Primary source, read plainly
RFI 36C10D26Q0163: the Digital GI Bill modernization market survey
On July 16, 2026, the Veterans Benefits Administration asked industry how to finish building the Digital GI Bill, move it off its managed-service vendor onto VA-owned infrastructure, and push claims automation past its current ~60%. It is a Request for Information — market research, not a solicitation — and the answers will shape the Performance Work Statement of whatever comes next. Responses close August 28, 2026, 5:00 p.m. Eastern.
1. The identifiers and the dates
| Notice | Sources Sought / Request for Information |
|---|---|
| Solicitation number | 36C10D26Q0163 |
| Issuing office | Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Benefits Administration, Acquisition Directorate, 1800 G Street NW, Washington DC |
| Posted | July 16, 2026 |
| Responses due | August 28, 2026, 5:00 p.m. ET, by email only |
| Contracting officer | Stephen Winkler (stephen.winkler@va.gov) |
| NAICS / PSC | 541512 (Computer Systems Design Services) / R499 |
| Set-aside | None stated; the response form asks SDVOSB/VOSB claimants to confirm VetBiz registration |
| Response format | 25 pages maximum, Arial 12, Word format; no pricing, no proposals |
| Record | SAM.gov notice eb77c56b… — one public attachment, the RFI document itself |
2. What is being explored
The RFI names the mission in one sentence of scale: the Digital GI Bill program administers education benefits under Chapters 30, 33, 35, and 1606 of Title 38, processing “more than $12 billion in education benefits each year.” VBA says it is exploring five capability areas, plus a platform-wide migration:
- VA cloud migration — move every DGIB component off the Managed Service Vendor onto VA-owned/managed infrastructure, keeping a valid Authority to Operate throughout.
- Workload Manager — take the modern examiner work-assignment system past MVP so the legacy TIMS queue tool can be decommissioned.
- Approval Manager — same, for school/program approval, replacing both WEAMS and eForce, with fraud-waste-abuse risk detection added.
- Data Mart Analytics Platform (DMAP) — mature the analytics layer behind all DGIB reporting.
- Claims processing consolidation and automation advancement — merge the Chapter 33 processing system and Benefits Manager into one platform, and keep raising the end-to-end automation rate as law and policy shift. A companion item asks for human-centered design work on the manual examiner experience.
3. The numbers the government put on the record
For a market-research notice, the RFI is unusually specific — these figures are the spine of the simulator:
- Overall automation rate ≈60% across all benefit chapters.
- Automated claims resolve in ≈1 day; manually adjudicated claims take 9.5–18.7 days depending on chapter.
- Automation quality rate 95%+.
- Platform inventory: 700+ repositories, 50+ databases (Oracle 19C, PostgreSQL 14, Redshift, DynamoDB), 76 EC2 instances, 590+ compiled artifacts, 30+ S3 buckets, 90+ licenses, active ATO in vendor-managed AWS GovCloud.
4. The questions VA is actually worried about
Read the government's questions and you can see the risk register. Nearly every substantive question is about transition, not features:
- How do you keep a continuous ATO through a large-scale cloud migration, and how long does reauthorization realistically take?
- What is a realistic transition-in/transition-out period for a platform of 700+ repositories, and which government actions are prerequisites?
- Which techniques — dual-run architectures, phased cutover, traffic shadowing — reduce cutover risk, and what is the minimum acceptable parallel-run period for a system “processing $12B+ in benefits annually with zero downtime tolerance”?
- What “Definition of Done” criteria should hold before a migration of this scale even starts?
- Is base + 4 options the right contract shape, or should O&M and development be separate task orders?
“The Government aims to transform the DGIB ecosystem into a secure, scalable, cloud-based enterprise platform… eliminate single vendor lock-in solutions… and reduce costs to the American taxpayer.”
5. What the public record does not contain
- No absolute claim volumes. Rates and times are stated; weekly or annual claim counts are not. (This is why the simulator runs in normalized units.)
- No incumbent named. The current Managed Service Vendor is referenced only by role.
- No dollar value, no timeline for any future solicitation — the RFI is explicit that an RFP/RFQ may never issue.
- No chapter mix — the 9.5–18.7-day manual range is bounded per chapter, but the share of claims per chapter is not published here.
6. Why this page exists
GIBillClock is an independent public model of the claims pipeline this RFI describes: the automation/offramp/manual-queue arithmetic, Monte Carlo replicated, with an interactive public simulator and a parameter ledger in which every entry carries its source and a reliability grade. It was built without government funding, from the public record only — and we are not competing for this contract. That independence is exactly what makes it useful to the firms that are: the engine, the 210-scenario grid, and the graded ledger are available to license for RFI/RFP responses, orals graphics, and internal transition planning, and we take custom scenario-run engagements.
To be unambiguous: nothing here suggests VA benefits are at risk, and nothing here is based on non-public information. An RFI is market research; responding or not responding carries no competitive effect on any future procurement, and this site makes no claim about any individual's benefits.
Sources
- RFI 36C10D26Q0163, “Digital GI Bill and Education Services Automation & Modernization,” VA/VBA, July 16, 2026 — SAM.gov record (attachment 36C10D26Q0163.docx). All quotations above are from this document.