There were various questions involving the breakdown of the 525 users. We are providing below a potential breakdown, but this is an estimate only:

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1 Purchasing Department Illinois State University Campus Box 1220 rmal IL Telephone: (309) Facsimile: (309) August 14, 2013 To: Vendors for Business Intelligence Environment RFP for Illinois State University From: Ernie Olson Re: Answers to Questions for RFP # ER Submitted Questions There were various questions involving the breakdown of the 525 users. We are providing below a potential breakdown, but this is an estimate only: 525 users were including university faculty and staff 430 BI solution consumers 50 ad hoc query 30 power users 15 central admin/developers 1. Illinois State University is open to any solutions that meet its requirements, including but not limited to data warehouse appliances, hosted solutions, purchased hardware and software, or a combination of options There are many variations that are possible which would be determined by discussions with ISU. On premise solutions require on premise hardware. Can we assume that this is not in the scope of this response (i.e. ISU has an established relationship with hardware vendors and will acquire the appropriate hardware)? Yes Illinois State University is seeking a data warehouse/business intelligence appliance and/or BI toolset to support reporting, analysis, data visualization and dash boarding from RFP ER Q&A Page 1

2 several University source systems Does ISU have a data warehouse today? Does ISU follow a data warehouse methodology (i.e. Kimball or Inmon)? We do not have a data warehouse today. We utilize good practice data modeling techniques from both Inmon and Kimball. 3. Are there existing OLAP data sources? Or is the university looking to create OLAP repositories in addition to Relational DBs. There is no existing OLAP data. 4. Is the information from external data, IPEDS and social media) being utilized today within the Universities systems, or is the requirement to create processes to capture this data as part of the proposed project? The mention of example external data sources was to inform vendors that data authored outside ISU may be included in a data warehouse solution. 5. Requirement an enterprise data warehouse would enable Question about the scope of this RFP. See below: a. Is the scope of this RFP the deployment of a BI platform (and maybe a data warehouse appliance). Yes b. Is the scope of this RFP the deployment of a BI platform (and maybe a data warehouse appliance) and the design and development of an enterprise data warehouse. Yes 6. Requirement refers to ISU s applications and environment. Assuming environment means hardware, can you please provide information around your existing environment that (a) would interface with the BI solution and (b) would be considered for deploying the BI solution? We currently utilize Informatica Power Designer for development and Oracle for our databases. We have a variety of hardware utilized in a virtual environment available for use. 7. Requirement Is this preference relating to major upgrades only, or a limited number of service packs and patches as well. We would consider all services that meet our needs. 8. Requirement Please describe the ISU technical environment as it relates to data storage. Oracle for our databases. We have SAN storage hardware and a virtualized environment. 9. Requirement : What browsers does ISU consider major web based client browsers? Internet explorer, Safari, Firefox, Chrome 10. Requirement : Is there a specific document or URL that would identify these requirements? We are referring generally to the ability to secure access to data in compliance with FERPA, HIPPA, University policy, etc. 11. Requirement : Other than Informatica (ETL), what other data warehouse tools is ISU using (and wants to continue to use)? Since ISU already has Informatica (ETL), is it looking for RFP ER Q&A Page 2

3 other options? We are utilizing Informatica and are not seeking additional ETL options. 12. Requirement Does this take into account, upgrade costs for hardware? If the vendor is proposing a hardware based solution, then maintenance pricing should delineate recommended/required upgrades 13. Requirement Is there a need to grow the number of end users during this 10 year period? Yes 14. Requirement : What is meant by sort/merge functionality? In the ETL process? In Electronic mail merge? Something else? If a user wants to integrate local data (excel spreadsheet, text file, etc) how would the merge or combination be facilitated? 15. Requirement: : Can you please elaborate on the requirement to integrate with social media data? Specify any specific capabilities to integrate twitter or facebook data? 16. Requirement: : What data federation technology is ISU using? ne 17. Requirement 1.3.6: Is ISU currently using cube technology? If so, which one(s)? 18. Requirement Is there a list of particular physical tablets or devices that the University is interested in? ios, Android, Windows Requirement Does the staffing roles and requirements only apply to Authentication and Administration of the system, or end user support for reporting as well. Specify roles you recommend for installation and on going administration. 20. Requirement of the 525 users how many concurrent users does Illinois State University anticipate? Approximately Does Illinois State University currently have an Enterprise Data Warehouse in place? 22. Is Illinois State University looking for an appliance based solution, or will software solutions with recommended hardware platforms be preferred? We will consider both options 23. Does Illinois State University already have a preferred hardware platform, if yes what is that platform? We currently have hardware contracts in place in a virtual (VM) environment 24. Will the University consider pre-configured hardware & software solution? What are the evaluation requirements for such a solution? Yes / The requirements are as stated in the RFP for an enterprise BI solution and will be evaluated as such. 25. What are the expected data volumes, data types & latency requirements for the Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence solution? RFP ER Q&A Page 3

