An RFI has been posted to eBuy out of EPA’s Office of Records, Administration Systems, and eDiscovery (ORASE) and Office of Grants and Debarment (OGD)
A summary of the requirement is included below. Responses are currently due on October 22nd, but this is subject to change.
The ORASE in collaboration with OGD have several systems and applications to support its grants and suspension and debarment program. OGD developed the Next Generation Grants System (NGGS), to address shortcomings in the
Agency’s pre-award, post award, and closeout activities identified in the General Accounting Office (GAO) and Office of Inspector General (OIG) findings. This system was designed to automate the grant process from the initial negotiation of
the grant work plan, through application and award to the closeout of the grant. The NGGS system provides grantees and EPA staff the ability to develop, review, approve, and share documents as well as manage activities in an electronic environment. Software development and database design of the NGGS system has been built within an Oracle environment and utilizes the Oracle database platform. OGD’s Suspension and debarment cases are documented and tracked in OGD’s Case Application for Debarment and Suspension (CADS). CADS resides on the Microsoft Cloud platform. NGGS resides in the EPA’s National Computer Center (NCC), which provides largescale computing services for the Agency nationwide. NGGS project team has leveraged the Agency’s roll out of Microsoft SharePoint Online collaboration software by utilizing this technology for its Catalog of Federal Domestic To continue operations in an ever-tightening Federal budget environment,
ORASE and OGD are interested in continuing to streamline and standardize the Agency’s grants management process, while continuing to modernize its management and support systems. One of the goals in the EPA Grants Management Plan (2022-2026) is to streamline the business procedures for assistance agreements, while maintaining the gains already achieved over the years in compliance, results, and quality. OGD’s Grants Transformation Initiative seeks ways to reduce the administrative burden on staff through the transformation of these business processes. In addition, EPA also embraces OMB’s IT Shared Service Strategy for identifying potential opportunities for systems consolidation to a shared service provider and OMB’s Cloud Smart Proposal by utilizing EPA’s procured cloud subscriptions, including but not limited to, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Qlik Cloud Gov and Analytics platform, Cloud.gov, Salesforce, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Power Platform (including MS PowerApps, Power Automate, and Power BI), Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, and Azure technologies. To achieve these objectives, as directed by OGD, software engineering expertise and support is required in a full range of activities which include providing project and configuration management, analyzing requirements and systems, designing, developing, testing, implementing, and sustaining new and existing website(s), application(s), database(s), systems interface(s), and developing system life cycle and/or application documentation. The proposed approaches chosen by the contractor and agreed to by EPA to address required and optional system engineering requirements shall be appropriate to the complexity, size, and duration of the effort and shall be conducted in accordance with the appropriate Capability Maturity Model (CMM) requirements depending on the nature of the application.
The purpose of this task order is to receive a broad range of technical services to
support ORASE and OGD with its software engineering requirements throughout
all phases of the system lifecycle for its grants management systems. In addition
to supporting ORASE and OGD’s existing grants and debarment systems, this
task order also includes software engineering and consulting activities to support
continued modernization. To accomplish these objectives, the contractor shall
provide expert technical support in project management, quality assurance,
systems analysis, and retirement, as well as software
modernization/enhancements, testing, integration, implementation, and
sustainment. After task order is executed, the contractor may propose a
regression testing tool for use provided the software is prior approved for use in
EPA network environment and by EPA management. EPA has developed an
Enterprise Architecture (EA) program using the Federal Enterprise Architecture
reference models to standardize and improve IT management processes across
the EPA. During the transformation activities and in performance of PWS tasks,
the contractor shall utilize EPA-owned project management and software
application development management and communications applications and
systems, unless otherwise approved in writing by the Contracting Officer’s
Representative (COR). In addition, the contractor shall be compliant with all
Federal, state, EPA, and EPA grants management and Enterprise Architecture
(EA) regulations, policies, procedures, standards, and guidance
The Contractor shall perform the following objectives under this Task Order:
• Address continuing/evolving NGGS application
modernization/enhancement activities and requirements to enable
continued compliance with existing and emerging agency, federal, and
IT regulations. Address business and functionality
modernization/enhancement requirements that emerge from contractor
assessment of the ‘as is’ state of the NGGS software modules:
Support a robust, scalable operations and maintenance help desk system
(EPA currently uses ServiceNow Help Desk) that delivers a variety of
detailed user ticket summaries, service performance trending, and federal
regulatory reporting capabilities.
• Modernize grants management tools and systems to reduce the
administrative burden of grants management for EPA staff.
• Apply proven software engineering principles in the execution of
management, design, deployment, and maintenance tasks in the
continued modernization and operations and maintenance of the
Grants Management software suite.
• Enhance, maintain, operate, and provide user support for the CFDA
App.
• Enhance, maintain, operate, and provide user support for the Comply
App (Microsoft Cloud system).
• Support ORASE/OGD in aligning with OMB’s IT Shared Services
Strategy to explore IT investments government-wide and considering
to maximum extent possible Small Business Association (SBA)
capabilities and procurement objectives.
• Continue to develop training, as needed, to familiarize EPA users on
new and/or updated system functionality and features to continue user
operation of the modernized Grants Management Systems.
• Develop and support ancillary grant applications as part of the Grants
Management software suite to support future grants management
requirements.
• Ensure compliance with Federal and EPA regulations, policies, and
procedures (i.e. 508 Compliance and Security requirements and
regulations, etc.) (see PWS Section 2.0 and Section II).
With EPA’s procurement of various cloud offerings, the Agency expects to gain
efficiencies through information sharing and information safeguarding by utilizing
a common IT architecture. The contractor is expected to adapt to
emerging/changing requirements as well as leading-edge cloud technologies as
new offerings become available. In addition to performing software engineering
activities, the contractor may be called to perform technical support for developed
cloud applications. The contractor will provide software engineering expertise for
multiple architectures, including, but not limited to:
• Microsoft Government Cloud Offerings
• Integrated hybrid architecture utilizing the Microsoft Government Cloud
and web technologies hosted within EPA’s data centers.
• Web technologies hosted within EPA’s data centers and cloud platforms
and subscriptions.
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