February 23, 2007

TO: All Potential Bidders

FROM: Farrell Presnell, RFP 07-10 Coordinator

Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC)

SUBJECT: Amendment No. 1 – to RFP 07110 – Answers to Bidders’ Questions Numbers 1- 110.

The following Answers to Bidders' Questions Numbers 1 through 110 are issued as Amendment No. 1 to the Request for Proposals 07-10.

Note: These Administrative Office of the Courts Answers to Bidders’ Questions may only explain or clarify some aspect that is already addressed in the RFP. But some of the answers may also supplement or change what was previously stated in the RFP, or in an appendices. Therefore it is important that bidders read all questions and answers.

1. Pg 37 states “Section 5: Appendix C (Finalists Only)”. Will finalist have an opportunity to ask questions regarding Appendix C at a time other than defined on the Procurement Schedule on Pg 30?Appendix C responses will assist in quantifying efforts related to BPE. During the POC orientation, finalists will be able to ask questions related to Appendix C.

2. Appendix J, Pricing Matrix does not differentiate whether the pricing information should be for the complete 260 court implementation or only for the initial 6 month contract period. Please clarify. Pricing should be for the initial 6 month contract. Installation services are not part of initial pricing, but vendor should identify type of resources needed and pricing for this effort.

3. On page 25, V.C.2.a.i Professional Services, the AOC states “Cost proposals must itemize the basis for pricing services. The AOC will negotiate with the successful Bidder regarding reimbursement for actual out-of-pocket travel and living expenses.” Should the vendor exclude all travel costs from their estimates? No marketing cost/ company oversight costs. Exclude all sales/marketing costs from proposal. Include travel costs associated with professional service and delivery for the initial six month period.

4. On page 24, section V.B.4.b Infrastructure, the RFP states that “the AOC has made significant investments in infrastructure over the years for hardware, software, and network to support the JIS as it operates today. Where possible, the AOC expects to reuse most of the existing environment as part of implementing a new CMS solution.” Based on this statement, should vendors exclude hardware from the costs until after the capabilities of the current environment can be evaluated? Vendor should not propose hardware costs. Vendors should provide recommended hardware configuration.

5. On page 26, section V.C.2.c Installation / Implementation Costs, the AOC indicates that the “costs must be based on the milestones or tasks accomplished as presented in the Bidder’s implementation plan”. Do the initial cost estimates need to be provided broken down by deliverables? Or, are only finalists required to submit this level of detail?Finalists will be required to submit this level of detail during the best/final offer process. Initial price proposal should include the cost by software license, and the cost by professional services category.

6. On page 27, Section V.C.4 Payment Schedule the AOC states “The payment schedule must be linked to milestone deliverables included in the proposed implementation plan.” Are only finalists required to submit this level of detail? Or, is the AOC anticipating that the initial cost proposal will contain this information? See #5. Yes, only finalists are required to submit this level of detail.

7. Does the AOC want pricing for third party hardware and/or software to be included in the pricing, including servers, operating systems, database licenses, etc.? Software, only as part of meeting core requirements. Vendor must clearly identify 3rd party software necessary to meet functional requirements.

8. In regards to the stated minimum qualifications on page 8 of the RFP, do the system implementation requirements in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th bullets refer specifically to court case management system implementations, or can the experience be obtained from any sort of system implementation meeting the stated requirements?Equivalent experience in other industries is acceptable. Vendors are encouraged to defined relevance of that experience to the requirements as outlined in this RFP.

9. Should the efforts to enhance JABS (Judicial Access Browser System), the Judicial Data Warehouse, JIS-Link, and Web Site Services be included in each vendor's cost proposal, or will these activities be performed by the AOC in conjunction with this project? Enhanced through the linking to new CMS which the integrator must provide. Some systems have JAB-like capability. Some systems have built-in capabilities.

10. Please clarify which key vendor personnel the AOC requires to be on-site, full-time during the duration of the case management system implementation project. Vendor should identify the key personnel needed to provide the services identified in the RFP. Vendors can use remote resources. Evaluators will be evaluating key resources based on previous applicable experience.

11. Instead of providing resumes for specific, named vendor staff, may vendors provide sample resumes for vendor project roles? Key personnel must be identified by name. See #10.

12. Please define the AOC's anticipated level of functional and technical staff to be applied to the case management system implementation project. In general, what level of knowledge do the anticipated staff members have of the current legacy systems?AOC staff is SME on Legacy systems.There is vast and deep knowledge of legacy systems by AOC staff.

13. Please clarify what activities the AOC anticipates occurring during the period of July - December, 2007 (Proof of Implementation)?The following professional services will occur during the period of July- December 2007:

- Project Management- Data Conversion/ Migration- Data Integration- Training/ Implementation Plan- BPE

14. Can we have a Word version of the RFP? Yes, it will be posted on the website.

15. There are a couple of mentions of "negotiating" travel costs.  Is there a possibility of doing part of the work (such as data migration) remotely? Vendor should propose their optimum solution. See Question 10.

