{"Overview":"The Organized Child Electronic Assessment Needs and Services (OCEANS) Project will replace the current child welfare information system to better support the needs of children, families, and case workers. The Project focuses on replacing the existing system through a competitive procurement process with a Software as a Service (SaaS) or Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) system to improve functionality, efficiency, data accessibility, and security.","Purpose":"The North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS) is seeking proposals for a Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS). The project must comply with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Grants Policy Statement, which outlines the general terms and conditions for HHS grants and cooperative agreements. These terms apply across all HHS agencies unless specific award requirements state otherwise.","Background":"The North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS), created in 2021 by merging two state agencies, aims to make North Dakota the healthiest state through integrated health and human services.\n\nIts Children and Family Services (CFS) section oversees child welfare programs statewide, managing policies, supervision, and technical assistance. The system is county-administered and state-supervised, with 53 counties operating through 19 Human Service Zones.\n\nCFS focuses on child safety, permanency, and well-being, supporting families, foster youth, and children at risk. NDHHS collaborates with Tribal Nations for Title IV-E programs and family preservation services and works with the Division of Juvenile Services on foster care coordination.\n\nOverall, NDHHS integrates child welfare with Medicaid, behavioral health, and other assistance programs to deliver comprehensive support for children and families across the state.","Minimum Qualifications":"The Offeror must have successfully implemented a Human Services system for at least one government entity in the past five (5) years. \nThe Offeror must provide three references for similar projects completed or substantially completed by the Offeror. Offerors must include the name of a contact person, address, email, and telephone number. Offerors are instructed to notify the reference that the STATE will be contacting them. Evaluation will be impacted if the STATE is unable to contact the reference or the reference does not provide the requested information timely.","User Base":"The STATE estimates that there are 800 OCEANS users and approximately 400 of those are concurrent users. This number includes staff in the HSZs and STATE staff. \n\nThe Offeror should assume that the number of external users and logins expands as additional stakeholders are brought on to the system and build that into their pricing structure.","Go-Live/Launch Timeline":"The State has proposed a 30-month schedule but is open to a different schedule that meets all requirements of the RFP.\nRFP schedule indicates the contract start date is approximately 11/22/26","Hosting":"STATE’s preference is Azure but any FedRAMP authorized US cloud provider is acceptable","Legacy System":"Replace North Dakota’s Child Welfare legacy systems, comprised of the mainframe-based Comprehensive Child Welfare Information and Payment System (CCWIPS), the aging Java-based FRAME application, and the Families First Title IV-E Microsoft Dynamics application, Excel, Word and Access data bases with OCEANS.","Data Migration":"The OCEANS Data Conversion and Migration Plan describes the processes, resources, tasks, security, hardware, software, and tools provided by the CONTRACTOR to conduct data conversion planning and implementation services to migrate structured and unstructured data from all legacy systems as defined in the RFP to structured data in the OCEANS system to ensure continuity and integrity of current and historical data and information\n\nConduct data conversion planning and implementation services to convert all open cases and 5 years of closed historical cases to the system. The offeror must archive the remaining data located in the mainframe into a searchable database. The search functionality must include searching both the production and archive databases seamlessly at the same time. If the user needs a record from the archive database, it must be pulled into a staging area and remain there until the minimum demographic (defined by the State) has been added and the case cleaned by the caseworker. Once this is done the caseworker can release the case into the production database. The business rules for retention should be run against the archive database upon conversion to purge old files that should no longer be retained. Data retention rules should be applied to both databases according to state business rules.","Integration":"The Offeror must integrate an estimated 50 interfaces both one-directional and bi-directional, inclusive of a master person database for accurate client information across agencies.","Reporting & analytics":"Conduct forms and reports planning and implementation services in collaboration with the STATE to create and migrate CFS forms and reports to the new document management system and reporting software. The STATE is estimating 200 notices and forms to be converted to the Enterprise Document Management system (EDMS) and 75 reports that need to be created in the reporting software. \n\nOperationalize OCEANS as the system of record for child welfare services, integrating it with the NDHHS data warehouse to enable comprehensive program reporting in accordance with North Dakota’s data governance model and framework.","Maintenance Support":"The OCEANS Level 1 service desk support is to be provided by the STATE.\nThe STATE plans to manage Level 1 Service Desk (initial calls) with an expectation that the Contractor manages Level 2","Training":"- The Offeror must provide training for all system users, including:\n- State staff\n- Human Service Zone (HSZ) staff\n- Tribal partners\n- External providers, if applicable","Submission Method":"Offeror must electronically submit proposals through the STATE Procurement Office Online system (SPO Online) by the Solicitation Closing deadline.","Initial Contract Term":"CONTRACTOR warrants that it will continue to offer Hosting and Maintenance Services for the product(s) for a minimum of five (5) years from the date of final acceptance or installation date of any software/product update.","Estimated Budget by State":"The funds for payment of this contract are already appropriated and identified.