Financial Information Systems...• Project History (closed and open) • Purchasing History (closed...

Financial Information System (FIS) And

Material Management Information System (MMIS) Replacement Project

Request for Proposal Questions & Responses

November 21, 2017

Table of Contents

1.0 Questions and Responses ........................................................................................... 1

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1.0 Questions and Responses

1. Can EBMUD provide an extension of the proposal deadline till early January, 2018? a. EBMUD will extend the proposal deadline date by one week to Friday, December 15, 2017

(see Addendum For RFP FIS-MMIS Replacement Project N1).

2. Will there be a proposal conference? If so, please provide the logistics of that event. a. No proposal conference is planned.

3. Can you please let us know the approximate time for EBMUD’s award?

a. The District estimates the evaluation process to last roughly 6 months after proposal due date. When that is complete, we will issue an “intent to award” and begin contract(s) negotiations.

4. When will you start deploying the software? a. We will initiate implementation after negotiated contract(s) is (are) signed.

5. Is it Ok to convert the Functional Requirements Word document to a spreadsheet?

a. Yes

6. On page 6 of the RFP, the selection committee is mentioned that it “may be composed of District staff and other parties that have expertise or experience in this type of procurement.” Would you be able to disclose if EBMUD has engaged the assistance with a 3rd party consultant (other parties) to assist with this process? If yes, would you be able to disclose the name of the firm that is involved?

a. The District has not engaged a 3rd party consultant at this time.

7. Can you please comment on how EBMUD handles sales tax?Are the costs of the consulting services and software deriving from this RFP subject to sales tax? If yes, can you please indicate the % sales tax rate that vendors should include along with their proposed services?

a. Please refer to CA BOE Regulation 1502. Sales rate, if applicable, would be Alameda County.

Can EBMUD comment on the number of sales tax jurisdictions it normally needs to keep track of through the normal course of business procuring supplies etc? In other words, roughly how many sales tax locations receive sales tax revenue from purchases made by EBMUD? Are those sales taxes normally collected at the point of sale/by the vendor, or does EBMUD also submit sales/use taxes directly to the taxing jurisdictions?

a. Most of the District’s business is located in 5 counties. It has become more complex as individual cities add city taxes on top of state and county. With those, it is reaching 15-20 jurisdictions. The District also has fuel tax which is at a different rate than sales and use tax, and in our existing procurement system has individual tax codes. Plant book sales have been tracked separately and reported for the most part as non-nexus for those outside of the District service area. That program is ending and sales have been minor.

8. Would EBMUD extend the deadline for proposal submission by 1 week until the 15th of December? a. EBMUD will extend the proposal deadline date by one week to Friday, December 15, 2017.

9. With regards to Attachment A, Functional Requirements, section 1.17, requirements #8 and #9, can

you please comment as to the desired purpose and/or provide examples for these two requirements? In other words, is EBMUD interested in determining whether a software package has the capabilities

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to meet legal requirements? We are concerned that these requirements are open-ended and would be difficult for a vendor to credibly say “yes” to due to the way these requirements are written.

a. The District wants to know if the vendor would continuously enhance the product to meet new state/federal passed accounting rules or procurement rules for public agencies. For example, if the state passes a new GASB XX for asset management, would the prospect product be enhanced to address that requirement and if so, would there be any additional charge to the District?

10. Can you please confirm how many separate legal entities will need to be implemented within the proposed system? (e.g. Water, Wastewater, Retirement Fund, JPAs). Do all of these different entities share the same Chart of Accounts, or do they need to have separate ones? Is EBMUD interested in redesigning any Chart(s) of Accounts, and as such, would like respondents to include these services?

a. The District manages Water, Wastewater, ERS (Employee Retirement Systems) and five JPAs including:

• BACWA - Bay Area Clean Water Agencies • DERWA - Dublin San Ramon Services District (DSRSD) East Bay Municipal Utility

District (EBMUD) Recycled Water Authority • FRWA - Freeport Regional Water Authority • ICP – Inflow Correction Program (not a real JPA) • UMRWA - Upper Mokelumne River Watershed Authority

These entities share the same Chart of Accounts (COA). However, we would like to explore options to redesign the Chart of Accounts for improvement. Please itemize the costs of these services.

11. Is there any chance you can tell the approved budget for this project?

a. The District’s biennial budget for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 is available on ebmud.com.

12. Will EBMUD accept a joint RFP response or is there a preference for a prime contractor/sub-contractor relationship?

a. We prefer but do not require a prime contractor / sub-contractor relationship. 13. What is EBMUD’s desired timeline for the implementation of the budget planning and financial

reporting portion of the FIS/MMIS replacement project? a. The desired timeline(s) will be negotiated during “intent to award” contract negotiations with

vendor(s).

14. Does EBMUD prefer an on-premise or cloud based solution? a. The District is open to both on-premise and cloud-based solutions.

15. Can you please clarify the number of users and types of users that would need access to the budget

planning and financial reporting software?

We have three different User Types: Administrators – they can do anything in the system. Power Users – can do anything in the system EXCEPT manage the dimensional information, hierarchies, User Administration, configuration of the ETL and a few other obscure administrative functions. They CAN create reports, allocation rules and data entry templates. Data Entry and Reporting Users – they use the system as configured by Admins and Power Users. They CANNOT create new reports/data entry templates in the system…

How many of each would you need?

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a. Administrators – approximately 5

Power Users – approximately 10 Data Entry and Reporting Users –250-300

16. Attachment A, “1.8 Asset Management / Depreciation” – Does EBMUD require ability to depreciate assets for tax purposes (Double Declining , ACRS, MACRS, etc?)

a. No 17. Attachment A, “1.11 General Ledger”, R#1.2 – Please provide a count of different Chart of Accounts

structures EBMUD anticipates using going forward a. The District manages Water, Wastewater, ERS (Employee Retirement Systems) and five

JPAs including: • BACWA - Bay Area Clean Water Agencies • DERWA - Dublin San Ramon Services District (DSRSD) East Bay Municipal Utility

District (EBMUD) Recycled Water Authority • FRWA - Freeport Regional Water Authority • ICP – Inflow Correction Program (not a real JPA) • UMRWA - Upper Mokelumne River Watershed Authority

These entities currently share the same Chart of Accounts. However, we would like to explore options for Chart of Accounts improvement and your recommendation is welcome.

18. Attachment B, “5. Data Management” - EBMUD states “The Information Systems Department at

EBMUD maintains a District-wide data warehouse for business reporting and analytics. The System shall provide mechanisms for the export of all data to the District data warehouse.” Please confirm the requirement is for the ability of the data to be exported, rather than the Implementation Partner including building this export within the bid

a. The export processes to the District data warehouse, whether performed by the bidder or the District, will be part of the overall project solution. We will evaluate all costs surrounding the various proposed solutions.

19. Attachment B, Appendix A - If EBMUD are replacing HR and payroll by 2020 - what are they

replacing it with? a. The replacement system(s) for HR and Payroll will be determined after their prospective RFI

and RFP processes have completed. 20. Attachment B, Appendix A - What is the expected level and type of integration with the document

management system? a. The District’s document management system can be serve as the back-end for file storage.

However, if your solution comes with a document management system, we like to know how to back up these documents into our systems for long-term record retention purposes.

21. Where in the proposal response would the District like us to place the Exhibit A Response Packet

Forms (Exhibit A Packet Guidelines and Proposer Information Acceptance Form)? It is not referenced in the “Required Documentation and Submittals” subsection.

a. The RFP Response Packet Guidelines and Proposer Information and Acceptance documents can be placed at the beginning of the proposal.

22. If we sign the Proposer Information Form, does that signature acknowledge any exceptions we wish

to take? May we put an ** by our signature indicating that the signature is inclusive of our exceptions?

a. This approach to highlight exceptions is acceptable.

