The Department of State Bureau for Overseas Buildings Operations, Office of Executive Management, Information Resource Management Division (OBO/EX/IRM) has a requirement for information technology project support and software engineering in support of administrative, enterprise-wide applications for the State Administrative Services (SAS) applications for the U.S. Department of State (DoS). Multiple Department of State Bureau requirements are included in this scope. Organizations include, but are not limited to, the Bureau of the Comptroller and Global Financial Services (CGFS), the Bureau of Administration (A), the Bureau of Human Resources (HR), and the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO).

The Department of State is seeking support for its State Administrative Services (SAS) requirement. This will be a highly complex action with new computer platforms, significant upgrades, and new and expansive requirements for development skill. The current work is to be performed predominantly in the Greater Metropolitan Washington, DC Area at U.S. Government locations, Contractor Sites, and telework locations. There are a small number of remote workers outside of the DC Metro Area.

The requirement is to provide information technology project support and software engineering in support of administrative, enterprise-wide applications for the State Administrative Services (SAS) applications for the U.S. Department of State (DoS). These include, but are not limited to, overseas and domestic real estate, facilities management, human resources, general services operations, administrative support, space management, help desk support, data/records, overseas allowances, compensation, business processes, project management, budget, and finance applications.

The U.S. Department of State relies on up-to-date, accurate data to fulfill business requirements and support management decision making. These applications support the business requirements of multiple Department of State bureaus. These bureaus require project support to maintain and enhance the current data collection, processing, and reporting requirements as they are performed using electronic forms and software applications.

Multiple Department of State bureau requirements are included within the scope of this BPA. Organizations include, but are not limited to, the Bureau of the Comptroller and Global Financial Services (CGFS), the Bureau of Administration (A), the Bureau of Human Resources (HR), and the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO)

