Request for Proposal - Boise State ENS s1

Questions & Answers RFP LF17-108

RFP LF17-108, Web Redesign for Boise State University Offeror Questions are due by 5:00 PM MT, per the date listed in Section 1.1 RFP Administrative Information. Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e 1 1.1 3 Are there business goals or events This is a desired timeline, not a hard deadline. There are benefits to driving the September – January coordinating web launches during breaks in the academic calendar but timeline? this is not required. 2 1.1 3 Is there an anticipated timeline for We are very motivated to evaluate and make a selection efficiently and evaluating proposals, within a reasonable timeframe. However, due to the unknown number of demonstrations, and selection? responses, we are unable to give a timeline. Please refer to the RFP for the project timeline as well as other dates and deadlines. 3 1.6 5 Can you provide a general sense of The primary contact is the Director of Web Strategy with the University the makeup of the project team on Web Analyst serving as backup. Stakeholder management and the University side? Is there a communication will be handled on the Boise State side with an effort to primary point of contact? Should manage expectations and keep stakeholder groups small and focused. vendors anticipate a large group of stakeholders who need to approve project elements or a smaller set of key decision makers? 4 1.6 5 Where have previous web partners We feel that discussion about previous vendor relationships is not stubbed their toes in the past? appropriate at this time. Please carefully review our scope of work to What didn’t work? What was great? gain insights about our current needs and specifications. 5 1.6 5 Can you share any insights into Our current web presence combined with our institutional branding what’s working in today’s site(s) efforts have contributed to overall improvements in recognition and that helps you reach your business reputation. It is very important that we continue our forward momentum goals? (i.e. reputation, recognition, these areas. Our greatest opportunities now lie in prospective student engagement, admissions, admissions and alumni engagement. If forced to select one I would give retention, etc?) the edge to admissions. Follow up: Which of the goals listed would you consider the highest priority?

LF17-108 Page 1 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e 6 1.7 5 Technical goals here mention, “… California State University Long Beach http://www.csulb.edu/ has a very Modern World-Class Design.” Are beautiful design and they have effectively used their homepage to speak there other websites you can to the prospective student audience. Their use of multimedia and reference that you think represent simplicity of design is very attractive. these attributes well? Rhode Island School of Design http://www.risd.edu/ has a clean and modern look and their mobile menu has a nice UX as you navigate down into the site providing a usable local /on page navigation.

Washington State University https://wsu.edu/ Has a pretty clean design that balances University concerns and prospective students well. Global navigation design is good but somewhat overwhelming due to the number of links. 7 1.7 5 Are there specific deliverables In Attachment 8 please include deliverables you will provide for each required for the discovery phase based on best practice and your recommendation for this project. (planning) and design phases of the project? Examples might include wireframes (perhaps in a specified format), user flows/scenarios, a specific number of design concepts, etc? 8 6.1 22 Will Boise State be taking Boise State accepts the responsibility for remediating non-theme ownership of the content side related, content-based accessibility errors. We currently have staff, (client-generated content) of systems, training, documentation, and processes in place to address accessibility requirements or this. should the vendor anticipate remediations? 9 6.1.18 22 Will the selected vendor be granted Vendor will be granted access to the Siteimprove API and dashboard for license/access via the University, work related to Boise State. Vendor will not be required to secure their or will they be required to get their own license for this purpose. own license for the required Siteimprove Website Governance Software? 10 6.7.1 22 Could you elaborate on why Google Site Search is our current search solution but we are planning

