REPORT TO THE CITY COUNCIL
FROM: BRYON HORN, Director
Information Services Department
BY: FRANK D. VAWTER, Assistant Director
Information Services Department
SUBJECT
Title
Approve the Cisco FLEX agreement with AMS.Net in the amount of $507,705.60 for four years with annual payments of $126,926.40 for licensing, maintenance, and support of the City’s phone system in accordance with purchasing procedures from cooperative agreements as laid out in Administrative Order 3-1 and priced from a cooperative agreement, Merced County FOCUS Agreement 2021092 (FOCUS).
Body
RECOMMENDATION
It is recommended that Council approve the Cisco FLEX agreement with AMS.Net in the amount of $507,705.60 for four years with annual payments of $126,926.40 for licensing, maintenance, and support of the City’s phone system. This is a four-year agreement with an annual payment of $126,926.40 based on the competitively bid Merced FOCUS agreement.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Information Systems Department (ISD) is responsible for maintaining and operating all aspects of the City’s phone system, including the functions required for the support of multiple call centers. So that we could achieve a better alignment between the services we provide and the needs of the organization, ISD sought to revise our approach to licensing, maintenance, and support of the phone system. To achieve this ISD entered into an agreement with Cisco to modify the licensing, maintenance, and support model for the phone system. The net result of this change was a move to a licensing approach that was more consistent with our needs for all users and provides additional features from which the City will benefit.
BACKGROUND
In FY21, ISD received additional appropriations intended to fund the migration of our licensing, maintenance, and support services to a more flexible licensing system. This licensing migration included some key features that would improve the utilization of our existing hardware and meet the changing needs of our users. In pursuit of these objectives, ISD entered into the 5-year agreement with Cisco, via AMS.Net. This agreement has an annual payment of $126,926.40, with almost 70% of the total cost funded by reallocating existing appropriations from the outgoing licensing, maintenance, and support agreement. Our appropriations increase was $32,000 per year.
Improvements include:
• Softphone licensing included in per user licenses, as opposed to needing additional licensing.
• Skills-based routing for call center functions
• Outbound IVR functionality which had the capability to place outbound calls and then connect call center representatives
• Added features for call center supervisors
• Licensing for the Unity voicemail system
The City has worked with AMS.Net, in past years, as attempts to procure such items from an RFP process has resulted in counterfeit and “gray market” products, even if the bid requirement specified that only genuine and supported equipment be supplied. As such, ISD and the Finance Department agree to allow the purchases of networking equipment from cooperative purchasing agreements. The FOCUS agreement is a very low cost and competitively bid agreement in which AMS.Net is able to provide the City of Fresno the lowest possible price for the equipment and services. AMS.Net is an authorized dealer of such equipment and, when looking at other authorized providers, generally provides the lowest priced solutions, thereby, allowing ISD to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars.
ENVIRONMENTAL FINDINGS
The approval of this purchase is not a project for the purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act.
LOCAL PREFERENCE
Local preference was not implemented because this is a cooperative purchase using Merced County’s FOCUS Agreement.
FISCAL IMPACT
Funding exists in ISD’s appropriations in the Systems and Acquisitions Maintenance (SAM) fund.
Attachments:
AMS.Net Cisco FLEX Agreement