NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

1. NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION ELECTRONIC INVENTORY AND SCORING SYSTEM FOR ENGINEERING CONSULTANTS

2. NYSDOT Website and Electronic Inventory Submittal

3. NYSDOT Home Page – https://www.dot.ny.gov/index Resources including 1) general public information about NYSDOT activities; 2) the Travel Center, including 511NY and; 3) the BUSINESS CENTER for all CONSULTANT/CONTRACTOR INFORMATION AND APPLICATIONS

4. Business Center Links/windows to various consulting services, including Engineering Services pre-negotiation project status (Engineering Services) and supporting actions and activities (Doing Business with NYSDOT)

5. IF ANY LISTS EXTEND PAST THE VIEWING WINDOW, CLICK “VIEW ALL” TO OPEN THE COMPLETE PAGE Engineering Services – Detailed Ads Preliminary advertisements normally advance to detailed advertisements. Based upon these detailed ads, firms submit electronic Expressions of Interest (e-EOIs) using the Consultant Selection System web application (CSSWeb).

6. Select (click) a project to view the detailed advertisement and related downloads.A detailed ad is necessary to prepare a firm’s electronic expression of interest (e-EOI). Clicking “View All” will also display the complete list of advertisement downloads.

7. “View All” The “View All” page for detailed advertisements.

8. Doing Business with NYSDOT https://www.dot.ny.gov/doing-business Access to frequently used applications, forms, publications, Consultant Instructions, announcements, etc.

9. Forms, Publications and Instructionshttps://www.dot.ny.gov/main/business-center/consultants/forms-publications-and-instructions Supporting documentation for both Process I (non-electronic) and Process II (electronic) consultant selections is found on this page under the subtopic “How To Do Business With DOT”. Process II has the additional side-column shortcut noted. Additional documentation covering the consultant contracting process is found within various subtopics of the Forms page, including but not limited to: audit and civil rights requirements; insurance requirements and forms; vendor responsibility forms and negotiation-stage proposal submission document shells.

10. Consultant Selection Process I (Non-Electronic) and Process II (Electronic) - Information Linkshttps://www.dot.ny.gov/main/business-center/consultants/general-info/non-electronic-consultant-selection-(process-1)andhttps://www.dot.ny.gov/main/business-center/consultants/general-info/electronic-consultant-selection-(process-2)

11. Process I & Process II – Submittal formsProcess I (Non-Electronic) firm submissions include NYSDOT 255C forms in the initial EOI submission, as these project types are not scored electronically.Process II (Electronic) opportunities do not require the NYSDOT 255 forms until shortlist stage.Both process types require the initial submission of Proofs of Authority, Affirmation of Understanding Forms (PLL) and CONR386-Workload Disclosure Forms.

12. The Construction Inspection and Design Scoring Methodologies are found on the Process II information pages.Information on the scoring process and the table values associated with that process are found within the scoring methodologies.

13. Consultant Selection System Web Application (CSSWeb) Firms that wish to do business with NYSDOT register using the CSSWeb application. A firm may have many account users but the business entity may only register one time. FEINs are used to insure that duplicate firm registrations do not occur.

14. CSSWeb View Once registered, firms appear in the CSSWeb View (Inventory of Consultant Firm Information and Experience ); a useful tool when developing teams for electronic Expression of Interest (e-EOI) submissions.

15. Click the CSS Web link to create an account or to log in to your firm’s existing account.

16. Access to Firm Login Screen (Single Sign-On Login Screen)

17. Single Sign-On Login Screen Log in to an existing account; create a new account; use account utilities for recovering/changing passwords. (Passwords must be changed from this utility, they cannot be changed during logged in activity.)

18. Forgot Password Screen If the User ID, Security Validation Question and/or Security Validation Answer are not known, information may be emailed to the administrative email account of record. If the administrative email account is not known, no longer valid or active, or inaccessible, NYSDOT Office of Contracts staff can provide further assistance Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Call 518-457-2600 or email css@dot.state.ny.us

19. Part I - Creating a User Account Before creating an account, users should read and must accept NYSDOT’s Acceptable Use Policy. Creating an account as a new firm is a 2-step process – Part I - Creating a User Account and Part II - Logging in to the application using the new account User ID and password to complete the registration process. Adding new users to an existing account is accomplished through both a new User ID creation and the Administrative module of the firm’s existing account. This is discussed at the end of this presentation.

