Customer Billing and Revenue Data Warehouse Design and Implementation Project

Transcription

1 REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Customer Billing and Revenue Data Warehouse Design and Implementation Project This Request for Proposal (RFP) is being issued to evaluate and select a qualified vendor to implement their proposed solution for the District s Customer Billing and Revenue Data Warehouse Design and Implementation Project. Proposals for providing these services will be received by 4:00 P.M. on September 19, Late submittals will not be considered. Proposals are to be delivered to: Chandra Yadati, Director of Information Technology Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District 3900 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, OH Attn: Daryl Coats, Data Governance & BI Manager Questions regarding this RFP shall be directed to Daryl Coats by calling (216) , ext. x6895 or at webrfp@neorsd.org. The District will attempt to respond to within one (1) business day. Questions and responses deemed to be of general interest will be distributed to all Consultants. The RFP is organized as follows: SECTION I. SECTION II. SECTION III. SECTION IV. SECTION V. GENERAL INFORMATION OVERVIEW OF SCOPE OF SERVICES FORMAT AND SUBMITTAL INFORMATION EVALUATION AND SELECTION SCHEDULE -1-

2 SECTION I GENERAL INFORMATION Project Background The District s customer billing data is managed mainly through Cleveland Water s Customer Care & Billing Systems (CC&B) and NEORSD s Oracle e-business system (EBS). Currently, Cleveland Water handles about 95% of the District s customer billing and the remaining 5% is billed directly to the customer by the District and other billing agents. Cleveland Water sends billing and meter data files to the District on a daily, monthly, and quarterly basis. These data files are loaded into an Oracle database for analysis and reporting. NEORSD also maintains the Stormwater Fee Tool (SWFT) to calculate Stormwater fees using Geospatial information. The purpose of the RFP process is to evaluate and select qualified vendors to deliver an effective enterprise data warehousing platform solution. This solution will aggregate the District s customer billing for wastewater and stormwater, meter usage data, and account information to provide advanced reporting and analytics. The primary function for the data warehouse solution will be to aggregate data files from multiple billing sources. The data warehouse will allow the District to store, track and establish a central repository for customer billing and meter usage data through reports and dashboards. In addition to providing a complete view of the District s customer billing data for reporting, Distrist users will be able to perform data analysis and track consumption trends effectively. Vendors have to respond to the price component of this RFP for the following: Software Acquisition and Installation Implementation Services Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) Software Costs and Support Projected ongoing costs for upgrades and maintenance SECTION II OBJECTIVES & OVERVIEW OF SCOPE OF SERVICES Objectives The primary objective of this RFP is to have vendors provide the District with a technical proposal and accompanying cost for design, developing, and implementing an entprise data warehouse solution that will store customer billing and meter usage data. This solution should aggregate the District s customer billing for wastewater and stormwater, meter usage data, and account information to provide advanced reporting and analytics. -2-

3 The major business objectives of the project are to: Design the architecture for the Customer Billing and Meter Data Warehouse solution that can accommodate existing needs and provide scalability, plus provide user level security. Provide resources to build, manage, and support the development of the Data Warehouse solution. Develop a foundational Data Warehouse that can import data from multiple sources, such as Cleveland Water Department and NEORSD Oracle EBS, and is scalable to support structured and unstructured data from future sources. Develop data marts based on the specific needs of the NEORSD. Incorporate the industry standard terminology to allow for standardized outputs and the creation of master data dictionary. Design and develop the desired outputs from the Data Warehouse based on NEORSD requirements. The solution must integrate with an Oracle 12c database using Exadata servers. Integrating seemlessly with NEORSD s Business intelligence tools (i.e Power BI, Oracle Analytics Cloud, and Noetix Web Query). Provide Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) processes for the warehouse Deliverables and Specifications The Project will include, at a minimum, the following deliverables: a) Project Plan The vendor will assign a single Project Manager for the project. The vendor Project Manager will provide a detailed project plan that includes all implementation tasks, deadlines, milestones, deliverables, etc. and will provide a scorecard or dashboard mechanism for reporting progress. The vendor Project Manager will meet with the District s Project Manager on a regularly scheduled basis. b) System Design Documentation The purpose of this document is to describe the following in detail: Technical description of the hardware, software, infrastructure, interfaces, database schemas, and any required third party software dependencies Provide development and/or test environments Provide processes for data validation and error handling c) Data Migration process -3-

