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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
SECTION C: VENDOR QUESTIONS – REQUIRED SUBMITTAL
Your proposal must specifically address each of the questions/issues that are listed below.
The quality and detail of your responses will figure significantly in the overall evaluation of your
proposal. Proposers are encouraged to give examples and provide additional information to
support your compliance on each point. To standardize the format of all proposals,
Proposers are required to respond to all questions in the order given and to list the item
number and restate the question prior to giving their answer.
Integrated Recording Platform Core- Functional Questions
1. Please give background on your company’s experience in the industry and the products and
services offered. What other counties have you provided this solution? Have you performed
conversions from CRIS+ to your product? How much of the work is in house vs. contracted?
What certifications does your software have (DOD 5015.02 certified etc)? What
distinguishes your product from the competition? How large is the team that supports and
develops the product you are proposing? If possible include your forecast for the future
development of the product with anticipated time lines.
2. Please describe how your application handles the recording of documents (deed of trust,
lien, and releases)? Can it index grantor, grantee, tract information, etc as required or
allowed? How does your application support Title companies’ submission of multiple
documents? What is the maximum quantity of batches/ documents that can be submitted at
one time?
3. How many document types is your product able to handle? How can documents types be
added, modified, added and or deleted? If a document type is deleted how does that affect
previously stored documents of that type?
4. What added features are there for the customer experience? Do you have a web interface
and what are the features? Please provide a matrix of the core functionality proposed and
provide a comparison to your competitors as well as the optional features available.
5. Please describe the solutions adherence to industry best practices.
6. Describe the indexing capabilities of the proposed recording solution. Can it index grantor,
grantee, tract information etc. as required or allowed
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
Integrated Recording Platform Optional- Functional Requirements
7. Please describe your product offering for automated indexing and redaction. Does your
product have the capability for intelligent reading and indexing of every scanned Document.
Please describe. Please describe your proposed offerings capabilities with the following:
Automated identification of correct data fields for indexing
Extraction of relevant data from recorded documents to predefined fields
Pattern searching: Recognition of patterns used in putting names in index records (i.e. if
you search for “Smith Jane” and our record says “Smith John and Jane” application is
able to pull up record
Automated indexing validation capabilities against submitted indexing data
User approval for auto indexing and extraction
Ability to link property documents to property information managed by the assessor’s
office through the use and reliance of standard metadata
Marriage Licensing / Domestic Partnership/ Civil Unions
8. Please describe how your application processes marriage applications/ licenses? What
added features are there for customer experience?
9. Please describe the proposed solutions ability to scan supporting marriage license documents
by document type and application number, and include as part of the official marriage
license record.
10. Does your product have the ability to have a rush status or workflow for marriage license
processing/ registration of Domestic Partnership or Civil Unions? Please describe in detail
how this is accomplished.
11. Please describe the offerings current Web based application/ registration capability. How is
it integrated into the Clerk and Recorder’s website? What added features are there for
customer experience?
12. How will future development of application forms occur? In house or does it require the
vendor to build the application?
Operational Functionality- Questions – Web Based Recording
13. Please provide detail on your proposed solution’s capability to submit documents for
electronic recording (e-Recording) directly to the e-recording module by individual
documents and by bulk.
14. Does your proposed solution provide for Individual user accounts with defined security
permissions? Please describe how this is accomplished and how security permissions can be
modified.
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
15. Please describe how your proposed solution would limit download, save, and printing
capabilities by active session for a specified length of time.
16. In detail, please describe the proposed solutions account management capabilities. Describe
the solution’s ability to integrate into the cashiering module to submit payments and for web
based users ability to access and track remaining balances. Super Users (i.e.; mortgage
companies, title companies, professional researchers)
User account creation
Web based payment processing and balance tracking and reporting
System Security
17. Please explain the solution’s capabilities to provide varying security classes (applications to
be accessed, menu-option level, read only, update and delete transaction entries) which can
be customized at the category and user level.
18. What is the solutions capability to maintain accessible historical data for all databases in
accordance with the acceptable document retention period with the ability to archive to
retrievable media?
19. How has your company been able to gauge the accessibility of your product and determine
its ease of use, and user’s capability to take advantage of possible highly customizable
interfaces?
