Question:
Regarding the requirement to hold an ISO 27001 and SOC-1/2 compliance - are you open to reviewing and accepting responses from suppliers without these certifications?

Answered on 06/Jun/2025 09:06 AM:


Suppliers are still welcome to submit responses even without ISO27001 or SOC2 compliance. This is especially the case if they have other cyber security accreditations available in lieu of those specified.

Primarily, we expect vendors handling sensitive TAFE Queensland information or managing critical systems to be able to demonstrate that there is a level of information security practices in place within the organisation and for this to be independently verified. This is to provide us with sufficient assurance that TAFE Queensland data will be handled and protected appropriately.

So, while there may be scope to use vendors that are not ISO27001 certified, we would still expect there to be systems and processes in place that are functionally equivalent or better. The selection of vendors is made using a combination of compliance and a risk-based approach when it comes to information security.

Question:
Budget & Financials

- What is the indicative or maximum budget available for the initial implementation project and the ongoing subscription/licensing over the three-year term?

- Will the subscription fees be paid annually, quarterly, or upfront?

- Are there any capital expenditure vs operational expenditure preferences we should be aware of?

- How many contacts are in the database and how many marketing users?

Integration & Data

- Can you confirm the current state and structure of the CRM environment, especially across B2C, B2B, and B2E Dynamics 365 instances?

- Is there a preferred middleware or integration layer being used or recommended or in place for us to use for the CRM connection and website/data source connections? (e.g., Zapier, - Azure, Boomi)?

- How are student records currently structured across systems (CRM, Student Management System, data warehouse)?

- Will we be working with your internal IT/data team or a third-party systems integrator for the CRM connection?

Data Migration & Platform Scope

- Can you clarify the volume and condition of data to be migrated, including:

- Number of active campaigns

- Number of active automations

- Volume of historical assets (emails, forms, templates)?

- Are there any specific data compliance or retention policies we need to consider during migration?

Marketing & Platform Use

- Who are the main stakeholders and power users of the platform internally (e.g., digital, events, communications)?

- Do you have a central marketing team or distributed teams across faculties and regions?

- Will marketing campaigns be executed centrally or locally? (Important for permissions and workspace configuration)

- Are there particular automation use cases or examples you'd like vendors to prototype or explain during the demo/presentation phase?

Implementation & Training

- What is the preferred training model – train-the-trainer, virtual sessions, in-person sessions, ongoing sessions, or self-paced resources?

- How many users will require admin-level access vs. campaign user access?

- Is there a preferred timeline for go-live, especially relative to key student recruitment cycles?

Performance, Reporting, and ROI

- Are there existing reporting frameworks or KPIs (e.g., ROI, conversion rates, campaign effectiveness) that must be replicated or integrated?

- Will the marketing team require dashboard training or support for ongoing analytics management?

Innovation & Future-State

- Are there any roadmap goals or innovation initiatives (e.g., AI-driven personalisation, chatbots, omnichannel orchestration) that should influence our proposal?

- Would TAFE QLD be open to phased delivery of advanced features (e.g., multi-touch attribution, AI scoring) post go-live?

Answered on 23/Jun/2025 03:15 PM:


Supplier Question Customer Response

Budget & Financials



- What is the indicative or maximum budget available for the initial implementation project and the ongoing subscription/licensing over the three-year term?

Cannot answer this question.



- Will the subscription fees be paid annually, quarterly, or upfront?

Not upfront - Annually currently but can be quarterly. 



- Are there any capital expenditure vs operational expenditure preferences we should be aware of? "

No, We just need the pricing to be split and clearly indicate what it is for."



- How many contacts are in the database and how many marketing users?

See specs document



Integration & Data



- Can you confirm the current state and structure of the CRM environment, especially across B2C, B2B, and B2E Dynamics 365 instances?

Currently we have two main instances - B2C and B2B. The majority of our leads sit within the B2C instance and is the main CRM for our customer service teams. Our secondary audiences sit under our B2B instance.