16. RFP Page 37, Topical Heading: Format of Proposal 12-Point Minimum Font Requirement

Question: The RFP requires that font sizes be no less than 12 point. Can we recommend fonts requirements for text within tables and graphics be smaller i.e., 10-point for tables and 8-point for graphics? Yes

17. Can a vendor bid with 2 software vendors and select one later in Phase 3 of bid evaluation?Vendors may submit separate proposals for each software vendor. Each proposal must address the functionality of the software and the roles of vendor staff. The Washington Courts will select finalists.

18. Is the contract only for the period July 2007 through Dec 2007?Yes. If there is for additional work in support of implementation, the AOC and the vendor will amend the contract.

19. Will the legislative funding be possible before Dec 2007? Yes, legislative funding is biennium-based. Begins 7/1/2007

20. The schedule shows that in the period Feb - May 2008, there is a gap. What is the activity during this period?The pilot implementation begins January 2008 and will conclude May 2008.

21. Has the AOC identified or prioritized the order in which Courts should be upgraded to the new system? If so, can the AOC provide details regarding the preferred order?The order in which the Courts will be upgraded has not been prioritized. The Core Case Management Steering Committee is developing criteria for prioritizing the implementation of courts.

22. Can the AOC provide some guidance as to the preferred statewide rollout method? (e.g. geographic, court level, sequential)

See #21

23. On page 16, section V.A.5.3.a, the AOC states that the Bidder must “provide a proposed Project Plan to encompass the project planning process, expected training, business process reengineering, and deployment to individual courts. This should reflect the bidders' understanding of the work to be accomplished.” What level of detail is the AOC anticipating in the Project Plan?There should be enough detail for the vendor to demonstrate that they have had experience with projects of similar size and complexity, and that they understand how to ensure success.

24. On Page 45 Section VII. What is meant by Proof of Implementation? Are there specific milestones or deliverables requirements for this phase to be considered successful?The Proof of Implementation will occur from July-December 2007 and will result in a deployable solution. The completion of each level of professional services will be deliverable.

25. The scope of services requires developing new business processes. Is the implementation of these new business processes at 260 Courts within the SOW for this RFP?Definition of business process is at a court level so there will be 5 distinct process models.

26. AOC has requested 100% up time for the new CMS. Implementing such a solution while feasible, entails significant expense in terms of hardware, software and human resources to implement and manage. Will AOC consider slightly reduced availability time to reduce cost – considering routine maintenance and upgrades that will occur? Yes, provide cost factors for both working environments, if you so choose.

27. On page 18 of the RFP, the information be requested in questions a.i.2, a.i.3, and a.i.4 seems clear. Can the AOC provide guidance on what additional or differentiating content is desired in question b.i.2?B.i.2 is requesting the vendor to identify any and all roles within the project that they feel must be provided by AOC or Washington Court Staff.

28. Table 1 of the CMS RFP includes three applications "to be enhanced". The basic and the optional requirement appendices do not define the scope of enhancement. Does AOC consider the enhancement of these applications within the scope of work for this RFP? No

29. Since Washington has 5 levels of courts, does AOC intend to create 5 customized versions of the CMS, each targeted to meet the specific needs of a particular judicial level?AOC does not support customization of vendor’s code to produce installed variations that distinctly support the levels of courts. Such distinction must occur through the use of tables and parameters contained in the vendor’s current release.

30. In order to support these 5 levels, does AOC intend to have 5 central but separate installations of the CMS or do the installations of the CMS have to be local to each of the 260 courts?Vendors must propose an optimal model.

31. Does the AOC anticipate that interviews or workshops conducted by business process resources during the project will be conducted at a central location or at each court site? Some of the work will be done at a central location, but a significant percentage will also take place at REPRESENTATIVE court sites throughout the state.

32. How many subject matter experts do you anticipate will participate in the business process engineering effort from each level of Court? Approximately 20-30 subject matter experts.

33. In Appendix J, can you please differentiate between what is desired for line 12, Integration Services and line 17, Integration.Line 17, Integration is repetitive and will be deleted from table.

34. (SUP) Supported as delivered “out of the box.” Provide screen examples, list of steps, or customer documentation. Indicate if a separate module.

a. Screen prints of all supported functionality could result in submitting nearly 200 screens. Is this the desire of the AOC?No. Submit screen prints to reflect the ability to support functionality ONLY for stated requirements. We recommend that vendor include an appendix of screen shots and reference that appendix in textual answers.

b. If so, do you anticipate the screen prints to be inserted into the Excel spreadsheet or as a supplemental document? Use supplemental documents.

35. In Appendix D, the AOC provides the following possible options for classifying the functionality provided by the proposed CMS:

Supported (SUP) Supported as delivered “out of the box.” Provide screen examples, list of steps, or customer documentation. Indicate if a separate module.