LF17-108 Page 2 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e Google Site Search is the preferred on replacing it early Q118. We are considering AWS Site Search - search solution? Is Boise State Cloudsearch and others, but a decision has not been made at this time. open to alternatives? If you have other suggestions you may include them in Appendix A Section 6.14.5 11 6.17 24 Is it safe to assume any site Any sites outside of the boisestate.edu domain are out of scope. This outside of the boisestate.edu includes (but not limited to) http://www.broncosports.com/ and domain is out of scope (i.e. Sports, http://www.boisestatebooks.com/ community, shop, etc)? 12 6.17 24 What is the timeline for completion Targeted completion for the site migration to AWS is November 2017 of the site migration? 13 6.17 24 Should the vendor assume that Redirects, URL updates, and broken link remediation will be handled by related tasks such as any URL Boise State. redirects made necessary by content migration are also out of scope? 14 8 28 Should the vendor assume that All Mandatory (M) specifications should be treated as priority every listed item is a priority specifications and budgeted appropriately. Mandatory Evaluated (ME) requirement and craft a budget that allow for a written response demonstrating understanding and approach covers each or should the vendor to a specific specification and can be budgeted per the response. make strategic recommendations that helps Boise State prioritize requirements to help meet a target budget? (i.e. Web-based, recorded training sessions are effective and much less costly than a 2 day in- person session as outlined) Can you share this target? 15 6.17 24 RE: "Pre-production and production Yes the vendor will be granted access to the AWS pre-production web environment and infrastructure environment. Our expectation would be that the vendor would be using Amazon Web Services responsible for installing, testing, troubleshooting and updating the (AWS) will be provided and theme within Boise State’s supported, pre-production environment. managed by the Boise State Vendor can expect support from Boise State Office of Information University Office of Information Technology (OIT) for any hosting/infrastructure issues that may arise. Technology (OIT)"

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Question: will the vendor be given access to install the new multisite website, or providing the theme for Boise State to install? If the latter, what kind of support is expected for the installation process? 16 6.6.2 40 Given the hosting is considered Hosting issues are the responsibility of Boise State and Theme issues outside of scope, how will the are the responsibility of the vendor. When the origin of the issue is clear University delineate between then it will be referred directly to the appropriate support team. Every systems related issues and theme effort will be made to prevent hosting issues from being escalated to the issues? How might this be vendor. From time to time the origin of the issue will be unclear and then accounted for in the SLA and it is expected that the vendor and Boise State will collaborate on a warranty? solution. 17 n/a n/a The RFP references 160+ sites We are not requiring a content audit from the vendor. Site audit and that it wishes to migrate onto the plugin audit has been completed. Theme and plugin functionality has new site and theme. If the new site been documented. Upon request will share this information with the is to accommodate all of these apparent winning offeror during the pre-contract period. sites, then a thorough content audit is required to ensure all formats and functionality are accounted for. Does the university require the agency to conduct this content audit for all the sites or has this been completed? 18 6.14.3 23 Does the University prefer a WooCommerce could either be a separate theme or integrated into the separate theme for master theme. Since this is a Value Add, Evaluated (E) specification WooCommerce, or would it like please provide your solution and recommendation in the written WooCommerce pages within the response. new Multisite master theme? 19 6.3.3 36 Several of our client references References will only be accepted in accordance with the instructions and have policies preventing them from format outlined in Attachment 5. providing written endorsements of any vendor partners. Such is the

LF17-108 Page 4 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e case when we submitted your RFP mandated forms for a reference request. Our client (for a highly relevant project) has offered a phone call with Boise State where you’re welcome to ask all the same questions, however, they are not permitted to complete the form as per University policy. Can this be accommodated? 20 1.7 5 The RFP links to a navigation The navigation document can serve as a guideline or starting point. We document. Is this the defined highly value the expertise of our web agency and wish to collaborate on structure that should dictate the the best solution. experience or should the vendor plan to provide user experience expertise to determine the best approach using this as a guideline? 21 6.17 24 Assuming a new navigation will be Boise State will collaborate with the vendor on a new navigation / IA executed, how does this align with plan. Vendor will provide final IA plan documentation and content migration? Will the recommendations. Boise State OIT and Communications and Marketing University collaborate with the will carry out the plan with the highest priority on global navigation and vendor to remap content into the key departments such as Alumni, Admissions, OIT and Communications new architecture or will this all be and Marketing. Other departments will update their local navigation handled in house once the following new recommendations and training with support from the architecture is defined? established Boise State WordPress Support Team. 22 6.6.2 40 What might the structure of the Please provide an hourly rate for time and materials. Number of monthly relationship with your selected maintenance hours is unknown, however you may include an estimate vendor look like for ongoing for monthly retainer with options for number of hours. support? Do you anticipate a monthly retainer based on a set number of hours? If so, do you have any sense of how many hours per month may be needed? 23 General Is it possible to gain access to the Access to WPadmin and code base is not feasible at this point in the

