The Vendor is required to provide custom case management & billing system ("CARES") a long-term relationship with a software development and support partner to build and support the next-generation version of the CARES case management and billing software that could last 10+ years.
- developed system must be reliable, agile, and responsive to the organization's ongoing growth and changing needs, which could someday include additional technologies and databases that interface with agency platforms.
- A fully custom software solution that it will own 100%. SaaS and cots solutions will not be considered.
- The new CARES application must address the following high-priority essentials:
• 24/7 Uptime: Ensure high reliability with minimal downtime, ideally limited to planned maintenance windows.
• Robust Security: Safeguard application and data against unauthorized access or tampering.
• Data Integrity: Maintain consistent, accurate, and well-structured data throughout the system, following appropriate normalization principles to ensure efficient and reliable reporting. Strong data integrity is essential not only for display purposes but also for reliable reporting, auditing, and decision-making.
• Confidentiality: Protect extremely sensitive case and user information throughout the application.
• Access Control: Enforce precise data visibility rules to ensure users only access information they are authorized to view.
• Accurate Payments: Guarantee users are paid correctly, down to the cent, based on approved invoices.
• Performance: Deliver fast, efficient processing even under high user or data load.
• Disaster Recovery: Implement robust backup, data redundancy, and recovery mechanisms to prevent data loss and minimize downtime.
• Scalability and Longevity: Design the system for long-term growth, with architecture and documentation that can support increasing data volume and user activity for many years without degradation.  • Quick Response Times: Proposers must ensure that the system consistently performs with minimal latency and downtime, maintaining efficient functionality during all operational hours.
• Support Documentation: Proposers must prioritize comprehensive, consistent, and centralized documentation that all team members can access.
• They must maintain it to support transparency, enable knowledge transfer, and reduce reliance on individuals—not to downplay individual brilliance, but to ensure the system’s ongoing success does not come to rest on any one person’s shoulders.  - Provide a detailed description of the development process that would be used to implement this solution.
- CARES User Groups
• End Users – agency contractors and their staff (Attorneys, Case Consultants, and Paralegals) who perform case-related legal work. Cannot provision users or access administrative functions. Includes multiple Personas to reflect roles.
• Admin Users – Oversight and system administrators. Two fixed types:
○ System Admin – Full administrative privileges; not tied to a Persona; inherits all agency Staff permissions.
○ Agency Staff – Read-only access throughout most End User screens, not limited by oce. No System Admin controls. Includes internal roles defined through Personas (e.g., Staff Attorney,
Accounting 1).
- The system must use clean typography and spacing to avoid ambiguity (e.g., distinguishing “1” from “l”), and must block interaction with read-only fields while keeping them screen-reader accessible.
- CARES handles highly sensitive information about children, families, and court proceedings. The system must protect this data with rigorous security measures, including encryption at rest and in transit, and must adhere to industry standards for safeguarding personally identifiable information (PII) and legal records.
- Non-Mandatory Pre-Proposal Virtual Conference Date: April 10, 2025
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: April 18, 2025