CCIS21A06 - Content Management System Discovery – CCS Accessibility Remediation

Description

Summary of the work A discovery to investigate whether the provision of a scalable content solution will allow us to be compliant to the WCAG 2.1 AA standard Web and Mobile Application legislation and maintain accessibility. Expected Contract Length estimated at 8-12 weeks. Latest start date Monday 19 April 2021 Budget Range We will set the budget in line with competitive responses received from the market. Why the Work is Being Done Crown Commercial Service is required to meet the WCAG 2.1 AA standard Web and Mobile Application legislation to ensure that all web content is accessible to the Public. Provision of a scalable content solution will allow us to be compliant and maintain accessibility. Problem to Be Solved Discovery phase to consider whether there is a technology solution to achieve moving CCS applications towards the use of formal content managed ‘documents’, which must be immutable reference versions, potentially HTML based, and ‘Accessible Documents’ instead of PDF or MS Word/GoogleDoc downloads. This includes user research into how we present the solution. The discovery phase will be used to demonstrate that we can make it easier for CCS to comply with legislation (what the customer wants) by provision of a technical content management solution for CCS staff (what the user wants). Who Are the Users Below are some examples of our high-level user needs based on our assumptions. Once we progress the discovery phase of the project we will be able to validate and broaden user needs. • As a business, we want to comply with accessibility legislation so that all our customers can access and be able to use all of our content and copy. • As a content editor/publisher, I need a simple and intuitive interface, so that I can create and manage useful content. Early Market Engagement An initial investigation in to the IT landscape has taken place to understand potential content management solution patterns that could be accepted. The approved recommendations are: ‘Documents’ be displayed to users via the website as HTML content. This implies the following from a technology perspective: Document content to be managed and stored in the Content Management System (Wordpress) Documents created using templates (defining content and structure) also stored in the CMS Document Presentation technology component to be created which can be integrated with CCS applications (either by linking/return link, use of webcomponents or iFrames). ‘Progressive enhancement’ to be used for display. Component must support the use of assistive technology. Document Presentation templates to be used by the Presentation component to control the presentation of the content Document Presentation component to allow documents to be downloaded as PDF (or potentially ODF) format - this is not the primary presentation of the document but to allow users to store offline copies. These must include links to the source, version number and date. Formal, immutable documents must be created - strong version control in the CMS allowing links to defined (baseline) versions of documents. Document approval processes to be supported by the CMS Work Already Done Please read early market engagement Existing Team The delivery partner will report into the CCS Accessibility Remediation project team. There is some capacity to support the work from existing resource however note that existing roles are not full time and will need to combine with Business As Usual (BAU) activity. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Experience in provision of an outcome to discovery phases which is designed to meet user needs - 2% • Understanding and experience of delivering services that meet; • GDS Service Standard • GDS Technology Code of Practice • WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility guidelines - 2% • Providing evidence of assisting departments to meet accessibility criteria - 2% • Experience of how you capture relevant stakeholders' views across the business and how you capture a wide view of user needs - 2% • Detail how you manage product oversight and evidence the skills needed in integration management and design - 2% • Understanding and experience of designing digital services for documents (in Word, Excel, powerpoint, html and open format), to meet a wide range of user needs - 2% • Explain how you create business requirement mapping, developing user journeys, stories, personas for key content types - 2% • . Understanding and experience of data security and compliance (GDPR) - 2% • Have experience of or the ability to understand how to serve multiple platforms with a central resource of documents - 2% Nice to Haves 1. Explain how you would provide business analysis and your approach to security architecture to ensure designs meet security standards - 5% Work Location Due to the current Coronavirus outbreak situation, many staff are now working remotely. Remote working/collaboration platforms are being used to enable communication and movement of the project (e.g. Microsoft Teams, Trello etc.) – this will continue throughout the project Working Arrangments We would expect a delivery partner to work with us on this project for as long as necessary each week. The length of time spent on this project by the partner each week will be determined based on the needs of the