- Is there a preferred middleware or integration layer being used or recommended or in place for us to use for the CRM connection and website/data source connections? (e.g., Zapier, - Azure, Boomi)? "

A native CRM sync would be our preferred integration method. We currently use the out of the box integrations of our platform for website tracking and social media platforms. "



- How are student records currently structured across systems (CRM, Student Management System, data warehouse)?

There is no direct connection or strong data consistency between the CRM's (Dynamics) and our Student Management System TechnologyOne), data is injected into the CRM via our data warehouse. Most syncing activities currently occur nightly.



- Will we be working with your internal IT/data team or a third-party systems integrator for the CRM connection?

Yes



Data Migration & Platform Scope



"Can you clarify the volume and condition of data to be migrated, including:

- number of active campaigns

- number of active automations

~450-550 active trigger campaigns and ~300-600 batch campaigns at any given time.

Refer to Marketo's documentation on the definition of campaign types. ~ 350-500 forms

The majority of the form fills are via one of three core forms: contact us form, course enquiry form and course application form. ~250-400 landing pages

We primarily elect to embed forms on our website and have been reviewing landing pages to decrease use."



- Volume of historical assets (emails, forms, templates)?

This number is difficult to ascertain as we have been using our current instance since 2017.



- Are there any specific data compliance or retention policies we need to consider during migration?

Please refer to Cyber Security Requirements document for specifics.

Privacy Policy - https://tafeqld.edu.au/legal/privacy-policy

Relevant Australian legislation including Spam Act and Privacy Act.



Marketing & Platform Use



- Who are the main stakeholders and power users of the platform internally (e.g., digital, events, communications)?

Digital marketing officers, event officers and communication officers.



- Do you have a central marketing team or distributed teams across faculties and regions?

TAFE Queensland has both a central marketing team (two automation staff) and regional marketing teams. The marketing automation platform is managed/administered by the central marketing team and all state-wide activities performed by this team.



- Will marketing campaigns be executed centrally or locally? (Important for permissions and workspace configuration)

Both



- Are there particular automation use cases or examples you'd like vendors to prototype or explain during the demo/presentation phase?

Not relevant at this stage.



Implementation & Training



- What is the preferred training model – train-the-trainer, virtual sessions, in-person sessions, ongoing sessions, or self-paced resources?

Likely a combination of training models as we have staff located throughout the state.



- How many users will require admin-level access vs. campaign user access?

Currently we have 4 administrators for the incumbent system and the rest of the users vary in access levels (see specs document).

Approximate user split:

40% Marketing staff

28% Internal communication staff

13% API users

15% Misc staff and 4% admin

We require the ability to define user roles/groups and define permissions of these users.



- Is there a preferred timeline for go-live, especially relative to key student recruitment cycles?

Ideally during February-April 2026 (end peak period - end existing contract).



Performance, Reporting, and ROI



- Are there existing reporting frameworks or KPIs (e.g., ROI, conversion rates, campaign effectiveness) that must be replicated or integrated?

No



- Will the marketing team require dashboard training or support for ongoing analytics management?

Yes



Innovation & Future-State



- Are there any roadmap goals or innovation initiatives (e.g., AI-driven personalisation, chatbots, omnichannel orchestration) that should influence our proposal?

TAFE Queensland would like to take advantage of AI in terms of email and journey building. In the future AI-driven personalisation would be a goal. Any AI would need to be approved by our AI taskforce and all data processing and storage would need to occur in Australia.



- Would TAFE QLD be open to phased delivery of advanced features (e.g., multi-touch attribution, AI scoring) post go-live?

Yes

Question:
We have a few questions related to this tender please:

1. The tender documentation doesn't specify a pricing or engagement model. Will you consider different pricing options such as Time and Materials, Fixed Price, Staged pricing etc?

2. Could you please provide your systems architecture so we can understand more about your possible integration requirements. We note that you have listed some third party systems but it is important we understand all possible integrations to more accurately understand the data integration requirements. Please confirm all potential systems to integrate with.

3. Could you please provide your data warehouse schema?

4. Will you require two-way data sync, and if so between which systems and what data properties / objects will need to be synced.