Configurable

(CFG) Supported via customer controlled configuration files or configuration functions provided with the base application. Provide screen examples, list of steps, or customer documentation.

3rd Party (3rd) Supported via a third party solution. If supported by a third party, describe how and by whom.

Custom (CST) Supported via customization (a vendor change to the basic application which will be supported in future releases). Provide an estimate of the complexity of the change (major, medium, minor).

Future (FUT) Will be supported in a future release. If supported in a future release, describe when.

Not Supported

(NS) Not supported.

a. Some of the requirements are compound statements that could require more than one (1) response. For example, the CMS could do this part, but the second part is either a CST or NS. Is there a response for ‘Partial’? No

b. If not, how should these requirements be answered? Respond as necessary to provide a comprehensive, clear answer to satisfy a given requirement, then state what you can do, and what you cannot do.

c. Some of the requirements (i.e., system requirements, non-functional, etc) begin with ‘How’ or ‘Describe’. Is a Response Code required for these requirements? Everything requires a response code. Explanations are to be included where necessary to clarify response.

36. What is the number of people in the AOC's Customer Service group?To be defined for future support requirements.

37. What are the areas of responsibility for the Customer Service group?  What other applications or systems will they be supporting in addition to the CMS? All current

38. Some of the required features (e.g. batch jobs and user security settings) by their very nature require configuration.  Should these features be listed as SUP or CFG?See #35

39. What is the AOC's expected degree of involvement in this project from the AOC's IT staff (number of people, % allocated, areas of expertise, etc)? Staff depends on vendor response – AOC is the subject matter expert.

40. Although there are similarities in various courts, case management systems tend to be customized to each specific court system.  The RFP mentions looking for an “existing case management software solution”; to clarify, is the AOC looking for software that will be specifically custom configured for the State of WA Courts? Configured for each court level. See # 29

41. RFP Page 15, states: “The AOC is encouraging integration service providers to partner with software providers to offer solutions that address key questions and requirements as outlined in this RFP. Bidders may also submit an individual proposal to provide both integration and software solutions.”

Question: This appears to state that the two components of the RFP are severable and therefore a bidder does not have to bid both components of the RFP – Professional Services and Software Solutions. By implication this would mean that a bidder who responds to only one of the components will be evaluated solely on that component.No, bids that do not address both software functionality requirements and requested professional services will not be evaluated.

42. Is it considered acceptable and responsive for a bidder to respond to only one of the two components: professional services or software solution? No, see # 41

43. If yes, how would that bidder be evaluated? And how would that bid be compared to other bids that included both Professional Services and software solutions components? See scoring and # 41

44. Does AOC have a phase-wise deployment plan for the Counties? No

45. Do the Vendor's trainers have to travel to County courts for training or will it be centralized? To be determined

46. If there is customization required, can it be done on AOC premises? Will AOC provide the software and hardware resources for the same? No customization allowed

47. How many business processes are defined? None

48. How many business processes need to be implemented? 5 court levels

49. At how many different physical locations are the 260 Washington State Courts located? There are 242 physical locations.  Note that other than the Supreme and the three Appellate Courts, local Courts facilities are not part of the AOC organization.  They reside in Local County and Municipal governments and all facilities are managed locally.  Some Courts share buildings and service with other Courts – for example, in some Counties the Superior and District Court is part of a larger local government complex and may be on the same floor.

50. Can the AOC provide information regarding the level of technical expertise of the court staff at each location? There generally is a correlation between size of the County and technical expertise, but local Courts depend upon local IT support from local or county governments and not AOC.  Some of the smaller Courts do not have an IT department.  However, Court staffs have been competently using desktop applications for years and can be considered power users.

51. On page 11, section 3.C.3, the AOC indicates that the current model is a “distributed environment”. Does the AOC wish to continue this distributed model? Would the AOC consider or prefer a centralized approach? None of our applications are distributed. All are centrally located at AOC. 

52. In the current distributed model, does each Court location have physical hardware running the CMS applications? If not, can the AOC identify which court locations currently have server hardware installed? No – all hardware is at the AOC and only desktop hardware is located in the courts.

53. How does the AOC currently maintain the current installed software/hardware? Does each court have local personnel assigned to maintain the system? Or is there one group assigned to manage the entire distributed system? Server based hardware is supported and managed centrally at AOC. Desktop computers are supported locally.

54. Is data transferred between individual Court locations? Or, is the data transferred only between a court location and the AOC central facilities? There are no Court to Court types of transfers that AOC supports. There are a number of data exchanges and transformations between local Courts and the AOC. AOC will be required to continue this type of exchange support in the new CMS.

55. Are the current CMS systems integrated with other Court applications at each location (other than those listed in Table 1)? If so, has the AOC identified how upgrading the CMS at each location will affect the other applications at the locations? Yes.  By integration, a small number of Courts with their own CMS send AOC data dumps which contain minimal Meta data to satisfy State Law and Court rules. AOC must replicate all integration/exchanges with the new CMS. In the new CMS, this type of integration should be done via standard API which is the integrators responsibility.

