The City of Pleasant Hill (City) has issued this Request for Proposals (RFP) to solicit responses from
 qualified firms (Consultants) to provide the City with scanning and indexing services to convert existing hardcopy files and records into an electronic format to enable greater accessibility for both City Staff and the general public.    

This written Request for Proposal (RFP) states the City’s requirements and specifies the rules for preparing the proposal.  The proposal should strictly follow the guidelines set herein and clearly demonstrate how the document scanning, indexing, and digitizing services that your company proposes can best satisfy the needs and requirements of the City of Pleasant Hill.

You can view and download a copy of the RFP here.

Please routinely check back on this page for additional information or updates concerning this RFP.

Questions Received and Answers

Please note: The deadline for Proposal Submissions has been extended to April 7th at 1PM PST.

1) Will City require color scanning when there are color sections on images (i.e., highlighted, photograph sections, color legends, etc.

ANS: Yes.  There will be black and white mixed in with color.  So I assume the easiest and most cost-effective solution is to scan everything in color if there are colored pages in the folder.  That way it also minimizes any possible issues with pages being put back in the wrong order if we are separating out b&w and color pages.

2) If manual indexing is needed, is the location of index criteria easily found on the physical documents (same place for each document, file folder, roll labels, etc.)?

ANS: On most documents, yes. But I can't say all.

3) Does the City intend to have all documents picked up at once or in batches?

ANS: In batches.  Whatever is being picked up needs to be inventoried so the City knows what has been taken.  Also, should the City have an urgent need for any of the documents that were taken, the consultant would need to either prioritize the scanning of those documents or bring the documents back.

4) What is the intended turnaround time for documents picked up to be completed & returned?

ANS: There is no set time limit.  However, there should be an understanding between the City and the consultant about what is a reasonable amount of time.  Initial thoughts are a few weeks but less than a month depending on the number of documents taken.

5) Given the potential for vendor responses to be based on different estimates of the total number of images and labor needed for document Prep & Indexing, will the city allow responses to be based on “unit prices” for images & labor?

ANS: Yes.

6) Will you require pricing for the bid at the page level or are you interested in a total dollar estimate?  If looking for a total dollar amount on the bid, are you willing to give the vendors the estimated number of large format drawings so we will all be working with the same estimates, thus comparing apples-to-apples?

ANS: See question and answer above.  The best thing to do is to provide the City with both unit prices and total dollar estimates.

7) Will you be providing a naming convention format by document type? Will you provide the metadata (2-7 fields) that needs to be extracted by document type? 

ANS: Yes.

8) Will you provide a copy of the electronic database of boxes and their contents, if there is one?  

ANS: We will provide it if it exists.  Most of the banker boxes in the storage room are included in an excel sheet that indicates their contents.  There is no Excel sheet or database for files in the filing cabinets.

9) Would you be interested in working with our Records Management Consultant to review the inventory to be digitized to determine if there are records that have reached or will reach the retention period soon and for which it doesn't make sense to scan? When was the last time your Information Governance documents were reviewed and updated with the most current regulations?

ANS: Yes.  We do have a staff person in-house that is in charge of retention policies.  It is the intention of the City not to digitize documents that falls out of the required retention period.  We do have set policies on our retention schedule.  I don't believe we've ever really inventoried our documents though.  That is something we will need to do before the start of the project.  However, my initial estimation is that probably less than 10% of our documents are outside of their retention period. 

10) Are you providing any special considerations for Small Businesses?  DVBE?   

ANS: We are not for small businesses or DVBE.  But we do have special considerations for businesses local to Pleasant Hill.  Also, beyond the scope of this RFP, we also have microfiche at our Police Department that needs to be scanned so if the consultant is CJIS Compliant (meaning all their staff is background checked and fingerprinted), that would be considered an added value to the City for future projects.

11) Would it be acceptable to do a partial reassembly, which includes putting the originals back in the same box and in the original folders, but would not include stapling and fastening information within the folder?  This will save the City time and money on the overall project. It's likely that the physical documents won't be accessed again. 

ANS: Yes.

12) Would you like us to include pricing for packing and indexing the materials that are not already boxed or will your staff be responsible for that?  If we are to include the pack out, should we also include materials (empty cartons) in the bid, or will those be provided?

ANS: Please provide pricing for packing and indexing the materials not already boxed.  And yes, please include any amount of boxes required in the pricing.

13) I saw a lot of binders in the collection.  Will the City retain the binders, or will the vendor be responsible for destroying them?

ANS: Documents in the binders will need to be placed back in the binders after scanning and returned to the City.

14) Would the City be interested in discussing the purchase of specific capture technology used to apply OCR and extract the metadata? That way you can continue to keep the department paperless day-forward. 

ANS: Not at this time.  But just to be clear, all documents scanned do require OCR.

15) You mentioned that the budget is coming from Federal money and other sources.  Can you provide the budget that has been set aside for the project to digitize your files?

ANS: The funding source for the project is ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act).  The budget for this project is $350,000. However, should all proposals exceed that amount, the City will consider allocating additional funds to the project.