WORK PRODUCT GENERATION TOOL

Trade Agreement: CETA/WTO-AGP/CPTPP/CFTA/FTAs with Peru/Colombia/Panama/Korea/UK
Tendering Procedures: Generally only one firm has been invited to bid
Non-Competitive Procurement Strategy: Exclusive Rights
Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement: No
Vendor Name and Address: 
OPENTEXT CORPORATION
130 ALBERT STREET
SUITE 1600
OTTAWA Ontario
Canada
K1P5C4
Nature of Requirements: 

U8210-222147/A
Conn-Harbinson, Margo
Telephone No. - (613) 858-8108 (    )


WORK PRODUCT GENERATION TOOL IN SUPPORT OF CIPO IT MODERNIZATION

An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier.


DEFINITION OF REQUIREMENT - FOR THE CANADIAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICE

As the pandemic is driving digital operational investments and adoption, CIPO is now very well into the build phase of its major IT Modernization effort that has begun several years ago.

The current state of CIPO's IT systems impacts the organization's ability to fulfill its vision and mandate in an effective manner.  Outdated IT systems also constrain CIPO from operating efficiently, and are affecting its capacity to meet modern-day demands and business needs of its customers.  Furthermore, the cost of maintaining multiple systems that cannot be integrated poses a financial and operational risk for the organization.

The CIPO IT Modernization (ITM) initiative was established to replace outdated, aging, costly and inflexible legacy IT systems with modern, industry proven, component-based, agile technologies - while concurrently, aligning to and leveraging Government of Canada enterprise standards and solutions.

CIPO IT Modernization is concerned with providing the organization with efficient and responsive information technology systems that support CIPO's ability to encourage innovation and respond to the Intellectual Property Community's business needs, while also helping maintain a dynamic regulatory framework to respond to business Intellectual Property needs.

As such the two areas of focus for CIPO IT Modernization are:

a) improving the online customer experience; and
b) transitioning the organization to a modernized set of industry proven technologies.


CRITERIA FOR ASSESSMENT OF THE STATEMENT OF CAPABILITIES

Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a statement of capabilities that their product and services meet the following requirements:


REQUIREMENTS:

Canadian Intellectual Property Office has a requirement for the supply of a solution that allows the automated and adhoc generation of a variety of document work products. Work products can be auto generated, or custom built by combining a variety of input source data formats. Work Products can also be created using standard text templates that merge data from a file of interest. Work products combine custom, standard text with images and xml as required. Key to improving ITM efficiency is the guided work product generation that can pull custom data from a variety of defined sources. The CIPO business needs to be able to partially edit documents before finalizing the work product and system initiated / automated bulk document generation is also required to process IP more efficiently.


MANDATORY REQUIREMENTS:

M1. General 

1. The solution must have an ability to host 1,200+ users and be available for CIPO's back-end Intellectual Property (IP) experts to examine IP Rights. It must be scalable to CIPOs data volumes. Typical transaction volumes are listed below:
a. 563,000 Annually 
b. Average of 1,155  Daily
c. 24,500 Daily Peak

2.  The solution must be a commercially available tool 

M2. Architecture

3. The solution must have an ability to integrate with the ISED Enterprise API platform without customization. The ISED Enterprise API platform is built using RedHat OpenShift and 3Scale Gateway for integration.

4. The solution must be able to be deployed to the ISED AWS cloud Protected B OpenShift environment (Platform as a Service).

5. The solution must be  interoperable & maintainable in a REST API microservices environment. The vendor must have easily accessible and relevant technical documentation.

6. The solution must be  quickly(e.g. 2 days)  adapted or enable functional changes within appropriate SDLC, change control, and testing practices

7. The solution must align with Government of Canada standards below:
a. WCAG 2.0
b. Browser support (i.e. Chrome, Firefox, Edge), 
c. Ability to address accessibility standard 
d. Official languages
e. Special characters

8. The solution must be aligned to the Government of Canada EA Standard #4: GC Technology Architecture standard: https://wiki.gccollab.ca/GC_Enterprise_Architecture/Standards

9. The solution must not have a dependency to another system/application

10. The solution must allow for reusability of the of components for other lines of business within CIPO 

11. The solution must provide the ability to perform Cloud Integration with other platforms

M3. Security 

12. The solution must have an ability to provide trusted privacy with the highest levels of performance, reliability and security.  

