Commercial Continuous Improvement Assessment Framework, Salesforce platform development and technical support

Description

Summary of work The Commercial Standards Team have an instance of Salesforce which has been built to meet HM Government’s Digital Service Standard. We are looking for a supplier to provide additional specialist support for the platform. In particular we are looking for a supplier who has experience in maintaining a growing Salesforce instance that is largely dependant on the use of visual force, and has experience in maintaining custom apex code & Salesforce custom communities, while adhering to HM Government’s Digital Service Standard for accessibility. This includes the following activities; - Knowledge transfer and transition from our existing supplier, - Delivery against work packages to provide further enhancements and develoopment of the platform, potentially including; - the delivery of a self serve reporting solution (Tableau or Power BI based), - support conversations with technical designs to build a generic CIAF platform solution - Work with other support providers, the GCF commercial standards team and users of the platform to provide ongoing technical support. Where the supplied staff will work No specific location (for example they can work remotely) Who the organisation using the products or services is Commercial Civil Servants from central government departments and their arms length bodies, plus commercial leads from wider public sector organisations, such as local authorities and health trust. Why the work is being done What is CCIAF? The CCIAF is designed to help drive continuous improvement in commercial practices across the GCF and wider public sector by enabling organisations to benchmark their commercial operations against good practice. Participating organisations will form part of a network to share commercial insights, common challenges and lessons learned. For more information please visit here. Further information can be found within the provided documents. What is the CCIAF Benchmarking Platform? The self assessment process has recently transitioned from a manual Microsoft Excel process to an on-line Salesforce platform, with a Salesforce based bespoke front end. This is currently operational in Private beta. The new platform has improved the quality and ease of the self-assessment process resulting in reduced data errors, omissions and increased efficiency. The self-assessment, peer review and reporting processes have enabled organisations to receive accurate, speedy assessment reports, including access to historical data for the purpose of trend analysis and return on investment insights. The platform is made-up of a number of connected functional processes; “Self-Assessment” - to enable government and public sector organisations to submit the maturity rating against predefined themes and criteria. This includes the submission of documentation as evidence against all ratings. “Peer Review” - to enable all self-assessments to be reviewed by organisations of similar size and complexity. “Continuous Improvement” - to enable continuous improvement planning and implementation against themes and criteria identified as being the least mature. “Rebaseline” - to enable organisations to periodically review and update their maturity ratings. “Reporting” - interface with Power BI to produce playback reports to organisations, together with cohort and senior management reporting. The business problem A solution to permit civil servants and other public sector workers with the ability to self assess their organisations performance against HMG commercial standards. The solution should provide a clear and concise method to provide self-assessments, including the safe uploading and storage of documented evidence. With this the solution should enable other organisations access to the self-assessment to support detailed peer reviews. In this instance the solution already exists, however ongoing activity is required to deliver further enhancements to the platform and provide ongoing technical support for new users and new participating public sector organisations. The people who will use the product or service User type: Commercial user Definition: Each commercial lead will work alongside other commercial users within their organisation, to need to carry out the below activities; Complete a self-assessment against the CCIAF (8 themes with approx 250 criteria) to rate the maturity and upload supporting evidence. Complete a peer review of another organisations self-assessment, by validating the evidence against the provided ratings. Create and upload a continuous improvement (CI) plan to address areas of lower maturity. Complete a rebaseline of the maturity rating, following implementation of the CI plan. User type: Commercial Lead Definition: The same as a commercial user, but in addition provide access approval for new users for their organisation User type: Commercial Standards Team Definition: Manage the overall process, including some Salesforce admin, governance, training. Manage compliance. Back end playback and senior management reporting. Work done so far The platform is currently operational under private beta with ongoing activity to move this into public beta by September'23 Which phase the project is in Beta Existing team The existing team in GCF consists of the Commercial Standards Deputy Director (Senior Responsible Officer), 4 members of the Commercial Standards Team (soon to increase to 6) and the product manager in the team. Additionally, a supplier has been working on delivery of the platform over the past 12 months. This includes a product manager and a number of technical staff. GCF are currently determining 1st and 2nd line support arrangements, which are likely to include the need to work alongside a third party. Address where the work will be done The team are base in various locations across the UK and are primarily homebased. There may be need for occasional working from London or Glasgow. Working arrangements The Services will be delivered from a suppliers UK based offices, or through home working in accordance with Government guidelines. Occasional meetings may be held in central London or Glasgow. Travel and subsistence will require prior approval. There is an expectation for regular contact, via google chat or other similar tools, to define requirements, discuss progress and manage platform issues. Security and vetting requirements Security Check (SC) More information about the Security requirements: All supplier personnel with access to production environments or production data must hold SC clearance Latest start date 1 August 2023 Expected contract length Contract length: 2 years 0 months 0 days Optional extension: 1 years 0 months 0 days Special terms and conditions special term or condition: The term of the contract will be subject to annual break clauses. special term or condition: All expenses must be pre-agreed between the parties and must comply with the Cabinet Office (CO) Travel and Subsistence (T&S) Policy. Budget Indicative maximum: £600000 Indicative minimum: The contract value is not specified by the buyer Further information: This is the maximum spend for the entire term of the contract, including the 12 month extension period. Contracted out service or supply of resource? Contracted out service: the off-payroll rules do not apply Terms and acronyms Term or acronym: CCIAF Definition: Commercial Continuous Improvement Assessment Framework Term or acronym: GCF Definition: Government Commercial Function Questions and Clarifications 1. 