20. Primary Administrative Accounts should reflect the firm name rather than an individual’s name. The person associated with this account does not need to be a principal of the firm and should be reasonably available during normal business hours.

21. Register the firm name exactly as it is registered in New York State’s Statewide Financial System, with the NYS Department of State and with the NYS Department of Education When you have completed this form (Part I of the registration process), click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the page.

22. SAVE YOUR REGISTRATION INFORMATION! Registration information retrieval by NYSDOT is only available Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Email or phone messages left at other times will be queued until the next business day.

23. Part II – Completing the Registration Process (Initial Account Log In)User accounts are created as “ABC_Consulting” but logging in requires the full User ID path – “ABC_Consulting@nysdot” User IDs and passwords are case sensitive. Passwords must be a minimum of eight (8) characters long and should contain at least one (1) number in the sequence. DO NOT use non-standard characters, i.e., *, /, &, #, etc. in password fields.

24. Part II – Completing the Registration Process After creating the primary user account, log in and complete the registration process. (If the account was created to add a user to an existing account, this step is not used.)

25. Initial Firm Registration Screen

26. Complete Items 1 – 6 Use the “Search” utility to check firm status (Have we registered already?)

27. Gather Required Information First

28. ERROR CHECK PRIOR TO ANY SUBMISSION Submit your data! The registration process is complete.

29. Need more information? Review or print the Help document. The instructions link opens the relevant topics in the Help document. Sample Account – Complete Registration Completing the registration process expands the available “modules” or areas firms may use. When navigating within the application DO NOT use your browser’s “forward” and “back” buttons, instead click the available links in headings, side columns and bottom of page commands.

30. Inventory Module The Inventory module is used to collect information about a firm’s brick and mortar offices, the staff in those offices (including principals), staff titles and salary rates and project inventories. Each category or module of information may be used by various NYSDOT processes, including but not limited to: e-EOI processing and firm selection, maintaining salary rates on new and existing contracts and identifying appropriate firm contacts. Maintaining current data benefit both the firm and NYSDOT.

31. Inventory Functionality General Firm Information – Basic Information, Inventory Managers, Principals, Offices and Staff Counts are real time activities. When changes are made and saved in this group updates are processed in real time and firms do not need to use the “Submit Updates” link to send changes to NYSDOT. There are no time restraints on the submittals a firm may make under the “General Firm Information” category. Salary Roster Information – Annual Certified Salary Roster (“Salary Roster”, “Annual Roster”), Maximum Salary Rate Roster (“Max Rates”) and Inventory Salary Roster. The Annual Certified Salary Roster is the parent table used to create both the Maximum Salary Rate Roster and the Inventory Salary Roster. Creating the Salary Roster requires having employee information on hand including hire dates and current pay rates. Additionally, firm titles must be created in the “Admin” module of the application BEFORE a Salary Roster can be created. The Salary Roster must be created BEFORE a Max Rates or Inventory Salary Roster can be compiled. All Salary Roster, Max Rates and Inventory Roster information must be submitted to NYSDOT using the “Submit Updates” link.

32. Inventory Functionality (cont.) • The Annual Certified Salary Roster is submitted once each calendar year. • The Max Rates Roster is submitted annually if the firm has active projects with NYSDOT. Max Rate Rosters must be compiled by the firm. The Max Rates Roster module must be opened and the roster is either “created” or “re-initialized” depending upon the type of maximum rates required. • The Inventory Salary Roster is used for scoring purposes and may be submitted in 90-day intervals. Inventory Salary Rosters are compiled by the system and require no user interaction other than submission from the “Submit Updates” page. An up-to-date Annual Certified Salary Roster (new employees added and saved to the Annual Roster) is necessary when providing and Inventory Salary Roster for scoring.

