In a pre-solicitation released Monday, on a request for proposal for an enterprise data governance technology solution (EDGTS), the California Department of Technology, acting on behalf of the California Department of Transportation, calls for feedback and questions from IT companies on the draft solicitation. The final solicitation, potentially arriving later this year, will seek an EDGTS capable of providing technical data governance capabilities that, together with defined roles, responsibilities, and processes, can serve as the foundation to a sustainable enterprise data governance approach. Among the takeaways:
- Caltrans directly manages more than 50,000 lane miles of state and federal highways, plus more than 12,000 highway bridges; permits at more than 400 public-use airports; and it operates three of the top five Amtrak intercity rail services. The department also provides technical assistance and grants to regional partners for local planning and projects. The span and complexity of those duties requires a similar breadth and complexity in the information systems that support them. The project vision is one of delivering reliable, accessible, shareable, and quality-controlled data for use by Caltrans and partners. Services sought will include implementation of a software-as-a-service solution, software licensing and maintenance, and optional post-implementation services.
- Caltrans has selected 10 candidate systems to use as the basis for defining requirements for the EDGTS and as the initial target systems for implementation. System owners have been surveyed on their existing data governance capabilities and took part in workshops to identify use cases and requirements for each of six functional data governance categories. Conceptual architecture for the proposed environment includes vendor cloud services, where the EDGTS will live, and the secure agent that communicates directly with Caltrans apps. Vendor cloud services will provide functional capabilities to meet the department’s business objectives, including data quality management, metadata management, data dictionary management and data catalog management. The secure agent will scan Caltrans apps and data stores and execute processes and communicate with the vendor’s cloud services solution by providing metadata — but with no Caltrans data going outside the department firewall.
- Feedback must be submitted via the feedback/question template, via email to the procurement officer by 12 p.m. Feb. 12. Questions are encouraged in areas including identification of requirements that are too restrictive or would prohibit a company from bidding, and suggested modifications; areas of ambiguity or inconsistency; assumptions a particular company will make when preparing a proposal; items the state should consider including that this version of the solicitation does not have; information from potential bidders on proposed implementation approaches and their rationale, and on key factors and considerations to be successful after implementation; and identification of any discrepancies or inconsistencies between the statement of work and the deliverables workbook.
- Any solicitation ultimately conducted will follow a phased approach with multiple submissions and evaluations to ascertain the most qualified bidder to design, develop and implement the EDGTS. An award, if one comes, will be to a single bidder. The contract term, effective on approval by CDT’s Statewide Technology Procurement, would be three years, with the state option of as many as two one-year extensions, for maintenance and operations, licensing, hosting, and enhancements — making the maximum term five years. Feedback is due by 12 p.m. Feb. 12. The estimated solicitation release date is Sept. 13. Estimated contract execution date is Oct. 1, 2025.
