Suite QUIN-C, LAB d'AD & FTK

Trade Agreement: CETA / WTO-AGP / CPTPP / NAFTA / CFTA / FTAs with Peru / Colombia / Panama / Korea
Tendering Procedures: All interested suppliers may submit a bid
Non-Competitive Procurement Strategy: Exclusive Rights
Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement: No
Vendor Name and Address:
AccessData Group LLC
588 West 400 South #350
Lindon Utah
United States
84042
Nature of Requirements:

1. Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN)

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 contract award to the pre-identified supplier.

2.Definition of the requirement

The Department of Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has a requirement for the provision of a Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) product, including professional services for configuration, training, and annual Maintenance and Support service (M&S), that would be implemented as a software solution to allow LAC to search, identify, flag, label, redact, and report on personal and classified information found in digital records.

Canada intends to enter into a sole source contract with AccessData (AD) for the purpose of procuring perpetual licenses of FTK, LAB, and Quin-c, or equivalent, for both a networked and a non-networked environment. Canada also intends to procure M&S, professional services, and training. The licenses procured will be:

a. 1 AD FTK SUITE perpetual license for non-networked environment;
b. 1 AD LAB FTK perpetual license with 3 users for networked environment;
c. 1 AD Quin-c perpetual license with 1 user for networked environment;
d. 1 AD LAB SUITE perpetual license for networked environment;
e. 1 AD Web User with 3 users for networked environment.

Canada reserves the right to add additional licenses and/or users to this contract at the same price, and under the same terms and conditions, as granted to LAC.

3. Criteria for assessment of the Statement of Capabilities (Minimum Essential Requirements)

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

The proposed solution to meet this requirement must be off-the-shelf, meaning that each component of the software is commercially available and requires no further research and development and is part of an existing product line with a field-proven operational history (that is, it has not simply been tested in a laboratory or experimental environment).

a. Performance Criteria

The product must:

i. Ingest records without changing original files or associated metadata (without file transformation);
ii. Ingest records automatically without manual pre-processing;
iii. Ingest, parse, and search over 700 file formats, including in the following ways:
(1) Files generated by original software used in an office setting and a media production setting;
(2) Large datasets, XML, and email mailbox data such as PST and MBOX;
(3) Image files from digitized typed and/or handwritten documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software; and
(4) Provide an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) confidence score for all documents including born-digital and digitized images (either handwritten or typed);
iv. Search records using tools with functionality that includes:
(1) Automatically extracting pattern-based personally identifiable information in the Canadian context using pre-programmed search functions; and
(a) The ability to allow these pre-programmed searches to be customized by the end-user as searches are conducted, and the ability to create custom programmed searches by the end-user;
(2) Indexing the records and searching the index;
(3) Searching character by character or word by word across all documents;
(4) Searching using keywords, patterns, and regular expressions, including the following search options: synonym, phonic, fuzzy, proximity, stemming, and Boolean searching;
(5) Unlimited searching of records;
(6) Saving search terms / patterns in a text file and importing in bulk;
(7) Running an unlimited set of saved searches, or running subsets of saved searches;
(8) Exporting and sharing indices and lists of search terms;
(9) Stop list capabilities; and
(10) The ability to configure and conduct proximity searches for specific sequences of keywords within a certain range;
v. Flag documents that contain search terms / hits;
vi. Navigate and view documents within their original hierarchy;
vii. Label and bookmark records in unlimited numbers including:
(1) nesting bookmarks within one another;
(2) creating bookmark names and comments using free text;
(3) linking comments to specific files using free text;
(4) linking bookmark comments to specific blocks of document text;
viii. Conduct in-document highlighting of search results;
ix. Capture and export metadata from records and labels;
x. Conduct manual redaction and exporting redacted documents in PDF and TIFF formats;
xi. Identify over 60 languages and index and search English and French;
xii. Identify duplicate items based on their "hash" values;
xiii. Run data visualization tools including:
(1) Email analysis and threading to link related emails (e.g. parent/child/replies/attachments);
(2) Data statistic charts showing keyword and document clusters, social relationships, and file use timelines;
xiv. Identify encrypted or password-protected files;
xv. Identify file formats and mismatched file extensions;
xvi. Provide information about file categories and document sizes, and export results to a spreadsheet;
xvii. Provide document review for large or complex documents (e.g. files larger than 100MB such as large images or large XML datasets);
xviii. Generate small ?thumbnail’ versions of image files that load near instantaneously;
xix. Track and report work within cases;
xx. Document all searches by generating exportable reports and/or lists of search results, search attempts, and search contexts, and export lists in a format such as CSV that allows data to be repurposed;
xxi. Restart and delete failed processing jobs;
xxii. Include a collaborative, shared database with scalable individual user accounts that can work simultaneously;
xxiii. Be accompanied by training and support.