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23. Exhibit C – PSIG has a page count limit of 5 pages, before answers are added. This does not seem to accommodate the addition of answers. Would the District be willing to expand the page count limitation so that succinct responses may be provided?

a. Your responses, on separate pieces of paper, should not exceed 5 pages. 24. The District has requirements to extract data to EBMUD Data Warehouse (a data source supports the

EBMUD report engine) for reports formed by data across the District systems. What is the current warehouse technology and data visualization tool in use? Please expand on anticipated reporting that will be accomplished via the Data Warehouse vs. transactional analysis in the integrated ERP application.

a. The District is using Oracle 11g database and Jaspersoft v6.3 for reporting. We are anticipating custom, ad-hoc reporting of financial data from our data warehouse.

25. How much historical transaction data does the District intend to convert for the following:

• General Ledger Transactions • Project History (closed and open) • Purchasing History (closed and open) • Invoices (closed and open) • Other (specify)

a. We understand that not all historical transaction data will be migrated to the new system. Given the scope of the FIS/MMIS project, we would like your recommendation on the amount of historical transaction data to be converted and migrated to the new system.

26. What are the current data retention policies for the in scope financial data? Do you currently utilize

any COTS products for data archiving? a. The District must be able to retain all our data permanently and also requires ability to

selectively archive data. We do not currently use a COTS product for data archiving. 27. For single sign-on, do you currently utilize Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) or an external

SAML Identity Provider (IDP), e.g. Azure, Okta, PingFederate? a. We are using our own, internally managed, Active Directory Federation Services and

SAML/CAS. 28. What business processes are supported by the DOX Document Mgmt. System versus those

supported by the document mgmt. capabilities of EADOC? a. The DOX document management system was developed in-house and is the District’s

primarily Document Management System. Other systems such as EADOC may have document management capabilities but are limited to specific business processes.

29. Are your custom written applications, that will not be replaced as part of this initiative, developed with

any application-level APIs to support integration? a. Some applications utilize SOAP or REST-based web services. The District can create

additional end-points to facilitate integration where needed. 30. Is the District receptive to remote and/or offshore consulting service delivery?

a. The District prefers onshore, on-site consulting service delivery. 31. Please provide user counts for each of the modules/functions listed in Attachment A, Section 1.

a. These are estimates. Budget: 250+ Project Management Tool: 200+

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Accounting : 40+ (If your solution allows staff other than accounting staff to submit request for payment, then estimated number of users will be higher.) Procurement (user & buyer): 200+ Inventory Management: 25+ Reporting users (read): 1500+

32. Provide the current Chart of Accounts structure. Does the District anticipate a COA redesign?

a. Our current Chart of Accounts (COA) structure is by Business Unit, Fund, Organization, Program-Project, and Account. There are a total of over 1100 accounts. We will provide the COA structure to the finalists. We would like to explore options to redesign COA for improvement.

33. Provide the following data/transaction volumes:

• Number of Funds, Accounts, Departments and Locations. • Number of Items in Item Master • Number of Active Projects and Grants • Number of Assets • Number of Active Vendors • Number of Active Customers • Monthly / Annual Count of Invoices/Bills • Monthly / Annual Count of Vendor Invoices • Monthly / Annual Count of Purchase Orders • Monthly / Annual Count of Purchase Requisitions

a. Number of Funds, Accounts, Departments and Locations: 6/1100+/6/60+

Number of Items in Item Master: 17,500 Number of Active Projects and Grants:

- Active Reference Projects: 148 - Active Segments: 507 - Active Project Authorizations: 732 - Active Capital Job Numbers: 3348 - Number of Grants:

o Federal: 2 o State: 25+

Number of Assets: Water – 55 and Wastewater - 19 Number of Active Vendors: 7600 Number of Active Customers: Do you refer to rate payers or all EBMUD customers? Annual Count of Invoices/Bills: 3000+ Annual Count of Vendor Invoices: 46,000 Annual Count of Purchase Orders: 5000 Annual Count of Purchase Requisitions: 5000+

34. Does the District need to plan around fixed assets?

a. We do not understand the question. 35. Does the District currently budget for depreciation/amortization and other expenses related to assets?

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a. No 36. What is the District’s current forecast cycle?

a. Multiple times a year. 37. Will budget adjustments occur within the ERP system or budget system?

a. Budget system. 38. Does the District currently have a predefined process for mid-year adjustments? If yes, then how

does the District find out if there are deviations from budgets during the cycle? a. No. Adjustments are handled as they occur.

39. Is Cloud the targeted technology platform for the new systems?

a. The District is open to both on-premise and cloud-based solutions. 40. Does the District currently use any other Enterprise SaaS applications?

a. The District utilizes a variety of SaaS applications, but does not use any major enterprise SaaS systems.

41. Does the District have a specific timeline for implementation of the new solution? Are multiple phases

planned? a. There is no specific timeline for implementation. No decision has been made on the

implementation approach. 42. Exhibit D, 2, b references performance bonds. Will a Performance bond be required for this project?

a. The District does not expect to require a performance bond. 43. Aside from the invoice requirements outlined on p. 12,F,3 is there specific additional project reporting

required to support invoicing? If so, can you please share the required formats? a. Please see details in Reporting and Analytics requirements section in Attachment A.

44. What PeopleTools release is the current system running on?

a. In the Financials environment, we use 8.45.13.

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1.13 Purchasing

R# Description Required Information

1 Purchasing Setup 1.1 Vendor product shall update sales tax codes as

required by regulators. Does the Sales tax code to be updated automatic or Manual Response: Automatic

3 Bid Management 3.3 Vendor product shall provide functional support for

public viewing of RFPs & RFQs without registration. Is it free viewing public into sourcing portal Response: The public should be able to view the bid documents, but to bid, the vendor must register in the system.

3.33 Vendor product shall be able to copy winning bid details to a Purchase Order.

Winning bid details to be captured as an attachment or as a supplier note Response: Both, and results should be able to be posted to the web and sent to bidders if required by buyer.

3.35 Vendor product shall be able to publish RFPs/RFQs on EBMUD’s external website.

Is it continuing process or once in stipulated time frame, Response: Once in a stipulated timeframe. Each RFP and RFQ has an open and close date.

4 Purchase Orders (POs) 4.3 Vendor product shall define and indicate special

orders including, but not limited to the following: Are these onetime orders Response: No

4.12 Vendor product shall email requisition requester upon receipt of a CEU-Order as a record.

Does CEU-Orders follow Approval Process? Response: Yes

4.33 Vendor product shall be able to dispatch purchase orders to vendors without purchasing approval (determined by predefined purchase order types).

Is the Warehouse supervisor allotted with buyer roles and does the PO process without approval, if so do the supplier supplies goods against an unapproved PO Response: These POs are based on a pre-approved contract.

4.35 Vendor product shall be able to notify when buyers attempt to order exceed QTY specified on the line item order.

Is the notification to the Requester or to the Approver (and Requestor), does these exceed QTY needs any approval or not Response: Approval required

4.41 Vendor product shall notify buyers in user defined number of months prior to PO expiration.

is the Parent PO expiration Response: We do not understand the question.

4.43 Vendor product shall notify buyers if purchase orders stuck in a status for more than user defined number of days.

Is it specific to certain status, or stuck for Approval Response: Stuck for approval.

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5.15 Vendor product shall be able to split charge of a line item to multiple financial coding.

Business scenario for splitting charge of a line to multiple Financial Coding Response: 2 departments share the cost to purchase one piece of equipment.

5.19 Vendor product shall perform budget checking before PR submission to ensure that there is sufficient funding for the purchase request.

Budget Checking is it specific to certain level of Requester or to all Response: To all.

