VILLAGE OF WOLVERINE LAKE ISSUES WEBSITE RFP
The Village of Wolverine Lake, located in Oakland County, Michigan, is a community of approximately 4,312 residents, organized as a Council-Administrator form of government. The Village Council is the legislative body responsible for the overall operation of the Village. The Village Administrator serves as the Chief Administrative Officer. The Village provides the following services to its residents: general building and administrative, public safety, community environment, and culture and recreation.
The Village of Wolverine Lake seeks the bid of a vendor that can accomplish all of the functionality identified in the RFP and has the flexibility of providing this functionality over time, with respect to potential budgetary constraints. Qualified applicants must be equipped to integrate additional features that may be needed or new technologies that may be developed in the future. The Village seeks a site that centralizes content management to our Village Staff with the option of additional supporting users and oversite from the Village Administrator. Finally, the Village website must have the capacity to meet Encryption Security Standards, and the State of Michigan’s Open Meetings Act and Federal ADA requirements.
The goal of this request for proposal is to find an outstanding partner to redesign the Village’s website in order to better communicate with the Village to provide an easy-to-navigate online experience, while better reflecting the professionalism of the Village’s municipal services. The Village’s goal is to create a website that successfully promotes our brand, facilitates a user-friendly environment for accessing municipal services, creates a two way communication between the Village and citizens and simplifies content management while meeting high standards for design quality and visual appeal. The new website will serve as the public face of Wolverine Lake’s government and community while providing 24/7 services for a wide range of users. The current version of our website can be viewed at www.wolverinelake.com.
Background:
Our current website no longer adequately portrays the level of service and professionalism exhibited to our residents on a daily basis. Our website is integral in providing important information regarding: events; board meetings; tax payments; Freedom of Information requests; emergency alerts; e-mail database; and providing accessible forms and documents. It is the Village’s chief resource for disseminating information to the public. As the design and management software are both outdated, the Village has received feedback from the community that the website is difficult to navigate and not user-friendly.
With transparency being a major goal, the amount of published information displayed on the website has substantially grown and has overwhelmed the current organizational design. The Village’s ideal website vendor would have the ability to provide on-going organizational maintenance strategies for future information to be published.
Scope of Work:
The Village seeks a vendor that has produced a minimum of twenty websites and has been in the business of municipal website design for at least five years. Additionally, the Village seeks a vendor with proven capacity to provide the following: Content Management System (CMS) components and tools.
This new website should support the following goals:
1. Provide at least the level of functionality of the applications within the current website.
2. Provide a fresh, sophisticated, updated and user-friendly re-design.
3. Increase community understanding of how to navigate the website.
Responders are to submit a written narrative corresponding to each outlined requirement.
1. Company Profile
A. Introduction | Overview | History
B. Contact Information | Office location(s)
C. Demonstrated company financial stability
D. Project Team Roles
1. Name, title, role (e.g. project management, training, design, etc.)
2. Education and/or years of experience
2. Municipal Website Design Experience
A. Minimum of three municipal references, including:
1. Client name
2. Website URL
3. Contract duration
4. Client contact person, title, phone number, and email
B. Any municipal award-winning websites designed by vendor
C. Design portfolio (minimum of three screenshots with URLs)
3. Project Development Approach
A. Proposed timeline
B. Outline all project phases and the Village’s role
C. Explain the design process
D. Explain the data migration process
E. Meets Federal ADA requirements
F. Training
G. Ability to integrate municipal branding into new site
H. Ongoing technical assistance and training opportunities
4. Support and Maintenance (describe all available)
A. System ownership
B. Ongoing operations and maintenance
C. Training opportunities
D. Availability of robust self-service documentation and technical support
E. Beta testing
F. Normal support hours and Emergency support hours
G. Software updates and site maintenance
H. Software licensing (if any)
5. Ability to integrate the Village’s branding and aesthetics into the site design
6. Integrated Content Management System (CMS) Components and Tools
A. The CMS listing below represents functional categories and is not comprehensive; some may be deleted/amended, while others may be recommended or added.
1. Alerts | E-notification systems
a. Front page solution for emergency notification updates with a registration widget and the ability to share via social media
b. Management of current govDelivery database integration
2. Archive | Search Functions
a. Searchable solution for live/archived content, documents, and news
3. Browser Based Administration
a. Create | edit | delete and template-based web pages and news
4. Calendar
a. Update | publish calendars w/optional ability to import Google or another type of calendar feeds
5. Departmental Pages
a. Ability to create landing pages for associated municipal departments
6. Document Retention
a. Upload | download capability, back-end ability to search
7. Event Management
a. Web-based registration software for Recreation events
b. Editing capabilities for Village staff members with the ability to be set up as single events or recurring events, with options for daily, weekly, monthly or annual recurrences and ability to link important documents to specific events
8. Forms | Documents
a. Forms, publishing, and tracking with email forwarding capability
9. Interface Solutions
a. Integration or links to Interactive GIS, Oakland County Land Records Portal, Google Suite, etc.
10. Meeting Management
a. Create | manage | host agendas, minutes, and other documents
b. Ability to integrate with outside vendors who provide these services
11. Mobile Browsing
a. Website can be accessed from any mobile platform
12. News Updates
a. Add | Edit News Events
b. Online publishing of blog-style news with email subscription capability
13. Online Payments
a. Secure online transactions capability
14. Page Management
a. Dynamic Content
15. Photos
a. Optional – Display community photos in a central location on website
16. Security Integration
a. SSL Encryption
17. Sitemap
a. Multi-lingual
b. Print-friendly function
c. Responsive and user-friendly layout and navigation, providing optimal viewing and interaction experience across a wide range of viewing devices or host platforms
18. Site Statistics
a. Integration of comprehensive analytical status reports
b. Google analytics integration/Advanced SEO setup
19. Social Media Interface
a. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube feeds
20. Staff Directory
a. Dynamic Content
21. Training and Support
a. Ongoing technical and organizational maintenance support
22. Video Hosting
a. Ability to embed third-party videos
b. Embedded off-site hosting for video of Village Council Meetings and other Government Access Content as required
7. Description of Features and Functionality included with the CMS at minimum include:
A. Description of page creation
B. Page content template information
C. Content scheduling and versioning information
D. The different back-end user permission levels
8. Hosting and Security (describe all available)
A. Site Hosting (remote or local)
B. Hosting Location
C. Appropriate redundancy and scalability to avoid unexpected outages and to accommodate periodic maintenance, usage growth, and sudden usage surges
D. Company’s commitment to operational time – or limiting of downtime
9. Project Pricing Estimate/Cost for Services Outlined (specify amounts of items below):
A. Days/Hours of training, number of employees to be trained, on-site or webinar
B. Amount of content migration (entire website or a specific number of pages)
C. Hosting Costs
D. Any optional enhancements and consulting packages with deliverables and associated fees
10. Guarantees/Warranties
A. List any guarantees or warranties the company offers.
Due Date:
May 24th, 2019.
Address:
ATTN: RFP – WOLVERINE LAKE WEBSITE REDESIGN
VILLAGE OF WOLVERINE LAKE
425 GLENGARY
WOLVERINE LAKE, MI 48390
Agencies with relevant experience includes W2O Group and Kaplow PR.