33. Inventory Functionality (cont.) Construction Inspection & Design Project Inventories – Process II (electronic) selections use firm project inventories when calculating team and individual firm scores. Download or review both the Construction Inspection and Design scoring methodologies from the Electronic Consultant Selection (Process II) link located on the General Information page: https://www.dot.ny.gov/main/business-center/consultants/general-info Updates to project inventories may be submitted from the “Submit Updates” page at any time, BUT new inventories are ACTIVATED every 90 days. The last inventory submitted to NYSDOT in any 90-day period is the inventory activated after the 90-day clock expires. Construction Inspection Project Inventories may contain a maximum of 30 projects. Design Project Inventories are composed of 3 sub-sets of design work: Design Inventory, Term Agreement for Survey Services (TASS) Inventory and Environmental Inventory. Each category allows a maximum of 30 projects. A project may contain elements which may be reported in more than one inventory category. All 3 sub-sets will activate concurrently.

34. CI Project Inventory Order Column – Numbering order selected by firm. Completed Column – Review Help document instructions; “For construction inspection, you may only include projects that have been completed within the past 12 years or ongoing projects for which either your construction inspection assignment has been completed or the contractor has completed work valued for at least 90% of the current contract value.” Selected Projects Column – Check box if project is to be included in submission. Note that the selected project count at top of page is less than the total number of projects in the inventory.

35. Design Project Inventory Order Column – Numbering order selected by firm. Completed Column – Review Help document instructions; “Firms may include projects completed within the past 12 years or ongoing projects, but for ongoing projects firms may only take credit for work tasks that have been completed and accepted by the client. Firms should only claim credit for work that they directly performed.” Selected Projects Column – Check box if project is to be included in submission. At least one category must be selected to include a project in a submission. Note that the selected project count at the top of the page is divided into the three design sub-sets. Projects may be identified in more than one sub-set.

36. These 4 items must be submitted to NYSDOT using the “Submit Updates” link. SUBMIT UPDATES ALL firm CSSWeb Inventory activities in the categories Salary Roster, Maximum Salary Rate Roster, Construction Inspection Inventory and Design InventoryMUST be submitted using the “Submit Updates” link. ALWAYS run an “Error Check” before submitting your information. FIX any errors before re-running the Error Check. DON’T attempt to submit an inventory item before running the Error Check or fixing errors identified by the Error Check. Review the “Last Submit Date” column to verify that your submission has taken place.

37. Once Inventory items have been completed and, where required, submitted via “Submit Updates”, e-EOI submissions are possible. Review the Help document for information on e-EOI requirements, document storage and report functions.

38. CONSULTANT SELECTIONElectronic and Non-Electronic Process

39. General Selection Information: • The selection process for obtaining a consultant to provide professional Architectural, Engineering, Land Surveying and Landscape Architectural services must be a qualifications based selection (QBS) process per NYS and Federal law; • To be considered for selection, firms must be appropriately authorized to perform the services required, and also be authorized to conduct business in NYS when appropriate; https://www.dot.ny.gov/main/business-center/consultants/consultants-repository/ci93-10.pdf • NYSDOT does not prequalify firms for participation in A&E consultant agreements. However, primes and their subconsultants that plan on submitting an expression of interest (EOI) in response to an opportunity must all be registered in CSSWeb prior to the prime’s preparation of the EOI.

40. Prime must have an activated project inventory on file in order to submit an EOI. Selection Process (overview) • Region identifies the need for consultant services and prepares a request for those consultant services; • Main Office Program Area (Design, Construction, Planning, etc.) verifies the need for the services. Preliminary availability of consultant funding for the project is verified. Contract Management notified of the need for the consultant services; • Selection factors and weights to be used in the selection process are determined for each specific project based upon on input from the Region, the respective Main Office Program Area and Contract Management;

41. The consultant opportunity is first announced in the NYS Contract Reporter. A detailed advertisement is subsequently posted on NYSDOT’s web page, https://www.dot.ny.gov/doing-business/opportunities/eng-detailad. Project description, directions for submitting EOIs, Selection Process to be used and the criteria used for consultant selection (Factors and Weights) are provided in the detailed advertisement; • The detailed ad may follow the announcement by several days; • EOIs and any requested additional information are scored and a “best qualified” firm is recommended to the Chief Engineer. There are two selection processes used to identify the best qualified firm: Process I and Process II; • Chief Engineer can approve the recommendation, reject the recommendation, or request additional review by the Selection Committee; • When the Chief Engineer approves the recommendation, a consultant team is designated and announced on NYSDOT’s web page, (https://www.dot.ny.gov/doing-business/opportunities/eng-designation).