1.14 Inventory Management

R# Description Required Information

4 Store Requisition Management 4.4 Vendor product shall be able to re-route unfulfilled

store requisitions to a different warehouse. Is it Internal Requisition and What is the Business scenario? Response: If products are not available at the requested warehouse, but are available at another District warehouse.

4.7 Vendor product shall combine unfulfilled store requisitions given the same financial coding and requisition requesters.

Need More Information about process Response: This will streamline the process of ordering multiple products, for multiple workgroups, from a single vendor.

11 Item Management (Item Master) 11.17 Vendor product shall provide Inventory Organization

Management. These organization parameters include, but are not limited to the following:

Need more details about Check in and Check out time in Parameters Response: We like to know when user checks out an item and when an item is checked in to the warehouse.

General Questions 1) Is there a suggested technology platform

and ERP software that the agency would prefer? Response: No

2) If we propose Oracle Cloud based ERP solution, would there be any concerns from the agency? Response: The District is open to on-premise and cloud-based solutions.

3) Does the agency have pre-decided maximum total budget for this project? Response: The District’s biennial budget is available on EBMUD.com.

4) Would the agency prefer to run both current system and new system parallel for some time? If so, what will be the duration of the systems to keep in parallel? Response: The District prefers to not run systems in parallel.

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5) Regarding the data from the current system, does the agency want to migrate the master data? Response: Yes. We would like your recommendations on the amount of historical transaction data to be converted and migrated to the new system.

6) Does the agency would like to migrate the current transactional data into the new system? If so, how far back the data needs to be ported to new system? Response: We understand that not all historical transaction data will be migrated to the new system. Given the scope of the FIS/MMIS project, we would like your recommendation on the amount of historical transaction data to be converted and migrated to the new system.

7) Does the agency expect all the required resources from our firm to work from the onsite? Response: The District prefers onshore, on-site consulting service delivery.

8) If agency is ok with resources working from onsite and offsite on this project, do you allow resources working from offshore (example, resources working from India)? Response: The District prefers onshore, on-site consulting service delivery.

9) Does the agency have any tentative start date of this project and tentative target go-live date? Response: The District plans to start the implementation project immediately following the selection process.

10) Would the agency prefer to go-live with all module at the same time (big-bang approach) or does the agency prefer to migrate to cloud incrementally module by module? Response: No decision has been made regarding the deployment approach.

11) Are there any reports outside the out-of-the box that currently being used need to be re-created using the new system? Response: Yes

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12) Will the agency provide required laptops, software, and other tools to project members from the vendor? Response: The District will provide onsite workstations and cubicles.

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Question #

Question/Clarification Sought RFP Reference

1. Has the District taken the services of any external vendor to help with the proposal preparation and analysis? If so, who is the vendor? Response: The District has not secured the services of an external vendor for proposal analysis at this time.

2. Is the District open to some offshore work for the implementation? Response: The District prefers onshore, on-site consulting service delivery.

3. What is the budget cycle? When does it start and end? Response: A budget cycle refers to the life of a budget from creation to evaluation. The District’s budget cycle has two fiscal years. It starts on July 1st and ends on June 30 every other year. We are currently in FY18 & FY19 budget cycle which starts on 7/1/17 and will end on 6/30/19.

4. Does the District want a single sign on capability? If so, how many active directories does the Organization have for Single Sign on purposes? Response: Yes. District has a SAML/CAS server and the District has one (1) active directory for Active Directory Federation Services.

5. Kindly provide the annual counts for the following a) AP invoices b) Expense Reports c) AR invoices

d) Purchase Requisitions Response: Accounting a) Estimated 46,000 AP invoices. b) Estimated 1,500. c) Estimated 3,000 (Misc.) AR invoices, not main customer billing. d) Estimated 5,000 PO’s and 24,000 PCard transactions.

6. Has the District set any timeline within which the entire implementation project is proposed to be completed?

Response: There is no specific timeline for implementation.

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Question #


7. Does the District have a preferred Phasing approach to the implementation

Response: No.

8. How many bank accounts does the District need to be configured as a part of this implementation? Response: Estimated 10.

9. What is the total number of employees enterprise wide, needing access to Financials including GL, AP, AR and Fixed Assets but excluding users requiring only AP invoice approvals

Response: Estimated 100.

10. What is the total number Procurement users needing access to create or approve Purchase requisitions? Include all employees outside of the Procurement Department who may be involved in the process Response: Estimated 270.

11. What is the total number Procurement users/buyers needing access to create or approve Purchase Orders? Include all employees outside of the Procurement Department who may be involved in the process if the Procurement process is decentralized.

Response: We will have about 8 users in Procurement to create and approve PO’s. If the Procurement process is decentralized, the estimated user count is 200.

12. What is the total number of employees enterprise wide, who will need transactional access to project accounting/costing module? Include project accounting staff, grant administrators and project managers that need to impact project/grant transactions. Do not include employees who only need reporting/query only access to project data.

Response: Estimated 200+.

13. What is the total number of Planning & Budgeting employees? Response: Estimated 10.

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Question #


14. What is the total number of employees outside of Planning & Budgeting that will need access to the system during the budget development cycle? Response: Estimated 250.

15. How many inventory locations and inventory organizations does the District currently have?

Response: Estimated 60+ locations.

16. What is the total number of employees enterprise wide, managing Inventory. Do not include employees who only need report/query only access to inventory data or perform only receiving activities.

Response: Estimated 25 employees.

17. What is the total number of employees who need reporting/query only access to data in any part of the system? Do not include any employees who will have transactional access to any part of the system. Response: Estimated 1,500.

18. Kindly list the third party systems that are required to be integrated to in the new system along with the data type (e.g. AP/AR invoice, Journal Entry, Employees etc) , direction (inbound/outbound to new Applications) and frequency of interface? Response: Please see details in Attachment B – Technical Requirements and System Requirements section in Attachment A of the RFP.

19. What are the systems that are proposed to continue after the implementation of the new ERP? What functionality needs are fulfilled by these systems? How many of these systems would interface with the new application? Response: Please see details in Attachment B – Technical Requirements and all components stated in attachment A are in scope of this project.

20. What is your fiscal year? Response: Please see glossary section in Attachment A of the RFP.

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General Questions

1. Can you provide us with an overview of your corporate structure? Response: Corporate structure information can be found on the EBMUD.com website.

2. Will you be using shared services for subledger processing (Yes), or will each location operate autonomously (No)?

Response: (above) 3. With regards to pricing the RFP references a “firm” price. Does this mean EBMUD is

looking for a fix price contract? If yes, can the proposal be broken in multiple stages to allow for more accurate understanding of the work effort before a fixed price is offered? For estimation purposes are there are certain number of development items (Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Extensions, Workflows) that should be assumed for the RFP Response?

Response: Yes, the District prefers a firm, fix price proposal. Certain deliverables can have a unit price.

4. Can it be assumed the pricing is only for consulting services and that EBMUD will be responsible for software licensing costs separately?

Response: Pricing should include both consulting services, software licenses and any other costs required for the solution. It is acceptable if payment goes to more than one party.

5. Can you provide more detail on what is included under the 10 years of support to be included in the pricing worksheet?

Response: Ten (10) years of support are to include all costs associated with use of the software solution including, but not limited to, license fees, per user fees, consulting services, technical support, etc.

6. In the RFP there was a section on invoicing for the project, what is EBMUD vision for how this will be structured? Milestone based, evenly spread Payments? If it is milestone based does EBMUD have milestones in mind or will this be determined later?

Response: Invoicing details will be discussed during the contract(s) negotiation period. 7. Has EBMUD district developed any timeline or key days by which it is targeting to have

some or all the elements of the project completed? Can this information be shared with the responding firms?