4 We would estimate Data Volume 100Gb 300Gb over next 5 years. Primarily structured data. Maximum data latency one day 26. Does the University currently have a Data Quality solution in place? Are there plans to acquire one? Should it be considers as part of this RFP response? / / 27. In regards to the paragraph:" In addition to traditional data warehouse and business intelligence toolsets, ISU s vision for this environment, includes potential for a data warehouse/business intelligence appliance that provides value by reducing complexity, increasing speed to delivery, speeds query performance and enables an aggressive jump toward establishing a data warehouse environment." Does the University have any requirements to provide vendors on the needs of this appliance? Does the University envision a Big Data Appliance for this framework? / 28. Does the University currently have Informatica tools? What components? Will the University consider using other ETL tools? We currently utilize Informatica Power Designer and Power Exchange / 29. Is the University going to need services as well or just the Hardware & Software? Depending on the solution, we may also require services. 30. Is there a currently a Master Data Management solution in place? If so, what solution is being utilized? 31. Is the University interested in capturing end to end metadata and viewing data/business lineage? How does the University currently capture metadata? t included in the scope of this RFP. 32. Does ISU need daily support / enhancements for the contract term for all iterations including university hosted option? We would consider options with and without daily support. 33. Is there a need to report on or enrollment, retention, graduation rates within this RFP? 34. Are responses to Section 1.2 required? For proper evaluation responses should be provided. 35. For Section Architecture, do you want response to focus on BI only or BI and ETL and warehouse option(s)? BI and Warehouse 36. For Section Functionality, do you want response to focus on BI only or BI and ETL and warehouse option(s)? BI and Warehouse 37. What University pressing business needs or preference affects the sequence of the roll out of data mart/capabilities (i.e. in what order would the University like to implement the HCM, Financial and Student data marts and reports? Finance, HR, and student 38. Regarding your ETL requirements please indicate total number of data sources and targets and the planned size of your data warehouse? What is the size of your current data warehouse environment? Currently, we are focusing on 3 data sources. Estimated size of our data warehouse RFP ER Q&A Page 4

5 environment is 100Gb 300Gb over the next 3 5 years. current data warehouse environment. 39. What type of Informatica license metric does the University have today and quantities (i.e named users, processors, enterprise)? We currently utilize Informatica Power Designer and Power Exchange for 2 ETL developers and 2 Admins. 40. Related to OLAP please confirm the number of data sources and types of data structures that will be accessed and used for multi dimensional reporting? Finance, HR, and student 41. Related to RFP question are you asking whether you can create calculated fields into the data model, and/or the reports? Or are you asking if you can create, or add existing libraries of functions (database, date/time, financial. Logical, math, statistical, text, etc ) to the data model or reporting environment? We want to affirm whether or not Informatica can write data into a vendor s proposed target database or hardware. 42. What are your Disaster Recovery needs and what is your Recovery Point Objective and Recovery Time Objective for the BI tools? Those metrics are yet to be determined 43. What specific vendor Business Intelligence tools and solutions are you currently using at the University? We currently utilize a desktop data visualization tool, Oracle database and Informatica. 44. What is the University preferred hardware platforms, preferred operating systems, and preferred data storage and security? We currently utilize storage in a virtual environment on Windows based OS with role based security. We currently utilize LDAP and Active Directory security. 45. What s the current reporting/analytics platform (ex: SAP BW, SAP BO, etc) current platform 46. What s the current transactional systems (ex: SAP ECC, etc) This is specified in the RFP text (Section 1.1.1). 47. In page 2, we see Enterprise reporting and dashboard. Can you specify broadly how many reports and dashboard would be needed as an end delivery. It would be really good if you can classify those Reports / Dashboards into Small, Medium and large. Unknown at this time. 48. Would the University please clarify what is meant by hosted onsite vs. University hosted in the following usages: Cost of hosted onsite solution (include number of instances, cost per CPU, concurrent user, etc.) $ Description: Cost of hosted offsite solution (include number of instances, cost per CPU, concurrent user, etc.) $ RFP ER Q&A Page 5

