Customer Self Service Solution -Waterworks

The City of Newport News (the “City”) is seeking proposals from qualified firms (the “Offeror” or “Contractor”) to furnish the goods/or services described herein and proposals will be received via the City’s e-Procurement Portal, OpenGov Procurement ( https://secure.procurenow.com/portal/nnva ), to be received no later than Friday, February 27, 2026 at 11:30 pm (local prevailing time).

The purpose of this Request for Proposals (RFP) is to solicit proposals from qualified SAP partner firms to furnish/provide a fully integrated Customer Self-Service Portal solution, inclusive of software (SaaS), implementation, system integration, data and user migration, training, and ongoing support services. The objective of this solicitation is to select a single Offeror capable of delivering a turnkey, enterprise-grade customer portal that improves customer experience, supports operational efficiency, integrates with Waterworks ' SAP environment, and aligns with Waterworks' long-term SAP S/4HANA modernization roadmap.

References in the section to "City," "Department of Waterworks, " and "Waterworks" are synonymous. The goal is to modernize the existing technology, streamline operations, and ensure robust client ownership and knowledge transfer.

A. The City of Newport News Department of Public Utilities (Waterworks) supplies drinking water on a retail basis to approximately 410,000 people on the lower Virginia Peninsula, including the Cities of Newport News, Hampton, Poquoson, and parts of York County and James City County. For FY 2025, the average daily demand of the system was approximately 33.4 million gallons per day (MGD). Water is distributed through a water pipeline transmission and distribution system covering 250 square miles and extending over 1,700 miles in length. Waterworks is a City Department providing water regionally and operating as an enterprise fund.

B. Waterworks currently maintain 130,330 metered water services. In addition, Waterworks is the billing/collection agent for solid waste and sewer maintenance for the cities of Newport News and Hampton (approximately 100,000 metered-accounts). Waterworks bills for meter and fire protection services fees based on ten (10) different sizes of water meters. Waterworks provides meter readings to Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD) and James City County, so that they can bill their respective customers for sewer treatment based on water usage. Waterworks provides water cutoff services to HRSD, James City County, and York County for non-payment of their billed services. Waterworks perform other customer billing to include public use fire hydrant meters and water testing services. Finally, Waterworks sells wholesale water to various customers.

C. The current SAP landscape at WATERWORKS includes SAP ECC IS-U for customer care and billing, and SAP Materials Management for inventory and procurement processes. Currently, external System Integrators provide most technical support. There is a strategic priority to increase internal capabilities and reduce vendor dependency.

D. Waterworks successfully completed its Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) initiative in May 2024. The Sentryx system includes approximately 133,500 AMI meters that transmit 24 hourly meter reads each day. Of these, more than 120,000 meters are equipped with internal disconnect valves, enabling remote connection and disconnection without field visits. The Sentryx network operates on a 900 MHz LoRaWAN platform and consists of 34 collectors and approximately 100 repeaters. Through built-in integrations, scheduled file transfers, and API calls, the Sentryx System and SAP Billing System are closely integrated, supporting automated on-demand and billing reads, remote disconnect/reconnects, move-in/move-out processing, and real-time master meter and meter status updates.

E. The Clevest Field Mobile Work System integrates directly with the SAP Billing System, enabling seamless two-way communication and real-time data exchange. Service orders generated in SAP are automatically transmitted to Clevest, where they are converted into electronic work orders for meter technicians in the field. The system supports real-time updates, allowing completed work to flow immediately back into SAP for billing and recordkeeping.

F. Clevest also provides advanced scheduling and optimization features, including automated routing and driving directions to the next job site. If new work is dispatched during the day, the system can reshuffle and reprioritize work orders dynamically to improve efficiency. Additionally, if Customer Services cancels a work order in SAP, it is automatically removed from the technician's queue, ensuring field staff always have an up-to-date and accurate workload.

G. Waterworks presently utilizes a third-party customer self-service portal to support customer billing inquiries, payments, and account management.

H. During Fiscal Year 2025, 115,000 customer account inquiry calls were received by Waterworks Customer Service Call Center. Additionally, for FY 2025, SAP generated 1, 171,550 customer billing documents and 156,987 customer correspondence documents for printing/mailing through the Waterworks vendor, Datamatx. For the 6-month period September 1, 2024, to February 28, 2025, SAP created a monthly average of 130,501 customer invoicing documents (including paper bills and paperless billing). During FY 2025, SAP generated 35,031 backflow prevention correspondence documents for printing/mailing through Datamatx. During FY 2025, SAP generated 24,230 Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR) related communications (starting in the second quarter of the fiscal year). During FY 2025, customers completed an average of 45,000 payment transactions per month through the current portal’s payment processing partner. For the month of November 2025, a total of 234,577 email notifications were sent, 23,399 push notifications were delivered, and 5,306 SMS text notifications were issued from the current portal.

As customer expectations, digital interaction volumes, and system integration continue to grow, Waterworks seeks to procure a modern, scalable, and secure customer portal platform that:
i) Enhances digital self-service for customers.
ii) Reduces call center demand and manual processing.
iii) Supports high-volume billing, payments, and communications.
iv) Integrates seamlessly with SAP ECC today and SAP S/4HANA in the future.
v) Meets public-sector security, compliance, and data residency requirements.