****Amendment 0001****
Corrected response date in narrative from 16 March 2018 to 02 April 2018
****Amendmeent 0002****
Questions and Responses from Industry:
Question: Paragraph c - "500 user accounts". Is this to state that up to 500 government users may need access to the system? Or that the government wishes to link up 500 different social profiles?
Response: 500 government users will need access to the system.
Question: Will the government prefer a single platform for all users? Or a platform that enables "groups" of users and profiles based on Commands/Divisions/Local Units, etc.?
Response: The Government would like to know what capabilities are available.
Question: Can you please provide an approximation for total number of social media profiles that could be part of the requirement?
Response: 500 Government users would need access to the platform; 5 specific individuals would need access to the Imposter Social Media Account feature; 50 individuals would be monitored on various social media sites.
Question: Paragraph d: "A fully customizable reporting feature". In this paragraph, we are curious to the Government's definition of "syndication activities" - could you please clarify further this term?
Response: Syndication activities, for the purposes of this notice, refers to the supply of material for reuse and integration with other material.
Question: Paragraph r: "capability to obtain content sourced for Army". Can you please clarify the desired type of content sourced and how Army plans to use a potential platform to source this content?
Response: Provide content that is applicable to the U.S. Army for use on social media channels.
Question: Paragraph t: Please define "impostor social media accounts". Is this to indicate Profiles/Accounts that claim to be US Army but are not, in fact, true Army social media channels?
Response: For purposes of this notice, an impostor social media account/profile as a user account portraying another person in a misleading or deceptive manner. This feature will be monitoring 50 specific individuals.
****Amendment 0003****
Response date is being extended from 02 April 2018 to 16 April 2018.
Questions from Industry:
1. The contractor shall provide a web-accessible enterprise level social media management software to facilitate social media content scheduling, planning, engagement, scheduling, team management, content curation, monitoring and reporting for various Army Social media presences.
a. Is the Army looking for a SaaS solution, or is the contractor building proprietary software for the government?
Govt. Response: SaaS, not a custom-built system. Web-based.
b. If building a proprietary solution, are there any restrictions on what COTS (commercial off the shelf) solutions may be included in the application?
Govt. response: NA
c. Will the Army provide detailed system, UI/UX, and software requirements documents, or are these to be written in conjunction with the contractor?
Govt. Response: System should be a web or cloud based SaaS.
d. Should the proposal include design and build of iOS and Android app versions of the platform?
Govt. Response: The SaaS should also have a mobile app available for iOS and Android for the social media managers to use.
2. The contractor shall provide access to this software for up to 500 user accounts. Each account will allow users to manage the daily operations of their organization's social media presences.
a. Where will the application be hosted, and by whom?
Govt. Response: It should be a commercially available web-based (cloud) system that is hosted by the commercial social media planning and management tool provider.
b. Does the Army have any special ACL (access control lists) or authentication protocols that the contractor must implement, outside of industry-standard? Is there a military standard that differs from industry?
Govt. Response: SaaS solution should meet all applicable Army and Department of Defense web and cloud service requirements.
c. Who are the responsible parties, how must they be notified, and within what time frame when the maximum number of user accounts has been reached?
Govt. Response: The Government will provide a main Point of Contact (POC) who will be responsible for managing the overall list of users and approving issuing and removing accounts. The contractor should track the number of available accounts remaining, and provide status monthly.
3. A fully customizable reporting feature. Reporting shall support information and metrics for all features on the solution to include, but not limited to, engagement activities, post and content scheduling, team management activities, content curation, syndication activities, content posting, account activation and execution, monitoring and reporting for various Army Social media presences.
a. To what level of granularity shall the application provide reporting on a given metric? This would seem to be constrained by the reporting capabilities offered by the individual social media platforms themselves.
Govt. Response: Metrics reporting should provide analytics on the audience; (including, but not limited to audience size, growth rates, source of followers, demographic, engagements, reactions, locations, etc..) Metrics should be provide to assess performance of content (including but not limited to: type of content, impressions, engagement, clicks, reach (paid/organic), reactions). Content performance metrics or recommendations such as "best time to publish, best day to publish, best type of content to publish would also be beneficial.
b. What does it mean for the reporting feature to be ‘customizable'?
Govt Response:The ability to change reporting timelines for the metrics, decide which metrics to export, etc... Ability to export to powerpoint or excel is also preferable.
c. What is the definition and scope of ‘syndication activities'?
Govt response: The social media planning and management service should allow the Army to coordinate and synchronize content across the force. The service should provide the headquarters, DMD, with the ability to make content available to Army-wide subordinate units for use on their social media presences via the content library and calendar. Syndication activities in this case would let the headquarters know who used a piece of content and to what degree.
d. What does ‘account execution' mean?
Govt. Response: Since DMD will be the primary managers for providing overall access to the system and issuing accounts, DMD needs to know if accounts are being used or not. Because there is a finite amount of accounts, DMD would remove inactive accounts from some users and provide to others for use.
