Acs/city Of Memphis Multiple Database Search And Analysis Solution ...
ACS/City of Memphis
Multiple Database Search and Analysis Solution Request for Proposal
Questions
1.0 Introduction
1. How many disparate databases should be integrated? The RFP quotes “eight different data
sources”, but is this eight separate databases? Yes, it is 8 separate databases as are listed in
Exhibit A.
2. What type of database technology is used for the disparate data sources? SQL Server 2000,
FoxPro and mainframe Tandem.
3. Who will be the primary audience of this system? Is the system for use by all police
department employees or certain ones? Primarily police investigators, but MPD will manage
administrative rights and determine access levels.
4. How many total users will be using this system? How many concurrent users will be in this
system? MPD does not want to limit the number of users.
2.0 Contract Scope
5. The RFP says the City “will be accountable for project oversight”. Who is responsible for the
management of the project? Who “owns” the scope of the project? City IS will assign a project
manager and MPD is responsible for project scope.
6. Who will address and resolve issues related to project scope? MPD will resolve any scope
issues.
7. What is the change control procedure for the project? Changes in scope must be requested
by MPD and approved by City IS and the selected vendor.
8. What data sources with the Shelby County jail management system will be included in this
project? Please see Exhibit A, Section 4.1.2.
9. Who is the intended audience at Shelby County? There is no audience at Shelby County.
10. What are the “other criminal justice organizations” referred to in bullet 6 of Section 2.0 on
page 5? Please see Exhibit A, Section 4.1.1 and 4.1.2.
3.0 Vendor Qualification
11. Can ACS provide a copy of their service level penalties and liquidated damages language in
order for vendor to assess if the language proposed under Penalties and Liquidated Damages is
acceptable? This language can be negotiated at time of awarded contract.
Software –
12. Will vendor be held responsible for on-going MSDN Professional license costs after the close
of the project? No.
13. Why is Visual FoxPro 9.0 required for developing the database application? Because MPD
support staff is trained in Visual FoxPro.
14. Has the front-end application already been selected (i2 Analyst’s Notebook 6)? If so, what
integration tools from i2 can be used as part of this project (like iBridge The i2 Analyst Notebook
will be secondary to the i2 VLV, (Very Lightweight Visualization), tool. The VLV tool is a Java
Applet that was developed by i2 inc. The link charts created by the VLV can be dragged and
dropped into the i2 Analyst Notebook for more detailed link analysis. This will allow
interoperability between our application, the ROCIC, RISS Network, and the Lexis/Nexis
implementations of the VLV
Service and Support –
15. What type of training will be required? Will training materials need to be created? Is a
separate training environment required to perform this training? System administration and end-
user training. MPD will require full product documentation, including training materials and help
files. MPD will provide any training facilities needed.
16. How will “additional development” be identified that is outside the scope of the project? If, at
a later date, MPD chooses to pursue additional functionality, MPD may elect to contract again
with the selected vendor.
Installation –
17. Will there need to be more than one installation of the application? Will additional instances
of the application be needed for application testing, deployment and on-going operations? No,
only one instance of the application is needed. Visual FoxPro 9 will be used in conjunction with
West Wind WebConnection,(http://www.west-wind.com), in the development of a thin client
software application. The application will be browser based
Project Scope –
18. What members of the Information Services project team will be from the MPD? From the
City of Memphis IS department? The MPD Technology Manager will be the project sponsor. The
City IS Change Management Specialist will act as liaison between IS and MPD. City IS resources
will be assigned as needed.
Technician Cost –
19. How will these Technician Costs be presented as part of the proposal? Should activities
outside of the standard working day (weeknights and weekend) be considered as part of this
Technician Costs? Technician costs should be included as part of the cost proposal should MPD
elect to use vendor services. Please include costs for standard requests as well as emergency
off-hour requests.
Service Site –
20. What will be considered a successful test? Will this be determined by the Vendor or by the
City? In conjunction with the Vendor, MPD will step through the functionality listed in Exhibit A
and confirm that all requirements have been met.
