Bulletin
September 04, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and SBC Administrators:
The Server Based Computing Services (SBCS) team of the California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled an upgrade to the Citrix NetScaler firmware. This upgrade will occur on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, beginning at 6:00 PM and concluding at 11:59 PM. During the upgrade window, users may be kicked out of, or unable to log in to, Citrix SBC.
This activity will not impact those connecting to the CWS/CMS application via direct access or through other remote access, such as Virtual Privat Network (VPN).
Action Required
If users experience any issues with CWS/CMS, please follow your county process for reporting issues or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.
August 13, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and SBC Administrators:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance on Saturday, August 30, 2025, beginning at 6:00 AM and concluding at 10:00 AM. During the maintenance window, CDT will apply Standard Monthly OS Security Patches to SBCS Infrastructure Servers. There is no anticipated outage for this maintenance; however, CDT is asking that everyone log off from the Citrix SBC system, if not actively using it during the maintenance window.
Action Required
If users experience any issues with CWS/CMS, please follow your county process for reporting issues or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.
July 14, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and SBC Administrators:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance on Saturday, July 26, 2025, beginning at 6:00 AM and concluding at 10:00 AM. During the maintenance window, CDT will apply Standard Monthly OS Security Patches to SBCS Infrastructure Servers. There is no anticipated outage for this maintenance; however, CDT is asking that everyone log off from the Citrix SBC system, if not actively using it during the maintenance window.
Action Required
If users experience any issues with CWS/CMS, please follow your county process for reporting issues or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.
July 14, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and SBC Administrators:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance on Saturday, July 26, 2025, beginning at 6:00 AM and concluding at 10:00 AM. During the maintenance window, CDT will apply Standard Monthly OS Security Patches to SBCS Infrastructure Servers. There is no anticipated outage for this maintenance; however, CDT is asking that everyone log off from the Citrix SBC system, if not actively using it during the maintenance window.
Action Required
If users experience any issues with CWS/CMS, please follow your county process for reporting issues or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.
July 09, 2025
Communications
ALL SPOCs, Technical Contacts and CAD Contacts:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance of the SAFE Cloud service. The maintenance begins on Saturday, July 20, 2025, at 8:00 PM and concludes on Sunday, July 21, 2025, at 2:00 AM. The activity will cause interruptions in the SAFE Cloud service. Some Business Objects (BO) reports will fail to send, or automated scripts may fail to retrieve from SAFE during this scheduled maintenance.
Action Required
All users should logoff of the SAFE Cloud service prior to the start of the stated maintenance timeframe. Please check on your scheduled BO SAFE reports and automated FTP scripts. If needed, re-run the reports and scripts.
Contact the IBM Help Desk (800-428-8268) to report any issues with your Business Objects content in SAFE.
June 20, 2025
Communications
CARES SPOCs, Implementation Coordinators, County Leadership, Tribal Leadership, Probation Leadership, State Leadership, and OCM Coordinators:
We are pleased to share the CARES Explorer – June 2025 issue, the newsletter for staying up to date on the CWS-CARES project.
This communication is sent directly to our key stakeholders for project communications: County, Tribe, Probation, and State leadership, CARES Single Point of Contacts (SPOCs), and Organization Implementation Coordinators.
The June 2025 issue contains information on:
Project Updates: Learn about the Child Welfare Systems Branch and new changes to Letters and Notices at CDSS. Get a sneak peak of our upcoming Stakeholder Briefing Webinar on June 25, 2025. You’ll also find information on a new resource: the CWS-CARES Progress and Engagement Summary.
CWS-CARES: This issue highlights how the Project partners with Tribes with Title IV-E agreements with CDSS to shape CWS-CARES. It also includes a summary of our findings and highlights from our recent Extended User Scenario Testing (EUST) 2 period, and an overview of the feedback received on the interface between CWS-CARES and CalSAWS. We share an overview of the Court Hearing Framework, which details some new features that will be included in CWS-CARES. In this issue, you will learn about how the Project is helping to make State and County Forms work more efficient, and the upcoming training available for Forms Authors. We also share more information on the collaborative Decommissioning Planning effort by Counties and the Project and announce a new meeting series dedicated to External Systems.