42. Selection Processes – Non-Electronic (Process I) and Electronic (Process II) Process II: This is a two-step process consisting of an electronic scoring step and then a selection committee scoring step. In Step 1, EOIs are electronically scored based upon the advertised factors and weights, project characteristics, firm information and each firm’s project inventory. The result of the electronic scoring determines a shortlist of qualified firms that will be considered further in the selection process.

43. NYSDOT normally shortlists four (4) firms for continued consideration for selection. NYSDOT may extend the shortlist due to scoring considerations (small variance in first step scores), tentative designations that are not yet known to firms but may impact one or more firm’s score, or to address NYSDOT’s desire to entertain a broader range of offers. Shortlisted firms are announced on NYSDOT’s web page: https://www.dot.ny.gov/doing-business/opportunities/eng-shortlistad

44. Step 2 scoring for Process II consists of the following: 1. The selection committee scores the factors that were not previously scored in step 1; 2. Factors that were scored in step 1 are not rescored in step 2, the scores are carried forward. However, those factors are usually given a different relative weight for step 2 scoring; 3. Additional scoring adjustments may be made, if any are applicable (i.e. workload, last designation special factor verification, etc.), consistent with the project advertisement. A Final step 2 score is calculated and the firm with the highest total step 2 score is recommended as the most qualified firm to the Chief Engineer.

45. Process I: Process I is utilized when the project is sufficiently unique, such that a scoring of submitted project inventories would have little value in demonstrating a firm’s qualifications with respect to that project. There is no electronic inventory scoring component for Process I, therefore, there is no shortlisting of offering firms. An electronic EOI is required to gather DMWBE credits, workload and last designation information. Individual and Firm experience scoring is performed by a selection committee that evaluates each offering firm’s EOI and additional information with respect to the advertised selection criteria, factors and weights. Additional scoring adjustments may be made, if any are applicable (i.e. workload, last designation, special factor verification, etc.), consistent with the project advertisement.

46. General Information: • Selection Committee members do not “rank” firms, they are charged with evaluating proposals with respect to the advertised selection criteria; • Debriefings can be requested following the announcement of the designated firm on NYSDOT’s web page; • Firms can request a copy of the designated firm’s 255 package after the contract has been executed by the Office of the State Comptroller. A freedom of information request is not required. NYSDOT will redact information that has been identified as proprietary.

47. Suggestions & Common Errors: • Read and follow the directions provided in the detailed advertisement; • Monitor NYSDOT’s web page for revisions to previously advertised opportunities; • Review submitted inventories of proposed team members to ensure they are current and accurate; • DMWBEs must be proposed for work activities they are certified to perform as a DMWBE in order for their participation to count towards the goal; • Electronic submissions must be timely. Our automated system shuts out offers submitted after the stated deadline. Don’t wait until the last moment to submit. Unfair to other firms if one firm is given more time;

48. No staffing assigned to the claimed “functional office”; • Failure to submit offers because of perception “predetermined selections”; • Reported workload information is not consistent between the EOI and the CONR-386; • Team members and their respective proposed participation can not change from one step to the next for Process II selections; • Reported distances, in miles, to the project site and Regional Office should be verified prior to submission.

49. Joint Ventures “in spirit” are not recognized for contracting purposes. If an EOI is submitted as a joint venture and that entity is designated, the legal entity, if not already established, must be formed and a Federal ID number established before funding for a project can be obtained. If a formal joint venture is not established as required, NYSDOT may de-designate the selected team and enter into negotiations with the next most qualified offerer.

50. SELECTION FACTORS • Provides the basis for the QBS selection process • Are established on a project specific basis Process II – Step 1 Scores the firm, Step 2 Scores the staff Step 1 Electronic Scoring 1. Prior Experience 1A Firm Experience (Subfactors) 1C Experience with NYSDOT 2. Organizational Capacity for this type of work 2A Prior NYSDOT performance ratings 2B Workload/Capacity (1) Project type workload w/NYSDOT vs capacity (2) Total remaining workload w/ NYSDOT