The vendor is required to provide for the design, development, testing, implementation, maintenance and support of the state child care information system (NJCCIS) as well as accompanying modules and components for the development, office assistance program.
- This new system includes a new statewide integrated electronic child care time and attendance system (NJCTAS), which accommodates both non-child care assistance funded and child care assistance funded provider and client populations, and payment administration functionality.
- System to perform the following:
• Overall project management;
• Licensing and inspections of child care providers;
• Professional development (PDR) via the workforce registry;
• Learning management system (LMS);
• Quality rating improvement system (QRIS) - grow NJ kids (GNJK) and child care quality initiatives;
• Grants and scholarships management;
• Child care time and attendance system
• Interfaces with any entities necessary to fulfill the requirements of the system;
• Customer service and technical support; and
• Web portal – robust and mobile responsive web portal with single sign-on for all users of the system.
- Provide the following general administrative requirements:
• Implement a governance structure to ensure effective communication at all levels to enhance identification of priorities and future work;
• Improve users’ interface to maximize staff efficiencies by supporting workflow processes that minimize the unnecessary switching of screens to complete common tasks, such as, converting, enhancing, and linking existing data/child care data systems;
• Ensure a strong emphasis on system and partner interdependencies at all project levels;
• Provide a seamless, and integrated data system that meets state and federal approved requirements and design
• Provides a mobile-responsive platform and portal that:
o Enables data collection by staff and system users to efficiently perform their responsibilities; and,
o Has a fully integrated database to support online queries of time and attendance activity, payment activity, administrative updates, and a full range of management reporting
• Enable state staff to create new pages and folders for file sharing and upload capabilities and assign user-specific access, as required by the state for assignment and approval;
• Provide electronic document and internal scanning functions to upload provider eligibility documentation submitted through the mail and/or NJCCIS web portal;
• Ensure access to automated calendar alerts and visit scheduling features;
• Provide product demonstrations to show project progress and to receive feedback;
• Make accurate and timely child care assistance payments and direct deposits to providers;
• Respond quickly to evolving system needs, regulation changes, and other requirements;
• Continually improve data quality to support project oversight and accountability;
• Complete all ongoing maintenance and initiatives as required by the state
• Distribute maintenance and operations project schedules to all applicable stakeholders, as needed;
• Provide sufficient data storage for uploading and downloading of documents and media files necessary for NJCCIS business functions;
• Deliver products using best practices and methodologies;
• Implement a technology model with the greatest opportunity for long-term sustainability;
• Ensure accurate reporting and accountability of state and federal resources and investments;
• Provide training and technical assistance on all products and services to all applicable stakeholders in english and Spanish, and other languages, as needed;
• Provide for secure auditable online updates and inquiry capability, as well as the ability to review and make administrative level edits, cancellations, and deletions through the system;
• Provide users with 24/7 access to the system and technical support availability;
• Collaborate with development and its stakeholders;
• Ensure NJCCIS security, client confidentiality and data integrity;
• Ensure transparency and immediately inform development and other stakeholders of risk and emerging issues;
- Project management
• Designate a project manager and a technical lead to maintain regular contact with the state contract manager (SCM) and staff, subject to SCM approval.
• Establish and maintain all tasks and items necessary to deliver the system effectively.
• This includes relationships with agencies, providers, and related state staff;
• Provide for periodic, planned meetings and communications with state and agencies staff.
• The state will facilitate such meetings and communications (e.g. such as evaluating system usage and discussing issues).
• The contractor shall collect any data, prepare an agenda, provide all support materials for meetings no less than two (2) business days before the meeting.
• The contractor shall provide any meeting minutes and communications to all staff who attend the meetings no more than five (5) business days after the meeting.
• All materials for distribution must have prior approval by the SCM;
• Establish and staff a local office within 25 miles of the office of child care assistance address at 6 quaker bridge plaza, state during the design, development and implementation phases, until such time that the state deems each of the phases successful and completed;
• Establish and describe, in detail, what is to be the design, development, and implementation phases.
• The contractor is to present milestones and other achievable objectives for each phase, along with timeframes to the SCM, and for the SCM approval; and,
• Ensure that contractor staff is available to come onsite at 6 quaker bridge plaza during the operational phase when requested by the SCM.
- Project management plan and requirements
• Provide a detailed schedule, beginning with the contract effective date, which includes the projected completion dates for the system design, development, testing, and acceptance by the state, as well as the projected data conversion date and system roll-out.
• The schedule shall identify all critical path and dependent tasks (e.g. task relationships), including a quality assurance schedule.
• The schedule shall provide a detailed work breakdown structure including phases, activities, tasks, milestones, deliverables, and due dates;
• Provide a final contingency plan for meeting deadlines, and include a plan to ensure that the system is ready for conversion at least ninety (90) calendar days-days prior to the expiration of the current electronic benefits transfer for department contract which includes the time and attendance system known as electronic child care;
• Define the responsibilities and tasks of the contractor, subcontractors, state, agencies, providers, and clients;
• Identify resource requirements and responsibilities;
• Identify staff resources assigned to work on the project management plan (PMP) and major tasks, and include their names, position titles, and the estimated percent of their time to be allocated to this effort;
• Identify quality assurance check points; and,
• Reference the mobilization plan (section 3.18) for the purchase and distribution of equipment, inventory, supplies, materials, etc. that are required to fully implement the contractor’s system by the required rollout date as stated therein.