Response: There is no specific timeline for implementation. 8. Please give more detail on the amount that is expected to be maintained in the

performance bond? Is there a mechanism to reduce the Bond amount as the deliverables on the milestones are completed?

Response: Though we don’t expect to require a performance bond, details will be confirmed during the contract(s) negotiation period.

9. Does EBMUD have a preference for On-premise or Cloud based solutions? Response: The District is open to both on-premise and cloud-based solutions.

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Finance Questions General Ledger

10. How many business units (One) /legal entities (Six) are there? Relationship? Response: They are independent.

11. How many ledgers/sets of books are there? Response: Each fund has one set of ledger.

12. How is the chart of accounts structured currently? Response: Our current Chart of Accounts (COA) structure is by Business Unit, Fund, Organization, Program-Project, and Account. There are a total of over 1,100 accounts. We will provide the COA structure to the finalists.

13. How many fiscal calendars are being used? Response: One for all 6 funds.

14. How are financial consolidations being performed? Response: The Water and Wastewater funds financial reports are manually compiled and reported together. The annual audited report is consolidated. The quarterly reports show individual funds and combined totals. The other 4 funds are reported independently annually.

15. Any intercompany eliminations? Response: Only the Water and Wastewater funds have inter-fund transfer between each other.

16. Are allocations being performed? Response: Yes. There is cost allocation.

17. What is the budgeting process? What level do you budget down to (department, headcount)?

Response: The Capital and Operating budgets have their own unique requirements and workflows. The lowest level for Operating budget is at the organization level. Please see budget related workflow and requirements in attachment A of the RFP.

18. Are financial reports standard across business units/entities? Response: Yes, reporting follows GASB. Line items in the financial statements vary depending on the type of financial transactions of each fund.

19. How are transactions made between legal entities? Response: Inter-fund transfers between the Water and Wastewater funds. Otherwise by billing each other and using check payments.

20. What are the key metrics and reporting needs? Response: Quarterly unaudited financial reports for the Water and Wastewater funds. Annual audited financial reports for all the funds. Please see Reporting and Analytics in attachment A of

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the RFP. Payables

21. Are vendors maintained in accounts payable or purchasing? Response: Purchasing.

22. Do you require batch control to manage invoice entry? Response: Yes.

23. Do you receive invoices at a central location? Response: No. Invoices are delivered mainly to AP. But other locations receive invoices and forward to AP.

24. Are invoices billed to distinct companies, cost centers or other? Response: Yes.

25. Do you have security requirements on who can enter data (invoice processing, payment processing, and check processing)?

Response: Yes. 26. How are invoices identified (numbered)? Vendor’s invoice number, date, or next allocated

number? Response: In the current system, each entry is assigned a unique transaction ID sequentially. Data fields also record vendor data and are searchable.

27. Can you identify any frequently used expense distributions within your current system (for example, rent or telephone payments)?

Response: Yes. 28. Are these recurring expenses for fixed or varying amounts?

Response: Both. 29. Will some invoices never have purchase orders?

Response: Yes. 30. Should invoices be matched completely, partially or both?

Response: Completely. 31. Do you currently have any tolerance levels for matching? (Price Tolerance, Quantity

Ordered Tolerance, Quantity Received Tolerance)? Response: Yes. Quantity received.

32. What is the internal approval process for an invoice in your organization at present? Response: Depends greatly on if the invoice is on a PO or non-PO. Non-PO requires two signatures, authority level dependent on dollar amount. POs varies if 2-way or 3-way match. Generally one signature if 2-way match. 3-way match once receiving is complete. Construction POs require 2 signatures.

33. Describe the approval process when invoices need to be placed on hold and manually

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released? Response: No approval process. Invoices placed on hold by request of PO originator. Released once dispute resolved.

34. How many different sites issue checks? Response: One.

35. What is your policy to cancel checks? Response: Generally, two weeks from date of mailing if not received by Payee.

36. Is there a requirement to process Recurring Payments? What is the normal period cycle for these payments?

Response: There is no requirement to process recurring payments. The District has limited fixed amount recurring payments.

37. What is the current procedure for vendor advances? How are vendor advances reconciled when the invoice is submitted?

Response: District only submits deposits on new vendors on a limited basis and only as directed by Purchasing. In current system, there is no deposit function. POs are created as blanket POs and the deposit is recorded to expense coding, balance of open PO amount is reduced at that time.

38. Do check payments have to be approved before they are run? Response: Yes.

39. Should a remittance advice note be produced, and when? Response: Yes, when funds disbursed.

40. What is the policy/procedures for handling stop payments? Response: Processed through Legal Dept and submitted to AP for entry.

41. What is the policy /procedures for handling void payments if they have been recorded? Response: All void payments are summarized and reported, void checks are destroyed.

42. Are expense reimbursements handled through Payables? Response: Yes.

43. Any tax requirements such as Sales & Use, 1099, Withholding, VAT? Response: Yes, Sales & Use, 1099 and withholding.

44. What are the key metrics and reporting needs? Response: We expect the new system to provide industry standard reports. Other payment and expenditure report by vendor, department etc. Please see Reporting and Analytics in attachment A of the RFP.

45. How many banks do you use to process accounts payable disbursements? Response: One.

46. How many banks do you use to process accounts receivable receipts? Response: One.

47. What forms of payment do you allow? If you allow credit card payments, please describe the process and associated processing system.

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Response: Currently check and Pcard. AP payments are checks. Purchasing issues Pcard to specific individual and there is a verification and approval process at the end of each month. Assets

48. Are assets tracked by location? Response: Yes.

49. How many books are maintained (corporate and tax)? Response: One - Enterprise

50. How many asset depreciation methods are used? Response: One – Straight Line

51. How many asset categories are maintained? Response: 55 for Water and 19 for Wastewater.

52. Do assets tie out to the general ledger and tax returns? Response: Yes. General Ledger

53. Are CIP assets tracked? What is the current system in use to capture and capitalize CIP assets?

Response: All costs related to assets are captured using a capital job number in PeopleSoft project costing. We have a customized capitalization process that summarizes costs and then create assets in PeopleSoft Asset Management module.

54. Will capital budgeting be maintained on-line? Response: Yes

55. What are the key metrics and reporting needs? Response: We need to track assets and the costs by location, categories and profile_id’s (which further breaks down the asset by electrical; concrete structure; or other). We have outside agencies and internal requests for asset information and would like the flexibility of creating our own reports. See Reporting and Analytics in attachment A of the RFP. Receivables

56. What department maintains the customer master?

Response: Accounting Department. This module is use for the accounting for the Miscellaneous Billing module.

57. Do customers require the ability to share parties (Ex: A contact under a customer could also be a customer with their own receivable activity; A customer could require the ability to make payments on behalf of other customers)

Response: No. 58. Are customers segmented into groups, if so how many groups are maintained in your

customer master (Ex: reporting groups; customer management, invoice presentment,

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etc.) Response: No.

59. Does your customer master incorporate information from outside services (Credit score, credit history, etc.)?

Response: No. 60. Do customers have the ability to initiate their own customer record via web portal; if so

what solution is being used? Response: No

61. Where do sales originate (Project billing, etc.)? Response: From District’s departments, project teams and joint powers authorities.

62. What rules drive customer billing, are invoices sent immediately upon completion or do invoices get batched for customers?

Response: Internal request is made on a form; billing clerk enters the billing information and mails the invoice. For our Resource Recovery (R2) business, the department sends us an Excel file which is then uploaded into PeopleSoft billing and 150+ invoices are generated monthly and then mailed. Customer Statements are also generated after the R2 invoices are uploaded. The statement and invoice are mailed along with any supporting documents submitted by our Wastewater department for the R2 business.

63. What business process is followed to identify if customers receive statements along with invoices in their communications?

