Supply and Initial Implementation of an ITSM tool

Tender description

Summary of the work Provide SaaS license product to support ITIL Service Management Processes. The product must support multi-tenancy and be easily configurable by each service areas team Professional services will be required to provide initial configuration to cover Incident, Service Request/Fulfilment, Change, Problem and Knowledge Management,Service Catalogue, Contracts, Vendors and Service Level Management Latest start date Wednesday 18 October 2017 Why the Work is Being Done The IT Dept. of LBR are looking to: • Improve the service delivered to the end users, • Provide improved and more timely internal processes, • Reduce on-going ITSM tool costs The work will commence in early Autumn 2017 and complete within 3 months for the initial implementation. Problem to Be Solved • A hosted or SaaS solution is required • Alignment/support for all ITIL processes • Multi -tenancy is required to support Enterprise Service Management • Based around portal, service/request catalogue and user self service • Request processes to be customer configurable, based around workflow, without need for specialist technical/coding skills • Multi-channel communication capabilities – email, text, im, social media etc • Knowledge base • Asset management / CMDB • Integration with AD/MS Office/Office 365/Azure/CRM • Queries and dashboards – standard and user/customer configurable • Comprehensive/flexible performance reporting for ITIL processes - based around SLAs, KPIs Who Are the Users Users need to access IT support any time anywhere to support the SMART way of working. Have the ability to review current and past requests and issues from any device and check any services or assets assigned to them. Support Analysts and Managers need to be able to identify and manage requests and issues and handle them in a timely manner using predefined workflow and measures. Ad hoc and scheduled reporting of user issues or requests provides full visibility of the current state, including service measures (UC's, OLAs and SLAs) and process KPIs Existing Team The LBR ITSM Project Team consists of: Dedicated ITSM PM Customer Services Manager Lead Service Desk Analyst Asset and Procurement Analysts Various support analysts, mainly for testing Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Provide a SaaS or Hosted solution • A multi - tenancy capability in the solution • Provide a solution based around portal, service/request catalogue and user self service • Solution to be customer configurable, based around workflow, without need for specialist technical/coding skills • Solution must provide multi-channel communication capabilities – email, text, IM, social media etc • The solution must provide an integrated Knowledge base • The solution must support asset management / CMDB • The solution must provide potential integration with AD/MS Office/Office 365/Azure/CRM • The solution provides reporting, queries and dashboards – standard and user/customer configurable • The solution provides comprehensive/flexible performance reporting for ITIL services - based around SLAs, KPIs • The solution shall have an intuitive, modern, easy to use interfaces – minimal training required Work Location The majority of the work will be conducted at: Lynton House, 255-259 High Road. Ilford, Essex. IG1 1NN Working Arrangments The LBR team will be available from 0830 to 1630 hrs Monday to Friday excluding BH. The site is less than 20 mins by train from Liverpool St. station on the TfL Rail Line in Zone 4. As such, travel and subsistence expenses are expected to be minimal. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 10 Proposal Criteria • How the approach or solution meets your organisation’s policy or goal • Value for money • Estimated timeframes for the work Cultural Fit Criteria • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Understand the costs constraints of Borough Councils and the pressure to increase service performance Payment Approach Fixed price Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 10% Price 40% Questions from Suppliers 1. Are there external supplier dependencies that will need to be accommodated as part of the project? The London Borough of Redbridge engages many external suppliers to provide goods and services for its IT Operation. There are a number that may have dependencies and it would be expected that any successful bidder would work with these suppliers to implement the project 2. Is the project supporting a wider business transformation or restructuring initiative. If so, is the project seen as an enabler for other projects to succeed? The project is not directly supporting the wider business transformation project. However, certain requirements from that project have been fed into the ITSM project to ensure it aligns with its goals 3. What volume of tickets (incident, requests, changes) are you expecting per month? How many configuration items or assets do you envisage being held on the CMDB? The current volume of Incident and requests changes is currently 2600 per monthChange is currently not formerly recorded, but this would not expect to exceed 100 per monthThe current number of physical assets under management is approximately 5000 for both desktop and infrastructure. This does not include software assets 4. Are there existing process SME's available that we can work with to understand the current challenges as well as the desired target state The project team consists of a number of SME's, both in best practice Service Management and the current LBR processes and their identified issues. The initial implementation is to replace the current functionality of the incumbent tool and to introduce formal Change, Problem and Knowledge Management processes along with a end user portal. Enhancement of internal processes will continue after this initial implementation, but it is expected that some of these processes will be completed and the knowledge transfer provided to LBR staff to continue with this work at the end of the initial implementation. 