20. Provide the minimum and maximum quantity of users your product will support internally
and external. The Clerk and Recorder’s office must be able to have 8 front counter staff
with multiple processing stations and three administrative stations with concurrent logins.
Please describe your solutions capacity and abilities for growth.
21. Please provide statistics on the stability of your solution for 3 entities of similar size to our
organization. Mean time to failure, 9’s of reliability etc. Include your model for a Multi
Level Security platform to support non City entities access to data via a web based front end
Customer Transactions
22. Please explain how your solution will integrate with the City’s cashiering system (Active
Network) and provide the ability for copies of receipts via email.
23. How does your solution provide for the Page counter / pay per page functionality- integrate
costing for statute regulated charges?
24. How are fees incorporated into your product? Does the customer have the ability to
administer changes on filing fees?
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
25. Please describe the interface design- what makes it easy to use, how does it minimize errors
and maximize ease of use and satisfaction of customer transactions? Document the
expected interface to the City’s cashiering solution.
26. Provide background information on your company’s knowledge base to ensure all
transactions follow appropriate general accounting principles (revenue, liability, etc.).
27. Please explain what capabilities exists with the proposed solution to add Escrow monies /
credit to an existing account or establish additional account for each customer as needed for
each transaction or transaction type. Include how the solution provides up to date detailed
account statements and balances and passes information to the cashiering module to ensure
completion of the transaction.
28. Please describe the functionality for monthly recurring payments via ACH – including
account management.
NACHA file creation for upload to banking institutions
Verification report of all ACH transactions against the NACHA file.
29. Does the solution support taxable and tax-exempt transactions? If so is this included in the
cost of the proposed solution?
30. Please describe the solution’s capability to do easy search and view of transactions (current
day and historical) by date, time, customer (title company, mortgage company), and
payment type, property etc.
31. Please describe how settings are configured for manager over ride requirements for voiding
transactions, returns, etc. must be able to customize permissions provided to users so as to
block certain abilities, such as providing discounts, refund processing, etc. Is the capability
for configuration solely the responsibility of your support or is their capability within the
Clerk and Recorder’s office to make changes in configuration?
32. What capabilities exist for an option to require employee to be identified through pass code
for each transaction?
33. Please describe how you have set up ledgers in previous engagements for all revenues,
liabilities and expenses for tracking according to the general ledger and audit trail against a
cashiering solution.
34. Does your solution maintain escrow accounts with a detailed history of transactions? Please
give an example of an existing product installation. Please provide detail on the multi tender
sales against transactions.
35. Is the solution capable of emailing the customer contact directly from the module with the
contract and/or invoice? Is there special configuration or is the functionality inherent within
the application.
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
36. Describe the ability to provide integrated refund transactions to process via the City’s
cashiering application.
37. Refunds must be accounted for against the original transactions and provide a method to
capture notes regarding the refund/transactions. Does this capability exist within your
application?
38. Does the solution have the ability to restrict which users can process refunds? Is this
inherent in the application or a special configuration?
39. Please provide a sample of no less than three reports (by type, by user etc.) of an existing
installation of your solution.
Accounting
40. What level of effort is involved in the customization of the general ledger structure to match
existing City accounts?
41. How does your solution to track budget to actuals for revenue, expense, etc. with
comparisons to historical data?
Customer
42. What is the inherent capacity of the solution proposed for account profiles? Can the system
accommodate profiles up to 100,000 customers with a minimum of 50 customer categories
and form types.
43. Describe how the account/ customer numbers are created and tracked. Does the system
assign the customer number or is it manually entered? How does your solution remedy
duplicate entries?
44. Please provide a sample database. Are you able to build a structured database that would
support a “Federated Storage Model”?
45. Please provide background on the retention capabilities for the solution proposed.
46. What is the solution to capturing the customer email address (if provided) and notifying of
pending or completed action (i.e.; document has been recorded); attaching a copy of
recorded document to customer; emailing receipt to customer.
47. How does your solution provide the customer to “opt out” from Clerk and Recorder related
email communications?