LF17-108 Page 5 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e current site(s) (WP Admin login and process. In the pre-contract period the apparent winning offeror could be code base if possible) to better provided with access upon request. inform our estimates? (Happy to sign an NDA) 24 General Is the University planning on Our expectation would be that the vendor would be responsible for implementing the theme on their installing, testing, troubleshooting and updating the theme within Boise own will the vendor be responsible State’s supported, pre-production environment. for implementation? 25 General In the conference call, it was Our current environment has 100s of plugins installed. We have had mentioned that the University numerous issues with duplicate functionality, poorly wants to rely less on plugins and supported/abandoned plugins, theme conflicts, accessibility errors, more on the theme to achieve bloat, performance/speed issues, security issues, and updated plugins functionality. Could you please breaking or introducing conflicts or bugs into our system, just to name a elaborate on the rationale behind few. For these reasons we are looking for a full-featured, supportable this approach? Have you had theme that reduces our overall dependence on third-party plugins. particularly good or bad experiences with plugins in the past? 26 6.17 23 Understanding that the actual Content migration is out of scope for this project. Planning time should content migration will not be part of not be necessary. If you recommend a limited content evaluation and this project scope, should we plan wish to include it in the bid please include recommended deliverables in to include planning time for Attachment 8. If you would like to offer additional services not requested mapping out the content migration? in this RFP please use Appendix A Section 6.14.5 27 6.13 22 What are the requirements for See Appendix A Section 6.13.6. This is a Mandatory Evaluated (ME) training and documentation? Are specification. On-site training must be included. Training materials may there any expectations for on-site include online resources, style guide, video, or handouts. In your training? Are there any specific response please include the materials you would provide. resources or deliverables that you know you'll need? Who will need to Audiences to consider: site administrators (end users); content be trained? managers (could be faculty, staff); web designers, support staff on WordPress support team 28 1.5 5 What does success look like for Zero theme-related WCAG 2.0 A and AA accessibility errors as this project? Are there specific measured by Siteimprove. metrics you’ll use to measure

LF17-108 Page 6 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e success? Award-winning site design.

Meet or exceed all Performance, Quality and Validation specifications.

Increase in user satisfaction as measured by pre and post launch user satisfaction survey conducted by Boise State. 29 1.6 5 Have you conducted user research We have conducted internal research on user goals and upon request or testing to inform your stated will share this information with the apparent winning offeror during the goals or to determine user needs? pre-contract period. If you would like to offer additional services not If not, would you consider requested in this RFP please use Appendix A Section 6.14.5 incorporating research into the project? 30 2.3.3 9 This section makes reference to The University does not desire that “Brochures” be submitted with your "brochures". This is the only proposal. If submitted, brochures will not be evaluated. The wording in mention of anything other than the Section 2.3.3 would apply if the specifications of the RFP had requested cover letter, table of contents, brochures. executive summary, attachments 1- 10, and the Scope of Work Specific additional documents are allowed as part of the response in Response (Appendix A) being accordance with Section 2.3.11. allowed as part of the proposal submission. Are additional documents allowed as part of the response and if so, what types of documents are permitted? 31 3.9 15 Are you open to taking an Agile Yes, the Director of Web Strategy would serve as the Product Owner. project management approach to the project? This includes identifying one product owner at Boise State University to serve as a primary contact and decision maker for your team. 32 3.9 15 Are you open to using our Yes we are open to suggested project management software. We do suggested project management require visibility during the project, and the ability to save or export software or do you require that we project data from the system upon completion.

LF17-108 Page 7 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e use another application? 33 5.6 19 Is there an index of all Idaho An index of all Idaho Technology Authority Standards that apply to this Technology Authority Standards project does not exist. Please review the posted information at the links (https://ita.idaho.gov/resources.htm provided in the RFP. l/) that are applicable to this project? 34 5.11 19 Please clarify which sections of the Please complete the VPAT to the best of your ability. If you determine 6.1.19 VPAT are applicable (which parts that a particular section does not apply please enter N/A. must be filled out and which can be noted as N/A. Also are we You are certifying by your responses that you are capable of designing certifying with the responses that and programming a compliant site, and further that the final deliverable we are generally capable of is compliant. designing and programming a compliant web site, or that we agreeing that the as yet unbuilt deliverable will in fact be compliant when finished? 35 6.5 22 What role will your internal design We do not have an internal web design team at Boise State. The Brand team or brand committee play on Committee would have an advisory role as requested, and final approval the redesign portion of the project? on proper use of brand standards and brand assets. 36 6.5 22 What will be the approval process The Director of Web Strategy will coordinate the internal approval for designs? Who will be involved process. The process will be handled as efficiently as possible. and how many rounds of revisions will be required? In Attachment 8 Please include the number of designs and revisions that will be provided based on best practice and your recommendation for this project. 37 6.10 22 Can you provide links to examples See Revised Approved Plugins, APPENDIX B, posted at and/or use cases of how each of https://vpfa.boisestate.edu/process/review/purchasing_bidopportunities. the approved plugins are currently php used on your site? This will help us fully evaluate the scope of any alternative recommendations. 38 6.11 23 Can you confirm your choice of Server version: Apache/2.4.10 (Debian)