5. It is assumed that a COTS solution is suitable to meet your requirements and there’ll be little to no customization, can you please confirm Whilst the intention is for there to be a minimum of customisation, it is expected that the tool will be flexible enough to support specific joined up processes, such as Joiners Movers Leavers and be able to extend its use into other service areas such as HR, Facilities Management etc. without those areas having to adopt or understand IT or ITIL jargon. 6. Would you be open to a cloud-based solution? Our requirements specifically refer to a SaaS or Cloud Base solution as a must have 7. The PQQ alludes to there being more than one implementation phase of the ITSM tools, can you please elaborate as to what the subsequent phase will entail and what the anticipated timelines for the implementation of the fully fledged solution The RFP (or PQQ) specifically requests information about the initial project implementation to cover current functionality (Incident and Request) and also extend the use of Change, Problem and Knowledge management, with the addition of a end user portal.The specific requirements for later potential phases, are merely to ensure the functionality or capability is available to support that work. There are currently no later phases planned 8. Are you expecting the implementation partner to respond at this stage or are you expecting a response from the solution vendor Provided a total cost for implementation and then ongoing license costs are explicitly itemised then we have no preference to who provides this information 9. Are you open to a response from the implementation partner that collaborate with solution vendor and provide a resale model We have no preference over who provides the application or how the proposal is defined. Provided it is made clear who is responsible for each delivery and how ongoing support will be provided. 10. Is it fair to assume that at a later stage of the process more details will be provided in relation to your Functional and Non-Functional requirements Yes. We have documented detail requirements for this project, some of which we have published as part of this process. These could be available to the shortlisted vendors if it is felt it will help the selection processes 11. You have outlined cost at 40% of your evaluation criteria, yet at this point there are no questions in reference to team structure and implementation approach – how will cost be evaluated at this stage The $)5 weighting for costs relates to 2 aspects of any proposal. -The implementation costs or professional services - The ongoing license and support costsAs an experienced implementer we would expect the approach and team structure to be defined as part of the proposal 12. Are you open to offshore development work to speed progress and reduce cost We have no preference on how the delivery is produced. However we do expect there to be some knowledge transfer to ensure local support and or update can be performed 13. The questions asked focus on the solution itself and provide limited scope for the implementation partners to credentialize themselves and demonstrate their experience. Are there other means of providing this information We would welcome examples and reference to previous customers for each aspect of the implementation and solution from an applicant. 14. Please describe your procurement process for this opportunity This will follow the London Borough of Redbridges own procurement policy. The exact process depends largely on the cost of the chosen solution. So until this is known we cannot provide a specific answer 15. Has funding for this work been agreed and are there any guidance available to bidders for cost range to support scaling of team A budget has been generated by taking the average cost of implementation (professional services) and licenses of ITSM vendors on the Digital Market Place. 16. Is training and early life support post implementation required as part of the scope? We would expect applicants to recommend a training/knowledge transfer approach, but as we expect the tool to be more configurable that coded this is not expected to be significant.ELS should be specified and included as part of the quote, based on the experience of the applicant 17. Good afternoon, I will need to know the following information: - Number of users (Analysts). - Named or Concurrent? - Number of end users (customers). - Is a sandbox/test environment required? - Can they elaborate on the term “Multi Tenancy” (this term can be used to describe “multiple departments” to “multiple external organisations”. We can support both, however it would be good to have this clarified. Many thanks. Current number of support analysts is 60. If other service areas use the solution this is expected to grow. Please provide typical costs for an increasing user base.Concurrent or Named. Provide costs for both with recommendations and details of ratios and auto timeout function setting for releasing inactive users licenses for concurrent.Multi-tenancy. Please refer to the Wikipedia definition of the term 18. Is there an indicative budget for this procurement? Please refer to the answer to Question 15 on the Digital Market Place 19. 1 - Is the intention to do asset lifecycle and full financial management or only asset inventory within your solution, i.e. registering assets and managing their depreciation elsewhere? 2 - Do you have a solution identified or are you tool agnostic and require assistance in selecting a suitable solution? 3 - Have you identified a need to have internal service management capabilities, skills and structure within your organisation? 