Software Support Partner

Tender description

Summary of the work Citizens Advice wishes to appoint a supplier to maintain a portfolio of existing products and support any additional software development required for those products. This cannot be completed in-house due to limitations on resource capacity and technology capability. Expected Contract Length 2 years with a review after the first year Latest start date Wednesday 1 November 2017 Why the Work is Being Done National Citizens Advice provide applications for use by Local Offices (bureaux) nationally. This work is required to support a set of existing applications including minor enhancements which could include statutory changes. Problem to Be Solved Maintain production applications which support some of our core services e.g. Money Advice Service Who Are the Users The users of the applications are staff working for Local Citizens Advice or a Service supplied by Citizens Advice. Existing Team The supplier will need to work with Product Manager, Product owner and Delivery manager as well as Designers. UX, DevOps and DBA Current Phase Live Skills & Experience • Work with our in-house team using the following technology frameworks: PHP 5.6 to 7.1, Laravel framework 5.3.x, Eloquent ORM, PHPUnit, faker, mockery, MySQL, React, Angular, ESLint, Jasmine • The supplier must have the capability to include functional automated regression tests using Selenium. • The supplier may test new or existing software for deployment in our environments • Citizens Advice requires the contractor to use the git-flow / github-flow branching model • Citizens Advice requires that the supplier work in the following environments and Systems controlled by our DEVOPs team: AWS, Jenkins 2 with Multi-branch Pipelines, Docker Containerisation • Citizens Advice requires strong communication between teams of Citizens Advice and the nominated Supplier using the following tools and methods: Jira Ticketing. • Citizens Advice requires strong communication with the Supplier team using the following tools and methods: Slack Channel for comms between teams, Hangouts or similar Video Collaboration tools. • Citizens Advice requires strong communication with the Supplier team using the following tools and methods: Common RISK and Issue register, Retrospective meetings. • Citizens Advice requires strong communication with the Supplier team using the following tools and methods: Work to a common plan, Face to Face meetings at our London office. • Citizens Advice requires strong communication with the Supplier team using the following tools and methods: Documentation to Confluence and code repository, Github pull requests for transparent peer code reviews. Work Location The support partner can work remotely but meetings wil be held at : Citizens Advice 3rd Floor North 200 Aldersgate Street London EC1A 4HD Working Arrangments Citizens Advice uses agile methods for delivery and support of products. As a result the supplier's team will need to attend scrum/agile meetings with those involved Citizens Advice staff. This will typically be via remote calls using google hangouts The supplier will need to attend face-to-face 1 day per fortnight at our offices at: Citizens Advice 3rd Floor North 200 Aldersgate Street London EC1A 4HD No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Have demonstrable experience in delivery of solutions covering full stack development • Provide evidence of undertaking a similar support contract with another client • Have demonstrable experience of integration with 3rd party RESTful APIs • Have demonstrable experience of work carried out using Scrum and Kanban • Have demonstrable experience in story estimation and sizing of work for agile sprints • Have demonstrable experience in the management of risks and issues • Have demonstrable experience of working with a client supplying the Product owner in an agile environment • Have demonstrable experience of working with automated development pipelines • Have demonstrable experience of successfully delivering digital solutions that collect and manage personal and/or sensitive information with appropriate controls and protection • Must be able to provide a flexible resource profile adapting to the varying levels of demand across the engagement Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers • Transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Have a no-blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 55% Cultural fit 20% Price 25% Questions from Suppliers 1. Is it possible to gain a list of the software that you are looking for support on please? We are looking to have three products supported used to support clients through financial difficulties;1. Common Initial Assessment - A web application triage tool used by advisors to assess clients financial situation, preferred communication methods and next steps.2. Money Advice Recording Tool - A web application Budget planner allowing an adviser to log client income, expenditure and debts.MART helps calculate how debts can be repaid and provides financial statements and pro-forma letters to help manage debts.3. Debt Management Service - A web application used by expert advisors to create a debt management plan for clients. 2. Is this opportunity to replace an incumbent supplier due to an existing contract expiring? no, the products have been developed by a small team of contractors but we are now looking to outsource the support to a supplier. 3. What's the organisations anticipated spend (ex VAT) over the 2 year contract period? We do not have any anticipated spend in mind but would like to ensure the right team is in place to provide the support required for our money advice products. However we can provide some guidance on the team size/roles we feel will be adequate to support these products. We are also looking for a supplier that has flexible workforce capacity to allow us to potentially add new features to these products. 4. What's the anticipated resource requirement annually? E.g. An average of 2 Design. 4 Dev. 1 PM utilised on a monthly basis. We estimate that suppliers will require 2 developers, 1 QA and 1 Scrum master at 40% availability (equivalent to approximately 21 weeks/yr)Citizens advice will provide Product Ownership and DevOps support to the team. 5. Please could you indicate the budget or budget range specifically available for this work? We do not have any anticipated budget in mind but would like to ensure the right team is in place to provide the support required for our money advice products. However we can provide some guidance on the team size/roles we feel will be adequate to support these products. We are also looking for a supplier that has flexible workforce capacity to allow us to potentially add new features to these products. 6. Would you consider a mix of on-shore and off-shore teams, utilising Video conferencing, Slack, Skype, etc? We would like to use an on-shore team to support these products with regular face to face meetings in our London office. 