- Quality review board (QRB) and division executive management (dem) team
• Present the PMP to the QRB at the project kick-off meeting and also submit an updated PMP to the QRB on a WEEKLY basis up until three (3) calendar months after go-live of the system;
• Ensure that the project manager is present at the project kick-off meeting and that they address all questions raised by the QRB with regard to the adequacy or correctness of the PMP and any supporting documentation;
• Present to the QRB a global overview of the NJCCIS system, that includes functionality, user experience, issues and concerns on a monthly reporting timeframe;
• Prepare minutes of the meeting, specifying all revisions and associated timelines agreed to at the meeting;
• Provide the minutes to the SCM no later than five (5) business days after each QRB meeting for review prior to distribution to the members of the QRB;
• Modify project documentation within ten (10) calendar days, if necessary, to reflect any changes agreed to at the QRB meeting, and distribute the revised documentation to the members of the QRB;
• Provide each member of the QRB all sub-phase documentation at least ten (10) business days prior to each scheduled QRB meeting to allow sufficient time for review. sub-phase documentation shall identify the tasks defined in the PMP needed to complete deliverables for a particular phase; and
• Provide a project status report at each QRB meeting that contains the following information:
o a list of the highest priority items the contractor and/or the SCM would like to discuss in the current meeting
o A list of tasks and their associated deliverables that have been completed, awaiting approval and approved during the report period (since the last meeting) with completion and approval dates identified;
o A list of tasks in progress but not completed;
o Identification of tasks that are ahead of schedule;
o A list of tasks that are behind schedule or were scheduled to have started but were not started, with reasons for delays and mitigation efforts;
o Issues encountered in the current reporting period and proposed solutions;
o issues resolved since the last meeting and the methods of resolution;
o A list of any questions or issues that must be resolved;
o Identification and justification of any adjustments in the project schedule, resources (staff), and cost;
o Disputed items; and
o A schedule for the next month’s activities.
- Communication plan for project management
• Identification of stakeholders, the determination of their communication needs, and how to fulfill these needs;
• Definition of the procedures for developing and updating project information to satisfy communication needs;
• Definition of the procedures for managing and distributing project information to satisfy communication needs;
• Must develop a plan for resolution of production environment issues with names and contact information (including email addresses and mobile phone numbers for off-hours support) for production control personnel;
• A plan to notify a system administrator, when a predetermined threshold of error, as determined by the state, has occurred during a batch or real-time data transfer;
• Documentation defining the file transfer procedure and actions to be taken when errors are found; and
• Documentation of the file transfer schedule.
- Software platform system management and administration
• Perform software platform-level administration, reporting, and support;
• Coordinate the installation within the project timelines, testing, operation, troubleshooting and maintaining of the software;
• Identify and test packaging patches and other updates associated with supported software, as well as supporting additional security-related fixes associated with the systems software;
• Develop procedures for state review and approval for handling all planned and unplanned outages affecting the software platform and state applications including review, approval, communication and proper documentation;
• Manage the security functions related to the software including administrative access and passwords (e.g., users with root access, administrator, data base administrator, or low-level read-write access) and the related security controls to maintain the integrity of the software, based on the state’s security standards;
• Configure and maintain systems for network and remote access;
• Provide advisory services to support the software administration and developer access services and roles;
• Review supported software administration, set-up and configuration;
• Support performance tuning of state application and other software elements; and,
• Update the SCM, division executive management and QRB of the above requirements 30 days prior to the event occurrence
- Change management
• Provide the state with a minimum of thirty (30) calendar days pre-notification of any system changes proposed, including requests made by other users that could have an impact on the system, including:
o Details of the change requested and identified impact of incorporating the change;
o Projected timeline and costs by each specific change order task;
o Details of staff, resources, work hours required to complete the change order;
o Assess and detail user training needs and communication/marketing needs as result of the change order; and,
o Provide an actively updated project management plan as needed for the period of the change request as requested by the SCM;
• Only proceed with the development of changes that the SCM has approved in writing;
• Implement any system changes in the production environment after the contractor validates the change in the system’s testing environment, and all applicable user acceptance testing (UAT) environment;
• Maintain a mechanism to track requested changes by source and reason, and any other modifications made to the system; and,
• Validate changes introduced in the production environment.
- Issue management
• Provide an issues management plan containing the identification and resolution of all project issues, which include at a minimum product failure, software defects, material shortages, supplier issues.
• The issue management plan must detail the identification, tracking, analysis, resolution and prevention steps for future issues. approval by the SCM is required within twelve (12) weeks of contract award;
• Promptly respond to calls received from the SCM no later than one (1) business day;
• Report issue identification and resolution to the State Contract Manager SCM no later than the 15th calendar day of every month and as requested;
• Provide online access to an issue tracking system for use by both contractor and state staff to track reported problems; and,
• Include issue identification, personnel responsible for the resolution, projected time for resolution, status, escalation procedures, and the recording of final outcome in an online report
- Risk management
• Loss or re-assignment of personnel;
• Security;
• Project schedule;
• Unacceptable test results;
• Subcontractor performance;
• Batch file and transaction processing capacity;
• Ats issues;
• Network components communication links;
• System interfaces;
• Responses to exception reporting from financial institutions, the state, and any user of NJCCIS;
• Customer service;
• Delays in financial settlement; and,
• Delays in direct deposit or manual payments
- System environment requirements
• Development and configuration: all development activity including customizations, modifications or configurations;
• Testing and staging, quality assurance testing: test delivered bundles and fixes; test the customizations, modifications or configurations made to the application before any changes are migrated to production.
• This instance must be used for all forms of integration testing, including regression testing;
• Acceptance testing: allows testers and pilot users to assess production acceptance issues and for performance testing;
• Training: training involves how to operate the system and ats as specified throughout the bid solicitation; and,
• Production: the main transactional environment for the contractor’s system
- Contract Period/Term: 4 years
- Mandatory/Non-Mandatory Pre-bid/Pre-Proposal Date: February 04, 2025
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: February 14, 2025