Consolidated Questions and Answers

Transcription

1 Consolidated Questions and Answers Request for Proposal No. LMI-WSCMS Table of Contents Company and General RFP Information... 1 Content & Design... 2 Marketing & Strategy... 3 Technical Architecture, Platform, & Functions... 7 Hosting and Ongoing Support Company and General RFP Information 1. What is the size and composition of the digital team that will be using the system? Our digital team will consist of 7-8 people from the LMI Communications group who will be trained in the new CMS. The team will consist of writers, editors, designers, content implementers, and project coordinators. 2. What are LMI s largest competitors? LMI is a management consulting firm that contracts primarily with federal government. Our largest competitors are Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, Accenture, McKinsey & Company, PwC, KPMG, Nobils, Calibre Systems, and MITRE. 3. Internally, what browsers and which versions does LMI use? IE 10 and up, Chrome, etc.? Officially LMI employees should be using IE (versions 10 or higher), however many employees use Chrome and a few use Firefox. 4. Did LMI base the 12 month timeframe on any event? If not, how was the decision on timeframe made? This timeframe was established by comparison of similar projects. 5. The expected period of performance is 12 months, but the dates show 14 months. Can you explain the difference?

2 The preferred period of performance is 12 months. We realize that depending on the approach and platform chosen there may need to be some margin for the implementation timeframe. 6. What design and development lifecycle process does LMI follow (Agile, Waterfall, etc)? Agile Content & Design 7. Will additional language for the content of the site be manually managed or will a 3 rd party service, i.e. Google Translate, be used to translate the content on the page? For the initial launch of the site, Google Translate will be used for automatic language translation. However, on a long-term basis, we will need a system that can handle multiple translations using manual page creation and translation. 8. Is Google Translate, as it is used currently on LMI.org, a continued solution for translated content? If not, please explain the expected solution. For the initial launch of the site, Google Translate will be used for automatic language translation. However, on a long-term basis, we will need a system that can handle multiple translations using manual page creation and translation. 9. To what level can vendor expect LMI to be involved concerning the re-writing of the site content? LMI will proofread and edit all site content. The vendor will be responsible for generating the content. LMI can provide industry experts and subject matter experts for interviews. 10. Has LMI completed any Site content audit? LMI expects the vendor to research and audit LMI as an enterprise during the discovery phase as a baseline for developing content. 11. Does LMI regularly review content based on age or metrics? The current site content is relatively old and dated. The new site will launch with completely new or updated content.

3 12. Is the vendor expected to provide a separate SEO keyword report, or will it only be used to inform the rewritten content? Yes, we would like to be informed of the keywords identified for each content section on the new site and how they are incorporated into the content itself. 13. Can LMI supply a list of example websites you like from a design perspective? A list will be provided during the discovery phase after contract award. 14. Is the LMI brand or logo at all in flux, being redesigned or updated, currently or as a planned project that may overlap with the website redesign and CMS implementation project? No, our logo and brand will not change. We have brand standards to be utilized during the redesign. 15. Is there a plan for photography on the site, that is, an existing archive of high quality image assets that can be made available for use during the redesign, a budget for photo shoots and/or stock photography, or a combination of those? A combination of existing high quality photos and the use of stock photography would be best for this project. The proposed budget set-up for stock photos should be included in your proposal. (i.e. What rate will LMI be charged for stock photos?) If needed, LMI has a library of high quality images of corporate events, the HQ facility, as well as individual and group shots of corporate leadership. 16. Please explain LMI s design approval process? Will it be a team or individuals approving the designs? LMI will have a main POC to approve the designs, however internally we will have a team dedicated to reviewing these designs. Marketing & Strategy 1. What is LMI s current marketing stack, i.e. , CRM, etc., and is it in flux beyond the acquisition of the new WCM platform? Does LMI plan to continue to use Salesforce as the CRM? Our marketing team currently uses Salesforce for social media and campaigns. LMI plans to continue using this platform.

4 We currently do not have a CRM but will be looking to integrate one into the CMS in the future. 2. Is LMI interested in building working proofs of concept of personalization, analytics, and marketing automation into initial releases? We would like to include all of these things in the CMS implementation. 3. Is LMI interested in enabling content marketing lead capture? Yes 4. Does LMI have the ability to use cookies? Yes 5. Should the project scope include templates for marketing to match the site? The vendor should provide the original files for the website so our internal design team can create similar and consistent designs. 6. Are there any 3 rd party vendors that LMI is already working with (for example, for marketing, jobs, event registration, SEO vendor, analytics, etc.) that you plan to continue using and that the site would need to integrate with? How do you see the breakdown of roles? No, all functions listed above are done in-house. 7. Does LMI have information around market segmentation (beyond what lies in your Markets area of your website) that can be shared with the vendor so that the vendor was to have a better sense of your target audience(s)? LMI expects the vendor to research and audit LMI as an enterprise during the discovery phase to evaluate and define target audiences/personas. 8. On page 3, the RFP mentions drip marketing campaigns and personalized s. Does LMI currently have any campaigns? Will any of these be carried over? What system does LMI use for personalized s? We will be using salesforce for drip campaigns. We currently do not have any active drip campaigns.