48. Please provide an example on the process of “cleaning” the database periodically (minimum
of annually). Please delineate who has the capability of completing this process. (Clerk and
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
Recorder/Vendor) If this needs to be accomplished by the vendor please provide a line item
annual cost for the service.
Document Types
49. How does your application handle the data entry of documents not uploaded but required
within the data store?
50. Please describe the process for getting the documents into the application. Can your product
scan and read or does it have to be manual entry?
51. How does your product address regular human data entry? Does your product have the
ability to import bulk historical and future data and images without additional payment or
service from your organization?
Marketing
52. Please describe all marketing functionality within your solution, providing examples of
existing functionality implemented with the same solution as proposed. Does your system
provide communications directly from the system through email blasting, mail, etc.
segmented by any number of selected variables? Can we send out bulk email to customers
for reminders on membership renewal or changes to statutes that may affect them etc? Once
authorization from the cashiering module is complete can your system provide receipts
through multiple channels? (receipt printer/email)
Reporting
53. Describe the reporting capabilities of the solution, to include:
Information on the reporting engine, report designer, report files specification, and
interoperability with other reporting solutions.
Describe existing canned reports that are part of the proposed solution and discuss
any ad-hoc reporting capabilities supported by your solution. Please provide a list
of reports that are inherent along with examples.
Can the City use its existing reporting tools (Crystal Reports) to access the
solution’s data or metadata?
Describe the data import/export capabilities of the proposed solution. Can reports
be exported for manipulation and / or mailed via email from the system.
Please describe the user interface for customized reporting. Is the customized
reporting vendor supported or will the Clerk and Recorder staff be able to create
ad-hoc customized reports for operational and strategic decision making?
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
Training and Support
54. Please describe in detail your support, maintenance and training models. Provide the hours
of operation for technical staff, helpdesk, tiered emergency response etc. What is included
with the pre-implementation and how does that differ from post implementation support for
both application and staff needs?
55. Please discuss how your documentation is maintained up to date with the latest
functionality, version information etc for the operator’s manual.
Membership
56. Describe your membership functionality and how it meets all the requirements set forth
within this document. Please detail the capabilities as far as:
Tying membership types to different types of privileges (services, rates, etc.)
Ability to add comments to memberships, which can be displayed at critical points
of member’s interaction with personnel (sign in, heads up, etc.).
Providing the group membership structure. Where a group could be assigned
multiple members and members could be part of multiple groups (e.g.: Title
Company X w/the following users).
Ability support renewals of memberships even before previous membership has
expired.
The process to build a membership and then activate the membership at some
future date.
What the capabilities are to manage memberships (suspend, cancel etc.)
What the system ability is to limit the number of document downloads during an
active online session
Online presence
57. Please detail the web solution for the solution proposed to include:
Statistics from previous deployments on availability
Inherent functionality. What components of recording, marriage licensing, and
document submission are web enabled?
What kind of basic and advanced search options do you have? How complicated is
the search syntax?
Functionality for online registration for memberships.
Framework- is it easily modified aka look and feel. Ability to mimic the existing
look and feel of the Clerk and Recorders site.
Membership features- see real time information regarding their account, quantities
of pages for filings, costs, escrow balance, cancelling membership, modifying
member profiles including log on and password etc…
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
Security-Website must provide a method to protect from automated systems
attempting to upload / scrape anything from the site. (e.g.: captchas, sign in,
retrieve membership information etc.)
Capabilities as far as tracking website usage
Solution for free standing public kiosks
Clerk and Recorder Functional Architecture Questions
58. Please explain or describe how you solution will satisfy the Clerk and Recorders
requirement for high-availability to application other on line and in person.
59. Please provide a description of a complete disaster recovery plan and a business continuity
plan. Please include all associated costs as an option in Pricing Item #4 in Section D.
60. The Clerk and Recorder’s office would like the option of migrating to a Federated Storage
Architecture that could be further built out with future migrations of applications requiring
manipulation and usage of existing data. Does your solution provide that opportunity with
the data migration. If so how would your solution meet this requirement?
61. Describe what the maximum concurrent access is based on the solution proposed for both
internal and external users.
62. Please describe your approach on a complete business analysis of the organization and how
you would align the business processes currently in place with the applications capabilities.