5. Will you be expecting to have a unified view of a person across all your different systems? Will a person have multiple profiles and identifiers - i.e can a student prospect also be an academic and/or an influencer. Can they fit into multiple profiles.

6. Are you able to explain why you have multiple CRMs and what each one is used for?

Thank you.

Answered on 23/Jun/2025 03:18 PM:


1. The tender documentation doesn't specify a pricing or engagement model. Will you consider different pricing options such as Time and Materials, Fixed Price, Staged pricing etc?

Yes



2. Could you please provide your systems architecture so we can understand more about your possible integration requirements. We note that you have listed some third party systems but it is important we understand all possible integrations to more accurately understand the data integration requirements. Please confirm all potential systems to integrate with.

We can provide a very basic system architecture. All systems we currently integrate with are outlined in the specifications document.



3. Could you please provide your data warehouse schema?

No. We are unable to supply this information.



4. Will you require two-way data sync, and if so between which systems and what data properties / objects will need to be synced.

Yes, real time, two-way sync between the Marketing Automation platform and our Dynamics CRM.



5. Will you be expecting to have a unified view of a person across all your different systems? Will a person have multiple profiles and identifiers - i.e can a student prospect also be an academic and/or an influencer. Can they fit into multiple profiles.

TAFE Queensland has complex audiences where a contact can fit into multiple profiles. A unified view of a person's journey is something we would like to work towards but not a necessity for go-live.



6. Are you able to explain why you have multiple CRMs and what each one is used for?

One is for B2B clients used by the TAFE at School, commercial and business development teams and one is for B2C (single-subscribers).

Question:
Can you please confirm your expectations for the format of our responses? Should everything be completed in the attachments provided, or will you be accepting additional proposal materials to be provided along with this?

Answered on 23/Jun/2025 03:02 PM:


Good Afternoon

Response can be completed in Marketing Automation Platform - TQ Invitation to Offer or any of the other attachments provided.

If using another document or form clearly state what it covers and reference the document in the original format.

Question:
Hi there, please see below our questions. Thanks in advance for your responses.

- Could you provide specific, real-world examples of the most complex or challenging segmentation scenarios you foresee for "hyper-personalised content" or "highly complex, multi-level workflows" for your diverse audiences.

- Considering your in-house marketing automation team has no developer resourcing, what are the most frequent or complex technical tasks (e.g., API setup for new integrations, advanced reporting customisation) that currently require developer involvement and must be fully manageable by non-technical users

- Would a presentation be admissible in the submission?

- How much elaboration on the strategy to accomplish the items mentioned in Attachment_1-Marketing_Automation_Platform-Specifications.pdf (SECTION 3.2) is required? To what level of detail?

- Can you elaborate on what integrations are required with B2C Dynamics 365 CRM.

- Can you share details on role of Esendex and what it is been used for?

- Apart from landing pages and emails, are there other channels that needs to be considered for communication

- Is there any specific duration you are looking for 'Hypercare' period?

- How is a persona defined across different audiences? What is the unique identifier for audiences across various source systems?

- What is the current historical volume of contacts?

- How is consent management currently handled?

- Events Management - What does that look like? Could you please walk us through that?

- To support building out a price for TAFE QLD, can you share your Monthly Active Users?

- What use cases/ user journeys do you have in mind ?

- How do you build audiences currently? Which team performs this task?

- We understand that you want to reduce your tech stack complexity. Please provide a diagram of your current tech stack. Do you have an ideal future state view?

- Please describe your middleware integrations, so that we can describe how we integrate. A diagram might be easiest.

Answered on 26/Jun/2025 12:17 PM:


- Could you provide specific, real-world examples of the most complex or challenging segmentation scenarios you foresee for "hyper-personalised content" or "highly complex, multi-level workflows" for your diverse audiences.

At this stage we will not be providing high level details for any specific use cases. Currently, our most complex workflow is our general contact us form and course enquiry form on the website as our system has been used for enquiry routing across the business.



