Frequently Asked Questions
Features & Functionality
Q: What are virtual offices in CWS-CARES?
A: A virtual office refers to an office that does not have a physical location.
Q: How do we identify the County Geographic Region in CWS-CARES?
A: This field is not used by all counties, and it is not required. Those that do use the field would know if they were North, South, East, West, etc.
Q: If we have a case specific expense, do we manually enter that?
A: No, counties will not be expected to do that. Case specific costs will be transmitted to CWS-CARES via an interface with CalSAWS.
Q: Will the Production Simulation environment have Foster Care Eligibility and Determination (FCED)/CalSAWS interface capability for testing/viewing?
A: Yes, the Foster Care Eligibility Determination (FCED) interface between CWS-CARES and CalSAWS will be available in the Production Simulation environment for all necessary testing and validation.
Q: Will the CWS-CARES Permissions allow counties to limit who can review/edit the Administrative Claim sections?
A: Only users given the county-specific fiscal permissions will have the ability to review their county's admin claim data. All data from CECRIS will be read-only in CWS-CARES so there will not be any user in CWS-CARES that can enter/change data from CECRIS, regardless of permissions.
Q: In CWS-CARES, do counties need to add the county assigned Object ID somewhere?
A: The Project is planning to reuse the Object ID. As such, the only time the Object ID would need to be entered is for the creation of a new user.
Q: If there is a need to decommission or close an office, does CWS-CARES provide the functionality to terminate all user accounts under that office and close/inactivate the office?
A: CWS-CARES will not allow an office to be closed until all users within the office’s units have been transferred to the units of an open office or a user has been end-dated. CWS-CARES will notify an administrator if the office they are trying to close is an office housing units with existing active users. As a note, there isn't workload history at the office level, there are caseloads under units. If you are just updating an office address, it does not affect the history at all.
Q: What are examples of External Workers in CWS-CARES?
A: Examples of External Workers are Probation and Family First Prevention Services Acf (FFPSA) Workers.
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: What is the process for administrators transferring a worker from one office and unit to another where the worker will retain their existing caseload?
A: A user must be added to the new unit in the new office and then end dated from the previous office. The bulk transfer process can then be used to move the entire caseload.