BACKGROUND
This ordinance authorizes the expenditure of $450,000 from the Auditor Bond fund for the technical and development work to the Auditor’s financial system and Azure platform assets. This legislation authorizes the City Auditor to modify an existing contract with OnActuate Consulting for professional services and modify existing contracts with Microsoft Corporation and Dell Marketing LP to expand its Azure platform licensing, storage, and related services to accommodate expanded functionality and declares an emergency.
The City Auditor’s Office has successfully migrated its financial system to Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations system (D365) and has been operational on the upgraded product since January of 2021. This ordinance supports expansion and enhancement of the financial system through consulting, development, and implementation of new features, interfaces, analytics, data mining, updates, and product extensions, as well as system activities related to banking modernization efforts at City outside normal support and maintenance agreements. This activity will take place in the Auditor’s Azure tenant and the Dell contract will allow the City to develop and deploy additional services in the Microsoft cloud platform.
A request for waiver of the formal competitive bidding requirements of Columbus City Codes Chapter 329 is requested due to the need to quickly secure the services to avoid delays and interruptions to vital financial operations, as well as support banking modernization efforts.
The City currently does not have the staffing or expertise to perform these services. As the City’s named D365 partner of record with Microsoft, OnActuate already has access to the City’s Azure and D365 infrastructure, DevOps, and Microsoft support. It is intimately familiar with the City’s point of sale and D365 environments and extensions. It is also authorized to access and utilize existing Visual Studio subscriptions in the environments necessary for code de...
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