56. Does the AOC currently use standard development methodology and associated tools? For example – Rational Unified Process along with Rational Suite for requirements management, use case modeling, software development lifecycle, development environment, etc? Vendors should propose their optimum environment for whatever methodology and framework works best for their solution.  AOC will make the price/performance decision based on this information. Whatever AOC presently uses is irrelevant to your best practice and ideal setup.

57. Page 9 – Table 1: Will the vendor be responsible for building the necessary interfaces from the new CMS to these existing systems with the understanding that these interfaces will be temporary until all courts are ‘live’ with the new CMS? Greater weight will be given to applications that have standardized API’s and service layers, which would make this process easier and less expensive for AOC.

58. Pages 11, 12: AOC has provided high level details regarding their existing environment. To what extent is the vendor required to leverage these existing technology components while implementing the new Core Court Case Management System or interfaces between internal and external systems?There are no requirements that the vendor utilize anything AOC presently has in production.  AOC wants vendors to describe their ideal architecture using tools and environments best suited to manage their solution in an optimal way.

59. Does AOC intend to retire the existing IBM z/OS mainframe once the new CMS is placed in production satisfactorily? When and if all z/OS related applications and services are retired, it will be removed.

60. What tools does AOC currently use for testing of applications – system integration, bug tracking, functional testing, performance testing etc? Does AOC have sufficient licenses and virtual users for the vendor to test the new CMS application? The AOC has no expectation of using their current testing tools. AOC expects the vendor to describe the testing tools that would be most appropriate for use with their proposed solution.

61. Does the AOC possess end user profile information for all court users so that these can be stored in the CMS or a LDAP compliant directory to provide for authentication and role based access control? Yes, but the roles are for the legacy application model. The new CMS would define the roles differently and may or may not use the existing infrastructure.

62. How many installations of each of the systems noted in Page 9, Table 1 currently exist within the Washington courts environment? All systems are installed once at the AOC. There are no multiple production installations of the systems.

63. Page 7 of the RFP states “…for use by Washington State users (courts, law enforcement agencies, state policy makers, and the public)”

Page 11 of the RFP states “…The current JIS environment operates a mixed environment of technologies that deliver services to approximately 260 courts in 39 counties.”

Page 20 of the RFP states “…Describe your approach to end-user training at the five different court levels.”

Appendix D, Page 8 states “Capacity. The current systems support 400 users and 100+ concurrent users. The AOC envisions the system to support 15,000 users and peak load of 2400 concurrent users. The computing environment and system software platform should support the load mentioned above. How will the peak load requirement be ensured by the CMS?”

a. Please define the total number of users.b. Please provide a breakdown of users by county, court, etc.c. Please define the total number of users for end-user training.

a. There are about 15,000 users currently defined to the system with a peak of

about 2400 users accessing the system concurrently. There are about 400 database threads available for use, and about 100 concurrent threads are common.

b. There are about 5400 court users in 253 courts ranging from the largest court with 440 court users down to several courts with only 1 court user. About 9 courts have more than 100 court users, and about 38 courts have less

that 10 court users. An exact breakdown is available upon request. There are about 8800 non-court public users.

c. There are about 5400 court users in 253 courts that need to be trained.

64. Can the AOC provide details regarding the number of court resources at each of the 260 courts to be trained? See response to question 63 (parts b and c).

65. Has the AOC performed a skills set analysis of the court personnel at each location? If so, can the AOC provide details regarding the results?No such skill set analysis has been done. However Court personnel have been supporting complex applications for years and are very capabile and competent.

66. Does the AOC currently have an enterprise messaging solution or any type of integration broker architecture? If so, what technologies are currently in place for this? Can this be leveraged for the new CMS implementation? AOC has an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), Oracle SOA.  It is expected to be leveraged if possible for the new CMS implementation.

67. As an enterprise architecture standard, does the AOC leverage UNIX or Microsoft Windows as its server platform? If UNIX is preferred, please provide specifics regarding hardware and operating systems versions. AOC is open to any and all operating systems and platforms.

68. The AOC has noted that it needs to interface with other criminal justice and law enforcement organizations to share information. Can the AOC provide specific information on these systems including the type of interface necessary? AOC exchanges data with numerous Justice and Law Agency partners.  All exchanges use a standard format known as the Global Justice XML Data Model.  Information about this standard can be found at:

 http://www.it.ojp.gov/jxdm/

69. Are there any middleware technologies used to connect different systems? We have our production ESB along with other technologies. AOC expects vendors to propose whatever solution works best within their framework for middleware. AOC also has a large Websphere installed base and can use MQ.

70. Are any of the Court documents currently stored in a document management system? AOC is not asking you to provide a document imaging systems. Vendors should provide how they would provide an API to integrate to common/leaning imaging vendors. Yes, some counties have local document managements systems. The AOC does not currently provide statewide document management.

