1. 1. RFP Purpose and Background

1. 1.1 Organizational Context

The University of California is comprised of nine campuses, plus a tenth that is opening in the fall, 2004. The University’s fundamental mission is teaching, research, and public service. The University of California has over 160,000 students (undergraduate and graduate), and approximately 100,000 employees in academic and administrative functions. The Office of the President of the University of California, located in Oakland, California, is the corporate headquarters of the University. There are approximately 1,500 employees at the headquarters in Oakland, California.

3. 1.2 RFP Purpose

The UC Office of the President (UCOP), on behalf of the UC System and its campuses, is soliciting proposals for content management and portal software to assist in the implementation of the technology portion of the University’s New Business Architecture (NBA). The University’s NBA direction is contained in the report at http://uc2010.ucsd.edu

5. 1.3 Background: “NBA” Project

Between 1999 and 2010, the University of California will grow dramatically in size and complexity. This rapid growth will have a significant impact on the workload of staff that support the research, teaching and public service functions of the University. The University has created a vision of a new web-based business architecture for conducting business to help address this growth in workload. This architecture is called the New Business Architecture or NBA.

The NBA requires more than for each campus to have a web site. It requires the qualities of a campus business portal and a full content publishing capability. The Vision for the NBA project is to “Develop and implement a web-based architecture for UC business processes that minimize classroom training requirements, uses intuitive navigation, and provides seamless integration among business web sites, applications, policies, expert help, and on-line training”. Or, stated differently,

… “provide employees with the services, processes, information, advice, and learning experiences they need to do their job with the minimum of support from other people”.

6. 1.4 University Technology Environment

orted Unix platforms (AIX or Solaris) or NT and use Oracle, SQL Server or Sybase DBMS’s.

8. 1.5 General Requirements

To meet the requirements of a Business Portal and Content Publishing system the University requires robust Portal and Content Management System (CMS) software. UC desires to license or purchase the portal and content management software for either a number of campuses initially with the option to license more within the next few years or for all of its campuses and Office of the President headquarters upon initial licensing. Any purchase pursuant to this RFP is contingent upon identification of suitable product or products and approval of funding. To meet the various operating needs of the campuses, it is required that vendor-proposed solutions operate on Solaris, NT and AIX operating systems and with SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase DBMS’s. The following are general content management requirements:

As a Content Manager, the CMS must support

• multiple sources of content development

• multiple text editors

• multiple types of content objects

• multiple submission pathways

• content approval sequence with multiple levels of approval and override

• content version management

As a Presentation Manager, the CMS must support

• full separation between graphical appearance of objects and their content

• development of multiple web-page templates with substantial flexibility in template design

• multiple html editors

• full pre-production preview of presentation and content

• access to backend processes written in Perl, Java, C/C++, Cobol, Tcl, etc.

The following are general requirements common to the Content Management and Portal functionality:

The products must provide for personalization of the content and presentation. It must provide for the ability to

• track usage for performance statistics and usability studies

• recognize the user from previous visits without requiring a “login”

• provide tailored content based on usage information

• request and record personal information via a “login” process

• push information to the customer via email based on implicit or explicit interests

To support an effective “User Experience”, the software must

• support standard Browsers without requiring specialized plug-ins to function

• be able to detect the browser version to allow for presentations tailored to the user’s environment

• support either an integral or 3^rd party search engine with robust search capabilities. The Search Engine must be able to index the database content as well as designated pages

• allow pages to be bookmarked

• support integral or adjunct authentication and authorization mechanisms

In a production environment, the products must

• include or recommend 3^rd party product runtime monitoring and tuning tools

• be scalable (be able to respond to increased usage via configuration)

• must maintain hyperlinks automatically, at least between objects in the content database

2. 2. Specific Requirements

Vendors may propose two products to meet the requirements outlined below, to partner with another firm to propose two products to meet the requirements or to propose one product to meet these needs.

