VA Centralized Adjudication & Background Investigation System (VA-CABS)
Overview
The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) summarizes the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office Acquisition and Logistics (OAL), Human Capital Management Service (AHCMS) interest to assess the ability to execute additional system enhancements and integration tasks associated with the Veterans Affairs Centralized Adjudication Background Investigation System (VA-CABS). Currently VA intends to award a logical follow on task order under the Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation (T4NG) contract to Liberty IT Solutions, the incumbent prime contractor for VA CABS. VA is looking to objectively assess whether the currently deployed proprietary VA-CABS Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software application and deployment environments can be enhanced by outside parties for the purposes of competing this effort. This RFI is for planning purposes only now, and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation on part of VA.
Background
The VA awarded a fixed price task order on the Transformation T4NG contract to Liberty IT Solutions to deploy a COTS software application within a commercial cloud environment that serves as the VA s System of Record for all background investigation information. The scope of this task order also includes Operations and Maintenance support to the deployed system. The VA-CABS solution is comprised of the Centech Security Manager COTS application, which features proprietary source code, deployed within Liberty IT s proprietary Development, Pre-Production, and Production environments hosted in the Microsoft Azure Government Cloud managed by the VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) Program. VA-CABS achieved full Authority To Operate (ATO) approval. The solution was accepted in October 2018, however, the national rollout process identified additional system enhancements that could not be anticipated prior to contract award. For this reason, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office Acquisition and Logistics (OAL), Human Capital Management Service (AHCMS) intends to execute a logical follow-on in accordance with the Justification and Approval to enhance the deployed VA-CABS solution.
From an organizational perspective, the deployed VA-CABS solution transforms the VA background investigation processes from localized, manual processes with limited process standardization, to an enterprise-wide standardized approach with automated processes. Significant background investigation process timeline reductions come from the ability to view and reassign case workloads to avoid extended periods of case stagnation due to role holder unavailability or workload overload. These background investigation process enhancements ultimately reduce the timeline for new employees and contractors to be available to provide timely and quality products and services to Veterans. In addition, the deployed solution maximizes data protection through encrypted data transmission and storage, as well as the deployment of Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FEDRAMP) certified High security controls.
The primary objectives of this RFI are to collect information regarding the ability to execute the following solution enhancement tasks planned to be completed in the logical follow-on:
Execute additional COTS product configurations to increase enterprise wide efficiency in executing low level business processes within the existing Use Cases
Execute additional system integration and testing with intra-VA system interfaces
Execute system integration and testing with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to migrate to next generation file/data transfer technologies
Enhance the new user experience materials and processes to enhance proficiency within the solution
Upgrade the existing training materials baseline
Important things to consider when responding to the RFI
The solutions will be required to conform to the Veteran-Focused Integration Process (VIP) project management methodology currently required for these types of solutions for the VA.
VA-CABS solution enhancement deployments need to be operationally seamless to approximately 1,000 role holders using the system across the VA enterprise with minimal to no system downtime required
VA-CABS solution enhancements need to be appropriately tested in non-production environments prior to release to production
VA-CABS Questions
Describe your approach to meeting the primary objectives stated in this RFI. Please include your approach for executing the VA-CABS solution enhancement tasks describe above. Your approach must address the following:
Specifically how you would access the Centech Security Manager source code to perform enhancements
Specifically how you would access the proprietary VA-CABS production environment to deploy the enhancements
VA-CABS Business Problem Statement
VA has identified a lack of standardization in processes and quality practices for background investigation and reinvestigation initiation and adjudication. Challenges in these activities have resulted in:
Lack of centralized automated system of record;
Lack of enterprise business processes for investigations and re-investigations;
Inconsistent storage and safeguarding of sensitive data (e.g., Microsoft Excel files on local and shared drives);
Extended investigation processing times, leading to prolonged onboarding process;
Lack of insight into status of investigations and reinvestigations;
Lack of quality standards for adjudication processes and decisions;
Untimely identification and processing for reinvestigations;
Weakened security posture across the enterprise, putting the VA at risk for data breaches and other security threats;
Systemic material weakness discovered through Office of the Inspector General audits (described below) hinders VA in achieving specific requirements and controls;
Favorable adjudicative decisions may be made in cases where further analysis may reflect that an applicant investigation or reinvestigation could be deemed unfavorable; and
VA Subjects maintaining favorable suitability status without proper verification after the initial investigation expires.
VA TAC is seeking comments and feedback related to above scope of work intended to be added as a modification to the existing task order. Please provide responses to the questions above as well as any additional comments, feedback, information related to the Veterans Affairs Centralized Adjudication Background Investigation System task order. Respondents are requested to clearly identify their capabilities relevant to the scope of work listed above.
Submit your response via email to the Contract Specialist, Troy Loveland at Troy.Loveland@va.gov and Contracting Officer Iris Farrell at Iris.Farrell@va.gov no later than 11:00am, Eastern Time, on December 19, 2018.
Troy Loveland
Troy.Loveland@va.gov
troy.loveland@va.gov
