Final Report

The PPM solution that was chosen is likely to assist the University in its continuous transformation of project governance, resources allocation and monitoring of the results. It needs to fit the institutional goals of the University, give up-to-date information about project performances, aid in the proper prioritization of initiatives and enhance transparency within departments and functions.

This RFP gives operational, functional, performance and technical requirements of the required system. It also considers the timelapse, instructions of submitting the work and evaluation methodology that will Refuse to evaluate the response of the vendor (Edition, 2018). All vendors that demonstrate success with the deployment of scalable and secure PPM solution, especially in the higher education setting or in other highly complex organizations are encouraged to respond to this opportunity at the University.

The original RFP document shall be retained by the University of Prosperity along with all accompanying terms and conditions. The vendors are not allowed to make any changes in the RFP as well as the related documents including their response, any such changes will result in disqualification. The vendors are supposed to fulfill all the instructions and requirements and abide by their deadlines, as have been stated in this RFP.

Organization’s name: The University of Prosperity

Industry: Higher Education

Services: Academic services (undergraduate and postgraduate studies), professional course of development and certification, online learning engines, academic research, and innovation projects. Sector: Public University

Major drivers for the PPM solution:

· The need for controlling the projects and programs spread across the university.

· Better use of information in making business decisions.

· Ability to scale based on the various academic departments and the administrative units.

· Getting the chance to work remotely and work with hybrid models.

Key users:

· The project manager of the university

· IT Services Division

· Academic Deans and Department Heads

· Facilities and Campus Planning Units

· This is the office of research management and the grants offices.

· The approximate number of users: It can be used by 100 users at the same time, 300 active users

Relevant compliance regulations:

· General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) EU (this European legislation is due to international students)

· Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) assumption to be used in reference to inclusive digital access

· PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) - in case of applicable modules used in financial integration

The university of prosperity is operating in a moderately mature technology environment which enhances academic, administrative as well as research work. The deployment of a modern Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) tool is expected to be synchronized with the following current systems and platforms:

Server: Microsoft Windows Server 2019, Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Desktop OS: Windows 11 (staff and faculty), macOS (academic staff only), and Linux in research labs

Professional services software: ServiceNow (ITSM), Salesforce (alumni and engagement) and Ellucian CRM advise (student support)

ERP software: The Ellucian Banner that is the core ERP to take care of student records, finance, and payroll.

HRMS/HRIS software: Workday Human Capital Management (All activities of HR in general as well as Recruitment and Payroll and benefits)

Collaboration software: Microsoft Teams (university-wide), Zoom (lecturing and meetings), Slack (limited cases in the specific groups)

Document Management Systems (DMS): The University uses Microsoft SharePoint as well as OneDrive for Business in its current infrastructure

Content Management Systems (CMS): WordPress and Drupal as creation tools of the university web-sites and intranet services

Business Intelligence application: For BI the university uses Microsoft Power BI (enterprise license), as well as Tableau (limited departmental use)

Mobile Platforms: iOS and Android (app developer considers both platforms and the university has those platforms as they may or may not have cost implications)

Other Project Management Software Used: Microsoft Project Professional

Development tools: GitHub, Python/Java SDKs (research and internal dev), Azure DevOps as well as Visual Studio.

The current infrastructure will make bringing on board a powerful PPM highly capable of supporting a cloud-based connection, flexible licensing model, SSO using Azure AD, and safe data sharing with the University ERP and HR system.

The milestones and objectives respectively are shown in the following schedule. It should be noted that the University of Prosperity may change this schedule at its will and shall inform all vendors of any change.

The vendors are encouraged to observe these dates seriously and make sure that inquiries, as well as proposal documents, are submitted well and on time lest they are disqualified.

The vendors must deliver their proposals in a sealed envelope that has the title of RFP indicated and the name of the vendor. The proposals should be submitted to the following address: Procurement Manager University of Prosperity Procurement Office – ICT department 456 Knowledge Avenue Prosperity City, Ontario, Canada Postal Code: P0S 1T7

Submissions should be done latest by on 2/9/2025 at 4:00 PM. The University of Prosperity will have the right to refuse any proposals that come in later than the deadline whether it is postmarked or not or whether it is carried by a courier or not.

Submission Requirements:

• Duplicates of both complete proposal copies with the label of original: 2 (two) printed copies

5 (five) copies printed with the word COPY and bound singly

• Copy of the proposal (1.) in a USB drive (no CDs)

Important Notes:

· Any proposal that comes in by fax or email will be disqualified.

· Each proposal elements should be complete, signed where needed and make their delivery as reflected in this RFP document.

· Deviation of any form regarding the instructions of submissions lead to disqualification.

The communication of all inquiries concerning this RFP must be provided in writing and addressed to the following contact person. Any communication with other personnel not reachable in the designated contact can be grounds of being disqualified.

Authorized Contact:

ICT Dept Procurement

University of Prosperity

Procurements Office

420 University Ln.

Albany Ny 12203

United States

[email protected]

Pone 1 (518) 555-3210

Submission of Questions:

Any questions or request of clarification should be sent according to the same by email to the Procurement and ICT Department no later than 15/8/2025, at 5:00 P.M.

The technical and functional questions should also be presented within the same deadline, only that it should be in writing.

The University of Prosperity will do its good faith to furnish written responses to all the submitted questions by 20/8/2025 including, if they are necessary, addenda to those responses.

The questions and answers together with any addenda issues will be sent to all the vendors that have registered an interest in the RFP.

