County of Alameda, General Services Agency – Purchasing
RFP No. 900692, Addendum No. 2
Page 17 of 17
June 3, 2010
COUNTY OF ALAMEDA
GENERAL SERVICES AGENCY-PURCHASING
ADDENDUM No. 2
to
RFP No. 900692
for
Learning Management System
Specification Clarification/Modification and Recap of the Networking/Bidders Conferences
Held on April 30, 2010 and May 3, 2010
______
Notice to Bidders
This County of Alameda, General Services Agency (GSA), RFP Addendum has been electronically issued to potential bidders via e-mail. E-mail addresses used are those in the County’s Small Local Emerging Business (SLEB) Vendor Database or from other sources. If you have registered or are certified as a SLEB please ensure that the complete and accurate e-mail address is noted and kept updated in the SLEB Vendor Database. This RFP Addendum will also be posted on the General Services Agency (GSA) Contracting Opportunities website located at http://www.acgov.org/gsa/purchasing/bid_content/ContractOpportunities.jsp.
The following Sections have been modified to read as shown below. Changes made to the original RFP document are in bold print and highlighted, and deletions made have a strike through.
Please note that important changes have been made to Exhibit B, Exhibit F and Exhibit G included in this Addendum No. 2. Vendors must submit their bid response using these revised Exhibits including Exhibit B-Revised
Please note: The new RESPONSE DUE DATE is June 18, 2010
IV. TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Section Y, COUNTY PROVISIONS, page 29
2. Small and Emerging Locally Owned Business: A small business for purposes of this RFP is defined by the United States Small Business Administration for NAICS Codes 541511, 541512 and 541519 as having no more than $25,000,000 in average annual gross receipts over the last three (3) years. An emerging business, as defined by the County is one having annual gross receipts of less than one-half (1/2) of the above amount and has been in business less than five (5) years. In order to participate herein, the small or emerging business must also satisfy the locality requirements and be certified by the County as a Small or Emerging, local business. A certification application package (consisting of Instructions, Application and Renewal Application) has been attached hereto as Exhibit E and must be completed and returned by a qualifying contractor.
Section Y, COUNTY PROVISIONS, page 30
4. Subject to the requirements of the SLEB program and the criteria of each procurement process, the maximum bid evaluation preference points for being certified is ten percent (10%) [five percent (5%) local, and five percent (5%) certified]. Compliance with the SLEB program is required for architectural, landscape architectural, engineering, environmental, land surveying, and construction project management services projects, but no preference points are applied.
Section Y, COUNTY PROVISIONS, page 30
2. The following entities are exempt from the Small and Emerging Local Business (SLEB) requirements as described above and are not required to subcontract with a SLEB:
§ non-profit community based organizations (CBOs) that are providing services on behalf of the County directly to County clients/residents
§ non-profit churches or non-profit religious organizations (NPO);
§ public schools; and universities; and
§ government agencies
Non-profits must provide proof of their tax exempt status. These are defined as organizations that are certified by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as 501(c) 3.
I. CALENDAR OF EVENTS (page 15 of the RFP)
Event / Date/LocationRequest Issued / April 16, 2010
Written Questions Due / by 2:00 p.m. on April 29, 2010
Networking/Bidders Conference / April 30, 2010 @ 10:00 a.m. / at: Social Services Agency
Shooting Star
(Room 638, 6th Floor)
24100 Amador Street
Hayward, CA 94545
Networking/Bidders Conference / May 3, 2010 @ 10:00 a.m. / at: General Services Agency
Room 1107, 11th Floor
1401 Lakeside Drive
Oakland, CA 94612
Addendum No. 1 Issued / May 17, 2010
Addendum No. 2 Issued / June 3, 2010
Response Due / June 9 18, 2010 by 2:00 p.m.
Evaluation Period / June 918, 2010 – July 23, 2010
Vendor Interviews / July 19, 2010--July 22, 2010
Board Letter Issued / August 13, 2010
Board Award Date / September 14, 2010
Contract Start Date / September 16, 2010
Responses to Written Questions
Q1) Is the program funded for the initial two (2) year term?
