Deliver new Drupal 8 website for National Physical Laboratory

Tender description

Summary of the work Looking for a technology partner to work with our team to deliver a Drupal 8 website for NPL. They will install and configure a Drupal instance, and implement required functionality. The work will involve advising on the best server / hosting setup and create site design templates. Expected Contract Length 6 months Latest start date 17/10/2016 Budget Range £80k Why the Work is Being Done The current NPL website CMS is no longer supported by it's manufacturer, the templates are non-responsive and pages are slow to load. It can no longer support the requirements of the organisation in a timely and extensible manner. We need to shift to a more accessible platform for further development flexibility and extensibility. Expected launch of the new site is end of March 2017. Problem to Be Solved Move the NPL site to new Drupal 8 infrastructure, implement a new design framework and implement core functionality. Providing us with a platform to further develop and adopting current best practice in template design. Who Are the Users There are three key audiences for the NPL site: Business users buying our products and services, Scientific Peers who want to engage with the research that we carry out, and the General Public. Predominately the site has three core activities: promote the commercial services we offer and generate leads, highlight the research carried out at the organisation and it's impact, and provide information about the organisation to the general public. Work Already Done Currently in Discovery phase. Requirements gathering, Information Architecture and Design Framework development. Existing Team In-house multidisciplinary team. Led by Digital Communications team and including IT Services and Graphic Design studio. Senior executive sponsor for the project. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • At least 5 years experience of delivering Drupal projects • In-house team of Drupal developers • Sucessfully delivered at least three complex large-scale Drupal client projects with significant customised modules • Demonstrate Drupal 8 expertise • Sucessfully worked collaboratively and transparently with in-house teams and agencies • High-quality, modern in-house web design capability • Front-end designers experienced in implementing responsive templates based on PSD or Sketch files • Expertise in Drupal hosting solutions • Implementing search functionality with Drupal • Expertise of modern web operations to ensure best-of-breed configuration for site deployment and operation • Expertise in delivering sites & services that meet accessibility standards (WCAG AA) • Expertise to provide solutions with robust security capabilities • Working practices that enable knowledge transfer to in-house team Nice to Haves • Previously worked with scientific or academic organisations • Knowledge / use of Agile methodologies • Recognised as a Drupal industry expert • Be an active participant in the Drupal Community • Have contributed to any Drupal modules • Your developers/team have been Drupal certified by Acquia or equivalent • Delivery of Drupal in an ecommerce environment • Experience integrating with document repository systems such as ePrints Work Location National Physical Laboratory, Hampton Rd, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LW Working Arrangments We are looking for a technical partner to provide a consultancy and development of a new Drupal 8 site. 1. Consultancy to define optimum project approach and delivery plan within timescales. 2. Alpha - Drupal installation based on the technical & security requirements and basic functionality 3. Beta - development of site implementing design and functionality 4. Transition - support the transition from the current site over to the new site. It is not expected that the successful supplier have a full-time presence on site. However the supplier attends meetings on-site where necessary or where vital to deliver specific requirements. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria • Experience and expertise of Drupal delivery (including Drupal 8) • Ability to meet timescales • The technical quality of your approach and methodology • Team expertise and experience • Value for money • How the approach or solution meets our objectives • Identification of risks and dependencies and approaches to managing them Cultural Fit Criteria • Ability to be seen as the technical partner in a collaborative team • Provide a consultative role for the in-house project team • Demonstrate a willingness to work iteratively • Challenge the status quo • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Can work with clients with low technical expertise Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Can you let us know a little bit more about what will be supplied to the development team for them to build? Do you have any designs or user stories already complete, or does this need to be started from scratch? We're in the process of interviewing stakeholders and users and putting together a list of requirements (broken into user stories) and key functionality which we'll be in position to give to the chosen supplier. It's expected that the initial stage of the project will include reviewing these requirements & stories to work up an agreed approach to deliver.We'll have a design framework put together by our in-house graphic design department to provide a design direction and indicative template designs, these however will need interpreting by our chosen supplier to make sure they're robust and follow latest design best practice. 2. Why do you want to use Drupal 8 in particular? You are likely to get a better and/or more cost effective result if you all suppliers to select the most appropriate technology. This allows innovation. Your focus should be about the outcome i.e. the responsiveness, multi-device, performance, accessibility, that you have written about. Drupal 8 may or may not be the right answer. You may have other requirements such as no CMS licence fees. Can you change your mandatory requirements please to achieve a more innovative and better value outcome? Research has found Drupal to offer the most suitable solution for NPL. Looking for an open-source option from a large supplier with a user community. NPL's partners often use Drupal, so we can ensure staff have common skills on the platform for secondments or joint projects. Drupal best matches the in-house skills of the team who will be supporting the site. Drupal 8 for future-proofing the site. 3. The contract notices states "Closing date for applications - Friday 30 September 2016" is this the date for the online application only (competency confirmation), and a bid document will be submitted in a later round? Yes, this is the closing date for the online application. A bid application will be submitted after this date. 4. If a bid document is to be submitted in a later round, are you able to state an expected timeline? The later round will consist of a written proposal and an on-site presentation. It's expected this process will be completed by week commencing 24th October. 