Implementation: Discover how Sacramento County has created an intranet site, complete with project resources, flyers, and videos, to build enthusiasm for CWS-CARES. Learn more about the recent Intake Process Information Sessions and changes to Intake from CWS/CMS to CWS-CARES. We are excited to share the selection of the Pilot Counties and Alternates, as well as an update on the Sandbox Environment. You will also find information on the CWS-CARES Super User program, including the dates of upcoming Orientation sessions in each region.
We recommend that you share this newsletter at your discretion with staff that are impacted by the changes coming with CWS-CARES.
The CARES Explorer – June 2025 issue is now available here: The CARES Explorer Vol 2, Issue 2
You may also obtain all CARES Explorer issues on the CWDS website: CARES Compass/Explorer | Child Welfare Digital Services
If you have any questions, need clarification, or have any accessibility issues, please do not hesitate to contact Customer Relations at CWS_CustRel@osi.ca.gov.
Action Required
We request that all CARES Single Point of Contacts (SPOCs) and Implementation Coordinators coordinate and distribute the CARES Explorer Newsletter to all staff impacted by CWS-CARES at their discretion.
June 19, 2025
Customer Relations
What is Impacted: CWS/CMS Application
On Friday, June 27, 2025, from 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM, the CDE Interface will run to update Education Provider information for public schools, private schools, and school districts in the CWS/CMS application. This update applies to CDE school information only. School information manually created by a CWS/CMS user will not be affected. During this time, users may be unable to perform Education Provider searches in the CWS/CMS application.
Due to differences in data and formatting between CDE and the CWS/CMS application, some otherwise valid Education Providers may be end-dated. If this occurs, please refer to the Work Around section below. A list of all end-dated Education Providers will be sent to the SPOCs via email as soon as they become available.
Additional Notes:
Code Table Refresh is not required.
Work Around
If an existing CDE Education Provider has been end-dated because of this process, users will need to conduct a search for the current Education Provider and create a new Education Notebook for the client.
Contact
CWDS Customer Relations
June 12, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and SBC Administrators:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance on Saturday, June 28, 2025, beginning at 6:00 AM and concluding at 10:00 AM. During the maintenance window, CDT will apply Standard Monthly OS Security Patches to SBCS Infrastructure Servers. There is no anticipated outage for this maintenance; however, CDT is asking that everyone log off from the Citrix SBC system, if not actively using it during the maintenance window.
Action Required
If users experience any issues with CWS/CMS, please follow your county process for reporting issues or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.
February 18, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs and Technical Contacts in Mariposa County:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, February 19, 2025, beginning at 12:01 AM and concluding at 6:00 AM. Users at the listed site will experience a one-hour interruption in connectivity to CWS/CMS and CARES-Live within the scheduled Verizon maintenance window.
Remote access (e.g., Server Based Computing [SBC]) to the CWS/CMS application will not be impacted by this scheduled maintenance.
Action Required
CWS/CMS Users
If users experience any issues with CWS/CMS, please follow your county process for reporting issues, or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.
CARES-Live Users
Please follow your county process for reporting issues. CARES-Live County Administrators may contact the CARES Service Desk through the CWDS ServiceNow Customer Support Management (CSM) Portal. Alternate methods are phoning 1-855-292-3444 or via email at Servicedesk@cwds.ca.gov during normal business hours. You may also email after hours, and a Service Desk representative will contact you the next business day.
January 17, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and SBC Administrators:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance on Saturday, January 25, 2025, beginning at 6:00 AM and concluding at 10:00 AM. During the maintenance window, CDT will apply Standard Monthly OS Security Patches to SBCS Infrastructure Servers. There is no anticipated outage for this maintenance; however, CDT is asking that everyone log off from the Citrix SBC system, if not actively using it during the maintenance window.
Action Required
If users experience any issues with CWS/CMS, please follow your county process for reporting issues or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.