A1) No, funding is approved on a fiscal year basis only. The County has an annual fiscal year budget from July-June. The County’s intent is for a two (2) year contract.
Q2) Is the County’s intent to award a two (2) year contract with options to renew to the selected bidder?
A2) Yes.
Q3) To obtain a lower cost per year, will Alameda County consider a three year agreement?
A3) Yes. Please see pricing for additional years of service in EXHIBIT B-Revised attached to this Addendum 2.
Q4) Can additional pricing line items be added to the pricing schedule in Exhibit B?
A4) Please submit additional line items on page two of EXHIBIT B-Revised. The line item pricing will not be factored into the total system cost for the purposes of pricing evaluation. Please note that pricing submitted on page one of EXHIBIT B-Revised shall include all functionalities and support as described in the RFP.
Q5) How does Alameda County want cost represented for installation of the software? Does the County want a blended rate for the implementation that the County selects?
A5) Please complete EXHIBIT B-Revised. The County has a pricing line for the installation of a system on the County Servers. The County does not want a blended rate.
Q6) The exhibits skip J and K, are those exhibits supposed to be there?
A6) No. The Table of Contents states J and K were intentionally omitted.
Q7) Is the bid opening available to the public?
A7) Yes.
Q8) How will the County guarantee that vendor proprietary or confidential information remains non-disclosed if No part of any bid response cannot be marked as confidential or proprietary?
A8) Vendors should mark proprietary information or information protected under the uniform trade secrets act as such in your bid submittal. The County will not disclose protected information.
Q9) Will Alameda County enter into a Non-Disclosure Agreement prior to RFP submission?
A9) No.
Q10) If Exhibits E, F, and G do not apply to a vendors company, should the forms be returned back blank as part of the submission?
A10) Yes. Please sign all forms, even if they no not apply, as acknowledgement that you have read and understand the form.
Q11) Exhibit C states it is page 1 of 2, but there is only one page. Is there an additional page? Are signatures and certificates needed?
A11) There is only one page to Exhibit C. The County requires bidders to submit insurance certificates, with their bid, evidencing that they meet the requirements of Exhibit C.
Q12) On Exhibit D-1 with regard to current references, how important/mandatory is it to have a reference with similar space in the corporate environment?
A12) The County would like to have references who have installation experience for a similar size organization.
Q13) Will the County be notifying vendors prior to contacting references?
A13) No.
Q14) In regards to the references, if a client has been a member of our SaaS environment and has brought the product into their firewall and is client hosted, will this qualify as a former client?
A14) Yes.
Q15) If a vendor is located outside of Alameda County, is the Vendor required to have SLEB subcontractor to be responsive to the bid?
A15) Yes.
Q16) Does each vendor with a SLEB subcontractor receive bid preference?
A16) No. A Bid preference is available for prime contractors who are Local or SLEB certified. A 5% Local preference and an additional 5% for being certified SLEB. Prime contractors who are not certified SLEB are required by County policy to use a SLEB subcontractor .If the bidder is Local and not certified SLEB, they will only receive the 5% Local and are still required to use a SLEB subcontractor.
Q17) If a local vendor is currently going through the application process to become SLEB certified, is the Vendor eligible to receive the bidder preference?
A17) During the evaluation phase of scoring, if the local vendor has not completed the SLEB certification process the vendor will not be qualified as a SLEB and will not receive the additional 5% SLEB preference. Only the 5% local preference will be applied.
Q18) For Vendors who need a SLEB subcontractor, is there a list of certified SLEBs available?
A18) Yes. On the Alameda County website http://www.acgov.org/auditor/sleb/ under “Find a Vendor”, bidders may search for a SLEB subcontractor. Please contact the Office of Contract Compliance (OCC) if you have any questions. Contact information for OCC is also located at this site under “Contact Us”.
Q19) Is the County flexible to alternative approaches for meeting the 20% requirement if a vendor is unable to find a SLEB who is directly supporting the contract with Alameda County but can support the vendors operations in other ways?
A19) The County’s preference is for the SLEB partner to be in direct support of the contract.
Q20) Will the County conduct site visits?
A20) The County will only conduct site visits for the purposes of SLEB certification.
