Agriculture to go down LPTA path for software tool buy

The Agriculture Department has opened the window for industry to start working on and submitting proposals for a potential five-year contract that will implement a new software tool for testing applications.

Agriculture is looking to move quickly on this requirement with quotes due by 9 a.m. Eastern time on Sept. 28, the department said in a Wednesday notice to release the request for quotes.

Only small businesses can pursue the Automation Testing Tool contract and the size standard is $40 million. Work under the firm-fixed-price will take place over one initial base year and up to four individual option years.

Quotes will be evaluated on a lowest-price technically-acceptable basis, while only the lowest-priced offer will be examined for technical acceptability.

Should the lowest-priced offer not meet the solicitation’s bars for technical acceptability and past performance, the department will continue in order of lowest-priced until it picks a winner.

The department is seeking to hire a contractor that can help integrate a cloud‑based software tool to support automated functional, regression, and end‑to‑end testing activities across the agency’s web‑based and mobile software applications.

TestRigor’s Test Automation Tool is the department’s product of choice for this effort, meaning the contract’s winner will be responsible for integrating and rollout out the platform.

The product is designed to help users build and maintain end-to-end tests by using plain English commands instead of traditional programming code.

Agriculture plans to use the product in simulating user workflows, creating tests with low-code or no-code methods, and determining capability with major browsers and operating systems.

Locally-installed software or infrastructure is not a requirement for this contract.