5. Please detail your expectation regarding content migration from the existing system. Do you have available any documentation detailing the number of content items, documents it contains? We will be migrating selected content from the old site. This will be predominately manual due to the nature of the content in the current CMS. It is expected that NPL will carry out this activity, not the chosen supplier. A small subset of content may be able to be imported programmatically and we would expect the supplier to assist with this. 6. Will you be looking to improve / adapt the information architecture to achieve a better launch pad for future development? Yes, the new site will have a revised Information Architecture, to provide a simpler more useful experience for our users. We are working on this. 7. Are we responsible for migrating data from their existing application to the new one? We will be migrating selected content from the old site. This will be predominately manual due to the nature of the content in the current CMS. It is expected that NPL will carry out this activity, not the chosen supplier. A small subset of content may be able to be imported programmatically and we would expect the supplier to assist with this. 8. If we’re migrating data, is the client able to export the data and in what format? Migrating data will largely be a manual process, most likely undertaken by us and not the supplier 9. For the current drill down search, is there a third party integration for this or is it a simple database query builder? The current site search is a simple database query builder which is built into the current CMS 10. Is the authentication system tied to an external authentication server? No 11. Are there any services the existing application integrates with? No, however the new site will have to integrate with ePrints (for documents) and potentially Amris (for job vacancies) 12. For the document search, is this integrated with a search service like Algolia or a search backend like ApacheSolr? The document search is being moved onto a separately hosted solution called ePrints as part of a separate project. However, we will be looking at integrating this data into the new website. 13. Can we have credentials to log in to see what other features there are for authenticated users? Once logged in, users currently only have the ability to get access to download PDF copies of documents, which in the future will be handled by our separate ePrints system, as part of a separate project. 14. Does the £80K include potential hardware and/or hosting costs? No 15. Are NPL open to cloud hosting? We're open to all suggestions as long as they meet our business needs. 16. With a migration to a new CMS, inevitable the theme is rebuilt which provides opportunity to update branding, look and feel. Is this something NPL are looking to do? We'll have a design framework put together by our in-house graphic design department to provide a design direction and indicative template designs, these however will need interpreting by our chosen supplier to make sure they're robust and follow latest webdesign best practice. 17. Is there any guidance on the proposal format or presentation required? Or will this all be communicated once you have shortlisted the four potential suppliers you wish to evaluate? This will be communicated to the four shortlisted suppliers once they have been chosen. A brief will be supplied to which the suppliers can respond to, and it is expected that shortlisted suppliers will come in and give a short presentation based on their proposal and a question and answer session. 18. Will the new site require any functionality not included in the existing site? Yes. We'll provide a list of required functionality to the chosen shortlisted suppliers. It is not expected that there will be a huge amount of additional functionality. 19. Will NPL require the chosen supplier to manage ongoing maintenance, feature development or security updates, or will all of that be managed in-house, with the supplier leading any associated training and handover required? It's expected that these will be managed in-house, with the supplier providing any necessary training and handover. However, we'd like a close continued relationship with the chosen supplier and there's the potential of future feature/module development. 20. Do you currently work with other external agencies who provide expertise around areas like web marketing for example? Or is this all done internally? This is all done internally, and not something we'd be looking for a supplier to undertake. 21. Does the “In-house multidisciplinary team” include project management functionality, or are you expecting the chosen supplier to provide this? The in-house team will have a project management lead, it's expected the supplier will work with them to plan the development work based on requirements and timescales 22. By "Drupal hosting solutions" do you envisage using a provider who offers distinct environments (eg dev, staging, production) and deployment workflows as part of their offering (ie similar to Acquia, Pantheon or Platform.sh); or would you be looking for the provider to create these? If a direction has been set either way can you provide details on how these decisions were reached? We're open to all suggestions, and would be looking towards the chosen supplier to provide their expertise in suggesting the best solution to meet our business needs 23. In an answer to a previous question you have mentioned that NPL partners often use Drupal. Can you specify who these partners are please? This can be divulged to the shortlisted suppliers if necessary to their proposals. 24. What research was undertaken to determine that Drupal was the best solution for NPL? Did this involve external consultants, and if so are you able to disclose who they are? Desk research carried out within the organisation. No external consultants were used. 25. What are the reasons behind starting in March? Could it possibly be later? March 2017 is when our allocated budget must be used by, and when we need to present at least a MVP to our stakeholders 26. You would like the supplier to have experience in an e-commerce environment. Can you please state about your team's strategy with regards to e-commerce or any already existing integrations with an e-commerce solution? We currently do not have an e-commerce solution, but there is likely to be a requirement for some products on our website to have the ability to be purchased online in the future. 27. Can you please clarify, if the supplier's development team will be joined by developers of your IT services? If yes, how do you imagine the responsibilities being shared? It's expected that the supplier's dev team will be responsible for creating templates and setting up the initial Drupal website, while our in-house team will advise on corporate branding and work on content. 28. What is your in-house team's experience with agile and which frameworks / methodologies have you used in the past to bring your projects to success? This will be our first major project working in Agile, having predominantly used Waterfall methods in the past.