71. What other systems or applications that are not mentioned in Page 9, Table 1 currently exist that need to interface with the new Core CMS? Please provide total number and details for each including specifics on the data that needs to be integrated. There are no systems other than those listed in table 1, page 9 that are in the AOC application portfolio. The purpose of the table is to identify those systems that are being replaced by the Core CMS and is not a table of applications that need an interface with Core CMS.

72. Page 10, Table 1 – JIS Applications states Risk Assessment will have “No Change”. Will an interface be required to this application? There is no interface requirement between Risk Assessment and the Core CMS.

73. Can you tell us how many separate data stores exist for the existing systems that will be converted, type of data store, and where they are physically located? All JIS transaction data systems except JRS use a centralized DB2 database running on the Z/OS platform. The DB2 data physically resides on an IBM ‘Shark’ storage system. JRS uses Interbase by Borland to store codes tables and transactions to be uploaded to JIS.

74. Is the current data entered into systems via standard codes and/or lookup tables or is it mostly free text? In general, the JIS systems use codes and lookup tables for data entry. There are instances of textual data that is currently text and should be codified. All systems have some textual data entry and free form text such as comments and other non-validated textual content.

75. If the systems identified in Table 1 do not contain 100% of the data from the local courts, can the AOC articulate what portion of the data is centralized in the identified applications? Data for DISCIS, SCOMIS, JABS, JCS, ACORDS and CAPS use a centralized DB2 database. Integration and reuse of data ranges from extensive to very limited depending on each application. Some Courts have local case management systems and their data will need to be converted.

76. Page 6 states “The Washington Courts now use a broadly functional, but aging, judicial information system comprised of many separate applications.”

Page 20 states “Describe your approach strategy and tactics for integrating legacy data as part of implementing a new system”

a. Please define the number of data sources required for the conversion effort b. Can you supply the data file structure layouts for the data conversion?c. Can the AOC provide the number of records in those files?d. Can the AOC provide the number of cases, case types, filed for a year?e. Can the AOC provide the number of historic cases, case types that will be

required to be loaded into the new CMS?

a. The AOC DB2 database is the only data source required for conversion.

b. Yes, the data dictionary will be available to the apparently successful vendor.

c. Our production database is approximately .5 terabytes.d. Caseload statistics can be obtained from the Washington State Public

website at http://www.courts.wa.gov/caseloadse. Counts by system as of 02/20/2007. Counts by case type can be

derived by using the caseload statistics identified in item ‘c’ above.ACORDS 124,584DISCIS 5,946,504SCOMIS 9,019,622JCS 1,549,400

77. Can the AOC provide a breakdown of the current and historic cases within the case management systems at each of the 260 courts? Yes, see the Caseload Statistics at http://www.courts.wa.gov/.

78. What is the total physical size of the data housed within the case management systems at each location? In what format it is stored? If the data is stored in databases is it standardized/clean? The physical size of the centralized DB2 database is approximately 0.5 terabytes. All data is stored in DB2 version 8. The data stored in the database conforms to AOC standards that were in place at the time each system was created. Therefore, data are generally consistent within the application that uses it. There are varying degrees of defective data ranging from relationally ‘broken’ data to textual data fields that contain data other than was intended.

79. What data standardization efforts have been undertaken by Washington in preparation of this CMS migration? Are there artifacts from such as effort available to the selected vendor? Additionally, does the AOC have a requirement to be compliant with the National Information Exchange Model?There is only one physical production database which is shared by all the legacy case management applications. All schema changes are reviewed and approved before being implemented.

There is a data dictionary for the entities and data elements in the production database. All entities and data elements in the production database are represented in the data dictionary, but descriptions have not been completed for all items. This data dictionary will be available to the selected vendor.

The AOC does not have a specific requirement to be compliant with the NIEM, but we value compliance to standards (such as the GJXDM – Global Justice XML Data Model) that allow data sharing with the widest possible audience. See response to question 69.

80. Does the AOC use any data validation/standardization/ETL tools? Are such tools available to the vendor for the new CMS implementation? Also, do the individual courts have resources trained in the use of such tools? The AOC applications to be replaced by the Core CMS do not use any data validation/standardization/ETL tools. The Judicial Data Warehouse uses ‘Informatica’ for the ETL. The individual courts do not have the capability to use Informatica.

81. Recoverability. What will be the data and document backup-restoration strategy within the CMS? Will there be configurable backup/restoration facility within the CMS? If this is outside the system, highlight how the same will be addressed. Explain how the backup strategy fits into the existing Disaster Recovery model of the AOC.

a. Could you please provide the ‘existing Disaster Recovery model of the AOC’?

b. Is there any desire by the AOC for the ability to integrate custom pages within the CMS?

