| QUESTION | ANSWER |
| Section 3.2 references “how COSTI can expect to acquire the products and solutions on a restricted budget”. Could you please elaborate on the budgetary range that COSTI has allocated for this initiative either in total, or in terms of annual budget for software and services over a potential two to three year staged implementation option. | COSTI is undertaking a two-step process which includes a Request for Information, to be followed by a formal bidding process. The reason for the initial costing is in order for us to better understand the range of costs that are associated with each element of the project so that we may establish a realistic budget for COSTI, likely through a staged implementation process. We are unable to provide a more definitive response at this time. |
| Is bringing payroll in-house a requirement, or is COSTI open to keeping ADP as its Payroll provider? | COSTI prefers to bring payroll in-house but it is not a requirement. |
| Is the Contract management limited to Vendors (Suppliers for services) or does it include Customers (Clients with Revenue) as well? | Two kinds of contracts:
- Service contracts with organizations who provide funding to COSTI;
- Standard contracts with suppliers to COSTI of materials or services, including Lease Agreements.
-No "Clients with Revenue" contracts. |
| Are the Grant Management and the Fund Control module the same? Please confirm. | We do not use the term "Fund Control Module". Grant Management (Schedule A Financials, Section B General Ledger, Grants Management) refers to management of contracts with funders of COSTI. |
| In some ERP systems, Project Accounting and Workforce Management (multi-project Labor cost allocation) share common functionality and can be advantages to combine them. Please elaborate on COSTI’s use of these capabilities. | Project accounting is not a priority feature. Basic Standard project accounting functionality will suffice.
However, multi-project labour cost allocations is a high priority. |
| AX with Office integration can provide “Ad hoc” reporting functionality. Is COSTI open to providing users with advance level skills on MS office? | Yes, COSTI is open to providing users with advance level of skills in MS Office, as well as MS SSRS, so any advanced reporting functionality is welcome. |
| Please describe which business processes are part of document managing (e.g. HR – Scanning & attaching documents/ Finance – Scanning & attaching documents/ SharePoint – Scanning & attaching documents etc.). | Ideally, all business processes handling paper documents should be part of SharePoint-based content management.
In the HR component, those would be scans of employee documents (i.e. drivers license, course completion certificate, etc.). Documents should be scanned, automatically tagged, and stored in the SharePoint content management repository.
In the Finance, all paper invoices, bank statements and any other documents received in paper format should be scanned, automatically tagged, and stored in the SharePoint content management repository.
The same is true for Contract Management, Lease Contracts, and any other legal documents. |
| Could we get an extension until February 9th for the RFI submission deadline? | In the interest of fairness to all interested parties, we are not able to provide extensions to the deadline. |
| Could we get a demo date timeline extension? Ideally we require two weeks from the vendor shortlist notification date to the demonstration date. | Presentation dates for shortlisted solutions may be extended for up to 2 weeks at the request of the presenter. |
| Will an RFP be issued, if so when? | Please refer to 5.1 of the RFI.
It is, however, COSTI's intent to initiate the implementation of the ERP solution in the 2015/16 Budget year through an RFP process. |
| Assuming an RFP will be released; If a vendor does not submit an RFI response will they be able to submit an RFP response? | No. |
| Please elaborate and clarify: Schedule A-1, Financials, 42. | Basically, it is an audit trail for the budget process to track changes (including comments/rationale) in the budget. For example, if a budget line is changed from $500 to $600, both figures are maintained under the "budget book", along with the comment for the changes. |
| Please elaborate and clarify: Schedule A-1, BI 10. | Please see http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/statistical-process-control/overview/overview.html for details. |
| Have any key objectives been set for this new solution? | Please refer to Section 1.1 and 1.2 of the RFI, Vision for this RFI |
| What are the challenges with your current solution and the impact to the organization if you continue with the current system? | Current challenges include HR data systems and payroll/financial systems that are not integrated or connected. The impact on the organization is continued ineffective use of time due to repeated and duplicated systems use, high risk of errors, limited growth potential. |
| Are we to follow the pricing layout provided? Are we able to alter the format as long as we provide a lot of detail? | No. Please provide all relevant details within the estimated costing format as outlined in the RFI. |
| As we deal exclusively with the public sector, we understand that there is generally a process or board approval, has this been completed? | The Board of Directors has approved the issuing of this Request for Information. |
| What is the approximate budgetary envelope approved for this project? | COSTI is undertaking a two-step process which includes a Request for Information, to be followed by a formal bidding process. The reason for the initial costing is in order for us to better understand the range of costs that are associated with each element of the project so that we may establish a realistic budget for COSTI. We are unable to provide a more definitive response at this time. |
| RFI, Section 1.1: “Employs an open architecture”. Can you please provide more details about this requirement? Does this mean ‘can integrate to other applications’? | Open architecture is referred to as the ability to maintain uniform data sharing and communication between the different functional units both within and outside the ERP solutions, to facilitate seamless integration of the ERP solution into the rest of COSTI's software infrastructure, at minimal customization costs |
| RFI, Section 1.1: “Role of cost centre based access controls with visibility of assigned responsibilities”. Can you please provide more details about this requirement? Does this mean ‘has a robust security and permissions architecture’? | It means that access controls (permissions) can be set at the level of a cost centre or lower, and the ability to assign tasks and track completions has to exist at the cost centre level. |
| Schedule A-1, Financials, C Budgeting and Forecasting, 42: Would you be able to further expand on this question? | Basically, it is an audit trail for the budget process to track changes (including comments/rationale) in the budget. For example, if a budget line is changed from $500 to $600, both figures are maintained under the "budget book", along with the comment for the changes. |
| Schedule A-1, Financials, D Accounts Receivable, 9: DO you require a customer portal? Would you please provide clarity if CRM is included in the complete solution and the priority? | This item (Schedule A-1, D, #9) should not be included. CRM is not a consideration and is out of scope for this RFI. |
| Schedule A-1, HR, M HR, 64: Pension and Grandfather Groups – Would you please provide more detail on what is required? | This refers to situations where current employees may retain current pension enrollment while newer employees enrol in a different one. This is rare and not a priority item. |
| Schedule A-1?, BI, 4: Would you kindly afford additional detail with the following request? | Data entry interfaces must prevent entry of data into fields if:
- length of entry is larger than the maximum allowed field size;
- wrong data type;
- blank entry (no entry) where values required;
- duplicates for fields where duplicates are not allowed.
Feedback is expected for a successful data entry, and an error message is expected if data entry was not successful. |
| Schedule A-1, Technical, 17: Would you be able to provide specific examples? | This is a simple request to have the forms follow the data entry process by automatically jumping to the next required field instead of requiring multiple key strokes to position the cursor to the next entry position.
Data entry sequence for each data entry procedure should be customizable to minimize navigation. |
| Schedule A-1, Technical, 68: Would you be kind enough to clarify further? | Concurrent scheduled processes run the risk of degrading performance or causing failures when multiple concurrent instances are allowed to run and/or multiple scheduled processes attempt to access the same resources at the same time.
The Job Scheduler (controlling multiple scheduled processes of the ERP components) needs to have ability to prevent this from happening. |