RFP Writing Info Gathering -- Hardware Only

Somewhere along the way to writing an RFP, you'll going to have to gather some information on what you are buying, whether it be a service or a piece of equipment. We will deal with hardware first.

• Hardware Vendors
• Visit the people who make the gear or software that meets your need. You may have to cold call an HP, a Dell, a Cisco, a Juniper, a Fortinet, Sonicwall, whatever. You may have a long standing relationship. Either way, talk about what you are wanting to do to a variety of vendors. List where you are now, what you want to do, and the budget for the RFP or project. You have to give them an idea of how much you can spend. They should be able to help you with the nuts and bolts. Hopefully, they can give you a BOM of what you need to accomplish the goal. Don't afraid to play them against each other. It is a business decision. They already know who their competitors are. The closer you can get an apples to apples specification, the easier it will be later, even if you prefer vendor A solutions cause the equipment is Tangerine (no, I've never used this as a criteria. Although I have ruled out a vendor due to aestitics. The thing just looked really really ugly on the wall. I couldn't picture my teachers and staff using it without calling and saying it looked ugly). Eventually, the OEM may bring a partner or reseller in. That's actually good, usually. You need to meet these players too. They are likely who you will be buying the solution from and quite possibly performing the install or service.
• Resellers. Ugh. Good ones exist, people tell me so. Actually, they do. I've never had extended good luck with a whole lot of them. They get complacent IMHO. Anyhow, you'll likely meet the team or project lead for your area or project type. You need to figure out if you like these people, because they are likely to be who you deal with daily if they win. If you don't "click" with the first person, you can ask for another. They may say no. Deal with it. That's why you put previous customer experience or references on the RFP later.
• Laws. Be aware of these during your meetings. Some are so specific in the public realm, don't even bother asking for lunch. Yeah, if you are making a $750,000 business decision over a combined $25 lunch at Chili's, you should suffer the consequences.
• Hardware Specifications. After you meet with these people you should be able to have the contacts and quite possibly some verbiage to lock down your specification. Often you want to ensure that you aren't being sold black or grey market equipment. The vendors should be able to help you limit responses to qualified resellers by either having the correct minimal level of reseller (silver partner or better, etc) or required specialist (RCDD on staff). Conversely, if there is a local area reseller that is just -amazing-, the hardware vendor help ensure they have the chance to compete against the AT&Ts. Remember, they'd rather you buy their product from anyone than the competition.
• Balance. As you do these visits they are interested in your acquiring your business. Most get paid commissions and bonuses based on what they sell. RFP's tend to be large buys which means large bonuses. If you can't find your reseller or account manager after you cut the first check, they are celebrating you buying their solution. You aren't really the center of the universe. But money does make the world go round..

Next Software & services...

Writing RFP Tips Especially in Education Pt 1

Things I've learned writing an RFP:

Pre-writing Legal & Timelines

• Does your company/institution use a boiler plate for these things? Go find it. Yeah, it may suck and need revisions, but if you mention that, you may get to re-write it. Be careful if you open your mouth. Heck, it may be wonderful (if so, i'd like a copy!).
• Find out your legal requirements on time
• Do you have to advertise in two separate weeks?
• Do you want to allow for Q&A for clarirfications?
• Do you have to allow 28 days for responses?
• Do you have to have a public opening?
• Are you allowed to 1st, 2nd..and final submittals where you are allowed to ask for clarifications?
• Does this have to go to an approval agency such as a board? When do they meet? When do you have to be on the agenda?
• Do you have to hit dates for another agency (eRate funding)
• From bullet 2, build your schedule. Work backwards. When do you to award this? Go to the board? Or when is eRate funding applications due? Build a time-line based on finish at that date. This is the one single thing that has bitten my butt more than others. You may think it is a simple quote for 60k in electronics/equipment with no services so basically it is an over-glorified speadsheet with totals. Turning it into an RFP puts some legal requirements on it.
• Now, you should know when you have to be done with your writing.

I'll cover fact gathering, specifications next...

Day in Review -- Geek Speak

As I've mentioned, we passed a bond. Yay. Sort of. More work. More toys. Gotta take the good with the bad. And in bonds, you must get your money off the table before others spend it for you. And then say you spent it. (Like Technology repaved a parking lot with Technology Bond Funds - true story).

As part of this, to acquire said toys, we have to produce an RFP. Starting these things are a chore. Since we'll be applying for eRate, I have to hit some deadlines. First one is in september. Ouch. Time to get started - NOW. I'll do my RFP tips in another message. I'm probably not the greatest, but maybe it'll help someone get started. I got the outline for 1 done. 2 more to go.

