Frequently Asked Questions
Admin Services
Q: Will functionality for creating Offices in CWS-CARES mirror CWS/CMS functionality? Specifically, will an Office require a user account to be attached to it in order for it to be created?
A: Creating an office in CWS-CARES is similar to the process in CWS/CMS. User accounts are then required to be added to a unit within an office. Users aren’t added at the office level unless it’s an assignment desk.
Q: In CWS-CARES, are permissions and access options multi-select?
A: Yes, these permissions and access options are multi-select.
Q: Is there help desk or service desk specific training?
A: Yes. Service desk/help desk personnel have role-specific On-Demand courses. The recommended audience in the Instructional Design Maps indicates the ILT courses the CWS-CARES Team feels would support this group of people the best. However, you may choose to assign ILT courses that do not indicate service/help desk personnel as the target audience if you feel the content covered aligns with the tasks performed by the individual.
Q: Do Administrators still need to have a particular Permission Set assigned to themselves before we can assign it to someone else?
A: No, Administrators do not need a particular permission set assigned to them before assigning it to others; however, there are currently several permissions and overrides that can only be assigned by a State Administrator.
Q: Who will be responsible for adding users to the FFPSA and RFA portals?
A: The County Administrator will be responsible for adding county users to county FFPSA and RFA portals.
Q: Outside of Child & Family Services (CFS) staff, will other Health & Human Services (HHS) partners, like Behavioral Health and Recovery Services (BHRS) for example, who have access to CWS-CARES be able to access all information or will they only have access to limited information/functions in CWS-CARES?
A: Access to CWS-CARES is role-based, and counties are responsible for determining how system access is assigned to their users based on local operational needs.
At this time, there is no dedicated worker permission specifically configured for Behavioral Health staff. For secondary role assignment, a “Public Health Nurse” role is available and may be leveraged by counties as appropriate. However, there is currently no distinct Behavioral Health role with a separate, limited permission set.
Q: For context, the Project has stated that CWS-CARES will no longer utilize CWS User IDs. CWS-CARES V1 provides access to Structured Decision Making (SDM) and Safe Measures applications within the application; however, V1 does not completely decommission those applications, so County Admins will still be required to Add/Modify/Terminate SDM and Safe Measures user accounts within those specific applications. Currently, SDM and Safe Measures require a CWS User ID to set up a user account in both applications. The question is: Will both of those applications (SDM/Safe Measures) be modified prior to the 10/2026 go-live so that the CWS User ID is no longer required for user accounts? Also, will County Admins still access SDM and Safe Measures externally for account management functions, or will we utilize the links within the CWS-CARES app? Regarding accounts being end-dated after 90 days of inactivity, will their account just need a password reset that the employee can initiate? And lastly, will their account be end-dated or frozen? If their account is end-dated, will a new account need to be established for that employee?
A: SDM/SafeMeasures will use user’s email address for access to these systems. We haven’t tested how admin or users will need to interact with SDM or SafeMeasures outside of CWS-CARES. The Project will provide an update to the counties after the functionality has been tested.
Regarding accounts being end-dated after 90 days of inactivity, users will need to contact County Admin to reenable account.
Accounts will not be enabled in Okta. Users will need to contact County Admin to reenable account. Data in CWS-CARES associated to the user will remain the same. The user’s supervisor is responsible for units of work associated to the user if account is disabled. Note: The account is only inactive not end dated. We only end date accounts when we are truly terminating access (fired, quit, retired, etc.).
Q: Will counties have the ability to 'delete' county-created forms from CWS-CARES or do they have to open a ticket with the state to do it? If the counties can't delete the form, will they be able to mark it inactive and will marking it inactive not display the form in the drop-down during forms generation?
A: Counties will not be able to permanently delete county-created forms in CWS-CARES. However, county form authors can mark forms as “Inactive” within the document configuration page. Once a form is marked “Inactive”, it will no longer appear in the dropdown list during form generation.
Q: Can the tribal information in Resource Management directory (for example, Tribe name changes etc.) be edited by the counties or is this going to be a state only functionality?
A: Only approved state personnel are allowed to view/edit a Tribe Organization in CWS-CARES.
Q: The latest workstation spec requirements list out a minimum of 15" monitor screens. Is this mandatory? We have some laptops that are 14" inches, and IT is wondering if it's more a resolution issue than physical size.
A: The minimum screen resolution required to support all CWS-CARES features is 1024 x 768 pixels. The 15” monitor size is a general guideline for monitors and is not mandatory.