Response: The departments/biller will contact customers. 64. How many invoice aging policies are utilized? What is the trigger to start aging an

invoice? Response: There is one aging policy. Aging is automatic by the receivable module. The aging is generated from past due invoices that are not paid. Monthly aging reports are generated from PeopleSoft and distributed to each Org contact who requested the invoice. As long as the invoice is still outstanding, the amount will continue to show on the aging report until it is paid in full.

65. How many invoice templates are used for printing? Is marketing collateral captured on printed invoices?

Response: We are using one 1 template. Sections in the template pull different data and descriptions into the template to create the final invoice. There are no marketing collateral.

66. What different types of media are used for sending invoices to customers? Response: Regular US Mail; sometimes a PDF file is emailed upon request.

67. Do adjustments to invoices require approvals? Response: Yes.

68. Are invoice disputes handled by a separate collections team? Response: We don’t have a separate collections team. Disputes are handled at the department level with communications to Accounting as necessary.

69. Is any portion of revenue recognized before a transaction is invoiced? Is 100% of revenue

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recognized at the time of invoicing? Response: Yes, except at year end where we do accrue revenue on a journal voucher.

70. What are the business rules which drive revenue recognition? Response: We recognize revenue on an accrual basis.

71. What frequency is revenue tracked and reported against? Response: Revenue is tracked/reported monthly.

72. Is any other value besides invoice number used for applying payments against open invoices; if so what values?

Response: Customer number and invoice number. 73. Are payments accepted via credit cards?

Response: No. We accept cash, checks, money order and ACH. 74. Do you currently use a vendor for credit card receipt capture?

Response: Generally not. Our Customer Service Department has a credit card vendor for EBMUD water bill customers and Accounting uses their vendor/account for the miscellaneous billing customers to make payments if needed.

75. Do you use a lockbox; if so what vendor do you use to capture lockbox information? Response: No.

76. Are payment images captured via an image scanning solution; if so what solution is being used?

Response: Yes, our vendor is Axiom Imaging Solutions. We then use bulk import processes and upload data into DOX (an internally developed document management system). This is after payments are deposited and AR credited.

77. How are overpayments and short payments handled? Response: Overpayments: payment applied to invoice and leaves a credit on the account; Short payments: balance left open until paid or resolved. It could potentially be written off.

78. What is the common collection level for most of your customers - Customer/Account/Site?

Response: Customer. 79. Are collectors assigned as individuals or to groups?

Response: Each department is responsible for collecting. Are they assigned to multiple BUs?

Response: Each department is responsible for collecting. 80. Do collection agents take payment from customers?

Response: Yes. 81. Can collectors update customer bank account and credit card information?

Response: No. 82. How many days of data do you normally display for Collections history and transactions?

Response: Our aging report has the following columns: Current, 31-60, 61-90, 91-180, and Other. 83. Reassigning collectors and backup collectors?

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Project Management

94. How many projects are created monthly? Annually? Do you propose to continue using custom job and asset management currently in Peoplesoft or are you open to its redesign and reimplementation? (We are open to recommendations.) Please see section on Job Costing and Asset Management.

Response:

Response: No. 84. How are disputes processed? Do you have approvals in place to handle this? Are dispute

notices sent out? Response: Disputes are handled by departments who request invoices to be billed. Accounting processes invoice adjustment, cancel and rebill, and write-off according to departmental requests.

85. Which later stage delinquencies does your organization manage? Bankruptcies/Litigations/Repossessions?

Response: Accounting sends the departments an aging report on a monthly basis. Collection is normally handled by our Customer Service Department for R2 program.

86. How are commitments handled? Do you handle mass promises? Response: N/A. No

87. Any promise notices or confirmation letters sent? Response: No.

88. Which collections method does your organization use? Dunning Plan or Strategies? Response: Strategies--billing staff emails pdf aging report to departmental staff and it is their responsibility to follow-up with customers to collect past due payments.

89. Are scoring formulas or rules being used? Any custom strategies defined? Or dunning plans being used?

Response: No. 90. If Dunning method followed - aged or staged? For staged, what is the time interval

before another dunning letter is sent? Response: Aged. 90-180 days.

91. Minimum dunning amount and invoice amount? Response: N/A.

92. Are dunning letters, statements, or both sent to delinquent customers? Is correspondence via email or print?

Response: Aging Reports which are sent out to each Org the beginning of the subsequent month. The departments follow-up with their past due customers.

93. What are the key metrics and reporting needs? Response: Please see Reporting and Analytics in attachment A of the RFP.

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In the current system - Capital projects are authorized/grouped as follows: - Reference Project (highest level of CIP authorization/grouping) - Segment – under a Reference Project (can have many – purpose to further group capital

projects) - Project Authorization – under a Segment (specific project or recurring project – purpose

to define scope of work, verify available funds, and obtain signature authorizations) - Capital Job Numbers (under a Project Authorization – can have many job numbers).

Capital job numbers are where the actual costs are tracked.

Currently there are: - Active Reference Projects: 148 - Active Segments: 507 - Active Project Authorizations: 732 - Active Capital Job Numbers: 3348 - Annual average Reference Projects opened: N/A – generally created only during the two

year budget cycle - Annual average Segments opened: 15 - Annual average Project Authorizations opened: 150 - Annual average Capital Job Numbers opened: 1000

95. How long is the average project active?

Response: The average capital project for the Wastewater is active about 3 years or more. Planning through design and construction is 5 years on average, but some projects are could be open indefinitely.

96. How many active projects do you currently have? Response: See response to questions 94.

97. How many project managers or resources need access to the project management application?

Response: Estimated 250+. 98. Do employees (Yes) or contractors (No) access the project management system? 99. Can you provide a typical work breakdown structure and an example of parent/child

project relations? Can you provide an example of how Jobs are associated with projects? Response: Please see response to question #94.

100. What are the key metrics and reporting needs? Response: Please see Reporting and Analytics section in attachment A of the RFP. Project Costing

101. Do you track employee time as a cost to the project? (Yes) If so would these need to be

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interfaced as standard costs by job hours (No) or actual costs and hours from the ETS/Payroll system designated as the system of record for payroll and the HRIS (Human Resource Information System) as the system of record for employees.(Yes) Would the interface have to be bi-directional?

Response: Yes. Please see details in the System Requirements section in attachment A of the RFP. 102. Can you provide an example of labor cost burdening currently used with values for paid

absence, fringe, Department OH and A&G rates as well as related accounting entries? Response: These rates are updated annually.

FY17 Rates: Paid Absence Fringe Benefits Overhead Rates Water: 22%

Water: 70%

Eng: 23.75% OMD: 12% Natural Resource: 3.25% Water & Natural Resources: 19.25% Wastewater: 20.25% Admin General – Water: 35.5% Admin General – Wastewater: 15.5%

Wastewater: 22.25%

Wastewater: 68.50%

103. Do you purchase goods/materials or services for a project? (Yes) Would these costs have to be imported from existing systems such as EADOC and Maximo(GWO)? (No) Do you maintain inventory and transact against projects?

Response: Yes 104. Are your costs variable or standard? As an example, if you transact inventory is it

currently at standard or average costs. Response: Average cost

105. Do you have any special needs for costing projects? As an example, would costs have to be imported from EADOC

Response: No, we do have special needs for costing. Sometimes we have cost sharing or special agreements.

106. What are the key metrics and reporting needs? Response: Please see Reporting and Analytics section in attachment A of the RFP.

Budgeting

107. Can EBMUD elaborate if planning and forecasting occurs at an Annual or Monthly level as laid out in the RFP?

Response: Annual. Forecasting may occur multiple times a year. 108. How many integrations into and out of the budget system will be necessary and can

EBMUD lay out expected integrations as well as all systems that support the various planning processes currently?