4. Calendar. A customizable social media content publishing calendar that can synchronize Army wide social media efforts. This calendar should have capability to map out engagement activities, programs, digital media strategies, multimedia content, campaigns, and events. This calendar shall allow for real-time updates and be fully exportable. The calendar shall allow users to make recommendations for calendar addition that would allow designated users to make approval for incorporation.
a. What are expected formats to support an exportable calendar (i.e. .csv)? Are these the same formats outline in section "j"?
Govt. Response: Powerpoint or .PDF
b. To what extent shall the calendar be ‘customizable' on a per-user basis? What features are to be customizable?
Govt. Response: The users should be able to change the timespan for viewing/exporting the calendar such as a day, week or monthly view. DMD team members will be the primary "owners" of the calendar. Other social media managers at subordinate units will be able to view the calendar, and should have a method to submit recommendations for calendar additions to the DMD team to consider adding.
5. Communication support. The social media software shall provide a fully customizable chat feature to allow users to communicate, coordinate and collaborate. ¬¬The contractor develop standard operating procedures for chat board participation and moderation.
a. What is meant by "contractor develop standard operating procedures"? Aren't the guidelines already in place by DoD?
Govt. Response: The chat feature would be located inside the web-based social media planning and management tool. The chat feature would simply allow the geographically dispersed social media managers to share information. Ideally, inside the system, would be an SOP for chat board use. DMD can provide chat board engagement requirements.
b. How must SOP be enforced by the application?
Govt. Response: DMD would resolve issues with chat board misuse following the posted SOP or guidelines.
c. What shall the reporting mechanism be (if any) for SOP violations? To whom shall SOP violations be reported?
Govt. Response: Direct message sent to DMD team members who will take action by resolving the issue by either posting a message to the group, individual or potentially removing individual from the group.
d. What is the scope of ‘fully customizable' as regards the chat feature? Are customization options offered on a per-user basis or controlled by a super user for the entire user base?
Govt. Response: Users should be able to customize their profile information such as a photo, unit or contact information. This is how they are depicted in the chat board.
6. Analytical Data. Reports should have capability to support analytical data for trend recognition. Software shall have capability to formulate bar charts, graphs, line charts, showing date/site/alert identifying trending and analysis of data.
a. What is meant by "alert" in this context?
Govt. Response: Alert in this context would be a notification in the system or through SMS/email to DMD when content about the U.S. Army or Soldiers is being widely shared. Baseline would be 500 more shares on Facebook and 300 retweets on Twitter.
7. Content Monitoring. The solution shall provide capability for monitoring of posts, conversations, and comments made to content posted on the Army social media platforms. Criteria will include, but not be limited to, vulgarity, disturbing images, inaccurate post data, Anti-American posts, posts that could potentially impact national security, etc.
a. What guidance will the Army provide to assist the application in determining whether an image is ‘disturbing', a post is ‘inaccurate', or content is ‘Anti-American'? (For example, access to a database of restricted or suspect words, phrases, or images?)
Govt Response: Yes, DMD maintains a list of user commenting and content guidelines.
b. What languages is the application required to support when scrubbing for objectionable content? Ex: What happens if a user posts a message in Swahili?
Govt. Response: English is the default. System should be able to provide translation as needed for Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Punjabi, German, and Korean.
c. Shall the application make provision for encoded messages, and if so, what guidance will the Army provide to assist the application in flagging such content for review?
Govt. Response: No.
7. Ability to record and utilize responses to posts to provide information on how social media groups are receiving the information.
Govt. response: This section has been removed from the notice.
8. Capability to search for and source high-quality content for publishing on Army social media platforms.
In what ways does the Army typically source content?
Govt. response: Reviewing feeds from subordinate unit and DOD social media presences such as Facebook and Flickr feeds, DVIDS, and DIMOC.
9. Capability to develop and maintain a consolidated list of recommended user responses based on daily documentation of social media monitoring. Recommended actions in response to user responses include, but are not limited to: likes, comments, retweets, Re-grams, shares, hiding conversations, flagging/reporting comments, banning users and deleting comments.
We believe this means the application shall prompt responsible parties to interact with monitored content. If so, what criteria shall the application apply to determine whether content should:
a. be favorably dispositioned (like, retweeted, etc.)?
Govt. Response: System does not need to provide this. DMD personnel will make this determination by reviewing the comments in the "inbox" section.
b. be flagged?
Govt. Response: Flagged for potential deletion/removal: Violates user guidelines. DMD manages a list of community engagement guidelines and can provide. This would include things such as vulgarity, nudity, hate speech, unrelated comments/images/videos intended to disrupt conversation or hijack thread.
c. be deleted?
Govt. Response: Same as above.
d. cause a user to be reported?
Govt. Response: DMD will make this determination based on violation of user community engagement guidelines.
e.cause a user to be banned?
Govt. Response: DMD will make this determination based on violation of user community engagement guidelines.
10. Capability to ensure accompanying photography, headlines, tweets, Instagram's, Facebook posts identify accurate events and activities captured by the Army are accurate, clear, and concise.
Govt. response: This capability was removed from the notice.
