July 23, 2025
Customer Relations
The mandatory Release 9.6 will be implemented on Saturday, August 16, 2025.
Coexistent county CWSCMS.MSI file availability:
The CWSCMS.MSI file will be available by Friday, August 8, 2025, for technical staff to begin testing the installation of the release. The code will be located on the CWSDFSr share in the following location:
Perform any necessary testing, but do not install countywide before August 16, 2025. The new release will not work with the database until then.
Dedicated County CWSCMS.MSI file delivery:
By Friday, August 8, 2025, dedicated county users should start seeing the CWSCMS.MSI file copied to their workstations during Windows logon. Technical staff can verify that they have received the file by checking for its presence in the C:\CACW\R96 folder. This file must exist on the workstation for the installation of Release R9.6 to take place on or after August 16, 2025.
Release 9.6 documents are located on the CWDS website. More documents will be added as the release go-live date approaches.
July 17, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs:
July 17, 2025 Update: The CWDS Office is having technical difficulties with adding the AD 512 NMD form to the CWS/CMS application. Currently, the existing version of the form has been deactivated and is inaccessible for all counties. Another notice will be sent out as soon as the issue has been resolved and the form is accessible in CWS/CMS.
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The following CWS/CMS Statewide Template will be updated to its latest version on Thursday, July 17, 2025. This form can be found under the CDSS radio button when generating a form.
CDSS Forms
- AD5112 NMD (version 12/24): Psychosocial and Medical History of Non-Minor Dependent
Action Required
No action is required. If you have any questions regarding this form, please contact OSI CWDS Application Support.
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.
July 07, 2025
Communications
California Department of Education - Updated Providers List
All SPOCs and Technical Contacts
On Friday, June 27, 2025, the list of Education Providers in the CWS/CMS application was updated with data obtained from the California Department of Education (CDE). During this update, several Education Providers in the application were end dated. This occurs whenever an existing CWS/CMS Education Provider no longer shows up as an active Education Provider in the data obtained from CDE.
This information is being provided to assist counties with determining if any data corrections are needed.
Please contact CDE with any questions regarding the list:
Email: cdsadmin@cde.ca.gov
Phone: 916-327-4014
Action Required
Review the attached list of closed Education Providers; if the county determines a data correction may be needed, contact the CDE.
June 24, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, CWS Directors, and Probation Chiefs:
In order to support the technical solution for the CARES V1 Pilot, CARES V1 migration, data conversion, cutover, and transition efforts for CWS-CARES, the CWDS Executive Leadership Team (ELT) has decided the following release criteria and cadence for CWS/CMS:
Release 9.0 (VB6 to C# Migration)
- The ELT approved an indefinite pause on the full production implementation of the C# version of the CWS/CMS application.
- Release 9.6 will be the final version that will be retrofitted and tested within the C# code base.
- CWS/CMS production releases will continue to be deployed in the VB6 codebase for Releases 9.6, 9.7 and 9.8.
Release 9.6
To support the CARES Pilot readiness activities, the CWDS ELT decided to postpone the CWS/CMS Release 9.6 by three months, originally scheduled for Saturday, May 17, 2025.
- The goal of this release is, Improved CWS/CMS Data Quality in Preparation for Import to CARES, Phase 3.
- Development and VB6 code base testing have been completed successfully.
- C# code base County Test Workshop (CTW) is scheduled between June 23rd and June 27, 2025
- The new CWS/CMS Release 9.6 Go-Live date is August 16, 2025.
Release 9.7 (CARES V1 Pilot Technical Solution)
The CWDS ELT has decided to dedicate the CWS/CMS Release 9.7 to the development of the CARES production pilot technical solution.
- SCR 9032 – CARES Production Pilot Technical Solution
- Release 9.7 is tentatively scheduled to Go-Live in December 2025.
Release 9.8 (Projected final CWS/CMS Release)
The primary goal of this release is to develop a technical solution that places CWS/CMS in read-only state during the CARES V1 stabilization period. The code will be developed, tested, and activated when needed.
- SCR 9003 – Place the CWS/CMS in a Read-only State
- Release 9.8 will be finalized and ready for deployment ahead of the CARES Statewide Go-Live.
Please note: System Change Requests (SCRs) for improvements will no longer be implemented with CWS/CMS and will roll over as considerations for CARES development and functionality, if applicable.
Interim Releases will continue during the freeze period to address bug fixes and forms template changes, for example. The frequency will be variable, as required, or on an as needed basis.
Action Required
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Customer Relations.
No action is required.
June 24, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) will perform an upgrade to the CWS/CMS and CARES-Live production databases during the Preventative Maintenance (PM) window on Saturday, September 6, 2025. The PM window begins at 6:00 AM and ends at 9:00 AM. Both the CWS/CMS production application and the CARES-Live production application will be unavailable to all (direct access or remote access) during this maintenance window.
CWS-CARES RFA will not be impacted by this upgrade.
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: If users experience any issues with CARES-Live, 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.
June 23, 2025
Communications
All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
The CWDS Infrastructure team and IBM will be upgrading all of the CWS/CMS gateway servers throughout the state from Windows 2016 to Windows 2019. Due to the redundancy within the network, there is no anticipated impact or performance issue for the CWS/CMS user. This upgrade needs to occur on the gateway servers before Windows 2016 goes out of support by Microsoft in January 2027.
To minimize any potential impacts, only one gateway server will be upgraded at a time. Also, gaps have been scheduled between the upgrades to allow time to analyze the impact to the remaining servers within the system. All upgrades will be performed outside of normal business hours.
The upgrades will be performed through four separate phases. For the first phase, one Co-Existent County gateway server will be upgraded on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, the second gateway server on Thursday, June 26, 2025, and the third gateway server on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. The first Dedicated County gateway server will be upgraded on Thursday, July 3, 2025.
There will be a gap in the upgrade schedule to allow the Infrastructure team and IBM to review the impact of the first phase of upgrades. The remaining gateway servers will be upgraded in three more phases, currently planned for September, October, and November 2025.
Communications for the three remaining phases will be sent prior to the upgrades.
Action Required
No action needed. 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.
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
