DCC20230803-01 - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) – LEGAL DRAFTING SOFTWARE

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) – LEGAL DRAFTING SOFTWARE
 

1. Purpose of this Request for Information (RFI)
   1. Defence Construction Canada (DCC) invites suppliers to submit information regarding the availability of proven / Commercial off the shelf (COTS) software to support the preparation, assembling and updating of legal contract clauses and documents.  
2. Context
   1. DCC is a Crown Corporation, accountable to the Canadian Federal Government through the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.
   2. DCC Contracting Services serves the Department of National Defence (DND) domestically and overseas, issuing around 1,500 contracts annually for professional services, construction, goods, and other infrastructure and environment related work.  Contracting Services’ responsibilities include procurement planning, preparing tender documents, soliciting, and evaluating bids, awarding contracts, and conducting market assessments.
   3. To that end, DCC uses a variety of templated contracts for construction, professional services (mainly engineers and architects), nonprofessional services, goods, facilities maintenance as well as a multitude of forms and templated tender and Request for Proposals (RFP) documents. Due to varying DND demands, new fields of activity, and new government regulations, DCC is often called upon to develop new clauses or contract documents.
   4. All these contracts, forms and documents are currently drafted and updated manually with Microsoft tools. Many of the clauses used are repeated in many documents and a simple update such as replacing "Her Majesty the Queen" with "Her Majesty the King" required manual intervention, which requires a lot of effort to update all relevant documents and are subject to human error. It is becoming essential to adopt modern and interoperable technologies.
3. Requirement
   1. The project is currently in the definition phase and DCC is interested in finding a tool that would streamline the drafting, review, approval, and creation of all its forms, templates and contract documents (terms and conditions) to bring better consistency between these documents. Refer to the enclosed diagram to get a visual representation of what we are hoping to achieve.
4. Notes to interested industry participants
   1. Changes may be made to this Request for Information and, if necessary, will be posted on the Merx Electronic Tendering System. https://www.merx.com.
   2. This Request for Information (RFI) is issued for the purpose of gathering information to assist in the planning process and the preparation of a Statement of Work (SOW) and Statement of Requirements (SOR). It is neither a call for tender nor an RFP.  No agreement or contract will be entered into based on this RFI. The issuance of this RFI is not to be considered in any way a commitment by DCC or as authority to potential respondents to undertake any work that could be charged to DCC. Finally, it should not be considered a commitment to issue a subsequent Request for Proposal or to award a contract for the purposes described herein. No costs incurred in developing responses, submitting information or any subsequent requests relating to this RFI will be reimbursed to suppliers.
   3. Although the information collected may be provided as commercial-confidential (and, if identified as such, will be treated accordingly by DCC), DCC may use the information to assist in drafting performance specifications, Statement of Work (SOW), Statement of Requirements (SOR) (which are subject to change) and for budgetary purposes.
   4. Respondents are encouraged to identify, in the information they share with DCC, any information that they feel is proprietary, third party or personal information. All responses to this RFI will be held by DCC on a confidential basis (subject to applicable legislation) and remain the property of DCC once they have been received.
   5. DCC may, after review of any submissions received, choose to request demonstrations of the applicable software systems to assist with the development of the specification or system requirements.  Any demonstrations will be for information gathering purposes only and will not involve any evaluation or commitment of future business from DCC.
5. Responses to this RFI
6. 1. What is the name of your company?
   2. What is the name of the manufacturer of the tool/software of the proposed system?
   3. Is your tool/software able to produce documents in French and English and does it have a French and English interface?
   4. Describe and elaborate on the functionality of your tool/software in the following areas as well as in any other area that could be useful to help us better define our needs.
      1. Central clause repository or library
      2. Composing documents by using clauses from the repository
      3. Integration with MS Office (DCC uses Office 365)
      4. Consistent styling
      5. Definitions list
      6. Version control
      7. Drafting collaboration / workflow
      8. Search capability
      9. Spell check
      10. Granular file security / protection
      11. Rights management / user administration
      12. Helpdesk support
7. 5. Provide details on the location of your data centers/servers, availability, backup/redundancy and the ability to host your tool/software on a DCC cloud.
   6. Provide information on the following items:
      1. Does the customer pay a licensing fee?
      2. Does the customer have to specify a maximum or minimum number of licenses they expect to use?
      3. Are there any fees related to cloud storage?
      4. Is there an installation fee (price per page, price per document, etc.)
      5. Are there any maintenance fees (annual or other)?
      6.  Is there a training fee?
      7. Are there other types of fees that are not listed above (For example, number of people required to manage the tool/software if installed on a DCC cloud)
8. 7. Is the software based on a subscription model?
   8. List typical steps for onboarding a new customer, and on average how long it takes for onboarding?
   9. Please explain how remote technical support/troubleshooting provided.
   10. Please explain how maintenance is usually performed.
   11. Explain how software updates are provided as part of the in-service support contract, and whether it can be performed remotely.
   12. Provide any other information not addressed in this RFI that could assist us in the planning process and the preparation of a Statement of Work (SOW) and Statement of Requirements (SOR).
9. Submission of information
   1. Interested parties are invited to submit their response to this RFI in writing to martine.cote@dcc-cdc.gc.ca or by uploading your .PDF information document directly through the Merx system.