The Vendor is required to provide to supply, implement, and support an interactive and accessible online community engagement platform.
- The solution must enable residents to stay informed about municipal initiatives while providing multiple, easy-to-use methods for submitting feedback.
- The platform should support transparent communication, bilingual access, and meaningful public participation.
- Responsible for providing all software, licensing, implementation services, training, documentation, content migration, and post-implementation support.
- Serves approximately 100,000 residents and is officially bilingual.
- Public Engagement System
• Supply, configure, and implement an online engagement platform, including all required licensing.
- Implementation Services
• Provide professional services to configure the system, integrate with City systems as required, and ensure readiness for launch.
- Training & Documentation
• Deliver training to City staff (administration, content creators, analytics users, etc.)
• Provide user manuals, administration guides, and ongoing documentation updates.
• Information Technology (IT) support documentation for installation, configuration, troubleshooting, and maintenance.
• Customer support processes, including:
o Logging and tracking service tickets
o Notifications for planned outages and updates
o 24/7 technical support availability
- Content Migration
• Migrate content, data, and historical project information from the City’s current engagement platform to the new platform.
- Post-Implementation Support
• Provide technical support, troubleshooting, and maintenance after go-live.
• Provide updates, enhancements, and patches as released
- Core Functional Requirements
• Hosting of engagement projects with customizable templates
• Multiple engagement tools (e.g., surveys, polls, Q&A, idea forums, mapping, commenting, discussion boards) including the following survey capabilities: Skip logic and branding, scale/rating questions, mapping or geolocation-enabled questions, interactive sliders, “Save & Continue” functionality, export to PDF and Word, progress bar and completion indicators, storytelling or narrative response options, crowdsourcing or idea-ranking tools, cloning of existing surveys and pre-set survey libraries/templates
• Ability to promote and track public events (in-person and virtual).
• Real-time analytics and dashboards
- Accessibility & Bilingual Requirements
• Fully compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards
• All public-facing interfaces are fully available in English and French
• Administrator interface supports bilingual project creation
- Records Management & Data Sovereignty
• Ensures exclusive City ownership of all data
• Prevents purging or archiving without City consent
• Provides extraction formats and metadata handling
• Implements secure destruction of all copies after transmittal
- Integration with Third-Party Engagement Tools
• City currently uses or may use complementary engagement tools, including the Balancing Act platform
• Proponents are encouraged to describe integration capabilities, including:
• Data exchange (APIs, imports/exports)
• User experience considerations
• Reporting or analytics alignment
• Any limitations or dependencies.
- Contract Period/Term: 3 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: February 12, 2026