Developing a new School Games National Finals website and providing web-based event support

Tender description

Summary of the work We are looking to create a new micro-site and mobile app for the School Games National Finals. This platform will collate results, drive ticket sales, and host a live streaming service as well as providing a general information portal to serve as an overview of the Games. Expected Contract Length 9 months Latest start date Tuesday 2 January 2018 Budget Range The project will be run on a capped time and materials contract. The maximum budget for this project is £40,000 (plus VAT). Why the Work is Being Done We wish to develop a new platform for the annual School Games National Finals event. The current platform, found at www.schoolgamesfinals.org, has a number of issues and offers a frustrating lack of control and flexibility for us internally. As such, we would prefer to create something new which better suits our requirements, whilst also introducing a greater sense of connectivity between this platform and our main School Games website - www.yourschoolgames.com. The work should be at least partially complete by March 2018 to allow time for ticket sales with the event itself taking place 30th August - 2nd September 2018. Problem to Be Solved We require a web platform and app which can integrate with a number of other sites and plug-ins. This includes working with or alongside the main School Games website and providing a platform for our ticketing service and live streaming service which are run by external agencies. We need an engaging platform which will encourage athlete and parent interaction prior to the Games and drive viewership of our live streaming during the event itself. We hope that the introduction of an app alongside the web platform will assist with this - particularly in driving ticket sales. Who Are the Users As an athlete I need to use the website and app to access the Event Management System (external platform) where I can register my participation, see images and videos of me competing and share these with my friends. As a parent or local resident I need to use the website and app to buy tickets, track results, find out about additional opportunities, and to watch the event. As a National Governing Body (NGB) I need to use the website and app to represent my sport, post squad listings, and promote activity around the event. Work Already Done We have worked with our partners to detail a more extensive brief for this piece of work. This is available upon request by contacting Glen Harrington - glen.harrington@youthsporttrust.org. Glen will act as your primary contact throughout the tender process. Existing Team The supplier will be working primarily with the Youth Sport Trust who are responsible for delivering the event. However, it is possible that they will need to work with additional suppliers, including our School Games team and their partners as well as an external communications agency who will develop some of the website content. There will also be some crossover with the agency who lead on the Your School Games platform. Current Phase Not started Skills & Experience • Have experiencing in developing a platform for an event • Be able to offer a suitable technical solution • Have strong experience and a proven track record of success • Be able to meet our required start date and project cost • Be flexible on requirements and particular website elements • Be comfortable with creating both web and mobile/app platforms Nice to Haves • Have experience in developing a platform for a sporting event • Have requested a copy of our full requirements brief and begun developing a response to this Work Location The work can be done remotely but you may occasionally be required to attend meetings at our office in Loughborough. The event itself will take place at Loughborough University. In 2018 this will take place between Thursday 30 August - Sunday 02 September. Working Arrangments The working arrangements will be at the discretion of the winning supplier. Any expenses incurred must be included within the overall sum for undertaking the work and cannot be charged as an additional fee. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Technical solution • Approach and methodology • How the approach or solution meets user needs • Estimated timeframes for the work • How they’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them • Team structure • Value for money Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation • Work with wider partners connected with our organisation • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Take responsibility for their work • Can work with clients with low technical expertise Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 15% Price 25% Questions from Suppliers 1. Is their an incumbent supplier in place currently? If so, will they also be applying for this project? There was a supplier who built the existing platform but they are not currently under contract. I would envisage them applying for this project but the desire from our side is to create a new platform regardless of the outcome of the tender process. 2. Will the website require ongoing hosting and maintenance? If so, is that included as part of this procurement exercise (and the £40k budget). The budget will need to cover one full year of hosting plus general upkeep / maintenance up until the end of September 2018. However, in an ideal scenario, the amount of maintenance required will be minimal during the initial contract thanks to a successful build. We envisage the budget will be spent in two phases - the initial build and the event - and any work in the interim period should be minimal. 3. Does the bid require development both a website (possibly mobile-responsive), and a separate native mobile app? Are you expecting separate iOS and Android applications available via the App Stores well as a website, or simply a mobile-aware website? We would love to be able to offer an an app which is available for download as we think we'll be able to drive a lot of great coverage through this. However, the website will need to come first, and it will be for our supplier to advise us on what is and isn't possible within budget. 4. You note Wordpress has been "both buggy and restrictive in terms of allowing us to move elements of the website around freely." Can you give some examples of things you cannot do in your current CMS that you want to be able to do? Perhaps it is simply the system which we have but we find that even simple tasks are difficult to complete - updating pages, previewing content, managing document / image libraries, adding images to news stories etc. There is nothing which I would consider complex that we are trying to accomplish but for one reason or another we have encountered a number of problems when using Wordpress over the last two years. 5. You note the development of a mobile app alongside a website. Can you confirm if the mobile app is a firm requirement within the £40K total project budget? No, it is not a requirement, just something which we think would be beneficial to the success of our event. 6. You state that you are “keen on introducing a greater connectivity between this website and www.yourschoolgames.com” does this mean background processes and integration for the sharing of data and single sign-on type features or a more cohesive user experiences where the sites feel more integrated? The latter. The sites would have little in the way of background connectivity as they exist as separate entities and serve very different purposes. What we struggle with are things like analytics, people going to the wrong site, making the correct site stand out over the other at the right times of year etc. We are very aware that if we find this confusing and awkward then potential users are likely to be at a much greater disadvantage. 7. The current site only shows results for the last 6 years but the games have been running since 2006. Do you require all results from 2006 to be searchable on the new site? If so, is the data available in a structured electronic format that can be imported? I believe it would just be the last six years as per the current site. 8. Have you completed any early research in to the desired structure of the pages? No. Although I think we're agreed that we don't particularly like what we have at the moment. The elements we need to include will be very much the same so hopefully we would be able to work alongside a design team to come up with something more attractive and user-friendly. 9. Will you provide the branding guidelines for the site, so that the role of the supplier is to concentrate on the design of the user experience and not the branding? Yes we have a set of brand guidelines in place. There will be some design work in how to interpret this and fit it around the different areas of the site but I imagine that the functionality would be the larger chunk of work. 10. Will it be the same team that manages both sites? If so, do you see a benefit in using the same CMS? With the exception of myself they will be different teams managing each website. For me there would be some benefits in using the same CMS but for the wider team it's fairly inconsequential and we would be happy either way provided the product worked as expected. 11. In terms of your CMS requirement, we were wondering if you would consider a licenced product? Of course. We would consider any solution our suppliers recommended and will choose the one we feel best meets our needs. 12. In terms of the actual build, have you a preference of PHP or .net I'm afraid we don't have the sort of technical expertise in house to know either way. It would be the responsibility of the supplier during the next stage of the application process to demonstrate why their solution best suits us. 13. Have requested a copy of our full requirements brief and begun developing a response to this? Could you please confirm that the full requirement brief is the 'School Games National Finals Website: Digital Marketplace Requirements' document that was sent to us by Glen Harrington on the 15th of November. Also, could you please elaborate as to the nature of the question and therein the response required? Yes this is correct. The response will be the next stage of the application - the written application - a template for which will be sent to you once the initial expressions of interest have been completed. We included this as we felt that during the last tender we run that a number of suppliers were under-prepared and had not read the full brief - instead they sent us basic information about themselves and what they could do rather than specific information relevant for us. This is the sort of response we will be looking for. 14. Hi, Will you consider an application from supplier that have not develop website for event but have expertises and technical team to deliver? As per the skills and experience section on the Digital Marketplace we will only consider those applicants with some form of event experience. This can be any kind of event. We would consider it beneficial if there was experience of a sporting event.