4 The solution should recommend ETL data process, with data cleansing and validation procedures to ensure accuracy. d) Test Plan Based on experience with other customers and knowledge of the District processes, vendor will provide detailed test plan suggestions to be reviewed by IT and Finance team. Once reviewed and refined together, test plans will be added to the project plan to track completion. e) Cutover Plan The overall project plan will include a detailed Cutover Plan, which will contain a complete sequence of events required at the time of cutover. This should include step by step procedures for both systems and business processes to transition from our current system. The District also welcomes recommendations for a conference room pilot, parallel running, mock cutovers, proof of concept trials, or any other methods to ensure system readiness and ease the transition. Technical Requirements The following are the District s technical preferences. Proposals that do not comply with these specifications should outline the discrepancies and provide a brief explanation of the reason for the discrepancy. Data Warehouse solution should be on-premise and leverage the Exadata servers. Data Warehouse solution should be able to process large (GBs) text or flat data files. Data should be available through direct database queries. Data dictionaries and schemas should be provided to facilitate such access. Data Warehouse solution should be integrate with various reporting tools (i.e Power BI Oracle Analytics Cloud, and Noetix Web Query). Preferred platform is Windows Server 2012 or higher, IIS, and Oracle 12c database, however, other offerings will be considered provided they have a successful user base. Open source components are acceptable, provided they are widely accepted and supported by the open source community, are currently under active development, and paid support is available, if desired. Software licensing that allows use of the software without a maintenance contract, if so desired. The Consultants shall provide details as to the method of accomplishing the Scope of Work for these tasks. The Consultants' proposals shall address all of the objectives for each task as outlined in the Scope of Work. The Consultants are encouraged to recommend alternatives and additional goals to the defined Scope of Work (e.g. task additions) in their proposals. -4-

5 SECTION III - PROPOSAL FORMAT AND SUBMITTAL INFORMATION A digital copy of the technical proposal can be ed to webrfp@neorsd.org or a CD / USB drive can be delivered to 3900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio by the submission deadline. If the proposal is ed, then the Consultant must contact Daryl Coats, by calling (216) , ext. x6895, and state that the proposal was sent. The following information shall be included in the proposal: 1. A discussion of the anticipated approach to the project. Section II Objectives & Overview of Scope of Services contains a number of requests for items to be discussed in the proposal. In addition, the District invites alternatives to any approaches embodied in the Scope of Services. Any proposed alternatives shall be clearly identified in the proposal. In developing the level of effort, the Scope of Services as provided herein shall be assumed as the base proposal. For each alternative task proposed, a total level of effort for the proposed alternative shall be separately identified and an appropriate deduction or addition of task hours shall be included. The Consultant shall also discuss expected challenges during the project and potential approaches to these challenges. This part of the proposal will be used to evaluate the extent to which the Consultant understands the project, its magnitude and its complexity. 2. Cost and description summary shall be provided for each high-level activity necessary to fulfill the project. License cost shall be broken out separately. The selection team will also consider cost during the evaluation process. SECTION IV - EVALUATION AND SELECTION Proposals submitted to the District for the project shall be evaluated by the Consultant Selection Committee utilizing the following criteria. Pass/Fail Screening Criteria Proposals not in compliance with the following pass/fail criteria may not receive additional consideration: 1. Required information as specified in the RFP. The District may reject incomplete proposals. 2. Proposal conforms to Section III Proposal Format and Submittal Information. Emphasis will be on whether the proposal demonstrates an understanding of the project scope and the District s needs and requirements as specified in the RFP. 3. Must be received on or before the deadline date. -5-

6 Proposals that comply with the above will be scored based upon the criteria presented below. Scoring Criterion I Method of accomplishing the Scope of Work 30% of the total score Scoring will be based on consideration of the following: 1. Proposed organization of the work effort to include the following: Collection, organization and display of data Allocation of project staff to the different tasks Project communications and delivery methodology 2. Understanding of the appropriate levels of effort for various task areas. This evaluation will be based upon the estimated effort for task areas as presented in the proposal. Scoring Criterion II Functionality and Product Roadmap 25% of the total score This score will be based on: 1. The capability of the proposed application to store, track, manage, and report information in a timely, flexible, and proactive manner. 2. Understanding how the proposed solution can satisfy the immediate needs of the District s IT and Finance Department and how the solution can be scaled to meet future departmental needs and objectives. Scoring Criterion III Experience and Qualifications 20% of total score Scoring will be based on consideration of the following: 1. The Consultant s experience in conducting projects of similar nature and complexity 2. The experience of proposed project personnel. Key project personnel must have held responsible project positions for similar projects. 3. The degree to which the project personnel and team bring experience in the full range of skills needed to accomplish the Scope of Work. * Please list two (2) of the most recent projects implementing customer billing and revenue data warehouse solutions and include contact information. The District may conduct a phone survey to help evaluate the past performance of the participating Consultants on similar projects. -6-

7 Scoring Criterion IV Quality of Proposal Presentation & Demo 25% of total score Only the top three proposals, based on score, will be given the opportunity to be evaluated against criteria IV. If you are amongst the top three (3) short-list, you ll be notified by September 20, 2017 of your assigned time and the location of the presentation and demo. Key project personnel will be expected to take the lead in presenting and answering questions regarding the technical proposal. Upon completion of the presentations, the District selection committee will score each firm per the following criteria: 1. Consultant s ability to communicate project understanding. 2. The solution s ability to address basic requirements as outlined in the scope of services section as well as the Consultant s ability that convey and demonstrate other software functionally that may add value in supporting this intiative. SECTION V SCHEDULE Project Schedule The District reserves the right to change the following schedule for any reason. Consultants are to include a detailed preliminary project schedule in their technical proposal Issue RFP Questions Deadline September 08, 2017by 4 p.m. Consultant Proposals Due September 19, 2017 by 4 p.m. Consultant Presentations & Demos Week of September 25, 2017 Consultant Selection September 28, 2017 Consultant Contract Award October 5, 2017 Perform Scope of Work October 9, 2017 to March

8 END OF RFP -8-