Superior Court of California, County of Sutter

RFP QUESTIONS & ANSWERS #2

Date Issued/Reissued:

May 16, 2016

RFP Number: 512016 RFP Title: Electronic Record Scanning Contact: TCSolicitation@jud.ca.gov

Below are the Superior Court of California, County of Sutter’s responses to vendor questions submitted per instructions in the above referenced RFP.

Question #1 How did the court determine the number of pages per box?

Answer #1 After a review of the files/boxes in question, the boxes are all standard banker box size (10 X 12 X 15); however the orientation of the files in the boxes are different depending on whether they are letter or legal size files. The total number of boxes is as follows: 479 boxes oriented legal size 168 boxes oriented letter size 647 boxes total RFP section 1.1 and Attachment 9, Cost Proposal Template will be updated accordingly.

Question #2 How did court estimate 784,000 images and what percentage of pages estimated to be double-sided?

Answer #2 The 784,000 number is no longer relevant given the information regarding the industry standard of 2500 pages per standard size bankers’ box. Using the industry standard calculation of 2500 pages X 647 boxes, the new total is estimated to be 1,617,500. This is a calculated estimate only given that the files are oriented in two different directions.

Question #3 Vendors requested an estimate of double sided pages, colored photos and number of documents that will require flatbed scanning or special handling for purposes of cost evaluation.

Answer #3 Court will provide estimates on the RFP Attachment 9, Cost Proposal Template solely for the purpose of cost evaluation.

Question #4 Will a subset of originals be returned to the Agency?

Answer #4 Yes, two files per box are to be returned for the purpose of quality control review. The court will determine at a later date which two files per box are to be returned and advise the vendor.

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Question #5 Three years to complete the project is listed as the requirement. Can we fetch the boxes at once and convert them in a shorter term?

Answer #5 Yes, once the court has the files/boxes prepared for pick-up and scanning, they can all be picked up at once and converted in a shorter period of time.

Question #6 Can cost sheet for document storage and document destruction be changed to per box, per month to match industry standards?

Answer #6 Yes, Attachment 9, Cost Proposal Template will be updated reflect a per box, per month price.

Question #7 How long does the court plan to store documents at the vendor facility and is there an estimate of box numbers? Answer #7 The court plans to store the documents at the vendor facility until the quality control review is complete and orders for destruction are prepared and signed.

Question #8 Are all documents to be destroyed or just some? Answer #8 All documents are to be destroyed.

Question #9 Does court want vendor to include cost for hard drives or will the court take data and return the hard drives?

Answer #9 The court prefers not to have to return hard drives.

Question #10 Would court consider a secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) rather than a hard drive? Answer #10 Answer: The court does not have the ability to receive a secure file transfer protocol; however, if the vendor can host, the court can download.

Question #11 Vendor noted that 15 points are attributed to ability to meet timing requirements to complete the project. The project is potentially three years (1 year term, plus two option years). Vendor asked if boxes can be picked up all at once and service provided in a shorter period of time? How will the 15 points be distributed? Answer #11 Yes, once the boxes are ready they can be picked up all at one time and completed in a shorter period of time. The court’s primary concern is quality. It is the court’s intention to complete this project within the initial one-year contract term. The contract has the options to extend in the event that the project does exceed the initial contract term. A vendor that can complete the project in a shorter time frame and ensure that the quality requirements are met will be assigned more points than a vendor with the same quality assurances and a longer timeframe.

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Question #12 Regarding RFP section 2.1.8: Can the return of a record be facilitated electronically with an encrypted file or does the court require the paper file to be returned? If so, can a commercial delivery service (example, FedEx) be used? Answer #12 The court would prefer the vendor scan needed files upon request from the court and host those images for download by the court on a weekly basis.

Question #13 Regarding RFP section 2.1.8: Can the court estimate the number of files that they may request to be returned? Answer #13 Approximately 5 files per week.

Question #14 What is the record depository that the court is presently using? Answer: An electronic database for record storage. Can court provide name of EDM system it will be using? Answer #14 A Windows file system (not a database).

Question #15 Is the sheet insertion required to separate the non-confidential and sealed documents within a file? Will there also be a sheet insertion between each file? And can the court provide an estimate of the number of sheets to be inserted for each file?

Answer #15 Yes, a sheet is required to separate the non-confidential and sealed documents within a file. Yes, there will also be a sheet insertion between each file. Up to three sheets to be inserted per file; the Court does not want a sheet insertion between each document. RFP section 2.5.2 to be revised accordingly via an addendum to be posted on the Court website.

