Request for Information

This Request for Information (RFI) announcement is for information and planning purposes only; it is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government.  A contract may not be awarded as a result of this RFI announcement.  The Department of Labor (DOL), on behalf of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management (OASAM), intends to procure licenses and services for an online collaboration tool that promotes the ability for staff to collaborate through a web conferencing vehicle from multiple, remote locations for the purpose of conducting meetings, training sessions, and other events. It is anticipated that the online collaboration tool would include, but not be limited to, capabilities such as video, white boarding, instant messaging/chat, and voting.

Large and small businesses are to submit capability packages.  Capability packages must be submitted by April 2, 2012. Interested small business concerns in NAICS code 519130 with a size standard of 500 employees are encouraged to submit their capability packages.  The capability packages for this RFI market survey are not expected to be proposals, but rather statements regarding the company's existing experience in relation to the areas specified in this RFI.  Capability packages must not exceed 20 pages; responses to questions should not exceed 500 words per question and must be submitted electronically.  All contractor questions must be submitted no later than 3:00 PM/EST, March 25, 2012. 

 All interested parties must outline their experiences in the following questions:

1. Describe your product's telecommunication capabilities to address the following areas:

• VOIP
• Integrated Toll and Toll-Free calling w/ a call-in and call-back option during a web conference
• broadcasting (one-way audio)
• Full duplex (two-way audio)
• Capability to use a third-party teleconference
• Toll and toll-free to support large audiences 

2. Describe your product's meeting scheduler capabilities and interface; specifically the functionality to:

• Send and receive email or calendar notifications for a scheduled event
• Schedule re-occurring meetings or templates
• Provide a meeting calendar to launch and attend meetings
• Configure events to be public or private from the meeting calendar

3. Describe your product's conferencing capabilities to include:

• Real-time file and application sharing
• Designation of alternating presenters during a session
• Participation by up to 3000 attendees
• Secure file transfer from the leader to attendees
• Change of leader during a session
• Embedded video
• Support for slide presentations, animated video, web content, application sharing, documents, spreadsheets and other presentation materials
• File types that are supported for sharing

4. Describe your product's messaging capabilities for real-time communication between the leader, presenters and participants such as:

• One-to-one and one-to-many instant messaging
• Capability to maintain chat history
• Ability to paste text and hyperlinks into the chat window
• Display the login status of participants 

5. Describe your product's administration capabilities to include:

• Managing privileges for users and groups
• Managing feature customizations
• Generating standard and customized reports
• Auditing usage, activity logs and admin activity 

6. Describe your product's security level to assure protection of government's information assets to include:

• Ability to customize the share capability (e.g. disablement of share desktop)
• Authentication of the users against LDAP/Active Directory
• Encryption that is Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 compliant
• Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.0 protocol for secure communication
• SP 800-53 Rev 3 Moderate level security authorization [Authority to Operate (ATO)] 

7. Describe your organization's capability to provide an adequate level of support to assure full utilization of the product and its features to include:

• Phone support
• Email Support
• Chat Support
• Formal training
• A designated customer service rep for participation in presentations and ad hoc training
• On-site support for executive level and more complex session requests
• A knowledge base of FAQ's, PDF's, videos and other training materials to facilitate self-study for users and administrators

8. Describe your product's capabilities to provide features to facilitate general utility of the product to include:

• Tier level capabilities for meeting participation (e.g. attendees, presenters, meeting managers)

• Ability to create meeting invitations
• Ability of the meeting manager or administrator to start, stop or cancel events
• Ability for multiple meeting managers to initiate an event

9. Describe your product's capabilities to provide universal access including:

• Internet access to the product from anywhere
• Unlimited online meetings, per license
• Capabilities to record real-time audio/video and playback of meeting sessions
• Capabilities to convert the completed event into a universal format

10. Describe your product's shared video capability to include:

• Ability to choose when video windows are opened or closed as well as toggling (turn on/off) the webcam display
• Multi-point video display
• WebCam compatibility and integration

11. Describe your product's collaborative Whiteboarding capabilities to include:

• Whiteboarding integrated into a meeting session
• Enable the presenter to annotate shared artifacts and applications in real time
• Allow one or more presenters to annotate during a meeting session
• Automatically saves a whiteboard session

12. Describe the licensing structure options that your tool provides to include:

• Large event support for up to 3000 attendees
• Standard event support for up to 200 attendees
• Unlimited meeting capability per licensee

13. Describe your product's compliance to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. 794d) to include Technical standards from 36 CFR part 1194 Subparts B, C and D with respect to:

• Technical standards
• Functional performance criteria
• Information, documentation, and support requirements

14. Describe how the proposed web conferencing tool meets the identified requirements as applicable to the Government Product/Service Accessibility Template (GPAT) http://buyaccessible.net/blog/?p=205

Based on the capability statements received, a written Request for Proposal (RFP) may or may not be posted on or about May 17, 2012.  The RFP must be retrieved and downloaded from the Federal Business Opportunities website, www.fbo.gov.  Contractors are responsible for all costs for submitting their capability packages.  POC is Mr. Nashaunte Graham, email: [email protected]  or Lesa Llewellyn, email:  [email protected].