Update

CWS/CMS Infected and Unsupported File Extension File Cleanup – UPDATE

June 14, 2024 Communications
CWS Directors, SPOCs and Technical Contacts in Affected Counties:  
June 14, 2024 UPDATE:  In order to allow counties additional time to submit their responses on whether a County wants to request the transfer of CWS/CMS quarantined unsupported/infected files from CDSS to County stewardship, an extension of the previous deadline has been extended to July 31, 2024. Please submit your transfer request and provide the needed contact information by this new due date.
________________________________________________________________________________________
June 5, 2024 UPDATE: This is a reminder, if a County wants to request the transfer of CWS/CMS quarantined unsupported/infected files from CDSS to County stewardship and have not yet done so, to please complete the steps listed below. Please submit your transfer request and provide the needed contact information by 5:00 PM on Friday, June 14, 2024.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
April 16, 2024 UPDATE: Upon further discussion with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), we discovered that the March 15, 2024, communication (see below) included some inaccurate information. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will be signed by CDSS before sending it to the County for their signature. As a reminder, the MOU is needed to allow for the transfer of the infected/unsupported documents/files from CDSS to County stewardship.
The updated steps for a County to request the transfer of CWS/CMS quarantined unsupported/infected files from CDSS to County stewardship are:
  1. County signifies that they want to receive a copy of the unsupported/infected documents/files by sending an email to the CWDS Customer Relations mailbox (CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov).
  2. County provides the Point of Contact within the County to receive the media with the unsupported/infected documents/files, with the following contact information:
    1. Name
    2. Role
    3. Address
    4. Phone Number
    5. Email Address
  1. County provides the signatory to be listed on the MOU, with the following information:
    1. Name
    2. Title
    3. Address
    4. Phone Number
    5. Email Address
  1. CDSS will use the provided information to draft the MOU.
  2. CDSS will send the MOU (signed by CDSS) to the County.
  3. County signs the MOU and emails it to the CDSS Contracts and Procurement Services Branch.
  4. CDSS or its designee(s) will contact the County to make arrangement for the transfer of the requested files.
  5. CDSS or its designee(s) will copy the requested County files to an external storage medium mutually agreed upon by the Parties.
  6. CDSS or its designee(s) shall send the external storage medium to County using a secured overnight courier that, at a minimum, requires signature receipt confirmation.
  7. County will confirm receipt of the media and the files.
  8. Upon county confirmation of files being received, the State may delete the original quarantined files from the CWDS quarantined area after 90 Days. After the original quarantined files have been deleted, the CDSS will terminate the MOU.
Please NOTE: Counties that have already sent in their signed MOUs requesting release of the documents/files to the County will be contacted by CDSS with a new draft of the MOU (signed by CDSS) with a request for the County to sign the new MOU.
We apologize for any confusion caused by the previous communication.
____________________________________________________________________________
March 15, 2024 UPDATE:  CDSS acknowledges and appreciates your continued caution regarding the approvals for the deletion of the infected/unsupported documents/files in the Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS). In response to County requests for an opportunity to remediate the infected/unsupported documents/files removed from CWS/CMS and placed in quarantine, the CDSS has developed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to allow for the transfer of the infected/unsupported documents/files from CDSS to county stewardship.
Steps to request the transfer of CWS/CMS quarantined unsupported/infected files from CDSS to county stewardship:
  1. County submits the signed CDSS MOU requesting release of the files to the County. The MOU shall be signed by the County Director signature/approval. Please see the attached MOU.
  2. CDSS or its designee(s) will copy the requested County files to an external storage medium mutually agreed upon by the Parties.
  3. CDSS or its designee(s) shall send the external storage medium to County using a secured overnight courier that, at a minimum, requires signature receipt confirmation.
  4. County will confirm receipt of the media and the files.
  5. Upon county confirmation of files being received, the State may delete the original quarantined files from the CWDS quarantined area after 90 Days.
Please note, if additional infected/unsupported documents/files are identified in the future a County will need to submit -a new MOU to request transfer of those files.
If you are interested in requesting the transfer of files for your county, please send your signed MOU to CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov . Once received CWDS or its designee(s) will contact you to make arrangement for the transfer of the files requested. 
____________________________________________________________________________
February 8, 2024 UPDATE:  The California Department of Social Services (CDSS), the CWDS Project and IBM are still working on determining an approach for sharing with counties the documents that have been quarantined. This decision will take a little longer to complete than originally thought. The updated ETA for the decision is now March 15, 2024. An update will be shared out to everybody once the decision has been made.
In the meantime, the CWDS Office is still awaiting notification from the CWS Directors from a majority of the impacted Counties on your preference to delete or to keep quarantined the affected files. If you have not yet shared your preference, please do so by the extended deadline of February 29, 2024.
____________________________________________________________________________
December 26, 2023 UPDATE:  The California Department of Social Services (CDSS), the CWDS Project and IBM have decided that the safest option is to quarantine the identified infected and unsupported files in CWS/CMS. The files will not be deleted from CWS/CMS, but users will be prevented from opening the affected documents. The affected documents will be saved to a quarantined area of CWS/CMS on Saturday, January 6, 2024. If a CWS/CMS user attempts to open one of the quarantined documents, they will receive the following error message:

Please note that this DRMS 00122 error message is informational only and that the user will be able to continue to work in the CWS/CMS application after receiving the error message.
The CWDS Project and IBM are still looking to receive responses from the CWS Directors indicating their permission to permanently delete these files. Please contact CWDS Customer Relations (CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov) by January 31, 2024, with your decision whether to have IBM delete the files in a batch file deletion process.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
December 18, 2023 UPDATE:  In the attached letter the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) has provided updated guidance to Counties impacted by the CWS/CMS infected and unsupported file cleanup effort.
Please contact CWDS Customer Relations (CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov) with any questions related to this guidance.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
As part of planning for CWS-CARES V1, the CARES Data Conversion team has been performing incremental conversion from CWS/CMS data and documents into CWS-CARES. After the documents are extracted from CWS/CMS, they are scanned to ensure that no viruses are introduced into the CARES environment. During this process, it was discovered that, out of 73 million documents that are stored in the CWS/CMS database, approximately 2,400 documents are infected with a virus or malware. Of these 2,400 documents, 95% were last updated in 2001 or before. 
Further, there are an additional 2,600 files that have an unsupported file extension. 
Due to security concerns, these documents and files cannot be moved into the CWS-CARES application. 
Please NOTE: These infected documents are stored in binary large object (BLOB) format on the mainframe in the Db2 database. As a result, these documents do not affect CWS/CMS data on the mainframe.  However, if the document is opened, the virus can infect the user’s personal computer.   Please ensure that you have a current antivirus operating on your workstation.
If you are receiving this communication, it means that your county is impacted by this issue.  
For each affected County, we will send a report listing the infected files and unsupported file extension files, with additional details pertaining to that County.   The reports will be sent to affected counties after the Kick-off meetings.
Please provide a point of contact including IT Support and Security Officer as appropriate and their information (Name, Email, Role, etc.) for the person that should receive your County’s report no later than 11/8/23. The report will be sent via encrypted email to that person.
Please use this form to provide the point(s) of contact: https://forms.gle/2tXrqpkevqUryxk39
Once Customer Relations receives the point of contact person’s information, they will be invited to the Kick-off meetings scheduled for 11/14/23 and 11/16/23. The intent of those meetings will be to review next steps.  
Action Required
Please provide a point of contact and their information (Name, Email, etc.), using the link above, for the person that should receive your County’s report no later than 11/8/23.
Update, CWS/CMS

CWS/CMS: Business Intelligence County Access Data – Upgrade to CAD BOBJ 4.3

June 13, 2024 Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and CAD Contacts:
The Business Intelligence (BI) County Access Data (CAD) application will upgrade to version CAD BOBJ 4.3 on September 14, 2024. The BI team will provide a demo of the updated version on Thursday, August 8, from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM. You will receive a meeting invite from OSI-CWS-CAD@osi.ca.gov for the Thursday, August 8, 2024 demo soon.
 
The enhancements are primarily focused on visual differences, featuring a new User Interface. Our goal is to ensure that users can easily navigate through this updated version. To facilitate that goal, we will be offering a Sandbox version for a five-week period starting Friday, August 9, until Friday, September 13.

You will need a CAD ID to log onto the Sandbox environment. 