7. Please can you confirm the technologies each of the existing portfolio of products is written in ? Product technologies:Common Initial Assessment;React JS, PHP, Data stored in local browser storage with option to upload into MART when back online.MART;Lampstack, PHP Laravel 5, PhantomJS, MySQL RDSDMS;Linux (Debian/Ubuntu), Apache 2.4, MySQL 5+, PHP 7, JavascriptLaravel 5.3+, ReactJS, jQuery, SOA + OAuth 2.0 + REST principlesOther:The supplier must have the capability:- - to include functional automated regression tests using Selenium. - to use the git-flow / github-flow branching model - to work in the following environments and Systems controlled by our DEVOPs team ( AWS, Jenkins 2 with Multi-branch Pipelines, Docker Containerisation) 8. 1. How much of the planned work is strictly related to the PHP technology stack (in %)? Are you considering switching to any other technologies/programming languages during the 2-year engagement? 2. Is your offering’s goal solely focused on maintaining and supporting your current PHP based project? Or, will it open up an opportunity to carry out work in other technologies and languages (such as Java or .Net and other)? 3. How many technical FTEs are expected to join the Citizens Advice technical team as part of this offering? 1. We have 4 of our products in the PHP stack. New products have been developed in Ruby on rails. We are reviewing options but have no definitive plans to switch these products to other technologies.2. This offering is only for supporting 3 PHP products. 3. We look to the supplier to propose the team required to support these products, although we have provided some guidance in other responses and are happy to discuss further. 9. Please can you clarify the number of applications, and number of users per application that would need to potentially be supported? There are 3 applications. There number of users per application are as follows:Common Initial Assessment - number of users is unknown but it is used for approximately 16,000 clients per monthMoney Advice Recording Tool - approx. 2,000 unique users every monthDebt Management System - approx. 20 users 10. Please can you advise on the budget parameters for this programme of work? We do not have any anticipated budget in mind but would like to ensure the right team is in place to provide the support required for our money advice products. However we have provided some guidance in other responses on the team size/roles we feel will be adequate to support these products. We are also looking for a supplier that has flexible workforce capacity to allow us to potentially add new features to these products. 11. With the remit of support responsibility being very focused on development capability, is there a need for user experience and user interface design resource, or is this an internal responsibility? Currently responsibility will be provided by internal resource from Citizens Advice although we are happy to discuss options. 12. Is there an expectation for the supplier to arrange all 3rd party pen-testing, with a plan to implement recommendations? All pen testing will be arranged and managed by Citizens Advice. If the recommendations require a fix to application code then this will be implemented by the supplier. 13. Are the Citizens Advice prepared to share the budget available for this work or the expected shape of the supplier engagement in terms of resource required to support the Citizens Advice with this service (to ensure like for like comparisons in procurement) We do not have any anticipated budget in mind but would like to ensure the right team is in place to provide the support required for our money advice products. However we have provided some guidance in other responses on the team size/roles we feel will be adequate to support these products. We are also looking for a supplier that has flexible workforce capacity to allow us to potentially add new features to these products. 14. Although there is no mention of accessibility standards, our expectation is that with a wide demographic of users, you're looking for products that facilitate accessible experiences. Can you clarify on minimum levels and criteria, please? Our products are of a minimum standard of AA 15. Does your team employ any code quality introspection tools such as SonarQube and / or PHP Codesniffer / PHP Mess Detector? Our existing developers uses PHP Codesniffer and Mess Detector. They run them in their local development environment, but they could be setup run from the same phpunit configuration we use. We do not use SonarQube. 16. How does your team manage test coverage? Do you have a minimum test coverage requirement? Testing is covered by unit, functional and integration testing. Our test coverage is approx. as follows:1. Common Initial Assessment - 90-95%2. MART - 90-95%3. DMS - 75% - DMS is lower that the other products but relies heavily on external APIs 17. Are you planning to provide this service through Gov.uk? No 18. Q1. Can you give us more details of these applications in terms of their functionality? Q2. What is the usage and effectiveness of these applications? Q1Common Initial Assessment - web application triage tool for advisors to assess clients financial situation, preferred communication methods and next steps.Money Advice Recording Tool - web application Budget planner allowing advisers to log client income, expenditure and debts.Helps calculate how debts can be repaid and provides financial statements and pro-forma letters to help manage debts.Debt Management Service - Web application for expert advisors to create a debt management plan for clients.Q2Common Initial Assessment - used for approx. 16,000 clients/monthMoney Advice Recording Tool - approx. 2,000 unique users/monthDebt Management System - approx. 20 users 19. How many applications would the support be required for? What is their approximate size and complexity? It is built on the same technology mentioned in "Essential skills and experience"? 3 applications. 1 simple and 2 of medium complexity. They are built on the technology described in essential skills and experience but we have provided a breakdown in an answer published earlier. 20. Does product support needs to be provided for these applications? Are these application on cloud? Would you also require Hardware Support? Citizens Advice will provide a Product Owner for the application who will triage support tickets. These applications are hosted on the AWS cloud. We will not require hardware support. 21. Who is the incumbent vendor? Would they be allowed to bid for this opportunity? These products have been developed by a small team of contractors but we are now looking to outsource the support to a supplier. 22. Q1. How many FTE do you suggest as part of this support engagement? Q2. What would you suggest as a mechanism for capping the support services in this capped TnM model? Q3. How many calls should a selected vendor expect on an average in a month for application support? Q1 - Please see previous responses regarding suggested team to support applicationsQ2 - We would like suppliers to suggest what is most appropriate for usQ3 - On average we expect to have around 5 support calls per week covering all 3 applications 23. What is the expected SLA for application support? What are the support timings? We would welcome suppliers themselves proposing SLAs which they feel they can adhere to 24. Is there any personal data in these applications? This is to understand the compliance requirements from the vendors. There is personal data in these applications in production. The supplier will not have access to production data. 25. Are there any CMS' used to host these applications? Would they need to be supported? No CMS is used for these products