• The scope of services will include:
  • The contractor shall provide general professional and technical support, maintenance of systems and programming documentation, and software engineering support services
  • The contractor shall perform analytical and life cycle support for ongoing operations and maintenance (O&M) activities, as well as enhancements and upgrades to systems
  • The contractor shall also provide support for migrating the functionality and data of existing systems to newer custom, COTS, and cloud-based systems. Development and implementation of new systems may be provided by the contractor or under other contracting vehicles, requiring the contractor of this BPA to work closely with other DoS contractors. The contractor shall support this effort by providing staff with extensive technical experience of the task order defined systems, including software and cloud architecture
  • The contractor shall provide Subject Matter Expert (SME) support for the deployment of COTS and SaaS applications and services to cloud and on-premises environments
  • The contractor shall provide services to assist the Department with the submission of information for the publications and data collection, as well as provide business analysis, data collection design, process improvement and data integration services for Department customers
  • The contractor shall provide the appropriate skilled personnel in support of the U.S. Department of State constituent applications and in the codification process of the Department policy
  • Each GTM will approve the addition of work backlog items and the implementation of Agile work products as well as any support work deemed necessary to further the goals of their constituent software initiative. In addition, individual GTMs may approve work in support of other organizational strategic goals, which includes development tasks for other applications both domestic and overseas. The contractor shall provide General Professional and Technical Support, Maintenance of Systems and Programming documentation, and Software Engineering support services.
  • The primary cloud environments supported by the Department are the Azure Government and Commercial Clouds and Amazon Web Services.  On-Premises networks include OpenNet for SBU data, ClassNet for Classified Data, and a variety of Non-Enterprise Networks.   Department custom applications are generally C# or Java and hosted on Microsoft or Linux servers and operating systems. Maintenance of the Department’s Microsoft production platform is outside the scope of this activity. However, experience is required to effectively maintain development and test environments and use this platform within the security parameters of the USG (currently NIST Special Publication 800-53 Revision 4) and Department of State further configuration settings.
  • The below list provides the current platforms and technology in use for the applications supported under this BPA. It is expected that as other software becomes industry standard for the capabilities provided by the below list, the contractor shall become proficient with the latest technology selected for use by DoS. Prevailing Cybersecurity requirements may also impact the technology selected for use, or limitations on use of selected products.Software and languages include, but are not limited to, the following:
    • MS Internet Information Server (IIS)
    • Active Server Pages (ASP); C#; MS .Net Framework, Python
    • Biztalk
    • Business Objects
    • C#, Java, Python and C++ languages
    • Eptura Archibus
    • Kahua
    • Cerenade eForms
    • Cold Fusion (Legacy)
    • PowerBI
    • PowerPlatform
    • Crystal Reports
    • Erwin
    • HP Application Lifecycle Management
    • HP Quality Center
    • HP Unified Functional Tester
    • Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML)
    • Java and Javascript
    • JAWS
    • JFree Reporting
    • Microsoft Active Directory for eForms
    • MKS Integrity/Source Control
    • 1MS InfoPath
    • MS SQL Server
    • MS Visual Basic and VB Script
    • MS DevOps Server
    • MS Visual Studio
    • Oracle DataBase
    • Serena Business and Version Managers
    • SharePoint
    • SMS, Microsoft SMS Server Administration support
    • SQL Server & SQL Server Management Studio
    • TOAD
    • VB Access – Business Matrix
    • Visual e-Forms
    • CA ARIS
  • Solution Development, Modernization, and Enhancement (DME) Support Activities
    • The contractor shall provide support for all phases of software deployment to ensure applications and databases will enable their users to meet their mission goals and objectives. These efforts include all phases of SDLC including the full range of software design, development, implementation, and integration, including, but not limited to, requirements definition and analysis, systems design and development, coding and testing, preparation for deployment, data conversion, 508 compliance and integration. These activities will be performed in the context of Agile and SAFe methodologies.  The SDLC can be tailored to the requirements of each task order as appropriate.
    • Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) Support:
      • The purpose of this requirement is to provide services through the entire Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) in areas including, but not limited to, business process and requirements analysis, design, quality assurance, testing, implementation, training, configuration management, project and process management, and Tier I, II & III help desk support. In these efforts, the contractor shall perform analytical and life cycle support for ongoing operations and maintenance (O&M) activities, as well as enhancements and upgrades to the software system. The contractor shall support this effort by providing staff with extensive technical experience including software architecture.
      • Support of System Development Lifecycle (SDLC) will include, but is not limited to:
        • Develop new information technology (IT) solutions—create and deliver a new IT solution to the production environment, to meet the needs of emerging business, technological or cybersecurity needs. Conduct full system development lifecycle (SDLC) activities to provide new IT solutions to include the concept of operations, requirements analysis, design, development, and quality assurance testing; support for system security; support for training; support for testing; release management and deployment activities; systems documentation and intellectual property; and post-implementation review
        • Modernize existing IT solutions—modernize or re-engineer IT solutions that already exist in production, with the intent to replace the legacy system or application with a modernized, re-engineered, or new-technology solution, potentially impacting existing business processes and operations. Projects of this type must also include full SDLC activities. Projects of this type typically entail disposing of or decommissioning the IT solution being replaced
        • Enhance existing IT solutions—a change or group of changes to IT solutions that already exist in production, to provide for new, changed, or deleted functionality, features, or capability. Projects of this type must also include full SDLC activities
        • Software maintenance – a change or group of changes to existing IT solutions to enable them to operate according to current approved requirements, and does not change functionality, features, or capabilities. Projects of this type must also include full SDLC activities.
  • Help Desk Support:
    • The contractor shall provide Tier I, II, and III help desk support for DoS, as specified in the individual tasks.  Additionally, the contractor shall provide analysis and research of user and system issues, document findings, present options (including non-system workarounds), recommend solutions, and prepare procedures as required
  • Strategic Program Initiative
    • The purpose of this requirement is to acquire contractor engineering and SDLC services to support a strategic program initiative to modernize information systems and move towards open, interoperable, cloud-based systems environment. This will include the technical architecture needed to unify disparate cloud, hardware, and software platforms; eliminate redundant processes, duplicate data entry, and storage systems; and update business applications in compliance with requirements needed to support the Department’s ability to cultivate a highly effective, flexible, diverse workforce