OIT/WRB RFI - Philly311 CRM Replacement Project

CITY OF PHILADELPHIA

Office of Innovation and Technology

(on behalf of the Philly311 Office)

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

FOR

Philly311 CRM Replacement Project

September 3, 2026

Deadline for questions, requests for clarification, or requests for additional information	September 8, 2026, before 5:00 PM (Local Philadelphia Time)
City Responds to Questions	September 15, 2026
Responses to RFI Due	September 22, 2026, before 5:00 PM (Local Philadelphia Time)

CHERELLE L. PARKER, Mayor

Melissa A. Scott, CIO, Office of Innovation and Technology

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Exhibit A. RFI Question Template

Philly311 CRM Replacement Project

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

I. RESPONSE CALENDAR

Post Request for Information	September 3, 2026
Deadline for questions, requests for clarification, or requests for additional information- email: caity.rietzen@phila.gov and precious.abayode@phila.gov	September 8, 2026, before 5:00 PM (Local Philadelphia Time)
City Responds to Questions https://www.phila.gov/rfp/additional opportunities	September 15, 2026
Responses to RFI due- email: caity.rietzen@phila.gov and precious.abayode@phila.gov	September 22, 2026, before 5:00 PM (Local Philadelphia Time)

These dates are estimates only and the City reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to alter this schedule as it deems necessary or appropriate. Notice of changes will be posted on the City’s website at https://www.phila.gov/rfp/additional opportunities.

II. PURPOSE OF REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

The City of Philadelphia (City) is embarking on a significant initiative to upgrade and modernize its administrative business processes and related legacy technology systems that currently support its business operations. As part of this initiative, the City intends to implement a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for the City’s Philly311 Office. The City, through its Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT), has issued this Request for Information (RFI) in order to solicit statements of interest, capabilities, and Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost estimates from all Respondents interested in, and capable of, providing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software as part of the City’s solution.

Respondents are asked to provide OIT with information regarding their available COTS products and solutions, subject to the following guidelines:

• Identify only COTS products that are modifiable or configurable to meet specific City requirements, and that focus on interoperability, reliability, usability, availability, capacity and scalability

• Present the software solution’s interoperability and operational requirements in accordance with the International Organization for Standardization Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model

• Include an architectural diagram of the solution with a description of the solutions scalability; responses may include one or more models or solutions

• Describe the configurability of the software to meet the specified requirements and services.

Responses should include implementation, integration, and/or configuration services. If, the software can be installed and configured only by the Respondent, that must be clearly stated in the Response, including the reasons why that is the case.

Respondents may, in the City’s discretion, be invited to engage in discussions with the City’s project team and/or demonstrate their products, services and solutions.

No contract will be awarded pursuant to this RFI. Anyone who does not respond to this RFI is not precluded from responding to any future solicitation issued by the City. The City intends to procure software for this project as soon as reasonably possible, in accordance with the City’s procurement laws and practices for software purchases, which may include, but are not limited to, the use of existing City contracts or certified cooperative purchase agreements. Respondents will not be bound by the ROM cost estimates provided in their responses to this RFI in a future procurement. The City also reserves the right to not procure any software.

III. RFI CONTACT INFORMATION FOR QUESTIONS, REQUESTS FOR CLARIFICATION

All questions (see RFI Question Template Exhibit A) and requests for clarification concerning this RFI must be in writing and submitted via email no later than 5:00 PM, Local Philadelphia Time, on September 8, 2026, to:

Caity Rietzen	Precious Abayode
Senior Technical Project Manager	Business Analyst
OIT PMO	OIT PMO
caity.rietzen@phila.gov	precious.abayode@phila.gov

Responses to questions and requests for additional information shall be at the sole discretion of the City. Any additional information and/or responses to questions will be posted only on the City’s website at https://www.phila.gov/rfp/additional opportunities . No additional information and/or responses to questions will be sent by email. Nothing in this RFI shall create an obligation on the City to respond to a Respondent submitting a response.

The City may, in its sole discretion, issue addenda to this RFI containing responses to questions, clarifications of the RFI, revisions to the RFI or any other matters that the City deems appropriate. Addenda, if any, will be posted on the City’s website at https://www.phila.gov/rfp/additional opportunities. It is the Respondent’s responsibility to monitor the Additional Opportunities site for Addenda and to comply with any new information.

Oral responses made by any City employee or agent of the City in response to questions or requests for information or clarification related to this RFI are not binding and shall not in any way be considered as a commitment by the City.

If a Respondent finds any inconsistency or ambiguity in the RFI or an addendum to the RFI issued by the City, the Respondent is requested to notify the City in writing by the above deadline for questions and requests for information or clarification.

