Frequently Asked Questions
Production Simulation
Q: Will the Project provide additional guidance on expectations and activities for Production Simulation, beyond what is in the applicable All County Letter (ACL)?
A: Yes. The Project will provide additional information on Production Simulation expectations and activities to users closer to the start of Production Simulation.
Q: How often will data in Production Simulation be refreshed?
A: The Production Simulation County Advisory Committee (CAC) is still determining the appropriate data refresh schedule for Production Simulation. Once the committee and project leadership finalize the refresh rate, the Project will communicate the schedule to all stakeholders.
Q: When will the Production Simulation environment go live?
A: The Production Simulation environment went live on June 8th, 2026. This environment will remain active until CWS-CARES Version 1 goes live.
Q: Will CWS/CMS user permission settings carry over to Production Simulation and CWS-CARES?
A: CWS/CMS permission sets will be the source of truth for Production Simulation and production Go-Live. All permissions from CWS/CMS will be mapped to CWS-CARES permissions. There are also new CWS-CARES permissions that will require County Administrator input on who should have them; these can be added by an administrator during Production Simulation for testing and research purposes. For Go-Live, CWS/CMS permissions will again be pulled and mapped to production. The Project also plans to provide counties a report of all new CWS-CARES permissions assigned in Production Simulation for review.
Q: Will data be saved or can users permanently change the data in the Production Simulation environment?
A: No, Production Simulation is a practice environment so the data will not be saved into the permanent case record.
Q: Will the CWS-CARES project provide guidance on which permissions users will need for Production Simulation?
A: Guidance will be provided as to what various CWS-CARES users will need for permissions in Production Simulation.
Q: Is the data in the Production Simulation mock data or actual data from Binti and CWS/CMS?
A: The data in Production Simulation will consist of data brought over from Binti and CWS/CMS.
Q: Is there an updated project timeline that includes Production Simulation that can be shared with counties?
A: The Project is updating the Organization Participation Timeline, which will include Production Simulation, and plans to share it with counties.
Q: What is the time study coding for Production Simulation activities?
A: Counties should use the existing time study coding they use for project-related activities.
Q: What is the benefit of validating External System functionality in Production Simulation for systems already assessed by the CWS-CARES V1 Preliminary Scope Assessment and Gap Analysis process?
A: The CWS-CARES V1 Scope Assessments are preliminary and based on functionality descriptions provided by organizations. Production Simulation provides the opportunity for organizations to validate functionality in CWS-CARES V1 prior to go-live, in order to identify any gaps or issues that were not previously identified or documented by the gap analysis process. Use of the Production Simulation environment also allows organizations an early opportunity to validate and finalize business process changes ahead of go-live. This will minimize the effort for Fully-In-Scope decommissioning planning as validated systems can be made inactive or read-only prior to December 31, 2027.