21. Will the vendor be responsible for providing preventive maintenance / disaster recovery
activities for the solution? No.
Exhibit A- Feature Overview
1. Is the Information Services department or another City group responsible for setting up
and maintaining during the project the technical platform components such as Windows
XP and MS SQL server described in 1.1.1 through 1.1.3? Yes, City of Memphis IS along
with MPD will maintain the development and testing environment.
2. Please elaborate or provide definition around ‘Standard’ and ‘Custom’. Since this
solution involves developing an application that uses specific components such as I2 and
Fox Pro, the definition of custom and standard could be misunderstood. Are standard
features those that are a current part of I2, Fox Pro, and other defined components? Is
custom defined as anything that is not native functionality is the required components
e.g? I2. Your definitions of standard and custom are accurate.
3. For 1.3.17, please provide definition around ‘similar query’. Are there certain elements
that should be used for nonfiction? Is there a quantitative measure for similar such as a
query with 80 percent like elements is considered similar? When there are common
parameters in different queries, the owners of those respective queries should be
notified. However, notification can be disabled for queries run by groups of officers
wishing that there queries not be known by other officers. For example, an organized
crime unit officer that may be undercover would not want a street officer to know that the
OCU officer is investigating the same suspect.
4. For 1.3.18, please provide definition for ‘object’. Is this a data class or category? Is this
a data element? Is this a query or view? Is it a record? We are seeking to really
understand the use of that term in this context. This refers to one of the eight data
sources listed in 4.1.
5. For 2.1.3, please elaborate for our technical purposes what is meant by co-occurrence
and associated relationship. When querying by one of the parameters in 2.1.1, the
program should return the parameter in all the databases in which it occurs. A component
of co-occurrence may be that a firearm is associated with multiple individuals showing an
associated relationship.
6. For 2.1.11, please define the Memphis Law enforcement definition of ‘direct and indirect
link’ for our technical purposes. Direct links match query parameter inputs exactly, while
indirect links may match some sub-component of the input parameter. This would be the
difference between a match and a near match.
7. For 2.10.1, this is the first use of the term data warehouse. In previous sections,
database has been used. Are these terms being used interchangeable? Is there an
expectation around using a data warehouse versus developing for example queries
based on the native data sources? Is an operational data store actually what is being
suggested? Please elaborate on the use of term data warehouse versus database
related to this requirement. This will also provide insight into other requirements in this
section that use the term data warehouse. For the purposes of this RFP, data warehouse
refers to the accumulated collection of data from all the data sources.
Miscellaneous
1. I2’s integration with ESRI’s ArcView is a very power capability that is not mentioned in your
RFP. Will there be an opportunity to develop this integrated system based on a GIS system
that would integrate both spatial and tabular data sets? If so, would ESRI products be an
acceptable format for this integration?
No ESRI interfaces are planned for this implementation.
2. Will you be using the iBase or the Data Miner products in relation to the Analyst’s Notebook
software?
iBase will be used in conjunction with the i2 VLV, ( Very Lightweight Visualization), tool.
3. Will the selected vendor be responsible for budgeting and providing the hosting platform for
this application within this scope? If this exists, broadly describe the physical architecture
upon which the proposed program will run (i.e., web content to run on dedicated web
server(s), dedicated data server, etc.).
The City of Memphis will host the web server on a Windows 2003
4. Are there any known GIS data servers that will need to be integrated? We know that City of
Memphis mapping and DPD both have existing data sets including streets, aerial photos, and
parcels that may be useful to integrate. Also, may consider the 911 GIS system integration.
No GIS is planned for integration in this implementation. Future enhancements to add GIS
integration should be planned for.
5. Should the design incorporate future enhancements that will not be developed in the initial
implementation? If so, what future enhancements do you foresee that might affect the
manner in which the current project is architected?
It is our intention to add other Agency’s data to our site through the implementation of “Web
Services” at the other Agency’s site. The “Web Services” should publish XML using the
GJXML Standards.
6. When querying data from the disparate data sources will new data sources be added over
time? If so should these new data sources be expected to be integrated without new
development?