IV. ABOUT THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA AND OIT

The City of Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the sixth-most populous city in the United States with over 1.5 million residents. Additionally, due to its rich historic and cultural heritage, the region is visited by more than 40 million people each year.

Philadelphia is located in the southeastern section of Pennsylvania, and the coterminous city/county covers 143 square miles. The City is bordered by the following counties: Bucks, Montgomery and Delaware in Pennsylvania, and Burlington, Camden and Gloucester in New Jersey.

As an operating department of the City, OIT provides technology and telecommunication services to the City, its employees, and the community. There are over 25,000 city employees in Philadelphia.

V. RESERVED

VI. ANTICIPATED SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS

The City is seeking information from vendors regarding the implementation of a new CRM system to replace Philly311’s existing legacy platform. The scope of this effort includes full system implementation; migration of all existing service request data, user accounts, and workflow configurations; and a comprehensive redesign, mapping, and migration of the Philly311 Knowledge Base. The RFI will help the City understand available solutions, capabilities, and approaches that meet these needs.

The proposed CRM solution should include the following functionality:

• Case Management & Intake

o Provide a centralized, configurable case management framework that supports consistent intake and processing across departments.

o Allow agents and authorized partners to create, update, route, and close service requests through a unified interface.

o Permit interdepartmental and partner transfer and/or collaboration on SRs.

o Case/incident intake (phone, web, mobile app, chat, email, social).

• Workflow, Routing & SLAs

o Support automated routing and escalation based on request type, business rules, and department workflows

o Provide configurable SLA management, including multi-milestone tracking and notifications.

o Enable omnichannel work routing beyond case processing (voice, email, chat, mobile/web tasks).

• Contacts & Partner Management

o Offer robust contact management, including deduplication and full case/activity history.

o Provide flexible partner user management, permissions, and a modern partner experience/portal.

o Provide full visibility to 311 staff into cases after they are assigned to other departments.

o Support archiving/deactivation of contacts while preserving historical case records.

o Provide partner dashboards showing activity, top addresses, trends, and related information.

o Ensure the partner portal uses shared CRM configuration and knowledge content to avoid duplicate maintenance.

o Support a department-specific experience that allows designated City departments to manage their own service requests, contacts, communications, and dashboards within an authorized scope.

o Support case collaboration capabilities for multiple departments.

• Reporting & Analytics

o Deliver configurable dashboards and ad hoc reporting without developer involvement.

o Support trend analysis, geographic insights, and staff performance metrics.

o Microsoft Power BI reporting must have clean, real-time data access (CRM, calls, departments.

• Communications & Comments

o Provide a full communication management framework including phone, web, mobile app, chat, email, social media, etc.

o Enable internal/external comments with visibility controls and track all outbound communications.

o Support customer notifications for key case events and configurable communication preferences.

o Support template management, version control, and approval workflows for communications.

o Enable conditional logic in templates, A/B testing, and segmentation options for audience targeting.

o Support customer email preference management, including opt-out options where appropriate.

o Provide comprehensive analytics for outbound communications (e.g., delivery, open rates, clicks).

• Knowledge Base Management

o Provide a redesigned Knowledge Base information architecture that supports intuitive browse and search experiences, including updated hierarchical structure, standardized categorization, and consistent tagging across departments and service areas.

o Provide a searchable knowledge base with role-based access and easy content creation/maintenance.

o Enable article analytics, workflows, and bulk export capabilities.

o Support structured knowledge governance including version control, publishing workflows, and scheduled review cycles

o Provide improved taxonomy, metadata, and tagging to support search relevance and discoverability.

o Include search analytics to identify gaps, top queries, and abandoned searches for continuous improvement.

o Support department level article creation, editing, and publishing workflows, including role-based drafting, review, and approval processes that allow designated departmental SMEs to author, update, and manage knowledge content within their scope.

• Integrations

o Integrate with mobile/web intake channels and core departmental systems (including, but not limited to, Cityworks, GIS, eCLIPSE, MuleSoft, Univerge, Microsoft 365, etc.)

o Integrate with phila.gov and the Directus CMS for management of external Knowledge Base content.

o Provide GIS-based address validation and telephony/CTI integration.

o Support identity and SSO integration and alignment with existing City authentication models.

• Call Center Operations

o Support CTI capabilities such as screen-pop, caller matching, and omnichannel work handling.

o Support call center quality operations including call recording, quality monitoring, and supervisor dashboards.

o Provide a unified agent desktop integrating CTI, routing, case management, and knowledge access.