LF17-108 Page 8 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e web server (Apache, Nginx, etc) and respective version for the infrastructure? 39 6.11 23 Can you confirm your choice of Linux: 4.9.32-15.41.amzn1.x86_64 GNU/Linux operating system (Linux, etc) and respective version for the The Linux version is just one of the Amazon AMIs. These versions are infrastructure? not going to necessarily be static by go-live time as Amazon releases updates to the AMIs quite frequently. 40 6.17 24 If any part of our proposal is Generally we would expect to collaborate on a solution. Each issue directly impacted by an out of would need to be handled on a case by case basis. If you have specific scope element, will your team concerns please respond in Appendix A 6.16.1 Risk Mitigation. accept recommendations from us to modify any portion of their work, or are we required to accept all out of scope elements as-is? An example would be an aspect of the new WordPress theme requiring data cleanup or modification during content migration. 41 7.8 26 Will an agenda for the See Section 7.8 for information on demonstration content and process. demonstration, such as a list of questions or features to demonstrate, be distributed prior to the meeting? 42 7.10 26 What is the status of the incumbent All offerors are starting from an equal position in the evaluation process. vendor for the website relative to the other Offerors? Are all Offerors starting from equal position in the evaluation process? 43 Attachmen 43 Is there a preferred format for the The preferred contract period is September 2017-January 2018 t 8 Project Timeline or is that at our discretion? 44 Appendix 6.14. WooCommerce capabilities Please assume basic WooCommerce shopping cart functionality. We

LF17-108 Page 9 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e A 3 (6.14.3). Is BSU able to provide are simply looking for a look and feel that is branded and compliments any information up front as far as the new University theme. what you'll need this store to do? For example, are you simply looking for a good checkout process (basic WooCommerce) or would the theme need to account for more advanced WooCommerce functionality (such as would be purchased as a WooCommerce add-on)? 45 6.10 p.22 The list of modules and plugins in See Approved Plugins List, APPENDIX B – REVISED. the spreadsheet is very specific. Could you share how this list was developed? Are they all currently being used, and if so, could you please point out where and how they are utilized in the current site? 46 6.4.1 22 Section 6.4.1 in Appendix A states: From time to time site admins have entered content as a post, but “Provide a way to reassign any should have entered as a page, or vice versa. Our support team has post to a new post type. Page to used the plugin Post Type Switcher https://wordpress.org/plugins/post- type-switcher/ to accomplish this. In the spirit of reducing plugins this post, post to page.” Can you was included in the theme specification. provide an example of how you hope to use this feature? 47 6.9.5 22 Section 6.9.5 in Appendix A states: Our goal is to be proactive in identifying and correcting theme and plugin “Unit Testing: Develop an issues in the pre-production environment resulting in a more robust and automated, comprehensive theme stable production environment. testing suite to be used in Boise 6.9.5 is a Mandatory Evaluated (ME) specification. Please provide a State’s pre-production written response addressing your understanding, experience and environment to ensure that best capabilities in providing this service. Your response as well as other