13. The solution must be able to generate documents and correspondence by authorized users. 

14. The solution  must provide the ability for authorized users to create and update selected templates.

15. The solution must  provide the ability for an authorized user to edit a work product before sending

16. The solution must provide ability for users to use the solution through the various Government of Canada supported remote access network channels (i.e. Government of Canada Secure Remote Access - GCSRA) 

17. The vendor must be able to provide documentation on any security certification achieved and any process / support GoC security controls applicable to their product components.

18. The solution must be able to integrate with the ISED Enterprise standard - Azure Active Directory for user authentication.

19. The solution must provide the ability when sharing work products and templates among team members to set rules around who and what can be changed within the work product templates; as well as who will have permissions to make changes.

M4. Support & Maintenance

20. Must have availability of highly skilled resource for training  and support of the in the marketplace.

21. The solution upgrades and new features must be available in real time and on a regular basis with the ability to install with almost no downtime. 

22. The solution must have an ability to monitor itself proactively, predict and prevent issues (e.g. Early warning of critical issues, solution performance degradation).

23. The solution must  allow to minimize custom development, adding functionality must be done via configuration vs customization.

24. The vendor must be in a position to provide access to technical support Monday to Friday  via help-desk support, on-line web support.

M5. Functional & Technical Specifications

25. Work Product Inputs: Work Products must be created by using standard text or templates that merge data from files and multiple related information from the following input formats:
a. Word doc
b. Excel
c. Text
d. JPG
e. PNG
f. TIFF
g. GIF
h. SVG

26. Must allow for the ability for a user to cut and paste both text and images and create a work product;

27. Must allow for the ability for a user to refresh data while document still in draft;

28. Guided work product Generation: There must be a guided work product generation functionality or selection hierarchy to assist in the creation of user generated custom correspondence. For example, presentation of user choices to include/exclude content based on configurable rules. 

29. Work Product Outputs: The solution must provide the ability to generate work products in output formats including: 
a. PDF
b. TIFF
c. JPEG
d. PNG
e. GIF
f. XML (including World Intellectual Property Office standard ST.96)
g. Text; 

30. The solution must provide the ability to convert input documents to PDF; 

31. The solution must provide the ability to publish in English, French or Bilingual outputs;

32. The solution must be capable of generating outputs that contain metadata;

33. The solution must provide the ability to sort/manage the output so that the receiver of the correspondence receives all their correspondence at one time; 

34. The solution must provide the ability to insert identifiers for the printers to know how many pages the document is; 

35. The solution must provide the ability to insert identifiers for the printers to know which page is on what type of paper (letterhead vs white, this will change within a single document or the letterhead is printed as well, this is PBs current solution);

36. The solution must provide the ability to specify output delivery types (paper, email, epost);

37. Template editor: The solution must provide the ability to create Work Products using a Template Editor Document Generation. Template authoring must be accessible using a standard browser and/or desktop client;

38. The solution must provide the ability to auto adjust templates to incorporate varying amounts of inserted data or images;

39. The solution must provide the ability to auto adjust templates for plural and gender (French). 

40. Version Control: The solution must provide the ability to track versions of authored templates

41. Partially edit before sending: The solution has to provide the ability to Spell check (French & English); 

42. The solution must provide standard word processing functionality such as different fonts, bold, underline, etc. ;

43. The solution must provide the ability to use tables (that may contain text or images);

44. The solution must provide the ability to auto adjust to incorporate varying amounts of inserted data or images; 

45. eSignature: The solution must provide the ability to integrate e-Signature into generated work products.

46. System-bulk generation: The Work product solution must generate documents and correspondence automatically by the system for single and batch work product generation. 


JUSTIFICATION FOR THE PRE-IDENTIFIED SUPPLIER

OpenText is recognized as a leader in the Customer Communications Management (CCM) domain. Their solutions are embedded within the Canadian Federal Government operations at all levels and continue to support critical business processes within Government Enterprise. OpenText is familiar with Government of Canada Security and accessibility requirements with a successful implementation track record.