1. At present, only asset life cycle2. Tool agnostic, but aligned to our requirements3. Current organisation and skills are aligned to service management framework 20. How many ITIL users (LBR agents) are expected to use the system? There are currently 60 users of the current system 21. How many ITIL users (LBR agents) are expected to use the system? There are currently 60 users of the current system 22. How many portal / end-users are expected to use the system? The total number of employees and supported users flexes from 2500 to 3500 23. What is the expected initial SaaS subscription period for the solution that should be offered/priced in the proposal? There is no specific period initial subscription period. However it is unlikely that this will be less than 2 years 24. If possible, please share indicative annual run-costs related to the maintenance of the ITSM tool(s) you would like to decommission. The current tool licensing costs where purchased on a perpetual basis. Also the supplier no longer sells or supports the current tool, so no costs are available 25. Please provide indicative ticket statistics per module / channel and any peak volumes per minute for the purpose of solution sizing. For Incident/Service Request this is averaging 650 per week at present. Change is not recorded in the current tool but would not be more than 100 per week. Again problem is not recorded in the current tool and would be expected to be < 100 per week.There is no data for peak volumes per minute. 26. Please provide any available statistics or forecasts for concurrent usage. The only data we have is from current guidance when researching other suppliers recommendations for the ratio of users to concurrent licenses. This is typically 1.5 to 1. So 40 is an 'indicative' number.Also see the answer to Question 17 27. Please define who the end users using the portal will be - is there need for additional role differentiation within this group? Portal end users will be ALL users of IT Services. It is expected that various 'profiles' may be needed, with the minimum of users only having access to services they consume or can be approved for. Some users are external partners to the LBR, however it will only be needed to identify these for potential reporting/cross charging purposes 28. Please define who the end users using the portal will be - is there need for additional role differentiation within this group? Portal end users will be ALL users of IT Services. It is expected that various 'profiles' may be needed, with the minimum of users only having access to services they consume or can be approved for. Some users are external partners to the LBR, however it will only be needed to identify these for potential reporting/cross charging purposes 29. Please provide the definition of a tenant in the context of this request for proposals and provide some examples of the intended tenant structure. Please refer to the answer to Q 17 30. Is the level of separation between tenants limited to data (users, workgroups, tickets) or separation of processes and workflows by tenant is also required? Its is expected there will be some separation of process or workflow, but only that which is 'configurable' and does not require a change to the underlying codebase or global settings 31. Please provide details about the contract data that needs to be maintained within the ITSM tool. At present, any contract management is done largely in spreadsheets and is of a generic format of Supplier name, service-product provided, description, contract type, start date, review date, end date, contacts, etc, There is also links to Finance system data (cost centres/contract references), which is extracted from those systems and embedded in the spreadsheet 32. Can you list the activities related to vendor management that are expected to be handled by the ITSM tool? These will be of the generic activities promoted by the various service management frameworks and standards. No specific requirements have been gathered for this 33. Can you list the activities related to vendor management that are expected to be handled by the ITSM tool? These will be of the generic activities promoted by the various service management frameworks and standards. No specific requirements have been gathered for this 34. Is the tool expected to enforce any particular data privacy or personally identifiable information (PII) safeguards? As their is a desire to make this tool available to other Service areas, e.g. HR, it is reasonable to assume that a requirement for identifying and protecting personal identifiable information is required along with the current Information Governance guidance 35. Is the tool expected to enforce any particular data privacy or personally identifiable information (PII) safeguards? As their is a desire to make this tool available to other Service areas, e.g. HR, it is reasonable to assume that a requirement for identifying and protecting personal identifiable information is required along with the current Information Governance guidance 36. Is the tool expected to enforce any particular data privacy or personally identifiable information (PII) safeguards? As their is a desire to make this tool available to other Service areas, e.g. HR, it is reasonable to assume that a requirement for identifying and protecting personal identifiable information is required along with the current Information Governance guidance 37. Is there a need to integrate any existing communication tools to the new ITSM tool or the communication channels natively provided by the ITSM tool will be used? The only current communication tool is MS Exchange email, which will be required to integrate for outgoing notifications and possibly approvals. However MS Skype for Business will shortly be available, and it is anticipated that this may also be required to provide an IM capability to be integrated. 