Epsom and Ewell CRM Tender Questions and Answers Qu Question Answer 1 What Microsoft licence agreement does the Council currently have e.g. Enterprise or Select? The Council has an Enterprise Agreement for the desktop and server infrastructure. 2 Who does the Council purchase their Microsoft licences through and could we have contact details please? 3 Please can you confirm that the 100K budget is indeed to cover all of the following elements? 1. All processes in Appendix 9 2. Integration with around a dozen 3 rd party systems (Appendix 10) 3. Website self service 4. Data migration 5. Bespoke reports 6. CRM Software licences for 80 users 7. 1 year support contract 4 Is the Council open to alternative approaches, for example a) A de-scoped solution (i.e. not all functionality listed in 3) delivered for 100K? Bytes Software Services Headway House 15-17 Chessington Road, Epsom KT17 1TS 020 8786 1500 The budget is intended to cover all elements listed. However our priorities for the elements listed are as follows: 1. Include for all processes in Appendix 11. Appendix 9 is an example of one of the processes. 2. Yes, although the Council is flexible on the approach taken and asks that any options are fully detailed and costed. 3. The core self-service elements should be included. The Council has a separate project to fully review the website. The Council is flexible on the approach taken and asks that any options are fully detailed and costed. 4. Data migration is not a requirement. 5. A number of reports will be required. The Council is flexible on the approach taken and asks that any options are fully detailed and costed. 6. Yes this should be included. 7. Ideally this should be included within the budget. Please supply a costing for the core requirements detailed above and separately cost each of the non-core items. The Council is certainly open to alternatives ways to implement the solution and will consider options if fully
b) A skills transfer approach whereby we empower Council employees to undertake certain elements, for example building service requests? 5 In order for us to get Microsoft Dynamics CRM licence costs, please can we have contact details of the Council s LAR? 6 How many business processes are there in your current solution and how many need to be in the new solution? 7 What are the number of data entities and records that need to be migrated? i.e. are you expecting all data to be in the new solution or just a subset of the data you have captured thus far? If a subset please specify. 8 How many of the reports that you are requesting are already in the current solution? 9 When does your licensing and maintenance agreement run out with Oracle for your current solution? detailed and priced. The Council is keen to have knowledge transfer during the project to ensure that skills can be retained within the Council. Bytes Software Services Headway House 15-17 Chessington Road, Epsom KT17 1TS 020 8786 1500 There are there are approximately 75 processes (detailed in Appendix 9) that we have identified for possible inclusion in the new solution. They are all, in some form, in the current solution. The Council s current view is that there will not be any data migrated from the old CRM to the new CRM. This is subject to further discussion with the Suppliers. There is likely to be 6 reports that are in the current solution that will be needed in the new solution The Oracle licensing and maintenance expires on 16 th March 2012. 10 Does your data have to be case sensitive? No this is not an essential requirement. 11 Do you have all requirements for the current solution so they can be mapped in a straight as is migration or replacement? 12 How long have you factored into reviewing current business processes with your current staff? 13 What are the drivers for a technology replacement? TCO? Business Process refinement? The Council are taking the opportunity with the new CRM solution to review all the business processes currently in use within the CRM. Therefore it would not be possible to migrate like for like but a lot of work is being undertaken now to map out these new processes as per Appendix 9. As per Q11 this has been undertaken over the past few months and is currently on-going, it is envisaged that this will be complete by the end of October 2011. The main drivers for the technology replacement are: End of life of current
system; gain efficiencies in review of current processes; budget savings; supported technology in ICT environment. 14 Is the implementation expected in phases or as a big bang? It is envisaged it would be implemented as a big bang for the key processes such as Waste enquires, Payments, Council Tax, Bookings and core functionality (Case management/faqs etc). The Council is happy to consider a phased approach to the implementation of some of the integration requirements. 15 Are you open for both on-premise and on cloud hosting? The Council will consider options for both on-premise and cloud hosted versions. 16 What is the growth size of data in your system on a daily basis in kb/mb 17 What authentication mechanism is currently used to access applications? 18 Is there any scope for implementing document management system also with the crm? Unfortunately this information is not directly monitored by the Council. The current database is approximately 30Gb and contains 10 years data. Which is therefore an approximate growth of 12Mb per day. The current CRM uses application username and password. The Council is currently looking to implement a Document Management System outside the CRM so this would not be expected as part of the scope. 19 How many business Units are existing currently? There are 12 divisions within the Council this then further divides into approximately 32 specific business units within the Council. 20 Clause 24 Please explain your service level with an example? Service level is the expected time for case completion. For example, we have a timescale of 5 days for complaints. 21 Is the vendor expected to propose a separate GIS system/map or existing ARCGIS system will be integrated for tracking locations in the map The Council is expecting the supplier to integrate into the existing Council ARCGIS system. 22 Please explain clause 45 Depending on what the case is regarding different layers of ARCGIS system map will be displayed. For example, if it is an enquiry about grass verges, the map would display the grass verges layer.