The “JIS Information Technology Disaster Recovery and Business Resumption Planning Policy” directs the AOC to develop, maintain, and test a Disaster Recovery Plan. The plan addresses two categories of disasters:

Localized event which could have impact on daily activities. Catastrophic situation disabling the data center.

To help offset the impact of a localized event bringing down the datacenter, we have made these recent improvements:

Failover Servers running in a cluster mode. If one server fails, the others take over.

Upgraded our Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). We now run with two UPS which are capable of providing 45 minutes of backup power.

Added Diesel Generator which will provide unlimited power to the AOC Datacenter building.

For the Catastrophic events, we have obtained a “Hot Site”. A “Hot Site” is a facility that has the necessary computing equipment and resources to recover the business functions affected by the occurrence of a disaster which has rendered the data center unavailable.

In compliance with JIS Policy, JIS systems will be available within 48 hours of declared disaster and data is no more than 24 hours old.

SunGard is the vendor which provides the JIS hot site. SunGard has facilities across the United States.

The following table illustrates our Recovery Time Objectives for the various documented Business Functions:

Business Function Impact of Loss of Service Recovery Time

Objective

JIS case management and accounting services for courts; includes production database, applications & essential systems software, and future operational data store.

Courts operate in extremely degraded mode. They have no access to up-to-date calendars to run courtrooms; cannot update accounting records and must issue manual receipts; cannot transmit funds to state and local treasurers. A data entry backlog of documents, receipts, and other entries is created and must be managed. Judges do not have criminal histories.

48 hours

JIS services for juvenile detention agencies.

Users do not have information needed to make referral decisions and cannot track juveniles’ status within detention facilities.

48 hours

Operational data store (ODS) and data warehouses.

The ODS and data warehouses are critical sources of information for the courts and in the future will be critical to the public. Loss of the ODS or a warehouse will impact users’ ability to operate.

48 hours

Information and services on The extranet is the access point for the JIS 48 hours

extranet website. services. Courts lose access to a variety of useful information and some services – most importantly bench books and other manuals they rely on to do their jobs. As the extranet becomes the access point for the JIS, they also lose access to the JIS. In the future, they will lose the ability to file problem reports.

Help desk services. Trial court, appellate court and AOC staff cannot get problems resolved.

48 hours

Archived production data. Users cannot get detailed information on old cases.

5 days

Access to JIS for criminal justice agencies.

Prosecutors and law enforcement agencies lose access and must rely on their own databases. Possible impact on public safety.

5 days

Access to JIS for other governmental units.

Governmental subscribers lose access information they need for their businesses. JIS loses revenue.

5 days

Access to JIS for the public (JIS-Link).

Public access subscribers lose access information they need for their businesses. JIS loses revenue.

5 days

File servers for AOC and appellate courts. (H & N drives plus Office software)

AOC and appellate court staff cannot perform their jobs; projects lag.

5 days

Email and other group services for AOC and appellate courts.

AOC and appellate court staff must rely on other avenues of communication.

5 days

Internet access for AOC and appellate courts.

AOC and appellate court staff must rely on other avenues of communication and information.

5 days

Public indexes and agency data dumps.

JIS information provided in bulk is uses for analytical purposes and by data resellers. Given the quarterly cycle for these products, the effects of an outage are mitigated.

2 weeks

Information and services on public website.

Public loses access to a variety of information and services, but can access key services – e.g., forms and opinions – elsewhere on-line.

2 weeks

Information and services on intranet website.

AOC staff who depends on intranet resources (e.g., developers who need JIS documentation and other materials) cannot do their jobs. Projects lag.

2 weeks

Network for JIS-Link “3rd These users must use the Internet for access until Depends

party subscribers” (Lexis-Nexis CourtLink and OpenOnline CIS).

their dedicated circuits can be restores. Since they screenscrape, possible significant impact.

on what they are willing to pay for.

82. The RFP indicates the desire to implement a standard CMS application across all of the courts within the State of Washington in a decentralized configuration, which implies that each court will have its own hardware and instance of the selected software application. Is this a correct understanding? No. AOC is open to whatever implementation that is the most efficient and provides the best level of support and service.

83. If the AOC is requesting a decentralized configuration where each court has its own hardware and application instance, please explain the reason for preferring a decentralized configuration over a centralized configuration and indicate if the AOC is open to a centralized configuration. See Question 82

84. Concerning the existing Data Warehouse, does the AOC anticipate redesigning the Data Warehouse in connection with this project to conform more closely to the data structure of the selected case management system application, or does the AOC anticipate creating processes/routines that will extract data from the new case management system into the existing Data Warehouse structure? AOC is implementing a Master Data Management approach to Data Warehousing; meaning our Data Warehouse will be fed directly from the new CMS system to a newly designed data model. This new model is not yet designed and will be based on national standards for defining Court Data in conjunction with whatever model the new CMS brings. The DW will therefore be redesigned.