5 9. With Salesforce Marketing cloud, please explain which editions have been licensed ( The basic version of the social media marketing tool (Social Studio), and the basic version of the marketing tool ( Studio) 10. Other than Salesforce CRM, what other CRM software is LMI considering? LMI is also considering Microsoft Dynamics CRM 11. Does LMI plan to continue to use YouTube? Will the new site integrate these videos from YouTube? Yes, LMI will continue to use YouTube. We would like the new site to integrate videos from YouTube, however not all of the video content on the LMI YouTube channel will be used. 12. What digital channels does the organization currently use (for instance, social channels)? Does LMI have a strategy around which channels to use, how LMI uses them, and how they can interact with your website? Does LMI have any interest in publishing to social channels from the website? Does LMI have someone dedicated to social media on the team? How is LMI currently monitoring and tracking the social media posts? Is LMI considering adding any new channels? LMI currently uses Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google +, and YouTube. LMI may add Instagram in the near future We have team members dedicated to our social media strategy. We monitor our channels through Salesforce, Google Analytics, and the platforms themselves. Having social media feeds appear on the website could be beneficial, if the vendor has supportive evidence (I.e. click rates with similar audiences). 13. In regards to CRM, ERP and other business intelligence platforms is your desire for integration the ability for extant systems LMI already operates to be able to interface with the CRM and vice versa, or are you looking for additional thoughts and recommendations on these products and their best integration. LMI does not currently have a corporate-wide CRM or ERP. We are planning to integrate a CRM into the new CMS platform at a future date. We are not looking for recommendation of a CRM or ERP system at this time.

6 14. Please explain how LMI expects to use ERP information on LMI.org, and the data that would be leveraged from the ERP. At this time LMI does not plan to use ERP data on LMI.org Platform & Functions 15. Is LMI looking for a formal platform evaluation or for the vendor to suggest and defend the best platform fi in their proposal directly? (This is complicated because, without knowing the platform ahead of proposing services work, a firm fixed price approach is more difficult.) We are looking for a vendor to suggest and defend the best possible CMS solution. The vendor should have previous and extensive experience with their suggested platform. 16. What site search features are important and/or required? Site Search Functional Requirements: i. The initial target of the search should be the contents of the entire website. ii. The search should allow for Boolean commands ("and," "or"), the default in a Boolean "and" search should be "any," not "all." iii. The search function should be able to recognize and discriminate between synonyms, acronyms, typos, plurals, prefixes, and suffixes in a logical manner. iv. A spellchecker that can suggest alternative spellings. v. The ability to capture and analyze the user-entered search terms. Site Search Interface Requirements: i. The search bar should appear on all pages of the website. ii. The site search results page should have the ability to filter results according to date and relevant content on the site (i.e., Blog Posts, White Papers, News Items, Services, etc.).

7 iii. Each search return result should have an accompanying image related to the search result. 17. Are there any unique browser or system needs that the vendor should be aware of? System needs are outline in the RFP. 18. Are there Analytics on the current site that could be shared to assist in developing a front-end development strategy for the new site? Yes. 19. Does LMI have existing site metrics available to review? LMI will provide Google Analytics access upon award of contract. 20. The RFP indicates that the system should have clearly defined authentication methods that can be leveraged to authenticate and identify user access into the system. Does LMI foresee the intranet being included in this project, or are there other areas of the site that require a login? Or does LMI foresee new areas that might require a user to login? The primary purpose for authentication is to initially collect contact information from users who download premium content. If the same users continue to download additional premium content, we want to have the users login to gain access to that content. The LMI intranet is run on the SharePoint platform. At this time we do not see the LMI intranet being included in this project other than possibly providing links to the LMI intranet partners site. 21. Is there a need to be WCAG compliant? If so, to what degree (A, AA, or AAA)? There is not predefined need to be WCAG compliant. 22. Please define the expected mobile device matrix. LMI is expecting the vendor to make this recommendation based on their research and expertise. 23. We would need to engage a partner to implement a suitable CMS solution such as Acquia or Adobe Experience Manager. That said, we understand that LMI would like to host the site and