- Considering your in-house marketing automation team has no developer resourcing, what are the most frequent or complex technical tasks (e.g., API setup for new integrations, advanced reporting customisation) that currently require developer involvement and must be fully manageable by non-technical users

This was mentioned in the specifications as we expect a platform where our day-to-day operations and platform administration can be handled in-house.

We will require assistance with initial API integrations and a specialist to configure the sync between the CRM and the successful platform.

Depending on the platform, we may require developer assistance for the creation/coding of email and landing page templates.



- Would a presentation be admissible in the submission?

Response can be completed in Marketing Automation Platform - TQ Invitation to Offer or any of the other attachments provided.

If using another document or form clearly state what it covers and reference the document in the original format.

Opportunity for a live presentation will be offered to short listed applicants.



- How much elaboration on the strategy to accomplish the items mentioned in Attachment_1-Marketing_Automation_Platform-Specifications.pdf (SECTION 3.2) is required? To what level of detail?

We acknowledge that full implementation details cannot be done without full scoping so the level of details submitted is at the supplier's discretion. TAFE Queensland would expect enough detail to have an understanding on the vendors approach to implementation and would encourage the inclusion of estimated timeline, milestones and price for an implementation project.

Full system implementation must be done by 1 May 2026.



- Can you elaborate on what integrations are required with B2C Dynamics 365 CRM.

We are wanting a real-time two-way sync between the marketing automation platform and our main B2C CRM instance as a priority, and then to explore the possibilities to connect into our secondary B2B and B2E instances. Ideally this would be a native sync to the B2C CRM.



- Can you share details on role of Esendex and what it is been used for?

Esendex is a text message system connected to Marketo via an API. It's used for targeted campaign text messages and by regions for the likes of events.



- Apart from landing pages and emails, are there other channels that needs to be considered for communication

Open to other channels and we are also open to another solution for SMS and WhatsApp.



- Is there any specific duration you are looking for 'Hypercare' period?

There is not a specific duration, whatever is required post go-live to ensure long-term operational success.



- How is a persona defined across different audiences? What is the unique identifier for audiences across various source systems?

Personas for TAFE Queensland are complex and are built from a many factors such as demographics, behaviours, motivations, goals, and pain points.

In the current state email is the common identifier, noting the limited integration between systems currently."



- What is the current historical volume of contacts?

We maintain a lead database of 600,000 people.



- How is consent management currently handled?

We do not currently have a preference centre, but it would be a desirable functionality (as per specs document). We currently manage basic consent in our incumbent system.



- Events Management - What does that look like? Could you please walk us through that?

Depending on the requirements of the event, we use a mix of Marketo (not used for ticketing/paid events), EventBrite and EventsAir and others across the organisation. We use Marketo for event invitations, registrations, reminders, and lead nurture activity post event.



- To support building out a price for TAFE QLD, can you share your Monthly Active Users?

If you are referring to active leads, our incumbent system (Marketo Engage) is not priced on monthly activity and based on our total lead database of 600,000 leads. We have peak and off-peak periods throughout the year therefore at this stage it is difficult to determine monthly quotas.

If you are referring to active users with access to the system, again this is hard to determine on a monthly basis but we have outlined how many user currently have access in the specs document, and most of these are active.



- What use cases/ user journeys do you have in mind ?

At this stage we will not be providing any specific use cases.

Please see specs document for the background and more information about our key audiences and challenges.



- How do you build audiences currently? Which team performs this task?

State-wide audiences are built by the Automation team. Any audiences required for regional marketing teams are built by regional staff.



- We understand that you want to reduce your tech stack complexity. Please provide a diagram of your current tech stack. Do you have an ideal future state view?

TAFE Queensland has no requirement to reduce our tech stack. We are always open to optimising our current systems to ensure we get the most out of them.

We do not have an ideal future state view, we are able to supply a current basic systems architecture (see attached).



- Please describe your middleware integrations, so that we can describe how we integrate. A diagram might be easiest.

We currently rely on KingswaySoft as our middleware to our data warehouse. At present this connection is basic and is used to provide our current system with details on current students. It also exports Marketo data to our B2C CRM for enquiries and applications. Currently, data does not flow from B2C CRM via KingswaySoft to Marketo.