AIDT Request for Information and Invitation to Bid #922 -Oracle Database Upgrade and Financial Reporting Software Questions

Transcription

1 AIDT Request for Information and Invitation to Bid #922 -Oracle Database Upgrade and Financial Reporting Software Questions General Questions: RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY PARTICPATING VENDORS Will a Bid Bond or Performance Bond required with Bid 922? 1) Bid bonds are only required if the value of the cost estimate exceeds $50,000. 2) A performance bond will not be required; however, AIDT anticpates signing an agreement that recaps the terms and conditions of the upgrade and/or financial reporting tool, as applicable, and will issue a purchase order in conjunction with the agreement. Is this a Firm Fixed Price or a Time and Materials bid? Bidders may provide a response using either fixes price and/or time and materials. The response should clearly state how the pricing is being calculated. However, AIDT preferes a fixed price for both itmes in the solicitation, if possible. Pg.8 option (b) regarding nonresident bidders please clarify what information is needed from nonresident bidders. Non residents bidders are classified as either 1) out-of-state vendors or 2) out of country vendors. Under wither cirmunstance, vendors must be able to provide documnetation of compliance which certifies the vendor to conduct business within the State of Alabama. Also, vendors must provide proof of registration with E-Verify (federal immigration) and Beason-Hammon (State of Alabama Immigration). Pg.9 we assume that the 50 mile clause is excluded for consulting services, please confirm. The 50 miles radius cluase is specifically designed to accommodate equipment service and repairs, rather than consulting. Leave / Absence Management: Have you performed a gap analysis on your requirements to the features and functions within Oracle HR? Do you have detailed documentation on your legacy leave / absence management system? No interface with or conversion of the legacy system is necessary. Do you have complete and detailed AIDT requirements for leave/absence management? AIDT offers several types of leave to its full-time employees, including: annual, sick, personal, compensatory, emergency, administrative, military, professional development, FMLA. Annual leave is accrued based on number of years of employment, and there is a maximum number of hours that can carry over from one leave year to the next. When employment terminates, the employee is reimbursed at the current rate of pay for unused annual leave. Sick leave is accrued at a rate of eight hours per month. Each employee receives 16 hours of personal leave each leave year. In general, the desired solution is one in which an AIDT employee may submit a request for the appropriate type of leave, track the leave request as it goes through the approval workflow, and see the hours taken and remaining in his/her leave balances. Other details are available and will be furnished to the awarded vendor. Will there be a need for any data conversion in this area?

2 Environment: Has an upgrade assessment been completed and can you share the results if so? An upgrade assessment is not available. Have you attempted an upgrade previously, and if so can you share the results? AIDT has not attempted an EBS upgrade other than minor RUPs. Are there any interfaces into or out of the Oracle EBS system? An AIDT account is used for workflow processing, but this account is configured using standard EBS functionality. Beyond Vertex, are there any other 3rd party applications in your Oracle footprint ecosystem? Bank statements are pulled from AIDT s bank via a small Ruby script using FTP. This script is maintained by AIDT IT staff. Are all CEMLIs located in a single custom schema? All CEMLIs listed in AIDT Customizations to Environment (CEMLI) are in a single schema. In the AIDT Reports section, reports from BI Publisher and SQL queries pull from tables in a separate, read-only schema, but AIDT does not wish to use this schema in the future. Do you have complete documentation for all of the CEMLIs? Does AIDT have enough disk space for two additional instances during the upgrade? AIDT will provide sufficient storage for the upgrade. Will you provide (Remote Diagnostic Agent) RDA output? Attached via . Does AIDT have full use or Restricted use Licenses for Oracle Database and EBS? Full use. Does AIDT rely on any outside 3 rd party for support of current EBS and or Database? Yes, AIDT has a contract with a third party vendor for assistance in DBA and development work. Testing and Training: Do you have existing test scripts? Beyond training on the functional changes in Oracle EBS, does AIDT require any technical or Apps DBA training? Only if such training is required by changes in the environment due to the upgrade. Resources: Has the AIDT project manager assigned to this project, performed an Oracle upgrade before? The AIDT project manager was involved in the original implementation of Oracle and EBS in AIDT has not upgraded EBS since the original implementation.

