1.0 BACKGROUND
Below is a high-level summary of the Initiative and a brief overview of the Technical Overview of the BizPaL System.
1.1 General Overview of BizPaL Initiative
Canadian businesses have repeatedly indicated that the complexity and burden of government regulation negatively impacts their bottom line. Doing business with government is not a straightforward task and businesses find themselves spending too much time complying with government regulations.
To this end, the BizPaL Initiative was created to significantly improve the experience of businesses dealing with multiple governments and to serve as a model for similar collaborative efforts between governments in the future.
BizPaL is an online tool which provides business clients with a customized, integrated list of permits, licences, and other permission-based requirements to start or grow a business in Canada. The service provided integrates permit and licence information from all levels of government and makes it readily accessible to clients for their individual needs using multiple access points: no “wrong door.”
From pilot project to national roll-out, the quantity of participants is growing continuously; currently there are 13 provinces and territories and over 719 municipalities offering the BizPaL service in their respective jurisdictions. Supplying operational and technical support to this network of partners falls under the responsibility of the National BizPaL Office (NBO) located within the Service Delivery and Partnerships Directorate (SDP) at Industry Canada (IC).
1.2 Technical Overview of BizPaL System
The BizPaL Technical Platform consists of several elements including:
1.3 Data Administration Module
Business permits and licences information is entered into the central BizPaL database via the administration module. The tool also allows partners to enter new and modify/update existing information as required. To facilitate the search and retrieval of permits and licences, partners can also apply the appropriate Meta Data using the same application. A permissions based user account system allows for partners to assume direct control over and responsibility for their own information.
1.4 Business Client Experience
BizPaL has been designed to deliver information through the web sites of all participating jurisdictions, rather than through one central portal. Once the relevant permit and licence data is collected from all the active partner jurisdictions and stored in the central database, the permit and licence information a particular client requires may be retrieved from the database and presented to the client on any web asset offering the BizPaL service (i.e. bizpal.ca, provincial, territorial and municipal web sites, canadabusiness.ca, and the like.) Clients are able to use the service through a variety of access points, each including its own branding and visual identity; thereby, reinforcing to end-users that all of the participating jurisdictions have been integral in developing the BizPaL service.
The delivery of BizPaL is contingent on a Web Services model which allows diverse organizations to exchange information over the Internet using industry standard technology. In the case of BizPaL, allows partners and other data consumers to display the information on their respective web assets.
1.5 Partner Extranet
A web site used to share information across the partnership.
1.6 BizPaL Internet Site
A web site used to provide the public with information about BizPaL.
1.7 BizPaL Ticket Tracking System
A system used to log, track and report on client and partner requests.
1.8 Google Analytics
BizPaL uses Google Analytics to measure, collect, analyse and report on internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing the BizPaL client experience.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
The BizPaL partnership is supported by formal agreements that describe the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders. These agreements highlight that the NBO must provide centralized support functions to the partnership network to ensure accountability for the quality of information, sustainability of the service, and ongoing co-operation in the delivery and expansion of the service. The procurement of professional services to supply the resource necessary to help fulfill the obligation and to meet the aforementioned objectives must be performed and managed by IC.
3.0 SCOPE OF WORK
3.1 The role of the BizPaL Help Desk / Partner Support Administrator (PSA) is to provide essential support to the hundreds of participating BizPaL partners and the NBO, including its extended project team. This role encompasses many different activities and responsibilities. As the BizPaL PSA, the resource will be required to coordinate and respond to problems and enquiries raised by the partners and the end-users of BizPaL. As the single point-of-contact, the PSA will provide end-to-end service, logging, tracking, resolving and reporting help desk trouble tickets and other service requests. Although the tickets or information requests may need to be referred or escalated to other specialized NBO staff for resolution, the PSA will be responsible for monitoring the progress and eventual closure of all tickets coming through the single point-of-contact.
In conjunction with the help desk services, the resource will also be asked to provide administrative and technical support as required to the NBO project team as well as lead and participate in other activities supporting partners. The detailed tasks are outlined in tables below in the Project Details section. They have been categorized by the following groups:
- Help Desk and Service Request Support
- Training
- Partner Self-Service Promotion
- End-user Account Management
- External Monitoring of BizPaL Performance and Utilization
- BizPaL Testing
- Content Quality Management and Information Management
- Web Publishing
- Analysis & Reporting
3.2 Deliverables
The PSA will also be required to perform the various duties in accordance with Government of Canada (GOC), departmental and BizPaL Initiative operational policies and standards. These include such policies as the GOC Information Management (IM) Policy, Official Languages, the departmental Business Classification System Policy, BizPaL Partner Support Administration Service Level Standards and other NBO specific policies and procedures.
The expected deliverables are as follows:
1. Partner support enquiries have been responded to and managed in accordance with the established NBO service level standards;
2. Work is completed in accordance with established and evolving operational policies and procedures and within expected timeframes assigned by the project manager;
3. Mandatory reports have been produced, adhering to the prescribed report schedules (bi-monthly, monthly, quarterly & annually)
4. BizPaL documentation is filed and stored in accordance with GOC and IC IM policy.
Other than pre-established reporting schedules, work deadlines will be driven by the operational policy relating to the PSA function and by the project manager. There will be no travel requirement for the consultant to complete the work of the PSA.
Deliverables are to be provided in electronic format and in the appropriate Microsoft Office format – Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, or Microsoft PowerPoint.
This requirement is open only to those Supply Arrangement Holders who qualified under Tier “ 1 ” stream 4 (B) Business Services
This requirement is open only to those invited TBIPS Supply Arrangement Holders who qualified under the categories for:
B.10 Help Desk Specialist, Level 3 for un resource.
The following SA Holders have been invited to submit a proposal:
Accenture Inc.
Access Corporate Technologies Inc.
Alika Internet Technologies Inc.
AMITA Corporation
CGI Information Systems and Management Consultants Inc.
Deloitte Inc.
Donna Cona Inc.
Fujitsu Consulting (CANADA) Inc./Fujitsu Conseil (Canada) Inc.
Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co. Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Cie
IBM Canada Ltd.
Intergrity Canada Inc.
Promaxis Systems Inc.
Robert Half Canada Inc.
SYSTEMATIX SOLUTIONS TI INC/SYSTEMACTIX IT SOLUTIONS INC.
Turtle Technologies Inc.
PERIOD OF CONTRACT
Initial Contract Period: One (1) year from date of contract award
Option Period 1: additional one (1) year from end of initial contract period.
Option Period 2: additional one (1) year from end of initial contract period.