Question #16 Per RFP section 2.1.1: What does the court mean by indexed?

Answer #16 Each box will contain a list of the file numbers within that particular box; boxes will be numbered separately for identification. The court may also provide an electronic index if available.

Question #17 Per RFP section 2.7.3: Will the court be providing the vendor the metadata information or will it be extracted from the files. How will the vendor identify this information in the files?

Answer #17 The metadata will be extracted by the vendor from the files; however, it will consist of only the case number and case name. RFP sections 2.4.8 and 2.7.3 will be revised in an addendum to be posted on the Court website to clarify this.

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Question #18 Are there any pages larger than 11x17? Are the greenbar sheets larger than 11x17?

Answer #18 There are most likely no pages greater than 11x17 in size. There are some bursted greenbar documents and they are stapled together. The court was unable to measure the greenbar sheets but research seems to indicate greenbar paper is generally 14 7/8 X 11.

Question #19 Per RFP section 2.2.1.J: What types of binding will vendors be dealing with on the bound briefs?

Answer #19 Documents are bound inside files by two-prong fasteners. Each document contained within the file may be bound by staples, binding tape or three-hole document covers. Question #20 What types of bound items might vendors encounter and can they all be disbound?

Answer #20 See answer #19. All bound items can be unbound. Question #21 Can the court estimate the number of files for the project or average pages per file? Answer #21 See answer #1.

Question #22 Does the court have a total number of case numbers that they can provide? This will help the vendors determine the number of separator sheets and indexing. Answer #22 The Court does not have an answer to that question at this time. Question #23 Per RFP section 2.4.3: Does the court require volumes of each record to be scanned as separate PDF files (e.g. volume 1, volume 2 and 3). Answer #23 No; all volumes should be scanned as a single PDF.

Question #24 Vendor noted that RFP requires that originals and electronic versions need to stay in U.S. Is it continental or the greater U.S? How far can records travel and still meet the requirements? Can the files be on a server accessed outside of the country? If a vendor meets the security requirements, is there any restriction as to how far the records can travel? Answer #24 The original and electronic versions must remain within the contiguous 48 states of the United States and cannot be able to be viewed by anyone outside of the contiguous 48 states of the United States.

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Question #25 Are there any incentives in addition to the DVBE and SBE Incentive? And how is the SBE incentive calculated? Answer #25 There are no additional incentives. The DVBE is 3 points and the SBE incentive is calculated as stated in section 14.2.

Question #26 Can vendor propose CMAS pricing?

Answer #26 Yes, however, vendor will still be required to execute a separate contract with the court, as stated in the RFP documents. Question #27 Is the court looking for automatic removal or detailed page by page manual review to ensure that image specifications are met? Answer #27 RFP section 2.6 discussed quality control and proposers’ response to this section will be a significant portion of the evaluation points that are assigned to quality of work plan. Proposers should provide their response to how they can best provide the requested quality control.

Question #28 Is court currently working with a vendor and if yes, who? Answer #28 Court is not currently working with a vendor. The court has been doing in house scanning and can no longer continue due to staffing and workload. Approximately five years ago, the court did use a vendor on a project. Court cannot recall the name of the vendor.

Question #29 Will an attendee list be sent provided? Answer #29 The following vendors attended the conference call: 1. Axiom Consulting Group 2. Databank 3. FNTI Imaging 4. MetaSource 5. Perfect Image 6. Stria 7. SyTech Solutions

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Question #30 Can you provide a digital image of a typical box of case files at a resolution where the content cannot be read? Answer #30 See the images below: Standard banker’s box; letter size file orientation, inside.

Standard banker’s box; letter size file orientation, outside

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Standard banker’s box; legal size file orientation, outside

Standard banker’s box; legal size file orientation, inside

Question #31 112 boxes – 7k pages seems like a significant overestimate of pages that could fit in a standard bankers box (10x12x15). 10 reams of fresh paper from the mill is only 5000 pages which are very compact with no folders or binding. Typically a box of court documents yield 2500 pages with 10% double sided, resulting in an average of 2750 images. Can the agency count 25% of a box and extrapolate to create a number of pages and images to be used in the cost spreadsheet for normalizing quotes? Answer #31 See answer #1 and #2.