\n\nThe Project was appropriated a specific amount by the Legislature and granted authority to borrow the remaining project funds through the Bank of North Dakota. The amount appropriated by the Legislature does not reflect the full Project budget. The Offeror should propose costs for to meet the requirements outlined in the RFP.","Offshore resource":"Offshore resources may be utilized for solution development, provided that production and non-production environments containing PII, PHI, or other confidential information remain within the United States, are not accessed by offshore resources, and all data stays within the U.S. This arrangement is acceptable.","Sub-contract":"If an Offeror intends to use subcontractors, the Offeror must identify in the proposal the names of the subcontractors and the portions of the work the subcontractors will perform. Provide a statement that the Offeror will ensure that the subcontractor has or will obtain any required licenses and registrations, including registration with the North Dakota Secretary of STATE;","Pricing":"All costs must be inclusive of travel, per diem, administrative, overhead, licensing, enhancement pool hours, and any other project-related expenses. \nCosts must be submitted using Attachment Cost Schedule. Proposals that do not adhere to this format may be deemed unresponsive.","MWBE/SDVOB":"NA","Warranty":"CONTRACTOR must warranty the scope of the OCEANS system for twelve (12) months after production deployment. All validated defects identified during the warranty period will be addressed by the CONTRACTOR at no additional cost to the STATE. Enhancements requested during any warranty period will be prioritized by the STATE and billed by the CONTRACTOR at the contracted Change Order rate. The CONTRACTOR may leverage the M&O processes to manage the issues/defects identified during a warranty period and their fixes and will report progress as part of its M&O reporting. CONTRACTOR will provide a warranty for the core base product for the duration of the contract term provided that the STATE has an active subscription (a license) with CONTRACTOR to access the OCEANS system.","Escrow":"*Contractor must place software in escrow within 60 days, naming the State as beneficiary.\n*Must notify the State within 10 business days after the escrow setup.\n*All upgrades and source code must be added to escrow within 30 days.\n*State can access the code if the contractor goes bankrupt, stops support, or ends software development.\n*Contractor must provide full documentation for State use if escrow is activated.","E-Signature":"Adobe Sign.","Mobile App":"A mobile application with offline access is required. \nThe State’s Mobile Device Management (MDM) tools and standards are based on Microsoft Intune.","Value-Added Features":"*The STATE is requesting value-added feature for the development of OCEANS and for the maintenance and operations portion of the contract.\n*Offeror shall list the cost of value-added features separately in the cost proposal.\n*The STATE shall not consider these costs as part of cost evaluation scoring.\n*The STATE reserves the right to include value-added features from the proposals during contract negotiations.","Productivity/Unified Communications Environment":"The STATE of North Dakota leverages all components of the Microsoft productivity suite, including but not limited to Exchange online, Teams voice, SharePoint, Power BI, and OneDrive.","Retainage":"All deliverable payments shall be subject to 20% retainage. Retained amounts due to CONTRACTOR shall be paid upon Final Acceptance.","Travel":"Travel expenses are covered by the Contractual Amount and no actual travel expenses shall be invoiced.","Payment":"Payment made in accordance with this Compensation section shall constitute payment in full for the services and work performed and the deliverables provided under this Contract and CONTRACTOR shall not receive any additional compensation hereunder.\n\nSTATE shall make payment under this Contract within forty-five (45) calendar days after receipt of an approved invoice.","Maintenance Fee Cap":"CONTRACTOR agrees that any change to the annual Maintenance Services fee may increase by not more than the lower of 3% or Consumer Price Index (CPI). The rates shall be adjusted in accordance with the index titled “All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). for the U.S. City Average. All Items 1982-84=100”, prepared by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.","Professional Services":"Hourly Rate after 4,000 hours. The M&O includes 4,000 hours for system enhancements: \nHour Rate for other professional services outside of M&O (if applicable)","ALM Software":"The State confirms its intent to continue using the Offeror’s Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) software during the Maintenance and Operations (M&O) phase following the conclusion of the engagement\n\nThe number of users is unknown at this time","Renewal Option Maintenance and Support.":"STATE may renew this Contract upon satisfactory completion of the Initial Term. STATE reserves the right to execute up to five (5) options to renew this Contract under the same terms and conditions for a period of 12 months each (Renewal Term).","RFP Document Folder Link":"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PqFTxR2Jd30iI6xFCKRhNjQ06RZ8_Wba?usp=sharing"}
Assumptions
- Cardinality Solution will be hosted on Azure Government Cloud for the production instance.
- Azure Hosting includes one production and nine non-production instances
- Cardinality SaaS license includes - Yearly 2 upgrades, monthly hot fixes and HyperCare support
- All resources would be based out of the US
- The Cardinality Saas license cost is provided for up to 800 internal users.
- Cardinality will leverage the Adobe licenses of the Agency for e-signature
- The Operations & Maintenance Support phase is assumed to start after the DDI phase of 24 months
- Cardinality will provide Level-2 and Level-3 support during the M&O Phase
- The Agency will provide HelpDesk support during M&O Phase