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Response: Please see details in Budget and System Requirements sections in attachment A of the RFP.

109. Are there any systems that will continue to exist, be a source of data and are not being replaced by this initiative?

Response: Please see business requirements in attachment A of the RFP. 110. What management, regulatory and statutory reporting requirements that need to be met

by the budgeting process? Response: Please see governmental accounting standards board (GASB), the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), and budget related requirements in attachment A of the RFP.

111. How many resources will require access to the budgeting tool by budget process and what will each of their roles be by major grouping?

Response: Estimated 250+. The majority of the users will have permissions to prepare for operating or capital budget; a small number of users will have higher level of permissions to lock or approve a budget; a few users will have the super user permissions.

112. Is there any rate case planning component of this plan and is that a requirement? Response: No.

113. Is there a need to tie the Labor/Workforce plan and the Capital Plan together and perform any labor balancing to ensure service levels through the use of employees and contractors (Nice to have.) and at what level is this planned at (Employee/Type/Classification/Grouping)?

Response: Classification. 114. Are all workflows single thread or are there multiple concurrent approval trees in various

places and can you explain these where needed? Response: Usually Multiple approvals at every level.

115. How are shared services and other costs allocated across the organization and can this process be expanded upon?

Response: Please clarify the question. 116. Is there a need to develop a fully integrated financial statement model as part of this

process? Response: It will be nice to have.

117. How many funds exist (six) and are planned to be budgeted at? Response: We budget for two funds, Water and Wastewater.

118. How many business units are there and are there any funding intricacies or equitization that must occur between jurisdictions?

Response: We do not understand the question. 119. Are the existing planning processes well defined (Yes) and will there be an opportunity to

alter supporting processes to best fit a new tool? Response: We would like your recommendation on an alternative approach that follows the industry best practices.

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120. What level of involvement and how many FTEs from EBMUD will be able to support the process and implementation?

Response: We plan to form a team of 6-8 dedicated EBMUD FTEs to support project implementation. Some user groups will help as needed.

121. Will the budget be performed from a bottoms-up perspective or will there also be tops-down requirements? (Both) Is there an account level ledger budget associated with the project budget in Peoplesoft assuming that is where all projects are held?

Response: We budget by accounts for operating budget, but not capital. Inventory

122. Does the solution need to integrate with the existing Inventory barcoding system or is EBMUD open to implementing other 3rd party barcoding systems?

Response: Yes, we do not have an existing barcoding system.

Reporting Questions

123. To confirm, there is a requirement to maintain to retain data permanently, but this can be

done in the EBMUD existing data warehouse and is not expected to happen in the reporting tool?

Response: That’s correct. We like the ability to back up all transactional data into EBMUD data warehouse.

124. In the Budget reporting section, requirement 19, there was a statement that “These values are input by users”. Does EBMUD have Current state of Master Data governance / manual processes? Or is to be developed during the project?

Response: This is to be developed. 125. In the Budget reporting section, requirement 23, “Salary and position seeding information

is imported from where the position management information is retained and managed” - where is this currently stored? (HRIS - Human Resource Information systems) EDW? If so, has this ever been joined to the budget information they wish to view alongside?

Response: Currently, we import the salary and position information into Pareto – EBMUD’s budget planning tool - prior to budget planning.

126. In the Purchasing section, there is a requirement under employee performance to bring in certain data. To understand the full scope of the requirement, do you know what additional information would need to be pulled in for reporting?

Response: Please see sample report (1.21.11 Purchasing, R# 2.9) in Reporting and Analytics section in attachment A of the RFP.

127. Can you provide more details on the current data warehouse environment and what

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information is available in the data warehouse that may need to be extracted from the new applications or merged for reporting purposes?

Response: Our data warehouse is stored on Oracle 11g with Jaspersoft 6.3. For information to be extracted to the new system, please see Data Migration/Conversion/Retention section in attachment A of the RFP.

128. Does EBMUD use an OBIA reporting solution with its existing PeopleSoft solution? Response: No.

Technical Questions Auditing

129. Oracle has thousands of tables that can have auditing customized and turned on. Turning auditing on for ALL tables can be a performance problem and will take up a lot of space on the servers. We would recommend a selected auditing solution that would minimize the performance and space issues. Would that be acceptable?

Response: Yes Usability

130. Can you give an estimate of the total number of users and an estimated growth percentage?

Response: Estimated 1500. The District is conservative with regards to workforce growth. Data Management

131. Oracle provides purge programs for some data. There are other 3rd party systems that provide very robust data archiving solutions for Oracle Databases using predefined business rules. Does EBMUD have a tool in mind for archiving data and is it part of the scope of the project?

Response: Data archiving and purging are in the scope of the project. No decision has been made on the tool set. Data Migration/Conversion/Retention

132. Each conversion program will be designed with selection criteria for bringing data to the new system. Fully transacted data may not be converted in some cases. Most clients will move transacted data to their DW for historic reporting. Has EBMUD identified the data it will want to be migrated?

Response: No Data Cleansing

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133. Are Data Cleansing Activities going to be done by EBMUD or does that need to be a separate effort from the SI?

Response: Data cleansing is an integral component of the project. Though the District will lead this activity, the proposer can provide optional pricing for any support activities.

Maximo Integration

134. Does the solution need to integrate with Maximo only or with General Work Orders (GWO) also?

Response: Yes. Please see the system interfaces in System Requirements section in Attachment A of the RFP.

135. What transactions are going to be done in Maximo and General Work Orders? Response: We use Maximo for asset management and GWO for field work orders. For the connections and data exchanged between them and the new system, please see System Requirements section in Attachment A of the RFP for details.

136. You mention Maximo and existing EBMUD proprietary asset management tools? Does Maximo cover only wastewater? what is the proprietary EBMUD system? Is that GWO?

Response: Wastewater uses Maximo for asset management. The Water side uses a proprietary tool known as AIM. Material Management Information System (MMIS) is the proprietary system the District currently uses for inventory management.

137. Do Work Orders created in asset management systems have to be associated with capital projects? (Yes) Do they have to be checked for funds before being approved?

Response: No

138. Are work orders classified as types based on Asset Categories and Asset Profiles in Exhibits 4.2 and 4.3 (and not 5.2 and 5.3 as referenced in RFP)?

Response: No.

139. Please confirm that asset management is currently being done in a custom way in Peoplesoft? (Yes) We see a statement saying that Asset Management must integrate with Job Costing (or Project Management) which seems to indicate that you are open to redesign

Response: Yes, we are open to a model/approach that follows the industry best practices.

140. During redesign are you open to ideas such as having WO’s as tasks on a capital project? (Yes) Are you open to getting custom functionality currently in Peoplesoft via available functionality in software to be proposed without customizations? (Yes) This includes features such as Reference, Parent/child Project, master/subordinate WO(Job), segment, phase etc.

141. Are you open to getting reports out of Data Warehouses instead of the transactional system especially as it relates to Projects, Job Costing and Asset Management?

Response: Yes.

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ID RFP Reference Specific RFP Language Questions

1 Attachment-B Section 3 (a), Page 2, Item 1

The System shall use single sign-on technology. CAS, standard SAML protocol and Active Directory are currently used at the District.

Please describe the current security framework in place for application authentication and authorization. Please list all involved technologies. Response: Yes, we want single sign-on capability. We provide either CAS or SAML protocol interface for single sign-on and only use one internal AD via Active Directory Federation Services.

2 Attachment-B Section 3, Page 4 Usability Section

Please provide the number of Power Users who will be using Analytics by subject area of Analysis: Financials, Procurement, Projects, Asset Management, Contract Equity, Inventory and budget Response: Estimated 10.