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Question #32 There are 15 points in the evaluation attributed to “Ability to meet timing requirements to complete the project.” Does this mean that any and all vendors who propose to complete the project within 3 years will receive full points, or will vendors proposing an accelerated schedule receive more points? What if a vendor proposes an unreasonable schedule like 1wk in order to win on points, then under contract sites the Agency for the inability to sustain their proposed schedule? Since every responding vendor will propose to meet this requirement, can the agency consider moving this requirement to a minimum qualification and distribute the points associated with it to other evaluation factors? Answer #32 See answer #11. Question #33 Regarding an Ad hoc request of a document within 5 days. Since all of the originals will be destroyed at some point, can we assume that this requirement can be facilitated via an electronic transmission of an encrypted file and that sending an original is not necessary? If an original is necessary, can we transmit this via common courier like FedEx or ups? Answer #33 See answer #12. Question #34 How long is the agency expecting the vendor to store the originals after scanning a box? Vendors typically bill storage per box per month. Can the agency revise the cost sheet to estimate box-months for storage? (i.e. 112 boxes for 6 months = 672 box months) Answer #34 See answer #7 and #6 respectively. Question #35 So we can be cost competitive, will the agency allow non-domestic access to records for review, indexing? Can the agency add a line similar to the following: “The Agency has the right to conduct site visits, review time sheets and employee credentials to ensure compliance with this requirement”? Answer #35 See answer #24. Additional language as requested above will be added to the RFP as an addendum to be posted on the Court website. Question #36 Is the green bar bursted, how frequent is it and do the pages exceed 11x17? If the frequency of greenbar is expected to exceed 2.5% can the agency consider adding a line item to the cost sheet for these? Answer #36 The greenbar is bursted and stapled. They exist in one file type only and not in every file of that type. The greenbar is not expected to exceed 2.5 %.

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Question #37 The SOW states that vendors are to scan folders as they may contain notes. Are we to scan all folders, or only those that contain additional notes? What % of folders might contain notes? Answer #37 Only those that contain notes. It is estimated to be 25 – 50%.

Question #38 Blank pages, bleed-through images, black borders, hole-punch images and background color drop out should be removed if possible. While we understand that in monochrome it is possible to lighten an individual image to remove bleed through, this setting cannot be applied automatically to all images without the risk of removing light date stamps on an adjacent page, nor does it work when grayscale or color is required. Automated hole removal does not work on pages that have been bunched twice. Is the agency looking for an automated solution with best efforts to eliminate, control or correct for these items or the much more costly process to manually review and correct for these?

Answer #38 See Answer #27.

Questions #39 Can vendors use OCR to correct for orientation of pages (which may not be 100% correction) or does the agency require the more costly process of manual review and correction? Answer #39 RFP section 2.4.2 requires that proposer provide images in PDF/A format with Optimal Character Recognition (“OCR”) of text. See RFP section 2.4 and answer #27and RFP section 2.6 as this relates to review for quality control.

Question #40 Please confirm there are 3 document types: Open, Confidential and Sealed and that these must be extracted and saved as separate pdf files with a document type identification.

Answer #40 Up to 3 document types is correct and they must be extracted and saved as separate PDF files with document type identification. Question #41 RFP Section 2.5.2 seems to add an option for separation at the document level. Please confirm this is not a desired option. Answer #41 The court does not want or need separation at document level. Question #42 Please confirm that the cost sheet item for sheet insertion is to perform the separation by document type (open, confidential, sealed) regardless of whether the vendor chooses to use separator sheets in order to do so. Answer #42 Yes; see also answer #15.

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Question #43 Since the data contains sensitive information will the Agency be requiring an encrypted delivery drive? If so, is Bitlocker an acceptable means of encryption? Answer #43 If the data is provided on a hard drive it must be encrypted; Bitlocker would be an acceptable means of encryption. Question #44 Can vendors propose to bicycle a usb drive back and forth to the agency for deliveries? Can vendors list an option to allow the agency to retain the drive(s) and/or SFTP delivery of data? Answer #44 We do not believe the first part of this question will necessarily apply to the Court and its location. The Court has no objection to the vendors listing an option to allow the agency to retain the drive(s) and/or SFTP delivery of data. Question #45 Regarding metadata and indexing: • The cost sheet lists indexing per record, but uses 784k (which was the list of pages). Not every page is a record. Can the

agency estimate the number of cases so that vendors can appropriate proper costs to the amount of manual indexing that will be required?

• It is unclear if the agency is providing a printed list of cases in each box or if that list can be provided electronically to increase data accuracy, provide better document custody and eliminate extra costs to the agency. What data can be provided electronically to document what cases are in which boxes?