8 that you have in-house.net resources. Acquia is based on the Drupal platform and Adobe uses Java. Are you open to a solution that is not based on.net? We are open to non.net-based CMS solutions if the vendor can show significant value in terms of cost savings, as well as technical and functional capabilities that are equal to or better than a similar ASP.NET-based CMS solution. 24. Your RFP makes mention of the use of a.net extant system, as well as three platforms you have considered, as well as the use of COTS. Is this decision fixed? In other words, should another firm propose a site, built on Drupal and using PHP not be considered during this RFP process? We are open to non.net-based CMS solutions if the vendor can show significant value in terms of cost savings, as well as technical and functional capabilities that are equal to or better than a similar.net-based CMS solution. 25. The RFP references LMI.NET resources. What tasks will they be expected to perform during the initial development of the new website, before it goes live? LMI internal resources will help transfer the near final site from the contactor s infrastructure to LMI s internal infrastructure Development Process & Technical Architecture 26. Will the vendor be allowed to actively use our project management tools (JIRA, Confluence)? Yes. 27. What design and development lifecycle process does LMI follow (Agile, Waterfall, etc)? Agile. 28. Please explain how LMI has worked in an Agile process? LMI uses the Agile process for design and development of applications and websites for our Systems Development community of practice. 29. Will the vendor be allowed to use our version control software for software that resides in the development lifecycle? Preferred solution will include the use of LMI s version and source control during the development process. 30. Will the vendor be allowed to develop on vendor owned laptops or Amazon AWS servers?

9 Preferred solution will include the use of contractor computing resources including PCs, however development, test and production server environments will be located within LMI s infrastructure. 31. What software version control system is used at LMI? LMI uses Atlassian s suite including Jira and associated software for version and source control. LMI uses Bitbucket paired with GIT for source repositories. 32. Please diagram LMI s existing infrastructure for all environments used to currently maintain lmi.org (including development, qa, staging, and live). Test server > Production server 33. Please explain LMI s expected infrastructure for the new website? Infrastructure will be comprised of a virtual server infrastructure to support any recommended configuration to include front end, application, and database servers. Additionally, load balancing appliances will be utilized to create required resiliency. 34. Which hosting environments and what type of access rights will the vendor s developers be provided? Contractors will be given access to development, and test environments to conduct their work. Environments will be hosted within LMI s infrastructure and contractors will be provided with credentials and access rights required to complete development. 35. Please explain 3 rd party tools and companies that LMI employees for security testing software. LMI uses Nessus Professional for broad system vulnerability assessment and a variety of open source and commercial web application security assessment tools Tools used include nmap, OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP), Burp Suite and Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner. 36. Please explain the acceptance process for software solutions. There will be technical and security testing before acceptance. Additionally acceptance of software solutions will be predicated on the solution meeting the agreed upon requirements. 37. Please explains LMI s continued integration process for moving solutions from development to production. LMI uses the Atlassian suite of tools to manage software development. We support automated builds Test, QA, PreProd & Prod environments. Typically, all code checked in to the code repository is automatically built to the Test environment. Builds to QA are managed by a build manager and builds to PreProd and Prod are managed by Release

10 Managers/Production Administrators. We use Bamboo Server for continuous integration, deployment, and delivery. 38. Please define expected browser matrix, esp. which versions of Internet Explorer are to be supported. IE10 and up, Chrome, Firefox. 39. Is the new CMS system expected to provide content to any of LMI s employee tools such as the ones found at If so, is there a defined web service standard that is expected to be followed? No. 40. Does LMI plan to continue use of Silkroad for talent management software? Yes, for at least another year. 41. Other than Salesforce CRM, what other CRM software is LMI considering? LMI is also considering Microsoft Dynamics CRM 42. Can you please explain this question further? The proposal should include process/systems to ensure the LMI website will be stored and not leave the U.S. If LMI will host the solution, can you explain what other processes or systems? This refers to any code developed outside of LMI s internal infrastructure. Hosting and Ongoing Support 43. Is LMI open to cloud (Azure) hosting in the future or a different hosting solution? At this time, LMI plans to host the new site on its own internal servers. 44. Will LMI need ongoing support for the site and development support? At this time, LMI plans to support the new site, upon launch with internal resources. 45. Is LMI open to considering a cloud-based, managed hosted provider assuming that provider meets the required "systems items" included within this section of the RFP? At this time, LMI plans to host the new site on its own internal servers. 46. Will LMI ultimately contract directly with the selected CMS vendor? Potentially, but LMI would like the vendor to provide pricing for the proposed CMS solution as part of the overall cost of delivering the new site.