NOTE: Most CAD users already have CAD IDs, however if you do not:
  • Please contact one of your County CAD Contacts to request a CAD ID.
    • You can locate your County CAD list of contacts on the CWDS website.
Action Required
  • Accept the meeting invite from OSI-CWS-CAD@osi.ca.gov scheduled for Thursday, August 8, 2024 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.
  • Explore the new BI Interface from Friday, August 9, through Friday, September 13.
  • If you have issues, contact Chris Lovejoy at Chris.Lovejoy@osi.ca.gov
Update, Maintenance, CWS/CMS

CWS/CMS: CDT Service Desk Bulletin – SBCS Infrastructure Servers Security Patching

June 12, 2024 Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and SBC Administrators:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance on Saturday, June 29, 2024, 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.
Update, Maintenance, CWS/CMS, CDT

CWS-CARES Release 0.13 Production Release

June 12, 2024 Communications
All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:

Effective June 26, 2024, CWS-CARES Release 0.13 Production Release Is Planned to Move into Production
The CWS-CARES team has scheduled release activity that will interrupt connectivity to the CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process for pilot counties Contra Costa, Fresno, Placer, and Santa Clara. The release activity is planned to begin at 5:00 PM on June 26, 2024, and conclude at 11:00 PM. During this scheduled outage, users in pilot counties will not be able to access the CARES RFA application.
 
CWS-CARES Release 0.13:
The purpose of this release is to primarily deliver fixes for known issues, enhancements to behind-the-scenes functionality and security improvements to CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process.

CWDS is excited to share the new RFA features that are planned to be available following the implementation of CWS-CARES Release 0.13 on June 26, 2024, to the CARES-RFA Pilot County users. These new features are derived from user feedback as well as project planned enhancements.

As a resource to pilot counties, over the next few weeks, your organization can expect to receive information regarding a Webinar along with an updated Participant and Quick Reference Guide. These resources will provide the system users with details of the features/functionality that have been added since the last production release. 

RFA Application Process:
The RFA Application process is the Receipt, Record, Submission, and Assignment of an Application. The RFA Application process was selected as the first software build for CARES. CARES will ultimately replace the legacy Child Welfare System CWS/CMS. The RFA Application Process will operate in a totally new Production Environment without integrating with other legacy systems, such as the CWS/CMS and CARES-Live applications.

RFA Application Process Features:
  • Allows an applicant or County staff member to initiate an emergency or standard application to become a resource family home
  • Creates a facility profile that tracks required information to complete this process, including background check results, completion of orientation and training hours, physical home assessment, and family evaluation
  • Aggregates information into a report to recommend approval or disapproval of a resource family application
Action Required
RFA Pilot County users review new features in the CWS-CARES Production Environment after June 27, 2024.
All Release Notes, including information for this release once available, can be found here: RFA Application Process Release Notes and Interim Processes
Update, Announcement, Maintenance, Release, CWS-CARES

CWDS Website Update

June 06, 2024 Communications
All CARES SPOCs:
We are pleased to announce a CWS-CARES Stakeholder Briefings webpage will be available on the CWDS public website beginning June 12, 2024:

1.    The CWS-CARES Stakeholder Briefings page will be located under the ‘Stakeholder Resources’ dropdown to ‘Project Reporting’.

2.    Under the ‘Project Reporting’ header you will find the CWS-CARES Stakeholder Briefings link beginning June 12, 2024.

3.  On the CWS-CARES Stakeholder Briefings page, you will now be able to view dates, times, and information on how to register for upcoming stakeholder briefings. You will also be able to access recordings and materials from past stakeholder briefings. We are launching a new series of stakeholder briefings on June 26, 2024, and recordings and materials will be available by June 28, 2024, under ‘Past Stakeholder Briefings’.

