Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What forms can the two systems CalSAWS and CWS-CARES share?
A: CalSAWS and CWS-CARES can share documents. From CWS-CARES, an Eligibility Resource can upload any document to the Eligibility Record, so long as they're following county business practices, and it will be shared with CalSAWS. Forms that can be shared between CalSAWS and CWS-CARES includes all the regular forms related to Foster Care, ARC, Kin-GAP, AAP and foster care-related Medi-Cal. It also includes forms like birth certificates, affidavits, etc, as well as county forms.
Additionally, there are documents from CWS-CARES and the Focus Child's person record that are automatically pulled from the Eligibility Record such as birth certificates, court orders, regional center rate letters, placement agreements, etc. From CalSAWS, case-level documents are shared to CWS-CARES. If documents such as these mentioned are uploaded to the Eligibility Record in CWS-CARES or to the Case in CalSAWS, they will be shared in that way with the other system.
Q: What is the process to deactivate a user? Can it be done by the user themselves, or another party at the CBO, or can it only be done by a Child Welfare staff member with a CWS-CARES administrator login? What permissions does a CWS-CARES worker need to be able to add individuals to the provider portal? Will reports on logins/utilization by individuals be available, so counties can monitor users?
A: Regarding deactivation of a user in CWS-CARES, the CBO Portal Administrator will control activation and deactivation for their organization. To add and remove users, A CBO Portal Administrator permission their specific organization is required. The Project did not build native reports on data aspects such as logins and utilization by individual in CWS-CARES V1, but the data will exist within each organization’s portal and for the county Prevention Services Supervisor. County Prevention Services Supervisors will be able to monitor this data in CWS-CARES and could possibly have their own county Super Users build their own reports.
Q: Will the reports available in CWS-CARES be able to replace some or all of the reports in Safe Measures?
A: CWS-CARES reports will not replace all SafeMeasures reports. SafeMeasures will continue to provide a defined set of reports that users will have access to after the implementation and Go-live of CWS-CARES V1.
As part of the CWS-CARES reporting scope decisions, certain reports originally planned for CWS-CARES were intentionally descoped and moved to SafeMeasures. Other reports were developed and delivered within CWS-CARES. Please review the Reports Available in CWS-CARES V1 - 08.28.26 spreadsheet to see what reports are currently scheduled to be available in CWS-CARES Version 1. This list is point-in-time and may change when finalized.
Therefore, CWS-CARES and SafeMeasures will both support reporting needs following implementation. SafeMeasures will continue to produce the identified reports for as long as they are needed.
Q: Is there a specific Plan called the Family Accomplishment and Support Plan? This is not currently a term we use, although we do have a CFT Plan. Are these names of documents interchangeable or something different altogether? The closure CFT Plan does capture the family's support plan and accomplishments.
A: Yes, the Family Accomplishment and Support Plan is a plan that can be utilized to document the closing Child and Family Team meeting. It is optional and was designed to highlight important child and family accomplishments during their case while also documenting their plan for continued support after their case closes.
Q: For contacts that remain in "draft" status, will outcome/compliance reports indicate that the Social Worker (SW) is not in compliance, and the contact needs to be in "final" status that the SW saw the child?
A: Yes, outcome and compliance reports would indicate that a social worker (SW) is out of compliance if kept in "draft", the contact would need to be in "final" status in order for it to count toward compliance. A contact that remains in Draft status would generally be considered incomplete and would not demonstrate that the required contact with the child was completed/documented.
Q: Is the Project providing any Weekend support for Go-Live? Are the Regional Go-Live office hours for live assistance at the User level or the County Level?
A: Yes, the CWDS Help Desk will provide 24/7 coverage for organizations post Go‑Live. If Santa Clara requires in‑person weekend support, that request should be included in their Go‑Live Support Plan so the Project can assess staffing availability and determine whether on‑site weekend coverage can be accommodated.
Regional Go‑Live Office Hours are designed for direct user-level assistance but organized at the regional grouping level. Counties may send any number of users, super users, or local support staff to attend; sessions are facilitated by Project teams and provide real‑time help with navigation, issue identification, and questions during Go‑Live.
Q: After CWS-CARES Version 1 Go-Live, will Organizations still need to provide Object IDs to the Project, or can the county admins just update them in Okta?
A: After the CWS-CARES Version 1 Go-Live, county administrators will be onboarding users in CWS-CARES and they will add Object ID in user profile in CWS-CARES Okta.
Q: Once a user is deactivated in CWS-CARES, do they need a new Object ID when they are reactivated?
A: When the user is deactivated, the user profile (username, email address, first name, last name, Object ID) does not change, the profile attributes remain intact. When the user is reactivated the same user profile attributes are used.
Q: Can we use an Azure group or business-to-business setup to manage access more efficiently?
A: There is already an Azure group on the county-side that manages CWS-CARES access.
Q: What is the long-term solution for the Azure Object ID requirement?
A: The Object ID is a mandatory attribute and will be needed until we build an automated way to sync. The system also supports another flow, called Just in Time (JIT), for obtaining the object ID automatically during SSO, if the following conditions are true:
- This is a new user and does not exist in the CWS-CARES system
- The user is already added to Azure security group on the county (integrated county) side
- County administrator requests the user to login to CWS-CARES