CON 1308 - Manage My Ofsted Account (MMOA)

Description

Summary of the work Development and delivery of a portal for users who are not Ofsted staff. Includes UX/UI development; authentication; integration with our Common Data Platform and other online services. Expected Contract Length Two (2) Years with option for further 6 months at sole discretion of OFSTED Latest start date Tuesday 3 January 2023 Budget Range Estimated from £400,000 to £450,000 (excluding VAT) over the lifetime of the contract. Why the Work is Being Done Ofsted is seeking a supplier to work with us on delivering a private-Beta service for "Manage my Ofsted Account" (MMOA). The eventual aim for this service is that it provides authenticated online services for a range of non-Ofsted people. This is likely to include: - Contracted “Ofsted inspectors” - Representatives of regulated providers - Representatives of education (non-regulated) providers Different user types may login via a variety of authentication providers to update their information and interact with their Ofsted account. The service will provide a single landing point for groups of users and may link to other journeys or products. Problem to Be Solved Users who are not Ofsted staff need to be authenticated and then directed to online activities that they are permitted to undertake. The range of available activities will depend on what we know about the user, based on data about them from our Common Data Platform. We need to develop functional UX/UI and associated services, coded in line with our standards, to allow these interactions. This work sits in the context of a much wider programme of application modernisation, which is replacing larger legacy systems covering a wide range of our work with smaller, modular components. Who Are the Users The first work package will focus on meeting the needs of contract "Ofsted inspectors" (OIs). These are part of the Ofsted workforce and conduct inspections but are not directly employed by Ofsted. These users, will need to: - Complete initial registration (providing data to Ofsted’s Common Data Platform) - Update personal data and bank details - Receive new or updated offers of work - Accept or reject offers of work Subsequent work packages may focus on representatives of providers Ofsted may inspect or regulate. These may (for example) be headteachers or managers of children’s homes. Early Market Engagement None Work Already Done A small functional prototype was created in previous work to explore the challenges associated with the planned approach. The selected supplier may choose to build on this previous work, or start again. A very simple web service was created that permitted authentication against active directory, retrieval of the relevant record via an API from our Common Data Platform and its display on screen. Existing Team Ofsted currently has a Product Manager available to work on this activity, but no other resources. Current Phase Not started Skills & Experience • Proven track record of developing a product that is accessible • Experience of working with Government Design System (Design Kit) patterns • Experience of digital service and interaction design • Proven track record of agile, incremental software development that delivers value early and iteratively • Experience of leading investigative user research into problems and opportunities, gathering and analysing information and producing clear, compelling, evidence-based recommendations • Experience of application development using .netCore/node.js/JavaScript technologies and appropriate frameworks • Be proficient at developing and configuring resources with Microsoft Aure and cloud platforms • Experience of interfacing and developing with GraphQL based APIs • Proficient at the management of data, development of RESTful APIs and integration with systems with appropriate technical patterns • Experience of collaborating across teams and departments in pursuit of delivery • Experience of transferring ownership and knowledge to in-house teams Nice to Haves • Experience of working with a regulator or similar corporate body • Experience of working within a complex public policy and service environment Work Location The supplier will be expected to work off-site, with occasional visits to Ofsted office locations where that aids effective delivery of aspects of the work. Ofsted has primary office locations in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Nottingham and Manchester. Working Arrangments The supplier will be expected to work off-site using a mixture of their own devices or, where business and security reasons require, Ofsted-issued equipment (Microsoft Surface Pro), accounts and VPN. Use of Supplier provided devices is contingent on these adhering to Ofsted security policies and being agreed in work packages. Ofsted will provide appropriate digital contacts and technical resources to allow the supplier to work with our internal teams and other suppliers during the course of the work package. Security Clearance The Supplier will ensure all staff are BPSS checked. All work shall be conducted within the United Kingdom. No offshoring of data or international resource shall be permitted. Additional T&Cs DOS T&Cs and in addition: All expenses must be pre-agreed between the parties and must comply with Ofsted's Travel and Subsistence Policy. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • example delivery plan that you would put in place to deliver the service (15%) • how you propose to develop a product and integrations across the technologies used (15%) • approach and methodology for creating services that are accessible and compliant with relevant accessibility legislation (10%) • assuring service performance (KPIs) and collecting relevant service performance data (5%) • approach to account management (5%) • approach to code development and provision of flexible developer resources over a sprint plan (5%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Please describe your approach to ensure that you will effectively transfer knowledge and experience (10%) • Ofsted has a diverse digital team. We support increasing gender diversity and understanding of and commitment to increasing diversity in the UK's technical and digital industry (5%) • how you will work as part of the core Ofsted digital team (5%) Payment Approach Time and materials Assessment Method Case study Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Hi, I’m a little confused about the expectation. I see you have a maximum budget, but if I divide that by 2 years of working days (500) then it equates to only £900 per day for the WHOLE team. So I assume, that you are looking for an estimated price for the delivery of your first work package, in which case then where can I get more details in terms of the tech stack, API specs and expectations around DevOps etc? Thanks Work on this contract will not be spread evenly throughout the possible maximum period of the work and so it is not reasonable to divide the possible maximum number of days by the total available budget. There may well be periods when no work is underway as well as periods when we would expect a substantial team to be at work. It is expected that the flow of work will be controlled through the commissioning of multiple work-packages under this contract. When we reach the second-stage of this supplier selection, we will be happy to share further technical details . 2. What elements of Discovery and Alpha phases including user research have been undertaken by OFSTED and if so will this information be available for the supplier, or do they need to be delivered by the chosen supplier? Only a technical proof of concept undertaken. Certain capabilities are required as mentioned in user research that was conducted for other modules. E.g., our “Manage an Inspection” module is clear that contracted Ofsted Inspectors will need to be able to maintain their personal details and accept or reject specific offers of work. It is unlikely that this research will provide high confidence that we understand these users’ needs thoroughly and expect that additional user research will be required. Prototype created only touches on the simplest of functionality and elements of UX design are unlikely to be optimal. 3. Are you able to share the functional prototype already created? Or perhaps screenshots of the prototype? The prototype itself is not available to share. The DOS Answer to questions field does not allow for file attachment and is limited to 100 words. However, we will be happy to share the PowerPoint at the next stage of procurement with the shortlisted suppliers. 4. Please can Ofsted confirm the stage of delivery that the service is currently at (e.g., end of Discovery, end of Alpha etc) and whether it will be subject to CDDO assessment? The work is yet to begin in earnest and so should be considered pre-Discovery. 5. The opportunity mentions that users will need to ‘complete initial registration’. Does this refer to registering for an account to use the portal, or the process to first register as an Inspector? This refers to registering for an account to use the portal. Other processes exist to handle expressions of interest, selection and onboarding of Ofsted Inspectors. 6. The opportunity mentions updating bank details. Please can Ofsted confirm what bank/payment information is envisaged to be processed and stored? This capability is to allow payments to be made by Ofsted to Ofsted Inspectors for work completed. Therefore, sufficient bank details will need to be held to enable those payments to be made. These will be stored within Ofsted’s Common Data Platform and accessed by the Manage My Ofsted Account application via API. Data will include sort code, account number, account name and a payment reference. 7. The opportunity mentions integrating with various APIs provided by Ofsted’s Common Data Platform. Please can Ofsted confirm whether the relevant APIs are already in place, or will be being delivered in parallel with this services? Some (but not all) of the APIs which will be used by the service are now in place, however they are not currently in live use by any service and so will clearly evolve during the course of this work. Our Data Foundations project is developing our Common Data Platform, which includes a suite of APIs for use by applications. 8. Please can Ofsted confirm the resources that it envisages providing to support delivery? The precise nature and quantity of resource that Ofsted provides may depend on the range and cost of resources available through the selected supplier. At this stage, Ofsted envisages providing some Product Manager capacity, some Delivery Management capacity and some architecture oversight. We are expecting that other roles will be provided through this contract. 9. Is 450k the max. budget available during this 2 year period? As the other supplier has mentioned this does not seem sufficient for a project of this scope. The maximum budget for this contract is £450k. We would hope to deliver a substantial portion of the work in far less than two years. We would not expect there to be a level amount of contract input over the maximum time-period. 10. With the technical proof of concept? What was being tested / proven out? Please confirm technologies being used/tested. We set out with the following goals: Can we build a non-production application to demonstrate portal capability for external users; Can the app be built in Ofsted’s Azure Tenant; Can we authenticate a user against one of a number of auth methods; Can we retrieve data from Common Data Layer via APIs; Can a user undertake a simple transaction; Can we write changes back to the Common Data Layer; Can we demonstrate the use of test automation and deployment pipelines; Can we work at pace with a commercial partner to deliver iterations of a service. Answer yes in all cases. 11. Does the budget only over until private beta? Or does it include public beta and scaling? Up to and including Private Beta 12. How many estimated users will need access to manage my ofsted account? As a live, production service, there could be large numbers of users, although concurrent users and users at Private Beta would be much smaller. As indication of scale, Ofsted has c.2.5k currently active Ofsted Inspectors; c.87k currently active Regulated Providers; and c.27k non-Regulated providers in England. 13. Has there been a discovery or alpha gds assessment? If so, can the outcome be shared? There has been no GDS assessment (the only work so far has been a very small technical proof of concept). 