Designed specifically for customer communications management, OpenText Exstream combines the latest cloud technologies that delivers on the core functionality that CIPO needs to generate complex work products more efficiently. OpenText Exstream is a solution that will allow CIPO to fulfill its technical requirements of generating a variety of outputs, including the XML format required for World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) standards from a specific set of input data types. It allows for maximum flexibility in Guided work product and template generation, data portability and assembly of work products combining a wide range of data sources. 

OpenText Exstream also provides CIPO the ability to partially edit documents before sending which will address current pain points. This solution provides an additional number of functionalities including system/bulk generation, Version control and eSignature which collectively address the necessary requirements to CIPO. Moreover the OpenText Exstream product meet and exceeds defined technical requirements specific to ISED Enterprise platform standards, REST APIs, technical documentation and local/global support.


GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS REGULATIONS EXCEPTION(S)

Section 6 of the Government Contract Regulations is being invoked in this procurement as only one person or firm is capable of performing the contract.


EXCLUSIONS AND/OR LIMITED TENDERING REASONS

Chapter 5 article 513 (b) (iii) of the CFTA is applicable on the basis of limited tendering where the goods or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no reasonable alternative or substitute goods or services exist due to an absence of competition for technical reasons.

Article 15.10 (2) (b) of the CPTPP is applicable on the basis of limited tendering under the circumstance that the good or service can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no reasonable alternative or substitute good or service exists due to the absence of competition for technical reasons.

Article XIII (b) of the WTO-AGP is applicable on the basis of limited tendering following circumstances where the goods or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no reasonable alternative or substitute goods or services exist due to an absence of competition for technical reasons.


THE PERIOD OF THE PROPOSED CONTRACT OR THE DELIVERY DATE(S)

The proposed contract is for OpenText Exstream perpetual licence for 1 million transactions/year and 1,200 users + maintenance & support for the 3 initial years + 4 additional years. 


NAME AND ADDRESS OF THE PRE-IDENTIFIED SUPPLIER:

OpenText Corporation 
275 Frank Tompa Drive 
Waterloo 
ON Canada 
N2L 0A1


SUPPLIERS’ RIGHT TO SUBMIT A STATEMENT OF CAPABILITIES

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the goods, services described in the ACAN, may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this notice on or before the closing date of this notice.


THE STATEMENT OF CAPABILITIES MUST CLEARLY DEMONSTRATE HOW THE SUPPLIER MEETS THE ADVERTISED REQUIREMENTS.

The conditions of the developer’s shrink-wrap license are not acceptable to the Crown. This software is proprietary, and the proposed Contractor must have the authority to negotiate the terms and conditions of the contract and the related software licensing terms including, but not limited to; limitation of liability, indemnification, transferability of license, termination/refund to the Crown. Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada


INQUIRIES AND SUBMISSION OF STATEMENTS OF CAPABILITIES

Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to:
Margo Conn-Harbinson 
Supply Specialist 
Public Works and Government Services Canada
Gatineau, Québec, Canada (K1A 0S5)
Margo.Conn-Harbinson@tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca
613-858-8108
Government of Canada

Delivery Date: Above-mentioned

You are hereby notified that the government intends to negotiate with one firm only as identified above. Should you have any questions concerning this requirement, contact the contracting officer identified above.

An Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) allows departments and agencies to post a notice, for no less than fifteen (15) calendar days, indicating to the supplier community that it intends to award a good, service or construction contract to a pre-identified contractor. If no other supplier submits, on or before the closing date, a Statement of Capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, the contracting authority may then proceed with the award.  However, should a Statement of Capabilities be found to meet the requirements set out in the ACAN, then the contracting authority will proceed to a full tendering process.

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services/goods described herein, may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this Notice on or before the closing date of this Notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.

The PWGSC file number, the contracting officer's name and the closing date of the ACAN must appear on the outside of the envelope in block letters or, in the case of a facsimile transmission, on the covering page.

The Crown retains the right to negotiate with suppliers on any procurement.

Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.