1. 2.1 Content Management

UC’s NBA project requires a robust content management environment. Content will be created or derived from other material and stored or referenced within the Content Management System. Content can be from other Web pages (html), XML content, MSWord documents, entered or copied text, existing PC files of various types, and non-textual objects (graphics, etc). The CMS must be able to track content, support action dates (begin date, review date, archive date, end date, etc). The CMS must provide a content “review and approval” workflow. The CMS must be able to support multiple methods of content entry from a decentralized environment.

1. Describe your content management environment.

2. Describe how content is entered or submitted using your product. Also describe security and levels of control over content. For example, how do you prevent an unauthorized user from updating content of another content provider?

3. Describe the necessary skill set to add content to your product.

4. Does your product have a built-in spell/grammar checker for text content type? If not, can third-party products be integrated into the content flow?

5. Describe how your product accommodates various content types (i.e. text, XML, graphics, audio, rich media, etc) in terms of storage & management, and types natively supported.

6. Describe how your product handles content from various environments (HTML, PDF, MS-Word, etc)

7. Describe how your product handles version control for content.

8. Can your product import content from HTML editors and recognize HTML formatting tags within text content type? Explain.

9. Does your product provide any tools for creating and managing forms or for formatting the content (e.g. HTML, PDF)?

10. XML support is required. Describe how your product supports XML.

11. Describe how your product supports content cross-referencing through implicit content keyword attributes and explicit content identifiers

12. Describe how content can be associated with the submission source and with potential presentation templates.

13. We need to be able to assign begin, review, archive, and end dates for content. We also want time-based delivery (i.e., pages can be specified to be available at a certain time/date and to disappear at another time/date. Describe how your product supports these features.

14. To facilitate keyword searches, we would like the ability to generate multiple keywords from a single metatag (e.g., Buy metatag = Buy, Purchase, Procure, Acquire).

15. Can additional metatags be added to your product? Describe.

16. Describe how you accommodate specialized content entry (forms customized to the specific content to facilitate entry by the content creators).

17.Can your product support user reviews and comments? For example, a user may read a procedure or tutorial, click a comment button, write and submit a short comment. After approval by an editor, this would be automatically linked to an appropriate forum discussion.

18. How does your system support updates and presentation of content over multiple web servers and multiple content servers ? Describe.

2. 2.2 Content Presentation

The portal/content management system must be capable of supporting multiple page templates that take advantage of various browser capabilities to display content.

1. If your product uses templates to place content, describe the steps in creating a template.

2. Describe the skill set needed to create or maintain these templates.

3. Does your product provide the ability to present multiple content areas on a page that are based on metatag values of another object on the same page? Example: given an article on Hiring Faculty with a metatag that contains Faculty, can a picture also be placed on the same page that also has a Faculty metatag?

4. Can content be accessed and presented from locations other than the product database? For example can content be accessed and presented from another CMS? Describe how this is supported.

5. Describe how your product applies or enforces style restrictions and constraints on text or graphic contents. For example, if the text content is longer than the area allotted for placement, or the graphic content is smaller or larger than the allotted space.

6. Is there a preview option to preview content scheduled for a future date? Does your product provide other tools to support this?

7. Does your product support templates that allow content to span multiple pages?

8. UC wants to plan for future delivery of services in other formats, styles, and media. For example, we may want to provide for distribution of content by email, fax, print, phone, browser, PDA, wireless, etc. How does your product support this?

3. 2.3 Personalization for PORTAL and CONTENT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

The NBA portal is created to address the needs of the campus administrative support staff. To that end, the ability to customize an environment that suits each individual’s preference for tools, topics, bookmarks, application parameters, etc is extremely desirable. The portal is envisioned as a customizable environment that provides not only a personalized work experience, but personal information as well (such as access to personal data on file, current enrollments in retirement and benefit packages, etc).

1. How does your product support personalization?

2. Does your product authenticate users? Can it integrate with other authentication mechanisms? Explain. How does your product (s) support access security?

3. For users who are UC members we often need to verify personal information against a database. How does your product support this?