It is our intention to use Police personnel, trained in the creation of “Web Services” to develop
and further integrate new data sources.
7. Will i2’s Analyst’s Notebook 6 be the primary tool for analyzing investigative data? That is, will
the proposed program need to mimic any functionality in Analyst’s Notebook 6? What data
back-end does Analyst’s Notebook 6 utilize? Is the back-end migration to Analyst’s Notebook
6 encompassed in this project’s scope?
No. The i2 Analyst Notebook will be secondary to the i2 VLV, (Very Lightweight Visualization),
tool. The VLV tool is a Java Applet that was developed by i2 inc. The link charts created by
the VLV can be dragged and dropped into the i2 Analyst Notebook for more detailed link
analysis. This will allow interoperability between our application, the ROCIC, RISS Network,
and the Lexis/Nexis implementations of the VLV.
8. Will data continue to exist in disparate data sources or will the current project’s scope include
(1) consolidating all disparate data sources then (2) terminating use of the disparate data
sources? Is it safe to assume that existing systems are NOT going to be replaced with a
single solution?
Data will continue to be stored in disparate data sources. We will maintain a separate offline
database for Vision RMS, (our offense report system). Large reports will be run against the
offline database.
9. Are all existing data sources and other data sources expected to be integrated in this solution
ODBC compliant? Can the proposal cost estimate assume that City of Memphis/ACS owns
or will purchase outside this scope the necessary ODBC licensing?
Yes. All Databases will be ODBC Compliant. The City of Memphis owns the licensing for the
ODBC connection.
10. Is it safe to assume that the existing data sources (Exhibit A, Number 4.1.1) will be treated as
read only? Will there be any design requirements that allow users to add, edit or delete data
from the central system?
Existing Data sources should be treated as readonly.
The registration page for access to the system should be filled out by the user. Information such
as: First name, Last name, DOB, Sex, Race, User Name, Password, Sponsoring Agency
Name, Desk Telephone, email address, should be captured when the user registers for
access. The user should be able to edit own telephone, password, and email address. When
an edit is made, automated emails should be sent to new and previous email addresses.
11. Exhibit A (Numbers 3.1.2 – 3.2.2) refers to an ‘ad hoc’ type query and reporting tool. Will
there be any predefined / fixed / scheduled reports? We did see the reference about saving
criteria as a saved query to share with other users (Numbers 1.3.17, 1.3.14). This question is
asking about time to design and pre-populate this with known standard queries.
There will be no predefined/fixed/schedule reports.
12. When integrating the existing data sources (Exhibit A, Number 4.1.1), is it expected that this
data will be copied and reorganized in a separate database resulting in better performance
and stability, or only ‘linked’ through views as to not duplicate data storage? The same
question would be applied to any resource documents (i.e. image files).
Yes, as the RFP states “the program must have the ability to import selected data into a central
data warehouse”.
13. Need clarification on the following. “…the Vendor will use Visual FoxPro 9.0 in developing
the 32-bit database application to integrate the various databases” differs from Exhibit A
(Number 1.1.3) which states “Program must employ Microsoft SQL Server 2000/2003 as the
underlying RDBMS.” Will the final proposed system operate with a FoxPro or SQL Server
back-end?
Visual FoxPro 9 will be used in conjunction with West Wind WebConnection,(http://www.west-
wind.com), in the development of a thin client software application. Visual FoxPro will be
used as middleware to connect to the disparate data sources. SQL Server2000 is the
platform that the Vision RMS is currently using. A SQL Server back-end is preferred for any
data storage.
14. Need clarification on the following. “…the Vendor will use Visual FoxPro 9.0 in developing
the 32-bit database application to integrate the various databases” also seems to differ from
Exhibit A (Number 1.1.5) which states “The program must not require software user
workstations beyond the operating system and Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5.2). Is it safe to
assume that the user interface is browser-based and not developed in Visual FoxPro 9.0
forms?
Visual FoxPro 9 will be used in conjunction with West Wind WebConnection, (http://www.west-
wind.com), in the development of a thin client software application. The application will be
browser based
