The vendor is required to provide technical services and products tailored specifically to manage conference and event processes, to support the submission and review of proposals, awards, and grants, act as a secure database for contact information, and serve as a marketing tool for the resource center for the first-year experience and students in transition.
- Administrative accounts: must provide at least ten (10) administrative accounts for management of the product or service at no additional charge.
- Database management: must provide access to a service or product that can act as a year-round secure database for contact information. This includes:
• Must allow for the import of contacts (50,000+) from the center’s current homegrown database into the new product.
• The new product must allow for all imported contacts to be sorted into filtered groups (i.e., past conference participants, past online course takers, etc.) so they can be easily imported into relevant center marketing communications going forward.
• For all events and online courses created in the new product: must automatically save the contact information of the individuals who register for and attend these events and ensure that these contacts can be easily imported (by event or course) into relevant center marketing communications going forward.
• Must have features in place to automate contact management to keep the database up to date, such as identifying and removing duplicate contacts.
• Must have reporting features that will allow us to identify an individual contact’s history of interaction with the center (e.g., a list of events they have attended) as well pull reports that allow us to identify groups of contacts that are of high-interest (e.g., individuals that have attended all of our conferences over the past three years, individuals who subscribe to our publications, individuals who purchase our products).
• Must clearly name the unique identifier used to match contacts for reporting purposes in the proposal.
- Communications management: must provide access to a service or product that can act as a year-round communications management tool. This includes:
• Must provide a platform where the center can build and send out mass communications (emails) to alert our network of upcoming center events and publications (up to 30,000 contacts per send).
• We must be able to customize the branding of emails in this platform and have all emails reflect being sent from the center.
• All emails must also have an unsubscribe button included and, should anyone unsubscribe, their contact preferences must be automatically updated in the communications platform and/or the contact’s record.
• Must be able to easily and quickly select and import contacts (as noted in #2 above) from the new product into each email send.
• Must have the ability to generate test emails so center staff can proof messages before sending out to larger audiences.
• Must have the ability to embed images and videos into all email communications.
• Must mitigate to the fullest extent possible that messages sent will not end up in the recipients’ junk/spam folders.
• Must provide access to email send data such as open rates, total opens, click through, and bounces.
• Must be able to have features in place that the center can use to set up automatic reminders (emails) for individuals to finish their registrations after a set number of days have passed.
• Preference is to be able to configure this during the setup process for all new events and online courses.
• Preference is to have access to email templates that can be copied/edited to make future email sends related to the same topic easier/faster to complete by center staff.
• Must provide robust reporting tools for all events, online courses, abstract management (proposals & award applications), and communications functions that are set up within the system.
• The center prefers that there is a feature set up that requires individuals to create an account to access event/course registrations, proposal submissions, and more to allow for better reporting processes (i.e., unique identifiers) and the ability to track which events, courses, etc. that individuals have registered for all in one place (i.e., each individual users’ dashboards).
- Mobile app.: must provide access to a dedicated service or product that can serve as a digital events' mobile app for multiple (2-5) yearly in-person, virtual, or hybrid events that are one (1) to five (5) days in length.
• Must allow for updating in real time, with limited (but reasonable) delay, with the capacity for up to 4,000 unique, individual users per event.
• Must allow for custom university, and the national resource center for first-year experience and students in transition, branding.
• must allow for custom screens (i.e., schedules, groups, networking opportunities, maps, sponsors, web links, about the event, session information, session evaluations, things to do etc.)
• Must allow for a custom branded mobile app downloaded from the apple app store and google play store.
• Must fully integrate with abstract, registration, and evaluation system.
• Must allow for sponsorship and advertising opportunities throughout the app.
• Must have attendee chats, push notifications, schedule/itinerary builder, exhibitor display, discussion boards, and the ability to link information to external websites.
• Must have the ability to link content within the app to other content within the app.
• Must allow for customized session evaluation forms to be set up within the app.
- Routine maintenance: contractor shall ensure the following performance standards:   
• It is required that any large-scale updates or maintenance of products or services (unless for urgent security purposes) will occur outside of the hours of 8am-5pm est. contractor will provide 72 hours’ notice if any products or services will be non-usable for an extended period of time.
• It is required that the company provide access to ongoing support, including 24/7 customer service representatives or technicians for emergency support (i.e., during events) and a digital library of resources that would allow the resource center for the first-year experience and students in transition staff to troubleshoot basic technical issues, especially during pre-designated critical events such as, but not limited to, the annual conference on the first-year experience and the national conference on students in transition.
• Must conduct routine updates to the services and/or products as in accordance with the industry standards and advancements in general, and readily available to the public, technology.
- Contract Period/Term: 3 years
- Non-Mandatory Pre-Proposal Date: May 16, 2025
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: May 16, 2025