4. Portal users can be categorized as: 1- Anonymous: These users have visited the site but have not identified themselves. 2- Campus Affiliates: These are users who need access to “campus public” information that is available to the UC community for conducting normal University business. These users may be identified by a number of methods including IP filters and Logging-in. 3- Registered UC Members: These UC members have visited the site and registered to the site. In order to authenticate UC membership, personal information is authenticated against a database. Each user category has various levels of access to content and features. How does your product support role-based access?

5. Does your product support a personalized presentation of content based on explicit user preferences? For example, a user can indicate that they would like to see the Events Calendar. It is also desirable for the system to be able to handle the import and display of profile-based information from external sources. For example, the import of custom traffic reports based on a user's commute. Does your product support this?

6. Does your product support customization or personalization based on roles, using roles data possibly maintained independently of the CMS/Portal product?

7. Does your product support personalization based on implied user preferences, both historical and session? Explain

8. Can your product support specialized notification of content related to topics of interest? For example, after users select areas and topics of interest, the system will search the site for content that match these interests (including changes to existing content or new content on the same topic), automatically placing any matches within a Portal topic container. They might then like to be notified by Email of these changes and be directed to their Portal page. Explain how your product could manage such a system.

9. The portal pages would require some initial personalization and, for UC members, a login/authentication a UC database. After initial registration, user recognition will be cookie-based or certificate based. Describe how your product handles registration and user recognition.

10. Does your product support internal email subscription lists? Explain

11. What functions does your product provide to facilitate customer support issues regarding personalization & content generated based on profiles and rules. Specifically, can support-personnel view personalized and dynamic content for a specific user?

11. Does your product(s) support multiple administrator roles? Are administrative tools web based?

4. 2.4 Content Workflow and Integration to transaction systems

The Portal requires a content management workflow mechanism that will permit content to be developed, migrated, or created by various staff, and subject to review and approval by subject experts, writing style editors, and final approval for production.

1. Does your product support workflow for editorial and approval processes? Describe.

2. Does your product support API’s to workflow?

3. Describe the steps in designing a new workflow in your product. What skill set is necessary to administer or set up workflows?

4. Describe the steps in changing an existing workflow.

5. Describe the administration functions for adding new roles and users to the workflow. Can a user belong to multiple roles?

6. Does the workflow administration function allow marking resources on a workflow unavailable, for example: “on vacation”? Can other resources be assigned to an unavailable role for a determined period?

7. We would like the ability to attach notes to content items within the workflow, and for these notes to remain until final submission. How does your product support reviewers’ comments / notes?

8. Can external partners and campus members accessing the Content Manager be part of a workflow? If yes, what are the security implications?

9. What type of approval hierarchy does your product provide?

10. We would like robust inbox capabilities for each workflow recipient to organize and prioritize the items in the work queue while providing status on each work item. How does your product support this?

11. Does your product support a workflow for out-of-date and expired content?

12. Does your product support multiple workflows based on content type?

13. The University wishes to permit users to access operational transaction systems through the portal, for purposes of inquiry or update. Describe how your product supports this.

6. 2.5 Search

A robust search capability is a necessary component of the campus NBA portals. The portals need to be able to search the Content database for keywords and content, as well as specific internal or external pages specifically identified to the search process. This will allow for tailored responses to requests to include content as well as content from other UC sites that, while not included within the Content database, are used to provide specific information to the campus users. A full Glossary of Terms will also be included in the content database for search access. Other search options should include full Internet searches, and access to dictionary, thesaurus, library and other reference material.

1. How does your product handle Internet search engine (e.g. Excite, Altavista, etc.) spidering and searching of content?

2. Does your product integrate with any of the large-scale Internet search engines? If so, which do you recommend?

3. What search engines are supported for internal content searches? How does your product handle internal content searches?

4. We need the flexibility to include or exclude content for search capability by various criteria. For example, we need the ability to tag content as available, or not available, to each search function on the site. How does your product support this?