1 Attachment 1: Statement of Requirements states that there is a requirement for “the delivery of a self-serve reporting solution (Tableau or Power BI based)”. Later in the document, “Reporting” is defined as “interface with Power BI to produce playback reports to organisations, together with cohort and senior management reporting.”. Can the authority confirm if there is a preference for using Tableau or Power BI as the basis for the self-serve reporting solution? The platform currently uses a Power BI reporting solution. We are considering options to add improvements to this, including offering a self serve reporting solution. Given the current use of Power BI this is our preference, however according to functional and cost benefits we could consider other options, such as Tableau. As stated in the tender, this requirement is being considered as a potential enhancement to the platform". Last Updated : <strong>18/04/2023</strong> 2. We understand that you are only seeking responses to the 6 Essential Skills and Experience questions by 2 May to allow you to shortlist for stage 1. Can you confirm this is the case? That is correct. Last Updated : <strong>18/04/2023</strong> 3. Can you confirm that the question 'Describe your experience of delivering against the specified HMG Quality and Technical standards' refers to the Technology Code of Practice, Minimum Cyber Security Standard and Government Service Standard, do any other HMG quality and technical standards apply? You should consider the standards listed in the requirements as the minimum. Other quality and technical standards in addition to these can be included within your response. Last Updated : <strong>18/04/2023</strong> 4. Please can the buyer confirm that for stage 1 of this procurement potential suppliers are to respond only to the essential and nice to have criteria set out within attachment 1 Refer to previous clarification response Last Updated : <strong>18/04/2023</strong> 5. Please can the buyer confirm that potential suppliers are to use the response template within attachment 3 to respond to the essential and nice to have criteria Responses should be made on the template in attachment 3. Carefully consider the word count limit and any other instructions Last Updated : <strong>18/04/2023</strong> 6. Please can the buyer confirm whether potential providers are permitted to transfer the response template to their own document, to include branded headers and footers. This is not permitted. Suppliers should use the template provided in attachment 3, refer to the previous answer. Last Updated : <strong>18/04/2023</strong> 7. Please can you confirm - who is the incumbent supplier i - When does this contract start and their contract roll off - this will give us an idea of timescales for activities such as knowledge transfer The incumbent is Xansium and the contract ends on the 30th September 2023 Last Updated : <strong>19/04/2023</strong> 8. Would you be able to provide any volumes of enquiries received since December 2022? Refer to previous clarification response Last Updated : <strong>20/04/2023</strong> 9. Please could provide some additional context regarding the key differences between Type 2 and Type 3 enquiries provided in the Historical Support Enquiry Volumes? Refer to previous clarification response Last Updated : <strong>20/04/2023</strong> 10. In regards to the enquiry volumes provided, are they solely in relation to Level 3 support? If not, would you be able to provide the specific volumes of enquiries escalated to Level 3? Refer to previous clarification response Last Updated : <strong>20/04/2023</strong> 11. Please can the buyer confirm whether we are permitted to save the response into PDF format Respond in MS Word format Last Updated : <strong>19/04/2023</strong> 12. We understand there are currently 370 registered users on the platform ? Do we have any forecast on number of users from all Cohorts which will be using this platform by the end of Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3, assuming Year 1 start is Aug 23 ? Section 3.1 and 3,2 of the requirements document (DOS6 Further Competition - CCIAF - Requirements and Supporting Information.docx) provides estimates of the number of organisations and users per cohort, together with the planned dates for these cohorts until the end of 2025. Last Updated : <strong>19/04/2023</strong> 13. Can we please see support enquiry volumes for the month of Jan, Feb, March 23 as well ? The dumber of reported enquiries during the January'23 to March'23 period are as follows. Please note, not all enquiries would have been raised for 3rd line technical support; 01/23 - 23 02/23 - 8 03/23 - 15 Last Updated : <strong>19/04/2023</strong> 14. Do we have any estimates on support enquiry volumes for each month from Oct 22 to March 23 for Level 3 team ? During the initial go-live period of the platform (first 3 months) the majority of enquiries would have been raised for 3rd line support. After this period please refer to the previous response. Last Updated : <strong>19/04/2023</strong> 15. What is in scope of Level 2 technical team, since minor change implementation is mentioned under Level 2? Please provide scope of work for Level 2 technical team stating what defines a minor change. The exact scope of level 2 support is still be be finalised, with a dependency of securing a support provider for both Level 2 and level 3. When responding please consider that any activity requiring back-end system access will need to be performed by the 3rd line support provider. This is likely to include change implementation Last Updated : <strong>19/04/2023</strong> 16. Is the delivery of a self serve reporting solution (Tableau or Power BI based) is with in £ 600 K budget ? What percentage of self serve reporting solution has already been built ? At this stage this is under consideration as a nice to have. Inclusion within this agreement (in part or full - for example we could potentially break this down into design only) is depending on the potential cost. Project activity would be agreed on a per delivery basis. Last Updated : <strong>19/04/2023</strong> 17. Can you confirm the budget is for the 3 year potential contract term, so £200,000 per year? Correct at £200,000 per contract year Last Updated : <strong>19/04/2023</strong> 18. Will the Managed Services provider be required to oversee and manage scheduled updates of Salesforce releases? Yes, this will be a responsibility of the managed service provider. Last Updated : <strong>20/04/2023</strong>