6 Description: Cost of University hosted solution (include number of instances, cost per CPU, concurrent user, etc.) $ Description: Hosted onsite vendor remotes in to perform maintenance of software University hosted university perform maintenance of software 49. Would the University please provide clarification regarding requirement # Search / Discovery ability for the end user to enter a text string and retrieve information choices. Describe ability for user to navigate and explore data pre constructed information solutions. User friendly interfaces that make it easy to click to ask questions of your information. Business Discovery allows you to look at your data from all the different dimensions without going back to restructure the data. With associative database design and faster computer equipment, end users are not forced to analyze data in only one predetermined way. 50. Are there any current business intelligence application in production in ISU? If so, can you elaborate on the software and hardware used. We are currently utilizing a well known data visualization tool. 51. Is data security and data access part of this RFP? This question is too ambiguous. 52. Is datawarehouse design part of this RFP? The design of a data warehouse data structure is not included in the RFP hardware, software, and portal only. 53. Do you have an estimate of the amount of data that will be in the datawarehouse? We are estimating 100Gb 300Gb in the next 3 5 years. 54. How many years of past history data will be involved with this project? Unknown at this time 55. Is the University using any Business Intelligence or Reporting system today? If so, what solutions are currently in use? The University does not currently use a Business Intelligence system today. We are currently utilizing a few tools proprietary tools specific to each ERP solution for ad hoc query. 56. Would the University provide an existing IT schematic of existing systems along with integration points and integration types to support the RFP response? The information provided in the RFP (Section 1.1.3) accurately represents our current core administrative systems, their technology platforms and integration points. 57. Will the BI implementation be a phased rollout within the initial three year term? What subject areas are targeted in the first phase? The implementation is expected to be a phased rollout. Initial subject areas should include: finance, HR and student data. RFP ER Q&A Page 6

7 58. Are there any known technical limitations that might interfere with establishing connections to integration points? Unknown at this time. 59. How many reports/dashboards have been targeted? What is the average level of complexity for each? specific number of reports or dashboards have been targeted. Complexity is average for a higher ed institution of ISU s size and type. 60. How many BI subject areas are expected to be rolled out in this effort? The implementation is expected to be a phased rollout. Initial subject areas should include: finance, HR and student data. 61. Please provide estimated volumes from source data tables that will be extracted during a full load. Approximately less than 300Gb of data. 62. Please provide estimated daily transactional volumes from key source data tables. Unknown at this time. 63. Is the University aware of any data quality issues that must be addressed in this effort? This is outside the scope of this RFP 64. How will social media be consumed by end users? Will it be via ad hoc query or will specific reports be required? The consumption of social media data is yet to be determined 65. Will social media data need to be combined report wise with transactional "structured" data (e.g., Student, HR, or Financial systems)? t during the initial deployment 66. Are the University's transactional systems onsite or offsite? Are they hosted by a third party vendor? At this time, the University has a mixture of onsite and hosted offsite systems. 67. How should campus users be authenticated with the BI tool? Is there currently an MS active directory? ISU currently utilizes Active Directory and LDAP technologies. 68. Are there any upcoming IT rollouts/deployments (other than the upcoming Student Information System project) that might impact resources or schedules for the BI initiative (e.g., legacy system upgrades/replacements, IT rollouts, or other)? Yes. We are currently upgrading our Datatel financials to SQL server and we will be acquiring an identity management solution. We also will be adding an ITSM tool and a dining and housing application(s). 69. What enterprise content management (ECM) or collaboration tools does the university leverage today? This is not within scope of the RFP. 70. What stakeholders are included in the initial "525 campus users" mentioned on page 13? It says you'd like to make this available to faculty, staff, admin, and students. Initial users targeted are faculty and staff. RFP ER Q&A Page 7