project. Any communication or activities that need to take place will be carried out through the most appropriate channel. Security Clearance BPSS Additional T&Cs n/a No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Approach and methodology - 5% • How the approach or solution meets your organisation’s policy or goal - 5% • Estimated timeframes for the work - 5% • Value for money - 5% • Team structure - 5% Cultural Fit Criteria • work as a team with our organisation and, potentially, other suppliers - 1% • be transparent and collaborative when making decisions - 4% Payment Approach Fixed price Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 5% Price 45% Questions from Suppliers 1. Who’s in the incumbent and how long they have been the incumbent? There is not a current incumbent, all pre-discovery work has been completed by internal CCS teams 2. Who’s on the panel? The evaluation panel will consist of a member of our Content Management team, a member of the Technology team and a member of the Project team 3. Is this project intended to replace your current CMS WordPress or to be used in addition to WordPress? It will be in addition to WordPress 4. Having read your requirements, it seems that you ask for a separate WordPress CMS instance (separate from your current website) purely for managing documents. Is that interpretation correct? We feel that either approach (shared WP instance or separate instance) could work as long as the processes and controls are strong enough. Please propose what you consider to be the best solution which does not present any risks to website operation but allows for the documents to be accessible to users both inside and outside CCS 5. Could you expand upon your reasons for ruling out existing accessible document management services (PAAS/SAAS) for this project? We are open to suggestions for suitable PaaS/SaaS solutions ideally hosted and managed from the UK. Our core requirement is to meet the legislation, we are performing this discovery to identify the most effective solution. CCS already uses other SaaS/PaaS systems. The breakdown in the ‘Early Market engagement’ reflects a functional split into storage, document creation and management using templates and document presentation/conversion and is intended to illustrate functional requirements. 6. In Essential skills and experience, you ask; ‘Detail how you manage product oversight and evidence the skills needed in integration management and design’Please can you elaborate on this?Are you asking for evidence of product governance experience or experience of designing & implementing integrations? Yes, we are asking for evidence of product governance/management and of your skills in product integration and design of solutions within a wider systems ecosystem. 7. Some of the points in ‘Essential skills and experience’ suggest a partner with experience of implementing solutions like this, not just conducting a discovery phase for this type of service. Does that imply you are looking for a partner to work with beyond this discovery project? This depends on the outcome of the discovery piece. 8. This looks like a discovery piece of work – please confirm if there will be work to follow on from this discovery piece. If yes will the new work be put out to tender on the marketplace? This depends on the outcome of the discovery piece. 9. This looks like a discovery piece of work – please confirm if there will be work to follow on from this discovery piece. If yes will the new work be put out to tender on the marketplace? This depends on the outcome of the discovery piece. 10. Do we have to test only accessibility or we should focus also on other areas like security, analysis, UX, etc.? The main requirement is to meet the accessibility requirements, however all of the other areas that you mention will need to be considered - security requirements will need to be met commensurate with externally facing government systems, management information will need to be captured, the system will need to be usable (and agile to allow for changes from user research and other testing). 11. ”We would expect a delivery partner to work with us on this project for as long as necessary each week” – We want to know more about working hours or time period e.g. what are basic working hours, what is estimated time period in weeks or months? We would require availability between normal working hours (9-5) Monday - Friday. In terms of the time period for completing the work section 5 of the outcome details the requirement. We would expect bidders to detail prospective time scales for our consideration, to meet the 8-12 week Discovery period. 12. Will all of you documents (e.g. Word, PDF) be converted to html version (wordpress page)? Are these documents unique or do they have common components? Not all documents will be converted. We will be looking to template the most common documents into html. 13. Is your wordpress template a single page or multipage template? This is for multiple templates,mostly for standard Word documents but also including looking at our marketing assets (PDF brochures) and identifying a more flexible template, which would likely include a multi page template. 