US Department of State Enhances Procedures with Jetbuilt’s Cloud-Based Platform
RFPs creates more efficient Performance Work Statements for US Department of State
Newport Beach, Calif. — October 24, 2016 — The United States’ federal executive department, the Department of State – responsible for the international relations of the United States – has streamlined their Performance Work Statement within the Video Program Office with Jetbuilt’s Request for Proposal features. With Jetbuilt, the Video Program Office can now create solid proposals for new or renovated A/V room designs to constituents at United States embassies, consulates, posts and administrative offices throughout the world in a more efficient and standardized process than ever before.
The Department of State has many restrictions for heightened security purposes, partly because of previous incurred data breaches, creating an extensive and timely approval process for adopting new software applications for use on government computers, typically taking years while many plans never come to fruition. Being a cloud-based platform, the Video Program Office was able to gain approval to utilize Jetbuilt’s software very quickly: “The only reason why we have been able to quickly integrate Jetbuilt was through by-passing a download or plug-in, usually required by most software applications. The cloud-based platform was able to cut our approval process to a marginal timeframe, allowing us to focus more on developing solid proposals,” said John Reeg, senior systems engineer from US Department of State’s Video Program Office. “Performance Work Statements, or proposals, are a very important part of my role for the Department of State and with Jetbuilt, I’m able to create solid proposals for new or renovated A/V rooms throughout the country and throughout the world in a more efficient manner.”
The Video Program Office creates Performance Work Statements, consisting of equipment recommendations with costs estimates, as well as for installation, programming, project management and other labor costs. With Jetbuilt, “We can also include written documentation of the project scope, overview, customer and contractor requirements, security requirements and bid clarifications and assumptions with equipment recommendations and estimated costs, all within one professional proposal. Once the proposal has been approved by our customer, we strip away the estimated costs and develop an ‘Approval Memo’ from the Video Program Office and return it to the customer. The customer will submit it to the Acquisition
Management Bureau, which manages the distribution to the IDIQ, and our approved lists of AV Integrator Contractors will then be able to submit bid proposals,” said Reeg. “We’re able to streamline our entire process by incorporating Jetbuilt, which has allowed us to create standardized systems for our AV rooms across the world.”
Previously, the development of Performance Work Statements was predominately left up to the customer to draw up. By taking over authorship in complete development of the Performance Work Statement, the Department of State’s Video Program Office can standardize the process of equipment recommendation and project execution. “Prior to taking responsibility for Performance Work Statements, we would often find a disconnect when systems started to fail after the standard first year of support included by the integrator and often would become far worse when we discovered that the integrator is no longer available. With over 2,000 VTC codecs around the world, conducting on average of over 1,500 VTC sessions a week, “up-time” is important for any of our customers who have VTC units as a part of an AV room. While many of our VTC systems are of the desktop variety, we also have from 30-60% that are part of an AV room,” said Reeg. By integrating Jetbuilt, we’re now fully ready to complete Performance Work Statement documentation expeditiously and most efficiently due to the increasing demand of replacing end-of-life AV components or the increasing demand of creating new AV rooms.”
Jetbuilt has removed the need for antiquated spreadsheets while providing increased ease of collaboration with Request for Proposal. Paul Dexter, president and founder for Jetbuilt, designed the Request for Proposal feature to “Allow consultants, facility managers and technical directors to utilize the intuitive software to easily go from building rooms and systems, to define the scope of a project. Spreadsheets are outdated and our new technology allows the RFP process to be a living, breathing journey for our users and their clients, partners, and subcontractors.”
As Jetbuilt users create their Request for Proposals, they can manage photos, drawings and documents associated with the project and effortlessly drop in products from the Jetbuilt database before budgeting their projects and finally creating and delivering a high-end, comprehensive RFP. Then, the project can be shared with vendors to allow for straightforward and immediate collaboration. Users can chat as they work together to refine their project – while the original project remains saved. This allows the project to evolve while working with a selected vendor. For more information on Jetbuilt’s proposal and estimation software, please visit Jetbuilt.com.
About Jetbuilt:
Jetbuilt is an international industry-leading web-based AV proposal and estimation software. The California based AV software was founded by Grammy nominated studio engineer, award winning web designer and AV integrator, Paul Dexter, to create time-efficient and professional proposals. Compatible with both PC and Mac platforms, Jetbuilt estimates projects efficiently with an integrated product database, dealer pricing, team collaboration, location-based sales tax, purchase order, QuickBooks integration and their innovative project overview page – all at lighting speed. For more information, please visit Jetbuilt.com.
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