• Security & Access

o Provide role-based access control across agents, supervisors, departments, and partners with clear separation of public vs. internal data.

o Include audit logs, data privacy controls, and compliance with applicable government standards.

o Allow administrators to manage departments, users, workflows, request types, and reporting needs.

o Support data classification and retention policies consistent with City requirements.

• Administration & Governance

o Offer low-code/no-code configuration to reduce custom development and increase 311 administrative control.

o Allow for internal control over workflows, routing, SLAs, and automation (no vendor dependency).

o Reduce reliance on vendor intervention for routine CRM configuration and operational updates.

o Support internal configuration of call center workflows, routing logic, and knowledge governance.

• Future AI Capabilities

o Support optional AI-assisted intake (voice/chat), automated media redaction, and mobile field updates.

o Automation that reduces manual work (routing, alerts, notifications, duplicates).

o Automation that supports operations: summaries, classification, trends, forecasting.

o Provide AI-supported search and relevance tuning within the Knowledge Base.

The proposed solution should include the following data migration requirements:

• Migrate legacy case, contact, and activity data, including notes, comments, attachments, and photos.

• Map all legacy fields, record types, and workflows to the new CRM data model.

• Deduplicate contacts, service requests, and knowledge articles.

• Migrate historical communications and call-center notes.

• Support photo/media migration with metadata and link preservation.

• Migrate Knowledge Base content into updated taxonomy structures.

• Provide archival capabilities for retired request types and historical data.

• Include validation tools and processes for data accuracy and completeness.

• Support parallel operation and cutover testing.

VII. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

The City expects each Respondent to include in their response to this RFI the following items in the order listed:

Company Overview:

Include company name, physical address, phone number, fax number, and web address, a brief description of the company, its services, business size (total revenue and number of employees), and point(s) of contact, including name, address, phone and email address. Note the company’s operations including the number of years the company has been supporting this solution; location of company’s headquarters and all other office locations; and three years of financial data to ensure company stability.

If applicable, please describe any subcontractors or partners with which you have worked. Resumes need not be included.

Experience:

Describe your company/organization’s relevant experience (and that of partners, when applicable) with CRM system implementations, migrations, and support management. Identify your experience with clients of similar size and scope to the City of Philadelphia, including client name, engagement title, description of engagement, the solution implemented and the methodology used, cost, the start and completion dates of the project, as well as, the name, address and telephone number of a contact person.

Product/Software Solution:

Identify one or more COTS solutions that meet the City’s requirements. Responses that describe solutions which are completely custom software may, in the City’s discretion, be rejected without review.

A major goal of this RFI is to provide Respondent with an opportunity to inform the City and OIT about their respective software solution’s interoperability and operational requirements in reference to the OSI model. Respondents are encouraged to include in their response an architectural diagram of the solution with description of the solution’s scalability. Respondents are welcome to provide one or more models or solution sets to meet this requirement for an integrated interoperable solution set.

Infrastructure/Architecture Model:

Identify the infrastructure/architecture model(s) you provide and support, and whether they are on-premise, hosted off-premise, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models.

Supplement this request with an interoperable architectural diagram outlining each OSI layer requirement for enablement, sustainment, reliability, redundancy, and growth. Highlight your anticipated annual upgrade and patch release schedule.

Key Features:

Identify best of breed features included in the proposed COTS solution(s), including, at a minimum, the Key Features in Section VI. Anticipated Project Requirements.

Support and Maintenance Model:

Provide the anticipated ongoing software maintenance and support services required to sustain the solution including frequency of upgrades and patches/bug releases and the estimated timeframes to complete. Outline the services in your support model including available service level agreements.

Training Model:

Outline the services in your training model for administrative and end user training including the training services, methodology, and typical schedule. Include the pricing model for training services and the methodology and schedule.

Reporting and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

Provide the standard and custom reporting included in your solution and the available KPIs. Include information on data input and export capabilities; security and auditing, and dashboards and metrics.

Pricing/Licensing Model:

Include a general pricing model and costs for the software based upon the information provided in this RFI. This pricing should also indicate the licensing model, (i.e. licensing by individual users, by core, by seat etc.), descriptions of the hosting models available, and estimates of associated costs. Include cost estimates for ongoing support and maintenance for three years, and when those support and maintenance costs begin (i.e. at time of purchase, after implementation, etc.). If applicable, include a list of additional items or services/software needed to operate the system that are not included and must be provided/purchased by the City.

Respondents will not be bound by any cost estimates included in responses to this RFI.