The intent of these changes to the CWDS website is to build awareness on CWS-CARES project updates and promote user engagement. These changes will be implemented on June 12, 2024.
Action Required
No action required at this time.
Update, Announcement, CARES, CWS-CARES

CWS/CMS Infected and Unsupported File Extension File Cleanup – REMINDER

June 05, 2024 Communications
CWS Directors, SPOCs and Technical Contacts in Affected Counties:  
June 5, 2024 UPDATE: This is a reminder, if a County wants to request the transfer of CWS/CMS quarantined unsupported/infected files from CDSS to County stewardship and have not yet done so, to please complete the steps listed below. Please submit your transfer request and provide the needed contact information by 5:00 PM on Friday, June 14, 2024.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
April 16, 2024 UPDATE: Upon further discussion with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), we discovered that the March 15, 2024, communication (see below) included some inaccurate information. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will be signed by CDSS before sending it to the County for their signature. As a reminder, the MOU is needed to allow for the transfer of the infected/unsupported documents/files from CDSS to County stewardship.
The updated steps for a County to request the transfer of CWS/CMS quarantined unsupported/infected files from CDSS to County stewardship are:
  1. County signifies that they want to receive a copy of the unsupported/infected documents/files by sending an email to the CWDS Customer Relations mailbox (CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov).
  2. County provides the Point of Contact within the County to receive the media with the unsupported/infected documents/files, with the following contact information:
    1. Name
    2. Role
    3. Address
    4. Phone Number
    5. Email Address
  3. County provides the signatory to be listed on the MOU, with the following information:
    1. Name
    2. Title
    3. Address
    4. Phone Number
    5. Email Address
  4. CDSS will use the provided information to draft the MOU.
  5. CDSS will send the MOU (signed by CDSS) to the County.
  6. County signs the MOU and emails it to the CDSS Contracts and Procurement Services Branch.
  7. CDSS or its designee(s) will contact the County to make arrangement for the transfer of the requested files.
  8. CDSS or its designee(s) will copy the requested County files to an external storage medium mutually agreed upon by the Parties.
  9. CDSS or its designee(s) shall send the external storage medium to County using a secured overnight courier that, at a minimum, requires signature receipt confirmation.
  10. County will confirm receipt of the media and the files.
  11. Upon county confirmation of files being received, the State may delete the original quarantined files from the CWDS quarantined area after 90 Days. After the original quarantined files have been deleted, the CDSS will terminate the MOU.
Please NOTE: Counties that have already sent in their signed MOUs requesting release of the documents/files to the County will be contacted by CDSS with a new draft of the MOU (signed by CDSS) with a request for the County to sign the new MOU.
We apologize for any confusion caused by the previous communication.
____________________________________________________________________________
March 15, 2024 UPDATE:  CDSS acknowledges and appreciates your continued caution regarding the approvals for the deletion of the infected/unsupported documents/files in the Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS). In response to County requests for an opportunity to remediate the infected/unsupported documents/files removed from CWS/CMS and placed in quarantine, the CDSS has developed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to allow for the transfer of the infected/unsupported documents/files from CDSS to county stewardship.
Steps to request the transfer of CWS/CMS quarantined unsupported/infected files from CDSS to county stewardship:
  1. County submits the signed CDSS MOU requesting release of the files to the County. The MOU shall be signed by the County Director signature/approval. Please see the attached MOU.
  2. CDSS or its designee(s) will copy the requested County files to an external storage medium mutually agreed upon by the Parties.
  3. CDSS or its designee(s) shall send the external storage medium to County using a secured overnight courier that, at a minimum, requires signature receipt confirmation.
  4. County will confirm receipt of the media and the files.
  5. Upon county confirmation of files being received, the State may delete the original quarantined files from the CWDS quarantined area after 90 Days.
Please note, if additional infected/unsupported documents/files are identified in the future a County will need to submit -a new MOU to request transfer of those files.
If you are interested in requesting the transfer of files for your county, please send your signed MOU to CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov . Once received CWDS or its designee(s) will contact you to make arrangement for the transfer of the files requested. 
____________________________________________________________________________
February 8, 2024 UPDATE:  The California Department of Social Services (CDSS), the CWDS Project and IBM are still working on determining an approach for sharing with counties the documents that have been quarantined. This decision will take a little longer to complete than originally thought. The updated ETA for the decision is now March 15, 2024. An update will be shared out to everybody once the decision has been made.
In the meantime, the CWDS Office is still awaiting notification from the CWS Directors from a majority of the impacted Counties on your preference to delete or to keep quarantined the affected files. If you have not yet shared your preference, please do so by the extended deadline of February 29, 2024.
____________________________________________________________________________
December 26, 2023 UPDATE:  The California Department of Social Services (CDSS), the CWDS Project and IBM have decided that the safest option is to quarantine the identified infected and unsupported files in CWS/CMS. The files will not be deleted from CWS/CMS, but users will be prevented from opening the affected documents. The affected documents will be saved to a quarantined area of CWS/CMS on Saturday, January 6, 2024. If a CWS/CMS user attempts to open one of the quarantined documents, they will receive the following error message:

Please note that this DRMS 00122 error message is informational only and that the user will be able to continue to work in the CWS/CMS application after receiving the error message.
The CWDS Project and IBM are still looking to receive responses from the CWS Directors indicating their permission to permanently delete these files. Please contact CWDS Customer Relations (CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov) by January 31, 2024, with your decision whether to have IBM delete the files in a batch file deletion process.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
December 18, 2023 UPDATE:  In the attached letter the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) has provided updated guidance to Counties impacted by the CWS/CMS infected and unsupported file cleanup effort.
Please contact CWDS Customer Relations (CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov) with any questions related to this guidance.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
As part of planning for CWS-CARES V1, the CARES Data Conversion team has been performing incremental conversion from CWS/CMS data and documents into CWS-CARES. After the documents are extracted from CWS/CMS, they are scanned to ensure that no viruses are introduced into the CARES environment. During this process, it was discovered that, out of 73 million documents that are stored in the CWS/CMS database, approximately 2,400 documents are infected with a virus or malware. Of these 2,400 documents, 95% were last updated in 2001 or before. 
Further, there are an additional 2,600 files that have an unsupported file extension. 
Due to security concerns, these documents and files cannot be moved into the CWS-CARES application. 
Please NOTE: These infected documents are stored in binary large object (BLOB) format on the mainframe in the Db2 database. As a result, these documents do not affect CWS/CMS data on the mainframe.  However, if the document is opened, the virus can infect the user’s personal computer.   Please ensure that you have a current antivirus operating on your workstation.
If you are receiving this communication, it means that your county is impacted by this issue.  
For each affected County, we will send a report listing the infected files and unsupported file extension files, with additional details pertaining to that County.   The reports will be sent to affected counties after the Kick-off meetings.
Please provide a point of contact including IT Support and Security Officer as appropriate and their information (Name, Email, Role, etc.) for the person that should receive your County’s report no later than 11/8/23. The report will be sent via encrypted email to that person.
Please use this form to provide the point(s) of contact: https://forms.gle/2tXrqpkevqUryxk39
Once Customer Relations receives the point of contact person’s information, they will be invited to the Kick-off meetings scheduled for 11/14/23 and 11/16/23. The intent of those meetings will be to review next steps.  
Action Required
Please provide a point of contact and their information (Name, Email, etc.), using the link above, for the person that should receive your County’s report no later than 11/8/23. 
Update, Maintenance, CWS/CMS

CWS/CMS: Additional Critical May 2024 Microsoft Patches

May 31, 2024 Communications
All Co-Existent County SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
As requested, here is the list of additional critical patches that IBM tested and applied to the Dedicated County Windows 10 Workstations for May 2024:

Google Chrome Zero Day Patch
Google Chrome 125.0.6422.113 – High – Security Update – Updates for Windows Applications

Microsoft Excel Patches
MS24-MAY: Security Update for Microsoft Excel 2016 – KB5002587 – Important – Security Update – Patches for Windows
MS24-MAY: Security Update for Microsoft Excel 2016 – KB5002587 (x64) – Important – Security Update – Patches for Windows

Action Required
No action is required. Informational only.
Update, CWS/CMS

CARES-Live Application Connection Issue Identified and Resolved

May 28, 2024 Communications
All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
The CWDS Project had identified a network issue with CARES-Live. When users were attempting to launch the CARES-Live Application, they were receiving a Connection Time Out error message. The CWDS Office did the investigation, and the issue is now resolved. Users should now be able to access the application and work without any interruption.
 
