Cumberland County Housing and Redevelopment Authorities

The Cumberland County Redevelopment Authority is currently seeking proposals to create a new website. Please review the request for proposal guidelines here: RFP-CCHRA-Website
Answers to questions (UPDATED FEBRUARY 1, 2012):

Q: Will you be scheduling meetings with web developers prior to the proposal deadline?
A: Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to meet with all potential respondents. We will make a selection of up to three finalists based on the merit of each proposal and will schedule a time to meet with each of the finalists after the proposal deadline.

Q: Is there any flexibility in the timeline you have established for this process?
A: The deadline for questions has passed. We do not anticipate changing the deadline for submission of proposals. However, there is a Housing conference during the first 3 days of the week that we have scheduled for finalist interviews. Because final selection will not be made until Friday, March 16, 2012, we will likely schedule interviews beginning Thursday, March 8, 2012 into the following week, but not after Thursday, March 15, 2012. Our fiscal year ends June 30, 2012 and our preference is that the new website would be up and running no later than the Monday, June 25, 2012. However, there may be some flexibility with the launch date once a finalist has been selected.

Q: Under item #4, letter b) it says Employees - links to securely access email. What do you currently use for your email? A desktop program like Outlook, Outlook Express, Mail or Thunderbird? Or do you use webmail through PA.net? Could you explain what you're looking to do with having members or staff of CCHRA access their email through the website?
A: Our primary e-mail interface is Outlook (2003/2007/2010 and Express). We do not use Microsoft Exchange or similar technology. Each employee has a POP account. However, we do use our pa.net interface for webmail (www.cchra.com/webmail) to read e-mail remotely (rare) and to setup auto responders (common, because this feature cannot be setup in Outlook using our current configuration). At this time, we would like to establish a link for employees on the homepage that allows them to interface with webmail. In the future, we may wish to develop a section for employees that might contain items such as downloadable forms, web forms and/or ways to upload information such as time reports. Your guidance with regard to best practices is critical to the development of this feature.

Q: We offer what is called "responsive web design", meaning that the website responds to the size of a visitors monitor and serves up a different layout of the site depending if you're using a desktop machine, a tablet or a mobile phone. The question was posted on the Q&A section about maintaining a separate mobile version of the CCHRA website. The responsive option isn't technically a separate website, so should we provide you with a regular proposal and with a "responsive" proposal?
A: Budget is certainly a consideration in our review of these proposals. Not knowing how this feature might change your proposal or the pricing, we recommend that you add this to your proposal and break-out the pricing so that we are able to understand the cost with and without this responsive technology. We do not want a separate website for mobile devices and so the ability to adapt is definitely interesting to us.

Q: You reference SEO/SEM optimization in section 9.h.v. What products or services do you hope to market?
A: Please note, SEO/SEM optimization is not critical and should not be a large part of your proposal. Our hope is to better establish brand recognition. Regionally, we are recognized for the work that we do and we would like to expand this recognition regionally.

Q: What is your budget for this project? What kind of money have you set aside?
A: We are not sharing that information at this time. However, our budget is not large.

Q: CMS – Could you please expand on the real estate listings and search functionality that goes along with it?
A: We do not maintain the search capability for real estate listings outside of our agency. We have a link on site to PAHousingSearch.com and would like to continue to use that website. We may want to be able to list housing opportunities offered through our agency, such as houses for sale, but the numbers are not necessarily high enough to necessitate search functionality.

Q: CMS – Will you want people to be able to sign-up for workshops as part of the workshop schedules?
A: This is the direction we would like to head in the future. If it is simple to create and maintain this functionality now, we are open to having this as part of our new site.

Q: Could you please also expand on the addition of a system of questions for the user of the site, which narrows search to allow for more precise navigation?
A: Right now, our website is very link-intensive. We would like to improve the navigation so that people who are interested in rental housing can easily navigate to those options while people interested in homeownership or owner-occupied rehabilitation find what they are looking for. In addition, funders, general contractors, service providers and other stakeholders may also use our site for referral purposes or to understand opportunities offered through our agency. At this point, our site is probably not easy for anybody to navigate. One idea that we have had is that the website might ask, "are you interested in obtaining housing?" and a yes answer helps the user navigate the site. We understand that there may be better ways to create this functionality and are open to discussing these options.

Q: Also, you requested that the site be iPad and portable device friendly, which is something that we include, however; would you like a separate mobile site?
A: There may be benefits in doing this, but we do not wish to maintain a separate site for various reasons including staff capacity to update and cost.

Home

                                  Telephone    (717) 249-1315
                               1-866-683-5907

                                  Facsimile     (717) 249-5988

This website maintained by the Cumberland County Housing Authority. Comments or questions, contact admin@cchra.com