In a Request for Offer for Web Architecture, Design & Development Consulting Services released Thursday, the California Workforce Development Board (CWDB) seeks respondents to provide IT consulting and “senior level web architecture” that will assist the board in standing up “a user-friendly public interface (via a Web portal), including an interactive dashboard and query tool.” Among the takeaways:
• CWDB seeks a contractor to provide a solution that “will help workforce system customers and potential customers select the workforce development, training and related education programs that best suit their needs” — effectively expanding the reach of its Cross-System Analytics and Assessment for Learning and Skills Attainment (CAAL-Skills) program, which deployed in late 2016. CAAL-Skills’s early objectives were to gather “workforce training, development, and related-education data” from partners; create a system to consolidate and enhance that data; and produce the data tables for the workforce metrics dashboard as mandated by 2014’s Assembly Bill 2148 from Assemblymember Kevin Mullin, D-San Mateo.
• The program has since evolved into “an interagency and multi-departmental workforce system evaluation program,” per the RFO, and uses information from federal and state funded workforce development, training, and education programs to gauge participation and outcomes. But while the system offers the “ability to collect, store, and analyze workforce-related information,” it lacks a user-friendly interface and portal.
• CAAL-Skills is “anticipated to be the platform for the longitudinal analysis of workforce system information in California,” according to the RFO, and to fulfill the “data system vision identified in the state’s 2020-2023 Unified Strategic Workforce Development Plan.” Its database design is also expected to “expand in content” with the addition of more “workforce-related attributes” and data partners. Also anticipated is the creation of “multidimensional online analytical processing (MOLAP) cubes and relational online analytical processing (ROLAP) cubes for specific research requirements” for CAAL-Skills, by the middle of next year.
• The contractor will serve as Web architect, designer and developer for the CAAL-Skills Program, according to the RFO, and will “design, develop, and implement the public and partner interface to CAAL-Skills.” Services being sought include developing a work plan and schedule using agile methodology to “develop, test, secure, and deploy the Workforce Development Web Interface” in test/prototype and in production; refining the test/prototype based on feedback; and setting up development, testing/prototype, enhanced prototype and production environments — the latter three with HTTPs encryption.
Among the minimum qualifications, the contractor must have been providing the state with contract/consulting services since at least 2015 and have at least three technical staff doing similar services to those set out in the RFO. Requirements include three years’ experience researching, evaluating, and documenting technical solutions including Web portals, open data portals and public-facing dashboards; three years’ experience designing, developing and deploying browser-based Web apps using open source technology; and three years’ experience with “techniques to implement web application security” including authentication, authorization and issuing session tokens.
• The contract’s value is not specified; however, per the cost table, total proposed cost must not exceed $250,000. CWDB has received federal grant funding for the public interface, dashboard and query tool although the amount is not specified. Any subcontractors receiving more than 10 percent of the contract value must also meet all its contractual, administrative and technical requirements. Questions are due by 3 p.m. Oct. 20; offers are due by 3 p.m. on Nov. 10 and will be evaluated Nov. 17. Contract term begins March 1 and ends Feb. 28, 2022, with the option of a one-year extension at the same hourly rates, by the state.