b. Technical Criteria

The product must:

i. Run on both networked and off-line equipment;
ii. Be installed on premise;
iii. Run on a Windows server environment;
iv. Support MS SQL server;
v. Support RAID storage;
vi. Run on both a physical and a virtual platform;
vii. Handle an increasing data load through scalability and the addition of external storage locations;
viii. Function as a modular tool so that data processing can be expanded to multiple servers;
ix. Leverage multi-thread/multi-core computers.

4. Applicability of the trade agreement(s) to the procurement

This procurement is subject to the following trade agreement(s):

a. Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA)
b. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
c. Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)
d. Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)
e. World Trade Organization-Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-GPA)

5. Justification for the Pre-Selected Supplier

LAC conducted research on companies offering potential products and solicited free demonstrations of software from companies between 2018-2019. In addition, self-directed and paid proof-of-concept testing was done as follows:

a. An unsupported free trial of Quin-c (Summer 2019);
b. A paid Proof of Concept of Quin-c (Fall 2019);
c. An unsupported free trial of FTK (Summer-Fall 2019).

After research, free demonstrations, free trials, and a paid Proof of Concept, only one solution - FTK/LAB/Quin-c by AD - was found to meet the Performance and Technical criteria outlined above in Section 3.

6. Government Contracts Regulations Exception(s)

The following exception(s) to the Government Contracts Regulations is (are) invoked for this procurement under subsection 6(d) - "only one person is capable of performing the work".

7. Exclusions and/or Limited Tendering Reasons

The following exclusion(s) and/or limited tendering reasons are invoked under the

a. Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) - Article(s) 513.1.b.iii
b. World Trade Organization - Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP) - Article(s) XIII.1.b.iii
c. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - Article(s) 1016.2.b
d. Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) - Article(s) 19.12.b.iii
e. Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) - Article(s) 15.10.2.b.iii

8. Ownership of Intellectual Property

Ownership of any Foreground Intellectual Property arising out of the proposed contract will vest in the Contractor.

9. Period of the proposed contract or delivery date
The proposed contract is for a period of one year with the possibility of a single one year extension/option period.

10. Cost estimate of the proposed contract

The estimated value of the contract, including option(s), is $165,546.66 USD (GST/HST extra).

11. Name and address of the pre-identified supplier

AccessData Group Inc.
603 East Timpanogos Circle
Building H, Floor 2, Suite 2300
Orem, UT 84097
Tel: 801-377-5410

12. Suppliers' right to submit a statement of capabilities

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the goods, services or construction 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.

13. Closing date for a submission of a statement of capabilities

The closing date and time for accepting statements of capabilities is June 25, 2020 2:00 p.m. EDT.

14. Inquiries and submission of statements of capabilities

Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to:

Dylan Millerd
Supply Officer
Public Services and Procurement Canada
Acquisitions Branch
Services and Technology Acquisition Management Sector
Software Procurement Directorate
10 Wellington Street, Gatineau, QC, K1A 0S5

Telephone: 873-354-8813
E-mail: d••••••••@••••••••.••.ca

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.