Frequently Asked Questions
Forms & Reports
Q: Can the FC 8 form be generated by an Eligibility Worker?
A: Who can do what in CARES is dependent on county business process. If the EW needs to generate the FC 8, then we grant them access to CARES to do that. This is why we need to complete the process workgroups to determine who does what, and where the handoffs occur.
Q: If corrections are needed after an AD 4320 form has been set to final status, does the worker need to generate a new form in CWS-CARES?
A: If changes are needed after the form is in final status, a new document will need to be generated in CARES.
Q: How does the Expected End Date field on the AD 4320 form auto-populate, and does it change if the form is completed to extend benefits?
A: The AD 4320 Expected End Date does auto-populate to the child's 18th birthday. AD 4320s that are completed to extend benefits would auto-pop to the child's 21st birthday.
Q: Will there be an Assistance Cost dashboard and reports for program/fiscal managers?
A: Yes, there will be reports available in CWS-CARES related to assistance costs and caseloads for counties to use.
Q: Will we be able to view aggregate/summary-level data on this in a dashboard or by some other means?
A: Yes, there will be reports through Tableau that will allow you to track this type of information.
Q: After the initial hotline report is completed, what does a worker do if/when they receive new information ?
A: If the initial screening has been submitted for approval to the supervisor (and not yet approved), the worker can "recall" the screening to add any additional information. If it has already been approved by the supervisor the information can be added to the Investigation if the user has the appropriate permissions or routed to the assigned worker.
Q: How will CWS‑CARES track referral history and provide KPIs that show when a referral was sent to a supervisor, how long the review took, and whether it was returned for edits or closed, so we can accurately assess 45‑day compliance and supervisor performance?
A: CWS-CARES will maintain historical data for each referral. In addition, KPIs (key performance indicators) will be available for a variety of activities.
Q: Will Organizations have the flexibility to use their preferred virtual meeting platform, or will all meetings need to be conducted over WebEx?
A: In general, the State uses WebEx, but we have to be flexible to meet our organization's needs. The RUGs meetings belong to the counties and they use the format they prefer.
Q: What is the purpose of the CWS-CARES Forms Tracker, and when will counties be given access to the state's forms list?
A: The CWS-CARES Forms Tracker, located in the CWS-CARES Forms Teams Channel, is the repository for the list of state forms that have been identified as potential candidates for CARES V1 development. The Project plans to share the Tracker with counties at an upcoming Forms Workgroup meeting.
Q: Is there a plan for corrupted files that get converted with errors?
A: During the data conversion process, legacy documents from CWS/CMS are transferred to CWS-CARES in their native format and are not modified or transformed. Only documents with valid file extensions (e.g., JPG, DOC, PDF, XLS, TXT, DOCX, XLSX, JPEG) are eligible for transfer to the CWS-CARES staging area, which aligns with the types of documents supported in the legacy system. As part of this process, files that do not meet supported file type criteria are filtered out prior to migration. Based on current understanding, the conversion process does not introduce changes to document content, and no issues related to document corruption during migration have been identified to date.