14. It is envisaged that this service will handle provision, update, and removal of permissions? Or will that be handled by active directory or relying party services integrated to this access service? Permissions will be rule-based, based on available data from our Common Data Layer and authentication method. For example, if a person authenticates via Azure AD and their user details identifies with an Ofsted Inspector from our Common Data Layer, they will be able to update their own personal details. Similar rule-based permissions will eventually apply to other types of user. 15. does this service need to manage relationships between individual users and organisations? The service will need to be able to identify the relationships between the person logging in and organisations. If the user authenticates using DfE Sign-in (as for users for state-funded schools), that service will provide details of which organisations they are authorised to act for. In the case of Regulated Providers, our Common Data Layer will hold details of roles held at providers, retrievable by API. Ofsted Inspectors act on their own behalf only 16. Hello, do we assume there is no current incumbent for this project. There is no existing supplier for this work. 17. Please can you confirm the amount of time that the Product Manager will have available to this project? As indicated in a previous answer, the precise nature and quantity of resource that Ofsted provides may depend on the range and cost of resources available through the selected supplier. That said, we do find that product management is often most effectively handled by our own staff and so are likely to prioritise that over other types of resource. As indication (and therefore subject to change), we would anticipate between 0.6 and 1.0 FTE Product Manager during the active periods of the project. 18. Are we able to provide multiple examples within a response to a question or just one example?Digital Marketplace guidelines state “You should only provide one example for each essential requirement (unless the buyer specifies otherwise)” You may provide up to two examples, if you wish, for each essential requirement if you believe it is necessary to adequately demonstrate your capability and experience. 19. What is the estimated procurement timeline for this? The indicative timeline is as follows, but please note it is may change:- Invite potential suppliers to tender Mon 24-Oct-22- Deadline for supplier proposals Fri 11-Nov-22- Notify preferred supplier Wed 30-Nov-22- Contract award Fri 16-Dec-22 20. “Experience of working with a regulator or similar corporate body”, are you looking for multiple examples? Also, is it expected to supply teams with multiple projects experience? You should use your judgement on how to provide the best picture of your prior experience in this area. You may provide two examples if you feel that is necessary and it helps to explain the breadth of your experience. Amongst other aspects, we will be looking to asses the breadth and depth of experience of teams in our shortlisting and selection activity. 21. In the question “Experience of collaborating across teams and departments in pursuit of delivery” what do you mean by ‘teams and departments in pursuit of delivery’? We would like to hear about your experience of working collaboratively with people from across a diverse organisation (perhaps beyond one organisation) to ensure that delivery goals and targets are met. 22. The latest start date of Jan 3rd, is this when development is to be started, requirements scoped, backlog created by this point? Or is the 3rd when requirement workshops etc will begin? This date is when we expect work under this contract to begin. The first work-package is likely to centre around firming up user-needs, outlining initial user journeys, considering technical design options and perhaps reviewing the technical proof of concept to consider what aspects might be re-usable. 23. Do you have an expectation as to how long key stakeholders will be available for any requirement workshops and requirement gathering? We have not yet planned the work to that extent. We would expect Ofsted to organise the necessary access to stakeholders and potential users of the service to ensure that an effective understanding of user need is gained. 24. Please can you explain what you mean by appropriate technical patterns in the following question: Proficient at the management of data, development of RESTful APIs and integration with systems with appropriate technical patterns The phrase ‘appropriate technical patterns’ simply refers to the use of integration designs which are reasonable to the circumstances and provide effective interoperability between systems at appropriate cost e.g. the integration pattern to link a front end application with a data source (e.g. choosing ETL/Batch). There isn’t a specific pattern that we are looking for you to demonstrate, but that you have appropriate experience with a range of common methods for application integration. 25. Which version of “.netcore” is to be used, presumably 6 which is LTS? Additionally, version 8 is due November 2023, during year 1 of the development period, would migrating to 8 need to be considered? At this stage, .net6 (LTS to 2024) could be appropriate. We would not consider any migration issues as part of this WP etc. Exact coding and approach would be agreed with a successful supplier at stage 2 of the tender. 26. Please can you explain what you mean by appropriate technical patterns in the following question: Proficient at the management of data, development of RESTful APIs and integration with systems with appropriate technical patterns The phrase ‘appropriate technical patterns’ simply refers to the use of integration designs which are reasonable to the circumstances and provide effective interoperability between systems at appropriate cost e.g. the integration pattern to link a front end application with a data source (e.g. choosing ETL/Batch). There isn’t a specific pattern that we are looking for you to demonstrate, but that you have appropriate experience with a range of common methods for application integration.