How would you enlist the change of the business processes to ensure alignment with the
implementation of the solution?
Technology – Architecture and Specifications Questions
The existing Clerk and Recorder environment consists of internal servers within the City and
County of Denver’s network. Denver Clerk and Recorder currently utilize obsolete software
called CRIS+. The Clerk and Recorders office prefers that any future implementation be built on
a virtual Server environment supported by the City’s Technology Services Department for
ongoing updates, patches, etc… The application and database would be supported by the vendor
via a robust and expansive support and maintenance agreement.
Support and maintenance of all other major internal department applications, as well as support
and maintenance of the IT infrastructure are handled in-house by City and County of Denver’s
Technology Services staff. The City and County operate in a Wide-Area network (WAN)
environment with communications provided via two data centers within the City and County of
Denver.
System Architecture Questions
63. Describe in detail how the proposed solution supports this type of WAN environment.
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
64. Give an overview of the architecture for your application including back end applications,
security protocols, user profiles, etc. Also provide a diagram of the recommended system
architecture for the solution including any external dependencies (ex. databases etc.).
Provide descriptions of each tier or component of the solution and where each system tier or
component resides.
65. Please discuss the nature (e.g. browser-based or client/server) of the architecture and how it
supports scalability and availability. Discuss any limitations of the proposed solution in
Describe if the system can be distributed for high-availability.
66. Details on the technology underlying the software architecture, such as .NET or Java,
language, and database management system.
67. Describe if there are any specific server and client desktop configuration requirements for
the proposed solution to run on the City and County of Denver’s website. Does your product
utilize thin or thick clients on workstations?
68. Describe if the proposed solution allows the application components and the database o be
installed on distributed servers or is the solution certified to operate on virtual servers
(indicate what virtualization platforms are supported or what parts of the architecture can be
virtualized)
69. Indicate the operating systems that the solution is certified to run on. (If different for
different components indicate which operating system each component of the system can be
deployed on.)
70. Describe what associated web components your proposed web solution run on and what
versions?
71. Describe the proposed database backend solution. If the proposed solution does not use and
Oracle database backend or SQL database backend please explain. What is the proposed
solution’s growth capability included within this proposal? How was the growth
determined?
72. Describe if the proposed solution supports secure protocols including SFTP or HTTPS.
73. Describe if the proposed solution requires any application components to be installed on the
client workstations. If so, explain if the components support the current City and County’s
versions of the following Client) O/S: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 and beyond.
74. The City and County of Denver backend storage is defined to reside on an EMC Corporation
SAN Platform (Clarion and Centera storage devices). Describe how the proposed solution
will support this.
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
Security and Authentication Questions
75. Describe your method for authentication and authorization.
76. If hosted internal to the City’s Enterprise the proposed solution should integrate with the
City’s authentication and authorization infrastructure and provide for a single sign on user
experience for internal application users. Describe how your solution integrates with
Microsoft Active Directory or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and does or
does not support Single Sign on (SSO).
77. If hosted as SaaS application, describe how your solution supports Identity Federation and
standards such as Liberty and SAML.
78. If your solution employs application-based security in any way, describe your method for
securing the application and what elements of the application are secured.
79. Provide details on how the solution secures confidential data. Describe the security
mechanism for this data during transport and at rest within the persistence layer of the
architecture
Integration/ Interoperability Questions
80. Describe the integration methods the proposed solution supports. Include details on the
standards and specifications supported. (for example, Web Services or Message Oriented
Middleware) Provide information and background on how these integration methods have
been used successfully in prior solution implementations.
81. Provide details on what services or APIs are exposed by the solution. Describe the nature of
the service or API and how it can be used by the City.
82. Please describe how you would configure the data into storage to provide a single source
that could be added to/ enhanced for use by multiple applications.
83. The application must have data interfaces with other County systems, such as PeopleSoft
Financials, Assessor’s Property Tax System-GRM, Public Trustees MTEK, Cashiering –
Active Net and GIS- ESRI/ArcGIS. The interfaces must be able to import and export data in
a variety of formats. Describe how the proposed solution will be able to meet the
requirement for import and export? Please describe the proposed interfaces with the
transports and protocols used.
