State Department Soliciting Contractor Support for Bot Ecosystem Improvement

The Department of State’s Consolidated Customer Support division wants to improve its bot ecosystem as it moves toward centralizing its duplicative helpdesks. The goal is to ensure process efficiency, mitigate the need for additional labor and support increased helpdesk ticket volume. 

CCS is soliciting contractor support to address several technical challenges with the full implementation of robotic process automation tools, particularly with regards to user access and privileges for remote workers, Nextgov reported.

Existing department policy hinders employees from using privileged accounts for actions that can be completed using non-privileged accounts. The restrictions make it so that automation can only be accessed by users reporting into the office environment.

CCS needs assistance in enhancing and maintaining its existing eight RPA tools: the Data Transfer Request Bot, the Password Reset Bot, the Data Access Request Bot, the User Account Exception Request Bot, the Automated Endpoint Testing Bot, the Customer Engagement and Follow-Up Bot, the Account Disablement Bot and the Distribution List Modification Bot.

The division also wants help in developing new automation software and training operations and maintenance teams on how to implement the new tools. As such, the selected contractor must be well versed in user experience design thinking, process improvement and agile software development.

The State Department plans on awarding a firm fixed price contract under the GSA Schedule 70 to facilitate bot ecosystem improvements. The proposed contract has a base period of six months and four six-month optional add-ons. Work is slated to begin on Sept. 30.