3 Has the AIDT Apps DBA performed an Oracle Upgrade? The AIDT DBA has performed RDBMS upgrades and has installed or assisted in installing rollup patches (RUPs), quarterly PSUs, year-end and year-begin patches, Vertex patches, OS and hardware upgrades. AIDT has not upgraded EBS since the original implementation of , so the AIDT DBA has not performed an EBS upgrade. Will AIDT be able to provide subject matter experts in all functional areas to lead testing? Yes. Timeline: It appears that AIDT want to compete this upgrade 12 weeks, are there any competing priorities or projects that would impact an upgrade in the September to December 2015 timeframe? AIDT s fiscal year end is Sep 30, so FY closing/opening activities will be taking place during the September-October timeframe. How do they produce their financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, etc.)? They mentioned that they don t use FSGs (in the General Information Reporting section), but don t explicitly say how they generate their financial statements. I imagine they either get by using seeded EBS reports or do it entirely outside of Oracle. It would be good to confirm. AIDT uses a combination of seeded EBS reports and Excel spreadsheets. Output data from seeded EBS processes are manually entered into spreadsheets for the generation of reports. Do they only use checks as their payment method? The description leads me to believe only checks are used but I d want to confirm they don t use alternate methods, e.g. ACH or wires. In addition to check payments, AIDT uses bank wires for some non-u.s. suppliers. AIDT uses occasional ACH debits. AIDT uses direct deposit (NACHA) for employee payroll. Do they make use of priorities or pay groups when running payments? Speaks to the complexity of their payment system, i.e. do they have multiple payment runs that use criteria to determine who should be paid first? AIDT does not use priorities or pay groups when running payments. Are there are OA Framework personalizations/customizations in iexpense or any other module. There are some OA Framework personalizations in iexpense and iprocurement for the purpose of hiding fields or changing field labels. Document provides information about forms personalizations apart from those, are there any custom forms or customization in CUSTOM.pll AIDT is not aware of any customizations other than those listed on the RFP page AIDT Customizations to Environment (CEMLI). Per document: Leave is currently maintained in a separate legacy system is there any kind of integration between that legacy system and Oracle EBS? If so, can we get details? Though the requirement is to implement Oracle s Leave and Absence Management module, want to understand if

4 there is any specific customization we will have to carry forward from the current process. There is no integration between the legacy system and Oracle EBS; there are no customizations to carry forward. Any workflow customizations (for approvals or any other purpose) Not that AIDT is aware of. Are there any other integrations/interfaces between AIDT and other systems apart from below list (derived from document) AIDT to Bank (Positive Pay) Bank to AIDT (Bank Statements) Vertex Load (Tax) An AIDT account is used for workflow processing, but this account is configured using standard EBS functionality. What is the driver of the upgrade? Is there an anticipated go live date that has to be met? Part A: Oracle no longer supports EBS In December 2015-January 2016, AIDT must be able to perform year-end/year-begin activities, including generating employee W-2 and supplier 1099 forms. Part B: AIDT needs user-customizable reports. There is not a particular go-live date anticipated for this portion of the RFP. Does AIDT have a budget defined for the upgrade and implementation of the Leave Management system? Costs for the implementation of leave management should be itemized in the RFP response. Does the work need to be done on-site, or can a portion of it be done remotely? Is using Offshore resources an option? Clarification: If the Vendor is providing a response for only Part B (reporting software), on-site services are not necessarily expected, but may be specified according to the needs of the software. Per the RFP, Remote access via virtual private network (VPN) services will be provided to Vendor. Vendor is expected to provide on-site services for at least some of the work; AIDT will provide necessary facilities, equipment and access. Offshore work is permitted and should reflect a cost savings for AIDT. Will we be converting data from the current Leave Management system? If so, how far back for transactional data? No data conversion will be required. Does AIDT have OBIEE or Oracle Discovery license to support EBS reporting.

5 Does AIDT ready to explore options to explore third party reporting tool for EBS reporting. Yes, AIDT is open to third party reporting software. All costs of any such tool should be itemized in Part B of the RFP response. Given the tight deadline for questions and the unknown return for responses, answers will weigh heavily in our response. We d like to formally ask for an extension on this solicitation to better respond fully to your requirements. AIDT has determined that the responses to the Q&A were not provided within a timeframe sufficient to provide adequate responses byt the origianl date established. Therefore, an extension of time has been approved. Repnses to this request must be delivered via selaed document no later than Friday, August 28, 2015 by 10:00 am CST. The cover page says this is a Request for Information (RFI). Is this a Request for Information (RFI) for planning purposes or a Request for Proposal (RFP)? We see evaluation criteria and price responses required, which point to a RFP. AIDT is soliciting a firm response for pricing. In order to allow vendors to provide additional information to justify pricing and to offer information related to 1) Oracle upgrade and 2) Financial reporting tools, it was determined that vendors should be allowed to elaborate as needed in order for AIDT to make the most judicious selection for both segments. As stated in the original solicitation, AIDT reserves the right to award based upon the best interests of the agency, respective of but not solely based upon pricing, and to: 1) Award simulultaneously for the Oracle upgrade and the Financial Reporting tool, OR 2) Award the Oracle upgrade independent of the Financial reporting (i.e. two separate awards to two separate vendors) OR 3) Award only the Oracle upgrade and reject all bids for the Financial reporting tool, OR 4) Reject all offers for both segments.