About this opportunity
AI summaryThe buyer seeks a vendor to provide a commercial off-the-shelf, cloud-based Collection Management System under a Software as a Service model to manage national living biological collections. The solution must support the curation, maintenance, data capture, transactions, and protocols for multiple living microbial collections, including viruses, fungi, and those hosted in living plants. Bidders must demonstrate active use of the software by other scientific living microbial collections and provide a platform scalable to millions of records. Key requirements include bulk data imports, exports, and edits, validation tools, customizable search, hierarchical taxonomy management, extensive metadata capture, living stock availability tracking, and a RESTful API. Eligibility is restricted onshore to Canadian organizations only, with work performed offsite, and the buyer is looking for proposals.
Buyer and opportunity details
- Client
- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
- Solicitation No.
- ESC-2627-118
Scope of work
- Commercial off-the-shelf Collection Management System (CMS) software solution under a SaaS model
- Administer curation and maintenance of living microbial collections including viruses, fungi, and host plants
- Scalable system accommodating millions of records with bulk data imports, exports, and bulk edits
- Validation tools for imported datasets including identifiers, taxonomy, geography, and date formats
- Hierarchical taxonomy management with taxonomic reference resources supporting ranks, hierarchies, and synonymy
- Mapping specimen replicates and samples to storage locations like rooms, freezers, and nested containers
- Tracking and displaying culture viability, contamination, purity statuses, and living stock availability
- Live demonstration of proposed solution features and functions via video conference
How proposals are evaluated
| Criterion | Weight / scoring |
|---|---|
| Technical merit | 60% |
| Price | 40% |
| Point-rated technical criteria | minimum score 5 points per rated criterion on a scale of 10 points |
Minimum qualifications
- Demonstrate active use of the collection management system in the scientific community managing living microbial collections
- Business Number (BN) before contract award
- Legal capacity to contract
- Full report and certification of ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 27017, and/or SOC 2 Type II audits at offer submission
- FedRAMP authorized Third Party Assessment Organization (3PAO) compliance demonstration with CCCS Medium profile for Cloud (Protected B)
Documents to include with your response
- Section I: Technical Offer
- Section II: Financial Offer
- Offer Submission Form (Annex Offer Submission Form)
- Offeror Declaration Form (Annex Offeror Declaration Form)
- Annex - SaaS Publisher Certification Form or Annex – SaaS Publisher Authorization Form
- Proof of Appropriate Security Measures and required audit reports/certifications (ISO 27001, ISO 27017, or SOC 2 Type II)
- Published Service Level Agreements (SLA)
- Annex Software Usage Rights (SUR) (if applicable)
- Integrity Declaration Form (if applicable)
Key dates
- Date of solicitation
- 2026-11-03
- Period for Questions
- no later than 5 business days before the offer closing date
- Solicitation Closes
- 2026-12-02 At 2:00pm EST
How to submit
- Method
- Email only
- Instructions
- Submit offers by email to [email protected] separated into Section I: Technical Offer, Section II: Financial Offer, and Section III: Offer Submission Form and Offeror Declaration Form.
Contract details
- Place of performance
- Offsite
- Insurance and bonding
- The Contractor is responsible for deciding if insurance coverage is necessary to fulfill its obligation under the Contract and to ensure compliance with any applicable law. Any insurance acquired or maintained by the Contractor is at the Contractor’s expense and for its own benefit and protection.