23 Clause 54 Pls elaborate See response to Question 20, this would be to give us the ability to have different service levels depending on type of contact etc. 24 Clause 76 What are the gov connect code of connection? The Code of Connection is a series of security requirements that the Council must adhere to ensure connectivity to secure networks. The Code of Connection is similar in approach to BS7799. 25 Clause 86 what is FOI requests? FOI refers to Freedom of Information Requests. More information can be found here FOI Request 26 Clause 95 are there any payment transactions also occurring if yes what nature of payment is it? 27 For all integration purposes are the API's available for the respective apps? Currently any payment transactions for the payment of Council Tax are not through the Council Tax portal system. They are taken separately through the CRM and the integration into the Payments engine it is anticipated at this stage that this would continue. Please see the response to Q35, which details what is currently not available. The Councils view of integration is to keep things simple using existing URL/Webservice integration and only to progress with integration where there are a high enough number of transactions to make it viable. 28 What is the scope of integration with CTI? Is it both for outbound and inbound? This would be for both outbound and inbound. 29 Clause 102 what is munidata system? More information can be found here Munidata 30 Rep04 Do you wish to generate reports directly from external systems or the data should be appearing in crm and then generate reports? The reports will be generated in the CRM and exported, the exported data would then be utilised by external systems 31 Rep16 where is appendix 14? This is incorrect, it should refer to appendix 8 please accept our apologies for any confusion. 32 How many of the integration technologies you list in Appendix 10 are integrated in the current CRM application? The following technologies are integrated in the current environment:
Academy Capita Achieve Forms Firmstep E-payments 33 How many of the List of CRM Services implementation ( Appendix 11) are actually implemented in the current CRM solution? 34 How many numbers of point to point integrations are required? I.e. not the number of systems for each send and receive message that are required in the new solution but each touchpoint that need to be interfaced? Can the council list out all interfaces per process? 35 Does the council have a standard middleware and/or webservices available for the integration solution that the CRM solution can hook into for all systems requiring integration? If not please list the solutions that the council does have. All the services listed in Appendix 11 are in the current CRM solution in some form. Appendix 10 lists the different processes and systems that are required with the different systems and areas for integration. The Council does not have standard middleware technology. The majority of the integration detailed in the specification uses simple URL/Webservices/or other open API based integration from the supplier of the third party. Exceptions to this (from Appendix 10) are: Caps Uniform; Civica Financials system; Confirm Mapinfo and Femis. In these cases the Council will work with the Supplier and any third parties to find the best solution. 36 If the council does not have standard middleware/webservice defined for all integration solution requested what budget/expectations for the external solution integration design and delivery expected? i.e. has the council it s own inhouse resources that can do those systems data mappings testing and build?? The supplier should include costs for options for integration within the proposal. The Council does have some internal resources available that will be available to assist with the project. Does the council have a agreement with the external application vendors to supply integration hooks for CRM that aren't already in the current solution? The Council has agreements in place for the majority of external applications with the exception of those listed in Q35. It should also be noted that not all of these integrations are expected to be available from day one operation of the new CRM. 37 1 year support and maintenance. The scope of this is unclear, is this meant to include support and maintenance from the software vendor,and or hardware vendor and/or technical support a la the The Council is looking for costs for support and maintenance of the whole installed software solution, this could
current solution? 38 Does the council have an IVR testing solution that could be used to test any CTI solution? 39 For the integration solution please state the interface mechanism you envisage for all interface touchpoints include software support from the vendor as well as technical support it is not expecting this to include hardware. Whilst the Council does not have a specific IVR test environment it would be possible to undertake some testing within the existing telephony environment this would be need to be discussed further at the appropriate time. This would have to be discussed further with the supplier during the implementation. The Councils view of integration is to keep things simple using existing URL/Webservice integration and only to progress with integration where there are a high enough number of transactions to make it viable. 40 Will there be IVR solution consultant available to talk through the IVR solution and design from IVR end? 41 How many days training is the council expecting to be delivered as part of this offering? The Council has some internal skills for telephony but also a support arrangement for all aspects of it s telephony systems and can arrange this resource to be available at the appropriate time. The Council does not have any predetermined ideas on the number of days training just on the areas of training required as defined on page 11 of the Tender Document. The number of days should be defined by the Supplier and detailed in the response. 42 How many days testing the replacement CRM solution is the council expecting before signing off a solution for go-live? 43 The RFQ Appendix 4 sections 2 & 3 refer to hardware environments. Please clarify if the council is requiring the estimate to include the hardware or just the installation of the CRM software and solution on the environments. It is anticipated that approximately 3-4 weeks of User Acceptance Testing will be sufficient. The Council is asking for the solution to fit into the Council s existing Microsoft Hyper V virtual server environment. These sections should be completed to give ICT an idea of the hardware
requirements for the system. The Council is NOT expecting the costs submitted to include hardware. 44 Point number 19 in "Instructions to Tender" states that the council's contract terms are enclosed. Could you please mention which part of the document is the contract terms? 45 Please can you explain further point 46 ability to easily change hierarchy levels 46 Please can you explain further point 47 ability to change multiple cases assigned to hierarchy at the same time See appendix 7 This is referring to categories that cases can be assigned to. For example, if there were 5 levels of category with several sub categories in those categories, then we would want to have the ability to change categories easily if required. Similar to the answer in Question 46 but having the ability to select multiple cases and change their hierarchy as required.