Did a psuedo site survey for APs needed at a campus. Pro-tip, in the summer in warm states where they turn off non-essential AC, always do these morning. Early if possible.

Also sat through another KACE educational 2 hours. I wish I had the time to play with the image and application deployment portion of that toy. I got the service desk setup.

Got our Yousend-it account enabled. We have a 10M email restriction. We send stuff over 10M out on occassions. This usually happens the day of the board meeting (board agenda, slides, etc). At 4:30PM when I want to go home. 3 times in one year, means there is a solution required. Now we get to train the people likely to need the solution. Hopefully that'll fix one source of panic. (Anyone saying they'll dream up other, I know you are right...let me bask in my brilliance for a moment. Ok, its done. Carry-on.).

DIR -- Admin Overhead

Not much today. Does that count as a good thing? I think so.

Also, today was the last day for our 220 staff people. Needless to say, a few waited until today to ask for things. My former boss had some words to live by here...

• Never check email after noon on Fridays
• Never check email after noon on days before long holidays (Christmas & Spring Break)

All it will do is piss you off.

KACE & Skyward

I'm working with my counterpart in our business office to introduce some work automation. It is small, but I really hate entering things twice. We are trying to get Skyward to send an email with on PO with the correct fields to KACE to generate a work order. Anyone else try this? We need to send PO, Req #, VEndor, campus, and items. Here is hoping it is possible. If so I know my counterpart will figure it out.

Using the following fields in our KACE system.
@PONumber
@Requistion Number
@Location (campus)
@Requester
@Owner (my buyer)

Realms in Education

For you people working in or with education realize there are realms within school districts. The district itself is a realm. The campus is a realm. The individual classroom is a realm. Remember that when you walk into the various areas. The people you deal with in each location is the king or queen of their area. Recognize this. You'll save yourself a lot of grief amd frustration

Fax Over IP

We met with a Fax over IP provider as part of our VoIP project as part of our bond. This is to reduce cost in several areas, especially ongoing support. If we can get the fax service to run only on a server instead of 100 physical devices, that'll be huge. No seperate infrastructure (TDM, IP), no required FXO/FXS ports at 40 campuses...huge cost savings, both initially and ongoing. Anyone have experience with XmediusFax? My voice guy is a bit nervous about running a VM server hosting all fax servers. He'll have to get over it .He will. He wanted me to know his concern. Duly noted. We build the DR & HA into the VM and backup solution (SAN mirror or VEEAM). Remember boys and girls, introducing change, even to technical people is painful and we are guilty of not wanting to adapt, yours truly included. I'll borrow from my former boss, this is a roller coaster you are getting paid to ride. Enjoy it.

For us, the phrase that automatically introduces ridicule is "That's the way we've always done it".

RFP Pre-Writing Thoughts

So, we are looking to upgrade to an entire VoIP solution. There are various portions of this project, back-end message store (voicemail), call routing, phones, and PoE switches. We have an incumbent vendor at about 1/4 of sites for the phones, and the vendor has 100% of other pieces..It has worked well but has been pricey, especially the PoE switches. However, since we've started to meeting with our switch vendors, they can provide a very good solution. As a public servant and spending my neighbors, co-workers, and friends tax dollars (yes, I really put it in that perspective), we have to find a good solution and a good price. Now,we have to figure out how to write the RFP to make sure we are comparing Jonah golds to red delicious's. We have to avoid the cheap POS stuff that catches on fire, doesn't do some required feature sets, etc, while not forcing it to be the incumbent with a feature set we will never ever use.

As for the professional services...do I ever get frustrated by them. Often, I found by the time I've written an RFP that can adequately scale and scope a professional service engagement, either I can do it or I can send one of my staff to training, take him or her off queue for a month to test, and then they can do it. Plus my group is quite tenured (avg ~ 6+ years). I know professional services serves a purpose, but a lot of resellers that provide professional services...to be blunt suck. Just cause they carry the certification (woo..ccnp in voice -rolls eyes-), doesn't mean they can tell up from down (or is that H323 or from SIP?). Maybe someone knows a good way of evaluating these vendors. We are currently inviting a couple of the ones we've not used in to help on some 1 off projects. Gives them a foot in the door and us a chance to meet them.

Day in Review -- Geek Speak

Met with fax vendor and a switch vendor! Fun! Actually, both were very personable. Good info. It has been very cool that the two vendors which have been presenting the last 2 days had female tech people (Sales Engineer). Really cool. Girls can't be great geeks. Bullsh*t. Both knew their stuff -AND- could present. We have a white board and both go, "Can I draw". AWESOME! We have a philosophy, if you can't draw it, you can't do it. Both drew out designs, how their products worked, answered questions, and were personable. As for the vendors with male SEs, they have been very good too, knew their stuff & presented well. I guess one good thing for the downturn in the economy, the people left that I have dealt with are very good.