LF17-108 Page 10 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e practice standards are met and offerors responses will be scored accordingly. that theme is compatible with WordPress Core and supported plugins. All approved plugins are managed at the system level so that they are evaluated, tested, and deployed along with all theme updates. Describe.” We believe this requirement would need further exploration and planning with your team in order to accurately describe and estimate it. Are you aware of instances where this type of unit testing has been developed for a similar use case? Have other firms raised questions about this requirement or committed to developing this comprehensive theme test? 48 Has the university completed a Brand Analysis is out of scope for this project. brand analysis effort recently? If so, was it done in-house of through an outside partner? 49 Will university stakeholders be We will make a small yet representative group of stakeholders available available for interviews at the for interviews at the beginning of the project. beginning of the project? Have you identified these stakeholders? 50 Yesterday during the pre-proposal We are encouraging site administrators through documentation and conference you mentioned that all training to audit their sites with the goal of streamlining content to fit the needs of their target audience. Several areas have made great progress

LF17-108 Page 11 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e content will be migrated to the and many have not. Any content that exists at the time of migration will new infrastructure as to avoid a be migrated to the new infrastructure. manual migration process. After this migration, do you anticipate that the number of pages will be reduced, or is it your intent to keep all content that currently exists on the site? 51 During the pre-proposal This speaks more to how users are finding content than whether or not conference you stated that the they are finding it. university would like an overall We feel that we have an opportunity to get users quickly to their desired simplification of the navigation content through the use of search rather than sifting through menus that structure. What are the issues you only represent a fraction of the overall content. Also, we feel that text- currently face regarding the heavy menus are overwhelming for users particularly on mobile. navigation as it exists now? For example: are users failing to accomplish their goals? Is information too difficult to find in its current structure? 52 1.5 4 Under section 1.5 of the RFP, you Boise State is now testing a new WordPress multisite instance in the state that you would like to purchase new AWS infrastructure. Systems and processes are now being tested multi-site enabled WordPress theme that will move all of the existing databases, users, themes and plugins to for boisestate.edu. Is the intent for the new infrastructure. The new theme will be applied at a later date. the redesigned Boise State site to Content migration is out of scope for vendors responding to this RFP. utilize the existing WP database with the only difference being a newly enabled theme? Or is this a full site build for a new multi-site WordPress instance? The reference to Content Migration later in the RFP leads us to believe it’s the latter.

LF17-108 Page 12 of 14 4/25/2018 Questio RFP RFP Question Response n Section Pag e 53 General In terms of updating menus and Our expectation is that we would have the ability to update and manage redoing the Information Architecture, all navigation menus ourselves. will the selected vendor be responsible for updating the menus throughout the site or only creating the ability for the Boise State team to manage them themselves? This would seem to fall under Content Migration.

54 General Will BroncoSports.com continue to Broncosports.com will stay on its own and is out of scope. be its own separate site not on WordPress?

55 General Can we provided a list of sites (other All sites/hostnames will be moved under www.boisestate.edu domains and subdomains of boisestate.edu) that will utilize the See the A-Z index https://index.boisestate.edu/ for a sample of the sites new WordPress site/theme? that will be moved. Disregard any sites that are not on the boisestate.edu domain as they are out of scope. A comprehensive list of hostnames can be provided to the apparent winning offeror during the pre-contract period. 56 General Approximately how many See Appendix A with attention to the Templates Modules and Widgets templates/modules/widgets are Category for details about specific templates, modules and widgets expected to be built out? We are required. If you have suggestions for additional assuming it will be dependent on the templates/modules/widgets please include in Appendix A section 6.14.5 specific pages that are redesigned as part of the project. Are there other more global widgets that are not tied to specific pages that might also need to be designed/developed?

57 General Are there additional site features or Please review specifications contained within the RFP and Appendix A integrations not currently Scope of Work response template. If you have suggestions for on www.boisestate.edu that we additional templates/modules/widgets please include in Appendix A should expect to build out as part of section 6.14.5

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58 7.6 25 The SLA agreement specifies a set Vendor will not be responsible for hosting issues. Any hosting issues will of conditions that will determine the be routed to Boise State Office of Information Technology (OIT) As an Priority Level of an issue with the institution we have been providing our own hosting for many years and new site. Many times the site not have the necessary resources, support and expertise to handle hosting, being available will be a hosting system and infrastructure issues effectively. issue as opposed to an issue with anything that was developed by the vendor. What level of support would be expected in those scenarios?

59 General We understand that the current Boise No. Other Content Management Systems will not be considered. See State website is built on WordPress, Appendix A Mandatory (M) specification 4.6.2 CMS must be WordPress. as are many of its related sites. Would you potentially be interested in proposals for other open source platforms such as Drupal?

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