3 Attachment-B Section 5 (a), Page 5

Data Management - Data Warehouse

Anytime an ERP Data warehouse (DWH) is to be populated with a large new ERP and there are changes to any of the Chart of Accounts, Organization Structure, and general configurations, it involves modeling changes on Data Warehouse. In other words, the Data Warehouse must be re-aligned with the data from new source from a model and transformations standpoint. Is that in line with EBMUD expectations or is the approach to fit the data from new source to the old model without any changes to the data model? Please elaborate. Response: The data warehouse needs to be designed as a part of this replacement project, i.e. there is no old model.

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4 Attachment-B Section 5 (a), Page 5

Data Management - Data Warehouse

To appropriately understand the approach and estimate for populating the current Data Warehouse, please provide the following detailed information on the current data warehouse: 1. Please provide a listing of subject areas served by the Data Warehouse. Please list how many schemas are there in the Data Warehouse 2. Please provide the detailed current data model used for reporting showing the entity relationship diagrams or tables and columns 3. Please provide a list of the Dimensions, FACT tables, and aggregate tables or materialized views in the Data Warehouse that are available for query purposes by end users. 4. Please provide the size of the Data Warehouse in terms of amount of data in the warehouse. 5. Please provide the current load times needed for refreshing this data 6. Is the data warehouse loaded incrementally or in a full load mode every refresh cycle? 7. How frequently is this data warehouse currently loaded? Will the data from the new system be loaded with the same frequency? 8. What is the concurrency of users using the Data Warehouse for reporting? Response: The data warehouse needs to be designed as a part of this replacement project, i.e. there is no old model.

5 Attachment-B, Appendix A

Sampling of applications with which the System may need to interface

Which internal and external systems will be sending/receiving information to/from EBMUD systems? If the list of applications provided addressed this question, please indicate which of those systems are internal or external. Response: 1. Human Resource Information System (HRIS) (Internal) 2. Electronic Time Sheet (ETS) (Internal) 3. Payroll (Internal) 4. Customer Watch (Internal) 5. Document Management System (DOX) (Internal) 6. Asset Information Management (AIM) (Internal) 7. General Work Order (GWO) (Internal) 8. Paving Order System (POS) (Internal) 9. Contract Management Tool (EADOC) (External) 10. Lab Information Management System (LIMS) (Internal) 11. Truck management & tracking (TruckTrack) (Internal) 12. Asset Management Tool (Maximo v7.5) (Internal) 13. EBMUD Data Warehouse (Internal) 14. Wells Fargo Bank (External) 15. VISA (External)

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What other type of data is or will be required to integrate in and out of EBMUD systems? Response: Please see details in Attachment B – Technical Requirements and System Requirements section in Attachment A of the RFP.



How is integration achieved in the current state? Please explain if COTS software is used as well as manufacturer versions. Response: Integrations use a variety of methods including web services, flat files and database access. Please see details in Attachment B - Technical Requirements and System Requirements section in Attachment A of the RFP.

8 Attachment-B, Appendix A, Item 15

15. Visa

Does EBMUD store credit card data in its systems? If so, how? If not, please confirm whether it is saved in an external source and if the vendor will be responsible for maintaining the security of credit card data. Response: No

9

Attachment_A_-_Functional_Requirements Section 1.21 Reporting And Analytics, Page 119-263

Reporting And Analytics Off the listed reports, please identify reports that must be display "real-time" information? Response: In general, operational reports will be expected to be real-time. Analytic reports may use delayed data.

10 Attachment-B Section 6, Page 6

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Do you need a separate DR environment for Reporting platform. Do we have to provide and simulate the DR process for the Data Warehouse and the reporting platform as well? Response: No

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Page 3, Attachment B, Paragraph 1, Section 5b

The System shall provide mechanisms for the archival of data to external media utilizing predefined business rules

Does this technical requirement related to the Data Warehouse, as well. It appears to conflict with functional requirements for permanent data retention documented in Attachment A. Response: No

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12

Attachment_A_-_Functional_Requirements, Section 1.21.1 Reporting common requirements Requirement#-7, Page 120

Vendor product shall be able to retain data permanently to support reporting and auditing purposes.

Please clarify this requirement further. Does this requirement apply to the data in the Data Warehouse or to the report definitions? E.g., for auditing the reports, what and when the changes were made to the reports? If this requirement refers to the data, is this requirement just as storing data permanently? Or, does the requirement imply the ability of the reporting system to capture the changes in the source transactions system for audit purposes? If yes to the last question, please provide an approximate number of entities where this type of change has to be captured for audit purposes. Response: This applies to data in data warehouse. We like the ability to capture changes to data made at the source transaction systems for auditing purposes as well.

13 Attachment A, Section 1.21,13, R 23, Page 241

Ability to forecast inventory needs for the coming year based on last X years’ usage

Please elaborate on the forecasting method used. Specifically, what statistical modeling method is used for the forecast? Response: We currently forecast inventory needs based on a few parameters including previous years usage, trends, material estimates from various divisions, and committed material for approved projects.

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Attachment A, Page 251, Paragraph 1, Section 1.21.13 R 1.9

Ability to define/modify the dollar amount threshold of this report.

Please provide the state forms that detail the requirements for this report. Response: Please see attached state form (Supplemental Attachment Form 1 and 2).

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Attachment A, Page 252, Paragraph 1, Section 1.21.14 R 1

Ability to retain CE Program related reports for user-defined number of years.

Is this requirement related to data retention within the data warehouse? It seems to suggest a need to retain the output of each users' reports as they are generated. Response: We also like the ability to store reports generated. It is acceptable if reports are downloadable for long-term storage.

16 Attachment A, Page 14, Item 1.3

The application should dynamically role over balances for capital budget for a year until project is closed or cancelled.

How often is the project status required to be checked and what is the system of record? Response: Project managers check project status frequently (weekly and monthly). The financial system will be the system of record.

17 Attachment A, Page 16, Budget, Item 2.8

Item 2.8 states that the system should dynamically create a notification of budget overrun.

To whom does this notification need to be sent? Response: Staff of the Office of Budget and Rates (OBR) and the requestor.

18 Attachment A, Page 24, Item 6.9

Vendor product shall automatically adjust the appropriation amounts

Is there a limit to the number of overrides that can be processed which impact the total after the initial adjustment? Response: No

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and budgets for both impacted (FROM and TO) Capital projects accordingly after the request is approved.

19 Attachment A, Page 115, Item 20

Application shall ensure category and sub-categories conform to Public Utilities Code

What will be used as the reference for validation? Response: We like the flexibility in account setup to meet reporting needs that follow governmental accounting standards board (GASB).

20 Attachment A, Page 340

EBMUD is comprised of two legal entities.

Is East Bay MUD able to share more details on your current organizational structure, such as Companies, departments, cost centers, etc.? Could information also be provided on how these roll up to each other along with intercompany considerations? Response: Please see current EBMUD Organizational Chart on our website. For background information related to the financial information system, please review the various financial reports under the Investors menu on the website. For example, Audited Basic Financial Statements. Billing between the two legal entities, water and wastewater system, is considered intercompany billing.

21 RFP for FIS_MMIS Replacement Project, Page 4

Requirement reference made to 10 years of history on page 35 of Attachment_A-Functional Requirements

How many years of history will be required? The Tech overview states the current budget system has been in place for over 10 years; however, it does not state how many years are in the application. Response: Given the scope of the FIS/MMIS project, we would like your recommendation on the volume of historical transaction data to be converted and migrated to the new system. No data has been purged from the current budget system since its inception.


Current capital budget is monitored by WebPM

Will the webforms need to be replicated exactly? How many are there? Response: No


Budget to Actual data comparison is currently completed using Cold Fusion

Will the vendor be replicating these reports? Response: Yes

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RFP for FIS_MMIS Replacement Project, Page 9, Section B-I

Time Schedule Per the RFP, a question is raised: Does the methodology interface with the District's time schedule? Can EBMUD please share the District's time schedule? Response: There are no specific timelines for implementation.