8 71. What social media practices exist today from a data/reporting perspective, if any? ne exist today 72. Can you please provide estimates on amount of content and data (# of records, size on disk) from your stated data sources included in the project? We are estimating less than 100Gb 73. Do you have a budget for this project and if so, will you divulge the amount? That information is not available at this time. 74. References, are your requiring a total of 9 references that consists of; 3 references required for implementations completed in the last 3 years, 3 references from current implementation in progress, and 3 references from past clients where operations were terminated during the past 5 years? Yes 75. Project timeline. The approximate award date would be January Can you give us more information on when the vendor/vendors would start the work? When would you like it completed? Unknown at this time. 76. Does the work need to be either on site or remote or can be a blended option of both? We would be willing to accept on site and blended 77. Will the price in our response we submit be a final number or is it negotiable as the process goes along? The price can be negotiated lower, or adjusted based on clarifications. 78. Licensing Terms (Section 1.2.4). We have experience working with your reseller in the past and would be happy to assist you when deciding any future hardware costs. Is this something you d be open to? We will consider any hardware recommendations necessary for a successful implementation 79. Pricing (Section 2.2). There are two options: one for firm and one for estimated. Can you clarify this? Do you want us to do two quotes, one for fixed bid and one for time and materials? The vendor would need to select the appropriate box, dependent on the type pricing provided. If it is a mix, the information should be detailed in this section. 80. In late September, early October there will be finalists decided. Can you tell us how many you d like to see in the finals? This will be dependent on the number of responses and their subsequent evaluation scores 81. Management of Project. Who do you expect to be managing this project? Would the University be or an outside vendor? Unknown 82. Please describe and estimate the level of data to be loaded into the system. Aspect is trying to determine if the solution will consume and hold 100 or less GB of date or potentially up to a Petabyte or more. Within the next 3 5 years, no more than 100 Gb of data is estimated RFP ER Q&A Page 8

9 83. Informatica is specifically listed as a developer tool for data loading. Does the State of Illinois have a preference for INFA vs. other tools such as SQL Server Developer Tools? ISU intends to continue its use of Informatica as its data movement tool 84. When you mention mobile in the BI section, do you mean tablet or phone? Both 85. When you mention mobile do you assume HTML5? assumptions are made regarding the delivery technology. Please specify what technology(s) you support for mobility. (e.g. HTML5 or App driven) 86. Around how many reports are expected except the adhoc reports? Unknown at this time 87. Assuming it will be a new data warehouse, Any preference for Data warehouse database type? Unknown at this time 88. What is the OLTP database type? DB2, SQL Server, Oracle 89. For one time data warehouse table validations, do we have any high level data on how many tables are to be created on data warehouse? Finance approximately 100 HR approximately Is there a preference on kind of BI portal? 91. How many reports are to be shared on the collaboration tool? And what kind of reports are going to be shared on it? Unknown at this time 92. Is there a overall count on ad hoc reports or it is just different queries executed as and when needed? Queries written and executed as needed, self service 93. Do you want to build this new system in SQL Server 2012 Enterprise solution? The University will choose the implementation that best meets its requirements 94. Authentication Do you have Active directory for Authentication? Do you want us to do Active directory based authentication. Where is the tenant information available? Do you also want to display the reports based on user s permissions? We have a current Active Directory and LDAP / Please provide the capabilities your solution has for authentication 95. Do you need multi lingual support for the entire portal information and dashboard reports? t for the initial roll out 96. Do you have existing SharePoint environment and can we use SharePoint as UI for displaying all these reports? The University currently utilizes our Microsoft Sharepoint licenses. 97. Does ISU have any existing data warehouse? If any, please describe its scope of data, size and possibility of being used as a data source. RFP ER Q&A Page 9