14. If we only assume that templates are single-page, we estimated that we have around 70 templates to test: 20 specific templates in your CMS + 10 third party portals * 5 different template = 50 templates. Could you confirm that value? The work is not about a one-off process to test existing templates for accessibility, it is a discovery to research the possibility of procuring a system that allows us to create and manage documents which meet the accessibility standards on an ongoing basis. New templates will be created as required. 15. Does the work consist in assessing an existing solution or coming up with a new one (or both)? Coming up with a new solution. 16. Are there constraints on the technology stack of the solution? Other than needing to work alongside our existing Wordpress based website, and being able to integrate with our REST microservice based services, and meet security and related requirements there are no constraints. 17. Are you looking for an ongoing partnership to develop/setup the solution past the discovery phase? This depends on the outcome of the discovery piece. 18. Are there constraints on the licensing of the solution (e.g. does the solution need to be open source)? Open source would be preferred but is not mandated 19. Will you be considering the development of custom solutions? We are open to proposals. 20. Are some of the documents private/personalised to the user – or are they all public facing documents? They are all public facing. 21. Would it be possible to get a general idea of the volume of documents to manage via the solution? There is the potential for thousands of documents to be housed on the solution. However we’re hoping to reduce this number of ‘physical documents’ using a series of templates in html. 22. Are all the documents in English or are some translated in Welsh for example? All documents are in English. 23. Could you clarify what the expected outcome of the Discovery phase is? Please see section 4 of the published outcome. 24. How many of these documents are there? There is the potential for thousands of documents to be housed on the solution. However we’re hoping to reduce this number of ‘physical documents’ using a series of templates in html. 25. How much deviation of layout is there, what’s the variation of these documents? The html templates will need to have a degree of flexibility to allow for some different layout options, but they will mostly look the same. The requirement is that through html we will need to be able to show text and images effectively. Tables will need to be accessible. 26. What is the expected degree of automation? This will form part of the discovery; how much can we automate. 27. Is this a one-off activity or will there be an on-going need to do this? Part of the discovery will look at if CCS can create their own templates going forward or if it will need to be supported by a partner. 28. Can we please get an indication of budget, even just an estimate range? We would expect a discovery stage to be a maximum of £80,000. However, we are focused on gaining the best outcome for CCS. 29. To what extent is the expectation for this to be WCAG2.0 standards-compliant (a view on human validation needed)? It will need to be WCAG 2.1 AA standard to meet Public Sector Accessibility regulations 2018. 30. Is there a legal imperative to ensure this is successful by a particular date, and where will the liability for that lie? There is a legal requirement for the Authority to be compliant with accessibility standards WCAG 2.1 AA. The liability for ensuring content is legally compliant rests with the Authority. We do expect that the successful discovery will provide a solution which is in line with the requirements of WCAG 2.1 AA. 31. How many CCS applications needs to be audited or tested during the Discovery phase for the WCAG and GDS compliance? The work is not about a one-off process to test applications for accessibility, it is a discovery to research the possibility of procuring a system that allows us to create and manage documents which meet the accessibility standards on an ongoing basis. 32. Please let us know the technology stack of the current CCS applications and expected or proposed app stack (eg. WordPress) CCS has many applications using different technology stacks ranging from Java based microservices, Salesforce applications, other SaaS products, Ruby on Rails, Node.js based presentation layers, Symfony driving the website with Wordpress supplying content, Elastic Search and more. In other words the solution will be entering a varied environment. Our preferred stack for new build applications is Java based microservices providing REST APIs which are consumed by presentation layers (standards not finalised).The key requirement is for integration to be via REST based APIs. 33. Are we able to see an example of these documents? They are largely word, excel and PDFs as well as some Powerpoints. The requirement is that through html we will need to be able to show text and images effectively. Tables will need to be accessible. The CCS website has examples on. 34. CCS eSourcing Suite Potential Bidders must sign up to the CCS e-Sourcing Suite for the Further Evaluation Stage before the Shortlisting Stage submission deadline. The e-Sourcing Suite can be found at https://crowncommercialservice.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.htmlPotential Bidders must agree to abide by Crown Commercial Service’s Process for the Further Evaluation Stage. The Shortlist Stage will remain on the Digital Marketplace and follow the standard approach for Shortlisting.