85. If the AOC intends to retain the existing Data Warehouse as-is, running on MS SQL Server 2000, does that imply that any sort of preference will be given to case management systems running on MS SQL Server 2000? No. AOC is redesigning our entire Data Warehouse infrastructure and are issuing an RFP this spring to address the architecture and hardware. We believe the entire DW architecture is separate and irrelevant to this RFP. Whatever DW system we purchase will use standard ELT tools and will be separate from the CMS.

86. Should the efforts to enhance JABS (Judicial Access Browser System), the Judicial Data Warehouse, JIS-Link, and Web Site Services be included in each

vendor's cost proposal, or will these activities be performed by the AOC in conjunction with this project? They are considered to be separate activities and are not part of this RFP

87. Concerning the Proof-of-Concept phase, does the AOC anticipate only providing the minimum amount of hardware required to install and to test basic application functionality, or does the AOC plan to provide hardware to match each vendor's hardware recommendations in order to test scalability, availability, performance, etc.? AOC will not realistically be able to test scalability, availability or performance during the CMS. The focus will be on creating a functional baseline.

There will be a very limited loading of case and person information and any data gathered during this period are tiny in comparison to a real-world volume test.

During the POC, AOC will provide each vendor with a single application server running the OS of their choice and a single database server running the OS of their choice. These servers will be IBM blades, Dual Xeons w/8 Gigs of Ram.

88. Concerning the Proof-of-Concept phase, the RFP does not indicate whether or not the AOC will provide supporting software, such as the database management system and application server, outside of the vendor's application. Does the AOC anticipate providing such required supporting software, or is each vendor expected to provide required supporting software for the duration of the Proof-of-Concept? See above for the hardware providers. Vendors will be expected to bring all supporting software (other than the OS) to the POC.

89. Concerning the Proof-of-Concept phase, what process will be followed to ensure that all vendors providing software, including supporting software if applicable, is removed from AOC's equipment upon completion of the Proof-of-Concept phase? Vendors will be required to unload all software they do not wish to leave behind and ample time will be provided.

90. Concerning the Proof-of-Concept phase, please describe how many individuals will be involved from the AOC, including a description of their background and experience? Each finalist will be assigned a minimum of a dedicated technical support staff (an infrastructure/networking person) to assist with installations, configurations, firewall and networking issues. In addition, AOC will provide finalists with additional support if an issue arises that needs technical subject matter expertise.

Each finalist must have a senior project manager on hand to act as the lead contact and funnel for all questions. During the technical part of the POC, this

person will be technical project manager, during the business part of the POC, this person will be a senior business analyst.

91. Concerning the Proof-of-Concept phase, may vendors include the cost of the Proof-of-Concept in the overall proposed cost? Vendors will incur all POC costs and you can decide how to format your bid accordingly.

92. In Appendix I, does each "Print Menu Transfer" provide data in the same format?  Or does that option perform different functionality depending on the location of the user? Yes, all data is in the same format.

93. Will the focus of the three week POC be only on the functional aspects of the baseline system, or will there be requirements that highlight the integration capabilities of the baseline system, as well?  Will some of the use cases, for example, involve connecting to actual AOC test systems?  Most of the POC will focus on the functional aspects of the baseline system. There will be several short exercises to allow you to show us how you talk to external systems; both AOC and other external systems. Vendors should identify any API’s or published exchange frameworks within their product.

94. Will existing SQL Server still be used for Data WareHouse? See 84

95. Will existing Informitica still be used for data transfer in new system? See 84. As part of our movement to a Master Data Management model, we are looking at an entire DW solution- from storage to application servers to ELT and extraction tools.

96. Does AOC want hardware sizing to be done by the Vendor? Yes. Vendors should explain exactly how their system will run and perform and give AOC a recommended architecture.

97. Does AOC want performance testing to be done during POC? Yes. AOC understands with limited data there may not be comprehensive testing.

98. If there are network bottlenecks, will AOC resolve the same? Yes. AOC is responsible for providing a robust architecture that the vendor’s solution will perform in.

99. The Procurement website provides Appendix K – Warrant – Defendant – Case. There is no reference to Appendix K in the RFP. What is the purpose of this Appendix? The purpose of Appendix K is to illustrate a sampling of requirements from a 3rd party stand alone system as defined in III.C.6.

100. Case Flags or Alerts. Is a facility provided to display case alerts (e.g., outstanding warrant, failure to appear, domestic violence alerts, accelerated or sealed cases) prominently and prevent conflicting action based on rules?

a. Please define ‘prevent conflicting action based on rules” in more detail and provide an example.

The rule states “one warrant per person at a time in an issued status”.

Warrant is issued one day

It is cancelled the following day when the person appeared and scheduled a hearing (process is to cancel when defendant appears and schedules a hearing).  The hearing is for later the same day.

Person failed to appear for the hearing later that day, and the judge orders a new warrant.

The system determines the first warrant is cancelled, and the second warrant is now in an issued status.  This takes place in the same business day.