10 98. How are the reports currently consumed by the users? i.centralized portal? ii.automated/manual Push distribution? iii.desktop client workbook? (i.e., Excel, Tableau, etc.) Desktop Client 99. What current reporting tools are in use at ISU? Our current reporting tools are not relevant for responding to this RFP 100. Is there any data quality issues faced by any of the source systems? Is there any data profiling need or data quality checks required? Yes / Yes 101. Does ISU expect the vendor to perform all of the necessary design, development and deployment work in the following areas? Please specify for each area: b. Data extraction and integration c. Data cleansing d. Data warehouse modeling e. Semantic layer f. Reports g. Dashboard h. BI portal i. Mobile BI, this RFP is only for software and hardware (hosted or otherwise) 102. History requirements a. What is the total historical volume? b. Is there any data archival or purge requirement for Data warehouse? c. Are there any reporting requirements on inactive data? This is not relevant for responding to the RFP 103. What is the data retention policy followed? (Data retention policy of the DW, e.g. years of data available for BI and analytic reporting) Various depending on legal requirements, university policy, etc 104. Which party will be responsible for managing end user accounts and access rights? Administrative Technologies will administer access rights 105. Who will manage user access? Is application administration in scope of this RFP? Administrative Technologies will administer access rights 106. Does ISU have any data privacy or compliance requirement that will prevent all or some type of data being hosted off premise or out of state? Yes 107. Please specify how up to date the reported information needs to be for the operational reports and ad hoc reports? (Weekly, daily, hourly, real time, etc.) Various 108. What kind of Analysis ISU is planning to perform on the EDW data and at what level of granularity? Various at atomic level detail RFP ER Q&A Page 10

11 109. Will we need to perform Business Analytics to collect requirements for KPIs and Attributes or will these requirements be provided? If we need to perform this task, will stakeholders and user be make available to us? This is not within the scope of the RFP 110. What type of security segregation is required: row level, table level, schema level, database level? What type of user security is expected? Row and Column level security will be required. Users will be granted access by role Will the data model provided include all the definitions of tables, fields, relationships, etc.? Will a representative set of sample data for all tables be made available? At what point in the project will this data be made available? This is not within the scope of the RFP 112. In RFP its mentioned in section "Prefer interface with ISU tools, such as Informatica" Is ISU using Informatica? What all products of Informatica are being used have licenses available with ISU? The University currently utilizes Informatica Power Designer and Power Exchange In addition to Informatica, is ISU open to using other data integration (ETL) tools? We are open to solutions that meet the RFP requirements 114. Other than Informatica and the current portal, what other specific systems or tool integrations need to be integrated with the new system See section of the RFP 115. Is JSR 168 a required standard to be supported by the proposed solution? It was stated as an example only in section Please provide what standards your webbased solution complies with Its mentioned in the RFP that there are Finance (SQL Server), HCM(Oracle), Student Management(DB2), some other internal and external sources for the future EDW system. a. Can let us know on which DB the other internal systems are? See section of the RFP b. How is the current system interacting with the external data/system? We do not currently have an enterprise BI tool c. Is there any plan of adding new data source(s) in near future? Yes. Student Information System, ITSM, Campus and Dining Solution, Room Scheduler and Fixed Asset Management 117. Please provide approx. number dimensions and facts to be created? Unknown at this time 118. Please provide a few examples of the perceived use cases of business metadata and technical metadata? End users will browse business metadata to understand what data elements are available, in what tables or BI products and how they are defined Support a. What kind of support are we looking for? (L1/L2/L3) b. What type of support coverage are we expecting? (24X7 or 16X8, etc.,) RFP ER Q&A Page 11

12 The support will be based on the product(s) selected. Please provide what support level and structure that is available with your solution Incident Management What tool do you use for incident management and request management? a. Are there other tools or environments that you would like your partner to get acquainted with for delivering support? b. What tools do you use to monitor and manage development (requirements management tool, test automation tools, source control tools and so on)? We currently utilize Magic Solutions. We have an active RFP for a new ITSM solution Does ISU want to have disaster recovery (DR) included in its scope? If so, what are the acceptable return to operations and return to production times? (typically 4 hours and 24 hours) What is the availability needed for dev, test and production? Ie 99.99% 90% for Dev, Test 99% for Prod 123. Does ISU already have software licenses for this project or other technology preferences (BI tool, RDBMS, application, integration: i.e. MS SQL Server, SAP, Bus Obj, Boomi, Cognos, Crystal Reports, etc)? Yes. We have an Oracle DB and Informatica licenses. The scope of this RFP is to seek or obtain enterprise BI licenses and/or related hardware What is the weighted values that ISU will use to score vendor submissions? Can you share the solution scorecard? This information can be found in section B.2 of the RFP. RFP ER Q&A Page 12