5. Does your product provide search functionality for archived content?

6. Can your product provide a data set accessible by program or a user that contains all indexed search terms. This is a desirable but not required feature.

7. 2.6 Delivery, Installation, Support, and Training

1. Describe your product support? Explain the process & identify support levels.

2. If the product is customized, how does this affect support? Do you support the customization?

3. Describe your training program. Include class schedule, length and indicate whether training is offered at your site or at customer's site. Indicate whether or not any training materials are provided.

4. Define the skill sets required of content editors, system administrators, and template developers.

5. Describe the different roles and skill sets required to support the product.

6. Describe the professional services offered to facilitate installation and customization? What are the rates for such support?

7. Provide lead-time for complete delivery and installation following contract award.

8. 2.7 Product Architecture and Environment

1. Describe the overall architecture of your product. What is the age of the product?

2. Outline the Open Standards (e.g. LDAP, CORBA, etc) that are supported by your product. Describe how your product uses them.

3. Describe the future directions for your product (s)? For example, if there are plans for new features, integration with other products or modules, a shift in technologies and the like, please describe them.

4. Does your product support content replication? If so, describe how it supports replication and provide an example of an implementation.

5. Describe the base data model for your product.

6. Describe the scalability of your product. What limits, if any, are there on the numbers of objects supported? What is the limiting factor in scaling your product to increasing numbers of objects?

7. Describe the performance characteristics of your product.

8. Describe the platform (hardware & software) environments that your product supports.

9. Is there a required or preferred browser for administration of your product?

10. What browsers are supported for end-users?

11. Identify proprietary and non-standard components of your product.

12. What programming language(s) was your product developed with?

13. When is the next scheduled major release of your product? What is your maintenance release schedule?

14. Provide an outline of your product's release history, including target release dates and actual release dates.

15. Describe your release notification and delivery process.

9. 2.8 Customization

UC may want the ability to customize presentation management product for our use. Although campus NBA portals will attempt to use the product as delivered, customization may be required in various areas to enhance its specific usability.

1. Can customers have access to your source code to modify or otherwise customize your product? If not, will you agree to a source code escrow arrangement? Describe the customization process for your product.

2. What skill set is required to customize your product. Be specific about the programming / scripting languages.

3. Explain how the customizations are carried forward in product upgrades. Explain the steps.

4. What percentage of your customers customized your product?

5. Can your data model be customized? Explain, if yes, how is the customization carried forward in product upgrades?

6. How much customization is required for the average implementation?

10. 2.9 Tracking & Reporting

The UC NBA project needs to monitor usage of the site to assist in enhancing and refining the product. Proper usage tracking and reporting will be necessary to ensure that the system is properly sized and designed.

1. Describe the reporting and tracking capabilities of your product.

2. Does your product leverage 3rd-party tracking tools?

3. Does your product integrate with any of the major analysis tools? Explain

11. 2.10 Application Integration

UC has numerous central Web-based systems that deliver business information to the UC community. Additional functionality is envisioned by integrating these services and services of other external processes into or through the portal site. We must be able to integrate with or provide access to these services directly through the portal site.

1. What HTTP servers does your product support? Outline how each supported server is integrated with your product.

2. Do your products have an open API?

3. Does your product integrate with other servers, applications, and tools (e.g. credit card authorization, email, Cold Fusion-based environments, etc)?

12. 2.11 System Maintenance & Administration

1. Describe the activities and their frequency necessary to maintain your product in a development environment, a staging environment, and a production environment.

2. What tools or features do you provide to manage content whose expiration date has passed?

3. Does your product provide for automated archiving?

4. Does your product provide any tools for organizing active content?

5. Describe how your product handles archiving of old / expired content

6. Does your product offer any tools for managing and organizing archived content?

7. How does your product handle archiving of cross-referenced content?

8. Describe your maintenance programs/services (e.g. phone support, on-site support, electronic support, response time).

9. What type of warranties do you provide for the product?

10. Are version updates and error corrections included w/o charge as part of the annual maintenance?