
You also mention a prep charge per box. As this is highly variable based on the variety of documents, bound materials, and information to be prepped can this be billed as an hourly charge? If not this will need to be more defined as to the contents of the box, number of files per box, files in folders, loose files, etc
A. An hourly charge would be acceptable.
Q. You are also requesting information on Financial Stability of bidders. Are company Bank Statements, or are a letter from the companies accounting firm acceptable for this requirement.
A. A letter from the accounting firm is acceptable.
Section VII. Does Shelby County have a rough estimate as to the number of pages as a percentage?
- < 8.5X11
- Between 8.5X11 and 11X17
- > 11X17
- Engineering Drawings Size C, D and E if applicable.
Answer : Not sure of exact numbers. Below are educated guesses.
a. 40 %
b. 30%
c. 25%
d. 5%
Section X. Regarding Daily reporting: The RFP notes an SQL query and x x x are questioning if this is a County database or a vendor database and who will have access? Is this simply a platform to review daily throughput or is there any other information required?
A. It is simply a platform for daily throughput.
Section XII. Can Shelby County estimate the amount of material that may require on-site scanning and the reason for this requirement?
B. Less than 5%. Extremely sensitive cases, eg. Adoptions, etc.
Section XV. (7) Will Shelby County provide a list with the following information:
i) Each document category within this project
ii) What are the two or three fields used to search for the document within the document category.
A. We anticipate determining this information with the successful bidder.
Section XVI. (3) Typical business practice for xxx is to provide a .csv file with each batch run that includes indexing data, scan date, shipping box inventory number. Is this adequate for this requirement?
A. We more concerned with being updated on a regular basis than the manner of the update. If a vendor can provide a reasonable alternative, those will be viewed in a positive manner.