Request for Quote

Revised Dates for Proposal Evaluation

• March 22 – 27, 2021 – Evaluation of Responses.
• March 29 – April 2, 2021 – Reserved for requesting additional information from Vendors.  Virtual meetings may also be held.
• April 8, 2021 – Notification of Selection Results
• April 25, 2021 – Contracting Process Start (if appropriate)

Please elaborate on faxing needs / how IAEYC utilizes faxing day to day. Is inbound faxing to email acceptable? Do you also send a high volume of outbound faxes?

INAEYC has one general fax number and four personal fax numbers. All faxes are currently received as email. This is a desired feature.

Personal fax numbers have very low utilization, 2-4 inbound and outbound fax per month. Despite the low utilization, the personal fax numbers are a necessity due to confidentiality of the information.

The general fax number averages 4-5 inbound faxes per day. Faxes average four pages. Outbound faxing is almost nonexistent. Prior to the pandemic, we sent 3 outbound faxes in six months.

Please expand on the need for softphones and the business driver for them. We would like to learn more about how / why you use them in day to day operations.

Currently all INAEYC staff are working remotely. Pre-Pandemic, INAEYC had 20 staff assigned to work remotely in various locations around the State. Due to the wide variety of home office setups, a large number of these staff would not be able to conveniently plus a handset into their home router. Post-pandemic, these positions will continue to work remotely.

Additionally, INAEYC does not expect all main office staff to return to working five days a week in the main office. For the same reason outlined above, INAEYC would like the option of providing softphones depending on a staff members home office setup.

We wanted to clarify your training expectations. Page 1 on the addendum stated training will be needed system administrators. Is it your desire to have in house administrators who can make changes to the phone system or to have us train an in house expert for basic phone functionality?

INAEYC does desire the ability to make changes to the system in house. However, this should not be construed as a desire to have complete responsibility for a phone system. Our primary interest is in having sufficient in house expertise to administer basic functions such as resetting voice mail passwords or assigning new mailboxes.

Can you provide any additional information regarding how your call groups are setup?

INAEYCs current phone system does not utilize call groups. Rather it uses a phone tree that transfers to specific extensions. We would like to implement call groups for our three major programs. An example of how we envision call groups working follows.

Callers choosing the T.E.A.C.H. program from the main menu would be transferred to a second menu and asked to choose between Bachelors Degree track or the Associates Degree track. Choosing the Bachelors track would transfer to a call group of two people. Choosing the Associates track would transfer to a call group of three people.

Would you like us to add 2 additional handsets (bringing the total to 37) for the two courtesy extensions?

You may include the two additional handsets in the RFQ response.

Is our proposal considered a final, best offer?

No, this is not a Request for Proposal. RFP’s are much more detailed in the specifications and generally, a response to an RFP is considered a final price.

An RFQ process is meant to determine pricing, along with many other facets of system being offered. INAEYC reserves the right to adjust quantities of items purchased before a final agreement is reached. For example, the final number of handsets needed or the number of seats could be adjusted. Vendors may be selected for interviews before a final decision is made. Vendors may remove themselves from the process at any time. Vendors may adjust their pricing based on changes made to the quantities contained in this RFQ.