Verbal inquiries can always be accepted by the discretion of the Procurement Office regarding clarifications that may not need formal addenda to be done.

Where the vendors raised unclear understating, the latter are advised to clarify early to have a full understanding of what is needed regarding the RFP.

Priorization and acceptance of project

Capability of normalizing requests of projects.

Facilitate reviewing and decision making based on strategic healthy, ROI and availability of resources.

Optimization and portfolio planning

Portfolio graph-based approach.

What-if scenario evaluation.

Risk management and mitigation.

Monitoring and implementing of the project

Time tracking charts, time management project deadlines, task deadlines and follow up.

Risks, milestones and setback notifications and alerts.

Resource management

Ability to see the location of resources and their capacity in real time.

Observation policies of resources allocation/use.

Budgeting and cost control

Monitoring cost and cost of portfolio estimation.

Integration with the institutional finance.

Reporting and analytics

Endorse the real time and historical performance analytics.

Integration and Interoperability

Ability for the systems to integrate and operate efficiently.

The user’s management and securities

Role-based access control.

Enable single sign-on and audit trails.

Support and execution services

The vendor’s approach to project execution, training of the users, support as well as continuous upgrades of the system

The core functional requirements that are based on the Project Charter and institutional priorities are the following:

The vendors must also take note on how each of the requirements is supported (complete, partially supported, customized, not at all).

The suggested PPM solution must present the following minimum technical requirements in the view of ensuring an easy integration, security, and scalability within the current technology setup within University of Prosperity:

Vendors will need to explicitly state how their platform complies with all the above and any dependency and constraints.

The vendors are to submit detailed information in their qualification as shown below to be considered:

Company overview

Name of company

The year, the company was founded

The size of company staff

Certified balance sheets of two last fiscal years of income statements, checked by a certified accountant

Product and Service

A guide on the current PPM products and services

General features and elements of the given solution

Explanation of the associated services (i.e. implementation, customization, training, support etc.)

Future product development agenda to the institutions of higher learning

Market experience

· Geographical location and the size of the market served

· The market penetration (the number of the active clients)

· Overview of strategic relationship, alliances and partnerships

· The number of years of experience in providing the services to public or higher education facilities

Project experience

· History of the successful implementation of similar projects in terms of size, complexity, and scope

· Description of at least three other such solutions preferably in higher education institution

· The difficulties that were experienced and the way they were mitigated.

Client references

The vendors will be required to give five (5) references of the customers:

· Name of the organization

· Its ambition to produce and work ITS ambition to work and produce

· Name, position, e-mail, and phone number of a contact person

· The course of action and the result attained

Each vendor should include the details of the costing of the implementation of their proposed Project Portfolio Management (PPM) in a comprehensive breakdown of cost over a period of 5 years. Prices are expected to be categorized and they must last at least 120 days in a calendar year since RFP is tendered.

Five-Year Total Cost Summary

Note: The above table is for illustration purpose only. Every vendor will have to change the placeholders with their own and realistic pricing per their solution and licensing and their services tiers.

Costs descriptions

Hardware: All the physical (servers, user devices and network infrastructure) components that are needed to be using the PPM software in optimum performance.

Licensing: List prices of the first and other licensing costs, (e.g. first licenses/ user seats/ APIs).

Third-party software (middleware): any other 3 rd party software / platform (e.g. the database engines, integration middleware) users of the proposed solution require.

Installation: Materials, tools, and devices required to put up either on-site or off-site, and workforce (Labor).

Consulting: Advisory jobs that entail enhancement of application of PPM to the tact plans, government or processes. Vendor should indicate whether this is charged per hour or per milestone or on a fixed basis.

Configuration: Diversity of workflows, permissions, dashboards, PPM templates as per the requirements of the institution.

Legacy data loading: To do a clean data migration into legacy systems of the historical data of the project.

Maintenance: day to day software patches, optimization of performance and software upgrades not under a maintenance contract with the vendor.

Documentation & training: The amount of money that goes in to computer books, computer manuals, administrators guide, software manuals and in-person training.

Project management: Control, coordinate, and manage milestones of the whole PPM implementation cycles.

Organizational change management: This involves ensuring that internal parties, user adoption, communications, and executive support strategies are aligned so that transition can be made with ease.

Support: Break-fix services, monitoring of systems, solving of problems, and management of accounts. Vendors need to explicitly specify what does/does not come with base and premium tiers of support.

Miscellaneous: Other expenses which are not include in the above namely travel, contingency, customization, or optional extras.

Pricing Assumptions

The prices will be based on the following assumptions by the vendors unless otherwise agreed that:

University of Prosperity has around X and Y users respectively.

The hosting option may be on-premises or hybrid, and the vendor should price differently.

It is anticipated that the implementation will commence in Q2 2026 and complete in 6-9 months.

Users who should be trained should include administrative and general users.

Renewals of support and license escalation (should there be such), need to be specified over the year.

Any pricing must also incorporate all rights and taxes that may apply, as well as costs of any licensing, and costs of installation (Project Management Institute, 2021).

The University of Prosperity will have the right to ask any respondent to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to ensure that information it shares during the RP process is confidential. An unwillingness to sign an NDA, in future case it is requested, can lead to such a candidate not being considered any further.

References

Edition, P. S. (2018). A guide to the project management body of knowledge. Project Management Institute. Pensylvania, 21.

Project Management Institute. (2021). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)–Seventh Edition and The Standard for Project Management. Project Management Institute.