Maintenance

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, December 20, 2025, at 8:00 PM and concludes on Sunday, December 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.

All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:

IBM has completed testing of Windows 11 24H2 with the CWS/CMS application. They discovered no issues and are now supporting this version of Windows. The officially supported versions of Windows are now:

• Windows 11 24H2 (supported through October 12, 2027)
• Windows 11 23H2 (supported through November 10, 2026)

IBM is updating the CWS/CMS image with the latest patches which will be distributed soon for Dedicated Counties that request it. Dedicated Counties may request the image by submitting an IBM Help Desk ticket at 800-428-8268.

Action Required

Counties need to update all of their CWS/CMS workstations to a supported version.

All CARES-Live and CARES-RFA County Administrators:

REMINDER: The CWDS CSM Portal hosted by ServiceNow will be migrating to a secure FedRAMP-compliant data center. As a result of this migration, the CWDS CSM Portal URL will change. This migration will specifically affect the CARES-Live and CARES-RFA administrators who currently use the portal. After the migration, administrators should continue to submit tickets for CARES-Live and CARES-RFA at the new URL.

What FedRAMP compliance means:

FedRAMP is a U.S. government security standard that ensures cloud services meet strict controls for protecting data, access, logging, encryption, and incident response.

Why this matters:

This migration enhances the portal’s security and reliability, reduces the risk of unauthorized access or data loss, and aligns the service with federal standards for handling sensitive information.

Migration Details:

• Date: December 10, 2025
• Time: 12/10/25 6:00PM to 12/11/25 8:00AM
• Downtime: The CWDS CSM Portal will not be accessible during the migration window.

After the migration, the current URL, https://cwds.service-now.com/csm, will redirect users to the new portal location until January 10, 2026. Please note that the current CWDS CSM Portal URL will be completely decommissioned on January 11, 2026.

New URL:  https://cwds.servicenowservices.com/csm

Action Required

Please update all URL bookmarks or references to the new link after the migration date above.

If users experience any issues with the CWDS CSM Portal URL after the migration window, please contact the CARES Service Desk through the CWDS ServiceNow Customer Support Management (CSM) Portal (if able to log in). 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.

All Pilot County RFA Implementation Coordinators and SPOCs:

The CWS-CARES team has scheduled maintenance activity for the CWS-CARES production environment for Wednesday, November 19, 2025, beginning at 5:00 PM and concluding at 7:00 PM. During the maintenance window, the CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process will be accessible for pilot counties Fresno, Placer, and Santa Clara.

There will be no outage.
 

Action Required

No action required from end-users during this maintenance window.

If users experience any issues with the CWS-CARES, please follow your county process for reporting issues. CWS-CARES 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.

All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:

The CARES-Live team has scheduled maintenance for the CARES-Live application. The maintenance is scheduled for Thursday, November 20, 2025, from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. During this scheduled maintenance the CARES-Live team will focus on application maintenance changes that are not visible to CARES-Live users.

NOTE: Users will not be able to access the CARES-Live application during the scheduled outage.

Action Required

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.

All CARES-Live and CARES-RFA County Administrators:

The CWDS CSM Portal hosted by ServiceNow will be migrating to a secure FedRAMP-compliant data center. As a result of this migration, the CWDS CSM Portal URL will change. This migration will specifically affect the CARES-Live and CARES-RFA administrators who currently use the portal. After the migration, administrators should continue to submit tickets for CARES-Live and CARES-RFA at the new URL.

What FedRAMP compliance means:

FedRAMP is a U.S. government security standard that ensures cloud services meet strict controls for protecting data, access, logging, encryption, and incident response.

Why this matters:

This migration enhances the portal’s security and reliability, reduces the risk of unauthorized access or data loss, and aligns the service with federal standards for handling sensitive information.

Migration Details:

• Date: December 10, 2025
• Time: 12/10/25 6:00PM to 12/11/25 8:00AM
• Downtime: The CWDS CSM Portal will not be accessible during the migration window.

After the migration, the current URL, https://cwds.service-now.com/csm, will redirect users to the new portal location until January 10, 2026. Please note that the current CWDS CSM Portal URL will be completely decommissioned on January 11, 2026. 

New URL:
https://cwds.servicenowservices.com/csm

Action Required

Please update all URL bookmarks or references to the new link after the migration date above.

If users experience any issues with the CWDS CSM Portal URL after the migration window, please contact the CARES Service Desk through the CWDS ServiceNow Customer Support Management (CSM) Portal (if able to log in). 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.

All Pilot County RFA Implementation Coordinators and SPOCs:

The CWS-CARES team has scheduled maintenance activity for the CWS-CARES production environment for Wednesday, November 12, 2025, beginning at 5:00 PM and concluding at 9:00 PM. During the maintenance window, the CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process will be accessible for pilot counties Fresno, Placer, and Santa Clara.

During the maintenance window, document related functionality in the CARES application will not be accessible.

Action Required

No action required from end-users during this maintenance window.

If users experience any issues with the CWS-CARES, please follow your county process for reporting issues. CWS-CARES 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.

All Pilot County RFA Implementation Coordinators and SPOCs:

The CWS-CARES team has scheduled maintenance activity for the CWS-CARES production environment for Thursday, October 30, 2025, beginning at 5:00 PM and concluding at 8:00 PM. During the maintenance window, the CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process will be accessible for pilot counties Fresno, Placer, and Santa Clara.

There is no anticipated impact for CWS-CARES users. We are sharing this information in the unlikely circumstance that there is an actual impact during the scheduled maintenance window and the CWS-CARES application becomes inaccessible.

Action Required

No action required from end-users during this maintenance window.

If users experience any issues with the CWS-CARES, please follow your county process for reporting issues. CWS-CARES 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.

All Pilot County RFA Implementation Coordinators and SPOCs:

The CWS-CARES team has scheduled maintenance activity for the CWS-CARES production environment for Friday, October 31, 2025, beginning at 6:00 AM and concluding at 8:00 AM. During the maintenance window, the CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process will be accessible for pilot counties Fresno, Placer, and Santa Clara.

During the maintenance window, document related functionality in the CARES application will not be accessible.

Action Required

No action required from end-users during this maintenance window.

If users experience any issues with the CWS-CARES, please follow your county process for reporting issues. CWS-CARES 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.

All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:

The CARES-Live team has scheduled maintenance for the CARES-Live application. The maintenance is scheduled for Thursday, October 23, 2025, from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. During this scheduled maintenance the CARES-Live team will focus on application maintenance changes that are not visible to CARES-Live users.

NOTE: Users will not be able to access the CARES-Live application during the scheduled outage.

Action Required

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.