38. Please confirm if communication channel “text” refers to SMS communication out of the ITSM tool. Confirmed. It should have read 'text messaging' 39. Please define the social media communication channels needed. Several ITSM offerings offer integration with Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Reddit etc. It is expected any chosen solution would have this capability 40. Do the CMDB and Asset Management solutions require any integration with automatic discovery tooling? The current discovery tool is SCCM, which would be expected to integrated with the ITSM solution 41. Is the solution intended to perform any centralized endpoint device management? There is no current requirement for the solution to have management of endpoint devices 42. Is there a requirement for automated monitoring and incident creation for configuration items/processes? There are currently several monitoring solutions employed at LBR. However there are no current integrations for Event Management with the current toolset. This may however be a future requirement if full end to end management was consider utilising orchestration 43. Are there any visibility restrictions for different users based on catalog items, functionality groups, locations of users, etc.? See the answer to Q27 44. Are all levels of support for the system going to be covered by the in-house LBR team or L3 and L4 support is expected by the supplier for a period of time? There is no expectation of what the 'support' will be. How ever the over riding requirement to have an 'intuitive and configurable tool' infers that the management/development of the tool would be largely performed by LBR staff with any specialist development sought from the vendor,With regard to support for system availability of a SaaS tool this would largely be the responsibility of the Vendor 45. What aspects of the multi-tenancy functionality need to be configurable by the service area teams? Central administration will reside with the IT Team. Tenants will be encouraged to provide there own local support, but this will be dependant on resources and skills available. So it is likely to be a 'light touch' functionality for service teams 46. Please describe what constitutes the scope and acceptance criteria for initial configuration? It must meet the functionality of the current tool and cover all the requirements published. Also see answers to specific questions posted here 47. Do the out of the box processes available in the proposed ITSM tool need to be adapted to existing processes of the customer? See the answer to Q5 48. Are there any restrictions for non-UK SMEs to work on the project? There are no restrictions on non- UK SMEs to work on the project. However if visiting from outside the UK the normal immigration and visa arrangements will have to be managed by the vendor 49. Please list the currently used ITSM tool(s). The current ITSM tool is LANDesk 50. Are there any data or processes that need to be migrated from currently used tools (ITSM/CMDB/Knowledge Management, etc.) to the new ITSM tool suite? There are no processes that require migration. However, there are multiple instances of data that have been extracted and will be cleansed and formatted for upload into a new solution as part of any set up or foundation data. KB articles are not stored in the current ITSM tool 51. How is your Knowledge Base managed currently? Are knowledge articles readily available in structured form? Please see the answer to Q50. KB articles are currently in a variety of formats/documents are stored on the Intranet and shared drives 52. How are your Configuration Items and Assets managed currently? Are any particular CMDB and Asset Management tools in place today? The current CMDB is a mixture of the current ITSM toolset and spreadsheets. SCCM is available for discovery/deployment 53. Are there any active integrations form those listed tools (AD/MS Office/Office 365/Azure/CRM) that need to be implemented during the project or the new ITSM tool needs to be capable of integrating to these tools on a later stage? AD is currently integrated with the current toolset and a replacement will need to provide the same. As is SSO.All the other requirements are for the near future as there are several in flight projects delivering these capabilities/services 54. Are there any in-flight projects related to the tools targeted for integration or any other tools that may have overlapping dependencies during the planned delivery of the project? Please provide timelines and perceived touchpoints with the new ITSM Tool implementation - e.g. major AD/CMDB overhaul or migration taking place within the intended implementation period. See the answer to Q53. No timescales are available for delivery of these projects and no dependencies have been established between their delivery and the initial completion of this project 55. Are there any in-flight projects related to the tools targeted for integration or any other tools that may have overlapping dependencies during the planned delivery of the project? Please provide timelines and perceived touchpoints with the new ITSM Tool implementation - e.g. major AD/CMDB overhaul or migration taking place within the intended implementation period. See the answer to Q53. No timescales are available for delivery of these projects and no dependencies have been established between their delivery and the initial completion of this project 56. Are there any mandatory change freezes that need to be taken into consideration when planning the project delivery? The only current planned change freeze is the annual planned freeze over the winter holiday break (dates to be confirmed) which may impact the delivery of this project 57. Are there any particular training requirements - live and/or offline training materials, which user groups will require training? See the answer to Q16. The only planned training is internal for testers 58. Is there a preferred go-live approach? Examples: 1. ""big bang"" where all modules and functionalities are cutover at the same time 2. staggered go live approach which introduces different modules, processes, functionalities in consecutive cutovers Its is expected that the first deliverable will cover the current processes and functionality (Incident, Service Request, 'Light' Change, 'Light' asset and SACM), followed by introduction of the User portal with sufficient support in KB process and articles then improvement of Change and Asset/SACM and introduction of Problem. However guidance from the vendor will be expected on the exact sequencing, dependencies and timings of these