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.
Update, CARES-Live

CWS/CMS Infected and Unsupported File Extension File Cleanup – REMINDER

May 23, 2024 Communications
CWS Directors, SPOCs and Technical Contacts in Affected Counties: 

May 23, 2024 UPDATE: This is a reminder, if a County wants to request the transfer of CWS/CMS quarantined unsupported/infected files from CDSS to County stewardship and have not yet done so, to please complete the steps listed below. Please submit your transfer request and provide the needed contact information by 5:00 PM on Friday, June 14, 2024.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
April 16, 2024 UPDATE: Upon further discussion with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), we discovered that the March 15, 2024, communication (see below) included some inaccurate information. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will be signed by CDSS before sending it to the County for their signature. As a reminder, the MOU is needed to allow for the transfer of the infected/unsupported documents/files from CDSS to County stewardship.
The updated steps for a County to request the transfer of CWS/CMS quarantined unsupported/infected files from CDSS to County stewardship are:
  1. County signifies that they want to receive a copy of the unsupported/infected documents/files by sending an email to the CWDS Customer Relations mailbox.
  2. County provides the Point of Contact within the County to receive the media with the unsupported/infected documents/files, with the following contact information:
    1. Name
    2. Role
    3. Address
    4. Phone Number
    5. Email Address
  3. County provides the signatory to be listed on the MOU, with the following information:
    1. Name
    2. Title
    3. Address
    4. Phone Number
    5. Email Address
  4. CDSS will use the provided information to draft the MOU.
  5. CDSS will send the MOU (signed by CDSS) to the County.
  6. County signs the MOU and emails it to the CDSS Contracts and Procurement Services Branch.
  7. CDSS or its designee(s) will contact the County to make arrangement for the transfer of the requested files.
  8. CDSS or its designee(s) will copy the requested County files to an external storage medium mutually agreed upon by the Parties.
  9. CDSS or its designee(s) shall send the external storage medium to County using a secured overnight courier that, at a minimum, requires signature receipt confirmation.
  10. County will confirm receipt of the media and the files.
  11. Upon county confirmation of files being received, the State may delete the original quarantined files from the CWDS quarantined area after 90 Days. After the original quarantined files have been deleted, the CDSS will terminate the MOU.
Please NOTE: Counties that have already sent in their signed MOUs requesting release of the documents/files to the County will be contacted by CDSS with a new draft of the MOU (signed by CDSS) with a request for the County to sign the new MOU.
We apologize for any confusion caused by the previous communication.
____________________________________________________________________________
March 15, 2024 UPDATE:  CDSS acknowledges and appreciates your continued caution regarding the approvals for the deletion of the infected/unsupported documents/files in the Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS). In response to County requests for an opportunity to remediate the infected/unsupported documents/files removed from CWS/CMS and placed in quarantine, the CDSS has developed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to allow for the transfer of the infected/unsupported documents/files from CDSS to county stewardship.
Steps to request the transfer of CWS/CMS quarantined unsupported/infected files from CDSS to county stewardship:
  1. County submits the signed CDSS MOU requesting release of the files to the County. The MOU shall be signed by the County Director signature/approval. Please see the attached MOU.
  2. CDSS or its designee(s) will copy the requested County files to an external storage medium mutually agreed upon by the Parties.
  3. CDSS or its designee(s) shall send the external storage medium to County using a secured overnight courier that, at a minimum, requires signature receipt confirmation.
  4. County will confirm receipt of the media and the files.
  5. Upon county confirmation of files being received, the State may delete the original quarantined files from the CWDS quarantined area after 90 Days.
Please note, if additional infected/unsupported documents/files are identified in the future a County will need to submit -a new MOU to request transfer of those files.
If you are interested in requesting the transfer of files for your county, please send your signed MOU to CWDS Customer Relations. Once received CWDS or its designee(s) will contact you to make arrangement for the transfer of the files requested. 
____________________________________________________________________________
February 8, 2024 UPDATE:  The California Department of Social Services (CDSS), the CWDS Project and IBM are still working on determining an approach for sharing with counties the documents that have been quarantined. This decision will take a little longer to complete than originally thought. The updated ETA for the decision is now March 15, 2024. An update will be shared out to everybody once the decision has been made.
In the meantime, the CWDS Office is still awaiting notification from the CWS Directors from a majority of the impacted Counties on your preference to delete or to keep quarantined the affected files. If you have not yet shared your preference, please do so by the extended deadline of February 29, 2024.
____________________________________________________________________________
December 26, 2023 UPDATE:  The California Department of Social Services (CDSS), the CWDS Project and IBM have decided that the safest option is to quarantine the identified infected and unsupported files in CWS/CMS. The files will not be deleted from CWS/CMS, but users will be prevented from opening the affected documents. The affected documents will be saved to a quarantined area of CWS/CMS on Saturday, January 6, 2024. If a CWS/CMS user attempts to open one of the quarantined documents, they will receive the following error message:

Please note that this DRMS 00122 error message is informational only and that the user will be able to continue to work in the CWS/CMS application after receiving the error message.
The CWDS Project and IBM are still looking to receive responses from the CWS Directors indicating their permission to permanently delete these files. Please contact CWDS Customer Relations by January 31, 2024, with your decision whether to have IBM delete the files in a batch file deletion process.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
December 18, 2023 UPDATE:  In the attached letter the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) has provided updated guidance to Counties impacted by the CWS/CMS infected and unsupported file cleanup effort.
Please contact CWDS Customer Relations with any questions related to this guidance.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
As part of planning for CWS-CARES V1, the CARES Data Conversion team has been performing incremental conversion from CWS/CMS data and documents into CWS-CARES. After the documents are extracted from CWS/CMS, they are scanned to ensure that no viruses are introduced into the CARES environment. During this process, it was discovered that, out of 73 million documents that are stored in the CWS/CMS database, approximately 2,400 documents are infected with a virus or malware. Of these 2,400 documents, 95% were last updated in 2001 or before. 
Further, there are an additional 2,600 files that have an unsupported file extension. 
Due to security concerns, these documents and files cannot be moved into the CWS-CARES application. 
Please NOTE: These infected documents are stored in binary large object (BLOB) format on the mainframe in the Db2 database. As a result, these documents do not affect CWS/CMS data on the mainframe.  However, if the document is opened, the virus can infect the user’s personal computer.   Please ensure that you have a current antivirus operating on your workstation.
If you are receiving this communication, it means that your county is impacted by this issue.  
For each affected County, we will send a report listing the infected files and unsupported file extension files, with additional details pertaining to that County.   The reports will be sent to affected counties after the Kick-off meetings.
Please provide a point of contact including IT Support and Security Officer as appropriate and their information (Name, Email, Role, etc.) for the person that should receive your County’s report no later than 11/8/23. The report will be sent via encrypted email to that person.
Please use this form to provide the point(s) of contact: CWS/CMS Infected Documents/Unsupported File Extension - Contacts
Once Customer Relations receives the point of contact person’s information, they will be invited to the Kick-off meetings scheduled for 11/14/23 and 11/16/23. The intent of those meetings will be to review next steps.  
Action Required
Please provide a point of contact and their information (Name, Email, etc.), using the link above, for the person that should receive your County’s report no later than 11/8/23. 
Update, Announcement, CWS/CMS

CWS/CMS: Additional Critical April 2024 Microsoft Patches

May 22, 2024 Communications
All Co-Existent County SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
As requested, here is the list of additional critical patches that IBM tested and applied to the Dedicated County Windows 10 Workstations for April 2024:
5002050: Update for Microsoft Office 2016 - Office 2016 - KB5002050  Critical Updates
5002340: Update for Microsoft Office 2016 - Office 2016 - KB5002340  Critical Updates
5002388: Update for Microsoft Office 2016 - Office 2016 - KB5002388  Critical Updates
5002452: Update for Microsoft Office 2016 - Office 2016 - KB5002452  Critical Updates
5002525: Update for Microsoft Access 2016 - Access 2016 - KB5002525  Critical Updates
5002545: Update for Microsoft OneNote 2016 - OneNote 2016 - KB5002545  Critical Updates
5002568: Update for Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 - PowerPoint 2016 - KB5002568  Critical Updates
5002571: Update for Microsoft Word 2016 - Word 2016 - KB5002571  Critical Updates
5002572: Update for Microsoft Office 2016 - Office 2016 - KB5002572  Critical Updates
5002574: Update for Microsoft Outlook 2016 - Outlook 2016 - KB5002574  Critical Updates
5002577: Update for Microsoft Excel 2016 - Excel 2016 - KB5002577  Critical Updates

Action Required
No action is required. Informational only.
Update, CWS/CMS