Upgrades/ Patches/ Software Update Questions
84. State your policy regarding modifications to the software. This statement shall address, at
minimum, the following topics: effect of modifications on the software warranty and on
support provided under the support agreement; an expression of general willingness to
baseline client modifications during the implementation project; the circumstances under
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
which base lining of client modifications shall take place. (‘Baseline’ and ‘Base lining’ in
this instance refers to the inclusion of City specific modifications or request for
modifications into future releases of the software that shall be made available to any
customer as upgrades.)
85. Provide the release number of the proposed solution and the date on which the release was
(or will be) publicly available.
86. Upgrades - Describe your upgrade process. Provide information about:
Release Cycles (Major/Minor) and requirement for CCD to stay current for
maintenance and support.
Any tools that can be used to update configurations and data from one release to
the other. How your company ensures that the configuration on site is the same as
what you company is developing on to ensure patches, upgrades etc are successful.
Availability of your technical staff during upgrades.
Please document the quantity of upgrades, patches and releases on one the
proposed systems installed for the year 2011
Support and Maintenance
87. Describe the proposed Software License and Maintenance Agreement, to include:
An in depth description of the software license (including term and any
restrictions).
A copy of the proposed software license and maintenance agreement for the
proposed software.
All Licensing and support costs for the proposed solution to include
API/SDK/Web Services Interface.
All Licensing costs for any third party software that is bundled with the proposed
software license
A description of the proposed maintenance and support program. This shall
include telephone support, hours in which telephone support is available,
escalation procedure, updates, upgrades, and SLAs (include service response times
based on severity of the issue).
Training
88. Please describe the level of training provided with your implementation, aka hours, amount
of staff trained, duration of training (sporadic through weeks, months, etc).
89. What is the model that has been successful getting users proficient?
90. Please include a training plan exemplifying the training plan for Clerk and Recorder’s office
less the accepted dates.
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
Project Implementation
91. Please describe in detail your traditional implementation plan? How much time for
implementation? Please provide a detailed project plan with all tasks for this particular
engagement starting from January 1, 2013.
92. What level of engagement from internal customer technical resources is required etc?
Please provide an example from a previous installation in 2011 or 2012 with the specific
resources required and the estimated time required.
93. What is included in a typical implementation plan? (i.e.; software, migration of data,
training, etc...) Please describe your staff for implementation- how many on staff, contract.
Please provide resumes of staff for the proposed implementation.
94. If you are selected as a vendor to implement the solution, would you be able to provide:
Physical Architecture diagram for various environments, customized for CCD
Installation instructions (includes base software, integrations), customized for
CCD
Configuration instructions (includes base software, log file locations, integrations),
customized for CCD
Basic Trouble shooting procedures.
Test Cases/Test Scripts, customized for CCD
Data Model/ERD, customized for CCD
Questions for Cloud Based Solution
If the system is hosted or cloud-based, the following questions apply:
95. Is the system hosted at one or more facilities external to CCD infrastructure?
96. Is the system deployed and accessible at two or more data centers, one of which is located at
least 500 miles from Denver, CO?
97. Can the vendor prove that each facility has redundant infrastructure including power, disk,
CPU, networking, and Internet access?
98. Can the system scale up with respect to servers, disk, memory, and bandwidth dynamically
and with zero down time?
99. Can the system scale up and down with respect to user licenses dynamically and with zero
down time?
100. Can the vendor demonstrate or prove successful up-time that matches the required SLAs?
101. Can the hosted solution integrate with CCD Identity Management (IDM/LDAP) service?
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WORD Format Replacement Pages Vendor Questions - Request for Proposal No. 6956
Recording Management System for Clerk & Recorder
102. Does the system provide API (SQL, JDBC, etc.) access to all data associated with CCD?
Additionally, see data/access requirements
To what extent does the vendor manage the hosted application?
Does the vendor automatically install updates to the latest version?
Does the vendor monitor all system resources (disk, cpu, database extents, memory
utilization, bandwidth, etc.)
103. Does the pricing model scale, both up and down, with the number of resources (typically
users) used?
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