• Is any of the other metadata requirements available electronically? Does the agency have an electronic list that would link the case number to the case type, case name, defendant name and/or batch number?

• If the metadata or portion thereof cannot be provided electronically, from where will this data be obtained by the vendor? From the first page of the file, from the face or tab on the folder or might it require a vendor to frequently page through the file?

• From where will the vendor obtain the batch number? Answer #45 The following are the respective answers to the five questions above: • See answer #22 • The court will provide, at a minimum, a printed inventory of the records contained in each box. An electronic list will be

provided if available. • RFP sections 2.4.8 and 2.7.3 will be revised in an addendum to be posted on the Court website to address this. • RFP sections 2.4.8 and 2.7.3 will be revised in an addendum to be posted on the Court website to address this. • The batch number will be the box number contained on each box of records. Question #46 Since a walkthrough was not held, can the agency provide example photos of the case files (redacted) perhaps from a camera phone where no content is visible? It is very helpful to see the files on the shelves, the box with the top off containing files and a file laid open. Answer #46 See answer #30; these will be the only images provided by the court.

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Question #47 Can the agency make a best effort to describe how most files are bound (this would roll to an estimate of prep hours on cost sheet). Light Binding. Mostly loose in folders with a few staples and clips and ring binders (45min prep) Medium binding. Staples in many documents 10+ pages per staple, occasional sticky notes (120 min prep) Heavy binding: Staples in most documents, <10 pages on average, small receipts, frequent sticky notes and sticky tabs (sign here) on edge of pages (3-6hrs prep) Answer #47 See answer #19. Question #48 Can the agency insure that each item on the cost sheet has an educated estimate of units so that vendors can create a total for cost evaluation purposes, moving any optional items out of the evaluated total? Answer #48 Yes with the caveat that some items are unknown and are not guaranteed volumes Question #49 Regarding RFP Section 2.1.6: Unless otherwise indicated, all extra copies (in any format), waste, spoilage sheets, and so forth are to be destroyed beyond recognition and reconstruction. All electronic files and data shall be completely purged from all data storage components of the Proposer's computer facility as requested by the Court. Question: Can you please clarify? Is the vendor required to identify ‘extra copies’, ‘waste’, ‘spoilage sheets’, and ‘so forth’ within the files? Or, does this statement indicate that the vendor must destroy any extra copies, waste, spoilage sheets, and so forth that are generated during the scanning process? Answer #49 The Court is not requesting the vendor identify any extra copies, waste, spoilage sheets and so forth within the files. Vendors must destroy any extra copies, waste, spoilage sheets and so forth that may be generated during the scanning process. Question #50 Regarding RFP Section 2.5.2: As multiple documents in a case are scanned into a single file with continuous pages, the vendor is invited to provide cost estimate for inserting between documents a separator page (with or without bar code) that would facilitate splitting the file into separate documents in the future if needed. Question: How is the vendor to identify the different document types within the file? What are the document types? Answer #50 Document level separation is no longer being requested. Confidential and Sealed documents are contained in envelopes labeled as such and should be scanned as such as well. Question #51 Does the Court require an encrypted hard drive? Answer #51 See answer #43.

RFP No. 512016 Questions and Answers #2 Question #52 Can the Court provide a copy of Attachment 5, Payee Data Record that is formatted correctly? Answer #52 It will be posted as a separate attachment on the Court’s website. Question #53 Indexing on a per record basis is impossible to quote, unless there is a finite number of keystrokes. Would you consider quoting this on a per keystroke basis or pick a maximum number of keystrokes per record of quoted per record? Answer #53 See change to revised Attachment 9, Cost Proposal Template which will be posted on the Court’s website to reflect a per hour basis. Question #54 The index structure shown in section 2.4.8 is different from that in section 2.7.3. We assume that section 2.7.3 prevails. Is this correct? Answer #54 See revisions to RFP sections 2.4.8 and 2.7.3 which will be posted on the court’s website regarding the updated metadata requirements. Question #55 In the database the Court will provide to the vendor, will all data elements listed in section 2.7.3 be included? Answer #55 The court is not providing a database. Question #56 Document destruction is listed per hour. Would you consider changing this to per cu ft or per box (if box size is predetermined and provided)? Answer #56 See answer #6. Question #57 For the insertion of separator sheets (RFP section 2.5.2), how will the vendor be able to tell where each unique document begins and ends? May we propose this add-on service at an hourly labor rate? Answer #57 See answer #15.