FYI, E911 finds a lot of mis-documented switch ports. 98-99% accuracy still means a bit of work to clean up.

Day in Review -- Administrative Overhead

Meetings, meetings and more meetings. Actually most were technical in nature. However, we are doing some renovations at some sites so we sat in the weekly construction meeting. 1st, I like the guys in this group including the architect, project manager, our facilities people, and the construction people. These meetings are about solving problems and trying to prevent expensive fubars late in the game. Unfortunately, since these projects are being done on the "cheap", some of the equipment is being donated. warning warning warning. Donated usually translates to lots of man hours and money out of my budget to install and maintain. Unfortunately teachers and campus admins don't understand that so they try to gladly accept the equipment without asking us. Puts my group in a fun spot. Had to raise the red flag there. We also covered some other stuff. Without fail, where the construction is taking place at another site is where my outside plant fiber enters the building. Well, crap. Now, we get to do some analysis..what is the cheapest & best long term to move, the addition or the fiber. I'm guessing I lose and have to move. I see a long night sometime in the fall when the splice is done.

Emergencies at 5 minutes before people head home suck. It is always interesting to see our 2nd in command have to "jump". Watch. Observe. Learn. Help. Also, get to see who really cares about the success of the district and those who are punching the clock. As for the cause of the emergency, I hope the students are ok. Best wishes to them.

Day in Review -- Geek Speak

We are doing a bond project for wireless and voice upgrades. We have the strong possibility of upgrading some of our edge devices to PoE. We also will file eRate. So we have to make sure the bid is truly open, so we must include equivalents. We were meeting with the team from one of the "equivalents". It went really well. Good AM, SE and data center talks. One of the few times  the SE is brilliant, well-spoken, and straightforward. Nice to know the nuts and bolts and also get feedback that she would not recommend going a certain direction, but they do sell the items. The meeting was 3 hours...felt like 1. Good thing.

Got a request about filters from a collegue in another district. Made me start thinking if there would be a value to a web-site/database that districts that could fill out and then search. Sometimes, just knowing who uses what is good information, especially among your peers. Yeah, we can call or email each other too, but how many of us would rather do a look-up?

Items I thought to gather...The items I've seen on some of the state reports...well, aren't always useful nor important to IT support staff. Number of PCs per students...who cares in support. I know it helps the state & district for educational numbers, but for support personnel, meh. Thoughts?

• District Info
• Name
• Enrollment
• Campuses & types (HS, MS, ES, Admins)
• Support Personnel
• Campus based techs
• District based techs
• Help desk personnel
• Network admins (this may be overall broken down for some & too general for others)
• DBAs
• Route/Switch
• Firewall/security
• Programmers
• Trained monkeys
• Number & Type of PCs, Macs, laptops, & handhelds
• Desktop management software
• Number of physical servers
• Vendor
• Virtualization
• Vendor & Number of servers - real and virtual
• Storage
• Vendor
• Connectivity (iSCSI/Fibre Channel)
• Capacity
• SIS & BIS Systems
• Firewall
• Filter
• Internet
• Email
• Virus/Malware (Desktop & email & Internet)
• Traffic Shaping Product/Vendor
• Route/Switch Vendor
• Wireless Vendor & Mgmt Tools
• Connectivity
• Intra-campus connectivity & speeds (privately owned fiber, gigaman, carrier pigeon)
• Internet speeds & vendors
• Device monitoring system (Nagios, Whatsup Gold, Insight Manager, CiscoWorks, whatever)
• Inventory management (spreadsheet, part of BIS system, KACE, yeah right...?)

It could keep going, but smartboards, printers,  projectors, document cameras, & onward could be added later. I know I get tired of filling things out after a while. secondary issue would be...keeping it up to date. Moore's law changes causes all the answers to change. The goal would be to keep the information to the districts' IT staffs. Many of the people in similar roles are already too popular with resellers & vendors.

I'm sure I did something productive this afternoon, but I can't recall. Does pondering how to write-up a RFP count? More of the structure and how many RFPs to write?

Day in Review -- Admin Overhead

Doing interviews is always interesting and fun. Especially when it isn't for a position in my direct group, but on the "other" side of the house. I get to people read and evaluate answers. One of the interviewees was very good. It was great to see someone prepared, energized, and wanting to join our team.

Had a quick budget meeting aboutt closing out the books on one account and how it was previously done. Good advice and direction was given. Also had a refreshing information that we -don't- have to spend all the money in another account as it'll roll forward and nor should we try. Refreshing to hear. I always look at it as I'm spending money from the people I work with. About 1/2 of them live in district, so I'm spending their tax dollars.