Q21) Why is the County bidding out Learning Management System (LMS) service at this time?
A21) The County does not currently have a true LMS and would like a comprehensive system that can track online learning; the current system used by the County is not capable of this. Additionally, the County requires multiple learning centers to meet both countywide and departmental needs.
Q22) Can the County provide current LMS fees being paid?
A22) The County does not currently have an LMS, therefore no fees can be provided
Q23) In the County hosted solution, does the County want pricing for 9,000 or 2,000 employee users?
A23) Please refer to EXHIBIT B-Revised attached to this Addendum 2. Bid submittals shall indicate a price to include 12,000 licensed users. EXHIBIT B-Revised must be submitted with your bid.
Q24) The County asked for a SaaS Model option and an LMS purchase option. Is the County open to a Vendor hosting the solution and the County owning the software license?
A24) No, the County is not open to owning the software license in the Vendor hosted solution.
Q25) Regarding the Probation Department converting their Pathlore data; how would the County like the cost reflected?
A25) Probation would convert their data and integrate into the County’s database. The cost should be listed on EXHIBIT B-Revised, page 1, in the appropriate line item.
Q26) What is the time frame for when the County would like to be up live and running with the new system?
A26) After a contract is signed the County expects the system to be up and running in approximately six months.
Q27) How committed is County to the exact scope of services as appeared in the RFP? Will alternative solutions be considered?
A27) The County is committed to the exact scope of services as appeared in the RFP. Alternative solutions will not be considered.
Q28) Page 5 of the RFP, Paragraph B (Scope), Item 1.b, states:
Track and audit costs for training to determine charge-back rates.
Does the County currently have the abilities to track and determine charge-back rates? Are the change-backs structured to acknowledge an organization’s efforts to train individuals in other organizations? Are change-backs defined in dollars credited or debited to organization accounts?
A28) Yes, the County currently tracks costs for training to determine charge-back rates. No, the County is not currently using this functionality and would like the capability to track costs. Chargebacks are technically for internal customers (other county departments) and done within Alameda County as dollars credited/debited.
Q29) Page 7 of the RFP, Paragraph C (Background), Item 3, states:
The system links to other e-learning platforms and interfaces with PeopleSoft/Oracle HRMS personal profile data. This data is refreshed every two (2) weeks automatically through an online interface registration feature which automates employee and supervisor notification of enrollment, and allows for management approval of courses chosen by employees.
Is it desirable to refresh the HRMS data more frequently than every two weeks? Does the personal profile data identify the employee’s supervisor by the supervisor’s ID? How are management approvals handled?
A29) No, the County does not need to refresh more than every two weeks. The PeopleSoft/Oracle HRMS system does store the employee ID of the employee’s supervisor, if it has been entered by the department. Within the Pathlore/SumTotal system, managers are notified electronically to go online to approve the registrations.
Q30) Page 8 of the RFP, Paragraph D (Vendor Qualification Criteria), Item 1 and Item 2, states:
Bidder shall have been regularly and continuously engaged in the business of providing Learning Management / Learning Content Management Systems (LMS) for a minimum of five (5) years.
Bidder must be able to demonstrate in their response, success in the installation and servicing of LMS systems for organizations of similar or equal size to those of Alameda County within the last 2 years. Installation and service experience must be presented in the response and supported by accompanying references.
How flexible is Alameda County with these criteria?
A30) Alameda County will evaluate the vendors experience and score the bid according to those criteria.
Q31) Page 8 of the RFP, Paragraph D (Vendor Qualification Criteria), Item 3 states:
Bidder must have the ability to provide a “software as a service” (SaaS) / “on demand” vendor hosted solution.
May vendors propose a solution that is Oracle-based?
A31) Yes, as long as the solution is available as a SaaS (software as a service) model.
Q32) Page 9 of the RFP, Paragraph E (Specific Requirements), Item 1, Paragraph 1 states:
The LMS System shall be a comprehensive system for distributing and tracking online learning programs and training administration of both instructor led and online classes, and informal learning or information sharing.
Can the County provide examples of informal learning and information sharing that should be supported in the LMS solution?