101. Problem Solving Cases. Can the system assign a case to a problem solving court (specialty court, e.g., drug court, mental health court, family court, etc.) and report on problem solving court cases?

a. Please define this requirement in more detail. Simple case transfer

See # 111 and #213 the CMS Baseline Detail Requirements:

(111) Ability to group cases for adjudication, scheduling, and monitoring (e.g., Unified Family Court* cases).

For example, a court may want to group several cases together, for tracking and management, that all affect the same family. These cases may be of different types (i.e. juvenile, criminal, domestic relations)

(213) Track defendant progress, case notes, probation/parole, and treatment (“bench probation” including deferrals, drug court, family treatment court).

102. Case Records Destruction/Deletion. Is there a facility for regulating automatic destruction/deletion of electronic case data based on state rules?

a. Please provide the ‘state rules’ for this requirement. See #605 in the CMS Baseline Detail Requirements:

(605) Maintain rules by case type to allow automatic or manual destruction or deletion of a case, (e.g., a case cannot be deleted if any of the following conditions exist: judgments, filing errors, warrants or FTAs, accounting transactions, a protection type order has been recorded, or the case is on appeal).

WA State GR-15 can be found at:http://www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/?fa=court_rules.display&group=ga&set=GR&ruleid=gagr15

103. Person Types. Can the system differentiate between well-identified and non well-identified parties?

a. Please define ‘well-identified’ and ‘non well-identified’ in more detail. Well identified means the system has enough identifying information, both in the database and in incoming documents, to be able to, based on business rules, relate persons to more than one case; “non-well identified or loosely identified” is everything else. The application needs to be able to handle both well identified and loosely identified persons and relate them to cases.

104. History. Can the system maintain and display a history of all participation in a case or referral?

a. Please define this requirement in more detail. The user needs to see all parties/participants that have participated in a case and the date range of that participation. Even though a party/participant may no longer be actively involved in the case, the fact that they were a party/participant needs to be documented and displayed.

Example 1: An attorney may have represented a party at the beginning of the case but was replaced at a later date by another attorney. The system should show which party/participant the attorney represented and the date range of the representation for the withdrawing attorney. The substituted attorney should have a begin date of when his/her representation began. Both attorneys should be visible to the user when viewing the case.

Example 2: A party may be involved in a case at the beginning but is dismissed early in the case. The case is still active for other

participants. System should show the date range of the participation of the dismissed party.

105. Warrants/No Contact Orders. Does the system allow one or more No Contact Order records associated with a single court order?

a. Please define this requirement in more detail. Multiple parties The No Contact Order may possibly restrict more than one party (i.e. multiple respondents), or could be reciprocal (i.e. restricting both the petitioner and respondent).

106. Document Viewing. Can electronic documents (either documents generated by the CMS or linked to a third party system) be identified, retrieved and viewed from related records within the CMS (e.g., the docket entries)?

a. Is there a requirement to provide imaging software?There is no requirement for providing imaging software. It is a requirement of the CMS to provide an interface to existing Document Imaging Software(s)

107. Event Relationships. Can a user relate case events to each other to establish a “chain of events”?

a. Please define this requirement in more detail. In the current system, events are associated to related events in a cascading or tiered manner. The “parent” event is recorded first and “related” or “child” events are associated to its parent event.

Example: A document is due in a case and an attorney files a motion for extension of time to file the document. The motion for extension of time is “associated” to the document. When a decision is made on the motion, the decision is “associated” to the motion for extension of time. In this example, there would be three tiers or levels of events.

108. Chart of Accounts. Are functions provided to automatically update and maintain a centralized chart of accounts and map to local accounting code information?

a. Please define this requirement in more detail. Need for the standard chart of accounts bookkeeping (a general ledger with debit and credit ability).  At a statewide level be able to split the accounts into various funds and from there the option for the local courts to split the funds according to their individual account funds.  See Glossary of terms in Appendix C:  “BARS”

109. Opinion Decision. Can the system handle decisions where multiple opinions may be filed with that decision?

a. Please define this requirement in more detail.. At the Court of Appeals (COA) level, judges sit in panels of 3 to hear cases and at the Supreme Court level, justices sit in panels of 9 to hear cases.

The majority opinion at the COA level may have 1 judge concurring with the writing judge on the majority, but 1 judge may dissent from the majority opinion and write a dissenting opinion.

At the Supreme Court level, you may have the majority opinion with 4 justices that concur with that opinion, but have an opinion written that concurs with the majority opinion decision but for different reasons and those reasons are set out in a concurring opinion. You may also have a dissenting opinion that is concurred by other justices. The system needs the ability to record multiple opinions.

110. The RFP Response Sheet - Appendix C - States:  "Only the Bidders selected to participate in the Proof of Concept must complete this form."  On page 22 of the CMS - Request For Proposals document (pdf) it states that "Bidders must respond using the spreadsheets provided in Appendices C, D, and E."Only finalists invited to the Proof of Concept evaluations will complete Appendix C.