VIII. USE OF RESPONSES

Responses to this RFI may be used by OIT to select a software product for the Philly311 CRM Replacement project. Responses may also be used to assist OIT in gathering information for planning purposes, and for purposes of identifying sufficient resources for an implementation initiative.

The City does not intend to announce any further actions taken pursuant to this RFI. If any such announcements are made, at the sole discretion of the City, those announcements will be posted with the original RFI. In some cases, at the City’s sole discretion, the City may issue an RFP. The City will notify Respondents to this RFI once the RFP has been posted on the City’s website.

The City will notify you if additional information is required in order to evaluate your response to this RFI. Absent such follow up from the City, we respectfully request that respondents refrain from requesting additional information on the status of this RFI. In order to protect the integrity of the City procurement process, City personnel will not respond to requests for additional information on the status or outcome of this RFI, other than as described above.

IX. HOW TO SUBMIT RESPONSES

Respondents should submit their responses electronically (hard copies are unacceptable) in MS Word or Adobe PDF format, as a single document (see note below), to:

Caity Rietzen	Precious Abayode
Senior Technical Project Manager	Business Analyst
OIT PMO	OIT PMO
caity.rietzen@phila.gov	precious.abayode@phila.gov

Responses are due September 22, 2026, before 5:00 PM, Local Philadelphia Time.

Note: Response document(s) are limited to 15 MB; if necessary, please submit multiple files or zip/compress the file(s)

X. CONFIDENTIALITY AND PUBLIC DISCLOSURE

Respondents shall treat all information obtained from the City which is not generally available to the public as confidential and/or proprietary to the City. Respondents shall exercise all reasonable precautions to prevent any information derived from such sources from being disclosed to any other person. No other party, including any Respondent, is intended to be granted any rights hereunder.

XI. RIGHTS AND OPTIONS RESERVED

In addition to the rights reserved elsewhere in this RFI, the City reserves and may, in its sole discretion, exercise any or more of the following rights and options with respect to this RFI if the City determines that doing so is in the best interest of the City:

1. Decline to consider any response to this RFI (“response”); cancel the RFI at any time; elect to proceed or not to proceed with discussions or presentations regarding its subject matter with any Respondent and with firms that do not respond to the RFI; to reissue the RFI or to issue a new RFI (with the same, similar or different terms);

2. Select a COTS package from a vendor that does not respond to this RFI, or elect not to proceed with any procurement;

3. Waive, for any response, any defect, deficiency or failure to comply with the RFI if, in the City’s sole judgment, such defect is not material to the response;

4. Extend the Submission Date/Time and/or to supplement, amend, substitute or otherwise modify the RFI at any time prior to the Submission Date/Time, by posting notice thereof on the City web page(s) where the RFI is posted;

5. Require, permit or reject amendments (including, without limitation, submitting information omitted), modifications, clarifying information, and/or corrections to responses by some or all Respondents at any time before or after the Submission Date/Time;

6. Require, request or permit, in discussion with any Respondent, any information relating to the subject matter of this RFI that the City deems appropriate, whether it was described in the response to this RFI;

7. Discontinue, at any time determined by the City, discussions with any Respondent or all Respondents regarding the subject matter of this RFI, and/or initiate discussions with any other Respondent or with vendors that did not respond to the RFI;

8. To conduct such investigations with respect to the financial, technical, and other qualifications of the Respondent as the City, in its sole discretion, deems necessary or appropriate;

9. Do any of the foregoing without notice to Respondents or others, except such notice as the City, in its sole discretion, may elect to post on the City web page(s) where this RFI is posted.

This RFI and the process described are proprietary to the City and are for exclusive benefit of the City. Upon submission, responses to this RFI shall become the property of the City, which shall have unrestricted use thereof.

XII. PUBLIC DISCLOSURE

By submitting a response to this RFI, Respondent acknowledges and agrees i) that the City is a “local agency” under and subject to the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law (the “Act”), 65 P.S. §§ 67.101-67.3104, as the Act may be amended from time to time; and ii) responses may be subject to public disclosure under the Act. In the event the City receives a request under the Act for information that a Respondent has marked as confidential, the City will use reasonable efforts to consult with Respondent regarding the response and, to the extent reasonably practicable, will give Respondent the opportunity to identify information that Respondent believes to be confidential proprietary information, a trade secret, or otherwise exempt from access under Section 708 of the Act.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this RFI, nothing in this RFI shall supersede, modify, or diminish in any respect whatsoever any of the City’s rights, obligations, and defenses under the Act, nor will the City be held liable for any disclosure of records, including information that the City determines in its sole discretion is a public record and/or information required to be disclosed under the Act.

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