25 General Can EBMUD share its current Chart of Accounts structure? Response: Our current Chart of Accounts (COA) structure is by Business Unit, Fund, Organization, Program-Project, and Account. There are a total of over 1100 accounts. We will provide the

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COA structure to the finalists.

26 General Which LDAP is used to store user credentials and groups? Please include information on vendor and version. Response: The District uses Active Directory, functional level 2008 R2.

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Question No. Requirement in RFP Questions

RFP_for_FIS-MMIS_Replacement_Project

Question 1. The employee total is 1,511. Is this also the user

count required for the software? Response: The District has approximately 1,900 employees and estimates 1,500 will require access to the new system.

Attachment_A_-_Functional_Requirements Question 2.

General 2.7

Vendor product shall store documents and a linkage to documents in various formats including, but not limited to the following: • Excel, • PDF, • CSV, • Word, • XML

Do you mean the documents must be stored in the system or just keep the links to the document server? Response: Either way would work.

Question 3.

General 2.14

Vendor product shall provide options to create a single or multiple calendars (user-defined start/end date) to be used by one or many entities.

What is the purpose of these calendars? Please explain further. Response: To control the Fiscal Year of each business unit. Currently we have 6 funds under one business unit. We prefer each fund is a business unit with its own calendar.

Question 4.

Workflow 3.5

Vendor product shall mandate peer-review if a workflow is being modified. Reviewer’s comments, modifications, and supporting documents shall be retained.

Do you mean that a third person is required to review every time a change is done to the configuration of a business process or a document? Please provide more details. Response: Yes. We like to ensure that no changes to configuration or workflows are made without approval or review.

Question 5.

Workflow 3.6

Vendor product shall keep requestor informed of the request status throughout a workflow.

Does it mean that a communication has to been sent to the requestor every time a request changes its status? Yes. Does it refer to a specific request type or in general? (In general) Please provide examples. Response: A requestor submits a request to purchase a table and he is informed when the request is created; when the request is approved by a supervisor, he is also informed.

Vendor product shall provide options (includes electronic signature) to approve various

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Question 6.

Workflow 3.9

requests. As users/reviewers/approvers progress through a workflow to complete tasks/requests, the system shall track and retain users’ name, actions, commentary, supporting documents provided, and date and timestamp for research and auditing purposes.

The term "electronic signature" refers to an electronic approval record? Or a physical electronic signature similar the one we do on paper? Response: An electronic approval record.

Question 7.

Budget Checking 1.8

Vendor product shall provide budget check results to users and external systems during system down-time.

Could you please explain a little further the scenario of this requirement? Response: A Maximo user submits a request to order 10 hats while the Financial system is down for maintenance. (Maximo user does not know the status of the financial system.) The Maximo user is informed whether the request has passed budget check.

Question 8.

Project Management – General 3.6

Vendor product shall compute full labor cost and direct labor cost on labor using the following configured formulas: Direct cost = hourly wage x paid absence rate x fringe benefit rate Full cost = direct cost x departmental overhead rate x Administrative and General (A&G) rate. See General Ledger for fringe benefit rate, paid absence, departmental overhead, and A&G rate detail.

Is it expected the payroll runs inside the application to compute actual costs? Or this requirement refers to estimates only. Response: There will be a separate system runs payroll. This refers to estimates only.

Question 9.

Job Miscellaneous 6.6

Vendor product shall allow users to calculate and distribute capitalized interest to applicable jobs based on funding source and in-service date.

Would you please provide more details of this process? Where the basis for calculation are stored or come from? Is it a recurring process? Response: Capitalized Interest refers to the interest cost incurred during the construction phase for those assets financed by debt.

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Interest is calculated based on inception-to-date costs and terminates when the in-service date is reached. If the in-service date is adjusted up/down (prior to capitalization), the capitalized interest process will adjust accordingly, based on the new in-service date. Capitalized interest is posted to the job in CWIP on a monthly basis.

Question 10.

Accounts Payable 2.7

Vendor product shall be able to “delete” an invoice (function limited to a few users) after matching.

Which would be the reasons to delete an invoice after matching? Response: Example: If an invoice is submitted and entered but was already paid by a PCard.

Question 11.

Accounts Receivable 3.2

Vendor product shall be able to distribute single payment to multiple invoices and multiple invoice lines.

What is the reason to apply payments to specific invoice lines? Should not be done by invoice? Response: We would like system to apply payment to all invoiced line items and/or select a specific invoice line if invoice was partially paid. For example, if we submit an invoice for multiple billing item lines and the payer pays all items except “retention,” we would like to be able to select all paid items, except for the “retention” billed item.

Question 12.

Billing 2.1

Vendor product shall allow users to submit a single or multiple request(s) to bill individual/company and generate invoices/bills per billing details.

Would you please provide more details of this process? Is the billing request function associated to a process where a work is done and then needs to be billed? Response: An Invoice request form is required in order to process an invoice for work done. On the form, the user can request one or multiple invoices to be generated.

Question 13. Regulatory Compliance 2

Vendor product shall be able to verify vendor Tax ID.

What is the verification expected? Is it against a table or list? Response: TaxID database or on-line verification with the IRS or a third-party tax id services company.

Question 14. Regulatory

Compliance 18 Vendor product shall be able to issue 1099 to customers.

1099 is controlled typically for suppliers. Would you please confirm the requirement is for customers? Response: District has a program of taxable rebates to customers for water conservation items. Lawn removal and appliance rebates. We issue

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1099 for the recipients.

Question 15. Regulatory

Compliance 19 Vendor product shall be able to provide annual census.

Would you please explain what type of census and information is required? Response: For example, business owner status - veteran, woman owed, minority, etc.

Question 16.

Warehouse Issuance – 5.17 to 5.20

Section 5 of Requirements (Warehouse) mentions a “loading charge”. Please confirm that this is a factor to be added to the issue price of an items when so configured. The user would be charged the item’s cost plus this loading charge. Response: Yes

Question 17. Receiving – 7.18 Vendor product shall be able to receive against a P-Card PO

Could you clarify this requirement? Our understanding of P-cards is that a PO document is not involved (such being the purpose of a P-card). What situations would require issuing a PO for something purchased via a P-card? Response: The system shall be able to recognize and receive items at the warehouse regardless of payment method. So, when an item was purchased via PCard and arrived at the warehouse, we like the system to know how to manage that.

Question 18.

Asset Depreciation - 4.5

Vendor product shall begin depreciation of assets in the month following the asset in- service date.

Does this requirement mean depreciation begin the month next to the date in service? That is, no depreciation is calculated for the month when the asset starts operating? Response: Correct.

Question 19.

Pricing Worksheet

Hardware & Software Support

There is no provision for hosting, managed services proposal. Is EBMUD interested in a hosted solution and if so, how should vendors submit this pricing scenario? Response: The District is open to both on-premise and cloud-based solutions. Please use Attachment C – Pricing Worksheet to document proposal pricing. Add rows as needed to the spreadsheet to fully document the pricing scenarios.

Question 20. General Can the solution be cloud based?

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Response: The District is open to both on-premise and cloud-based solutions.

Question 21. General What volume of current data will be required to

be converted and migrated? Response: We understand that not all historical transaction data will be migrated to the new system. Given the scope of the FIS/MMIS project, we would like your recommendation on the volume of historical transaction data to be converted and migrated to the new system.

Question 22. General Is the data warehouse existing and the load facility already exists, or needs to be designed? Response: The data warehouse needs to be designed as a part of this replacement project.

Question 23. General What are the regular business routines – e.g.

hours and days? Response: We do not understand the question.

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