Frequently Asked Questions
User Access & Permissions
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: Will counties be able to copy and modify reports created by other counties? If so, when will those reports be available for counties to access and copy?
A: In the CWS-CARES 102 environment, County Report Developers have permission to view reports developed by other counties. However, they do not have the ability to download, copy, or modify these reports because they are not members of the respective county or project folder structures where the reports are stored. Counties will continue to have read-only access to reports developed by other counties.
Reports developed by the project are managed and maintained under the project vendor warranty. For this reason, County Report Developers are not granted permissions to download or modify these reports. All CWS-CARES users will have the ability to run and view available reports as part of the CWS-CARES solution.
Reports are organized within their respective folder structures (such as county-specific folders or project folders), and access permissions are managed accordingly.
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 all county users automatically have access to the Production Simulation environment, or will the county have to choose or register specific users to enroll? Lake County strongly suggested including ALL county users to Production Simulation environment instead of having the counties 'register' or 'choose' users for this exercise.
A: The Production Simulation environment is scheduled to be available from May 2026 through the October 2026 Go-Live. Access will be extended to all active CWS/CMS users rather than requiring a manual registration or selection process. We are currently collaborating with the County Advisory Committees to finalize the specific timing of access and any necessary usage prerequisites.
Q: Is there additional clarity on the Sandbox versus Production Simulation environments, and whether Production Simulation is intended to replace the Sandbox? Please explain the environments that are available and additional information, such as their purpose, who can request access, how to request access, and the pros and cons of each.
A: Production Simulation is intended to supersede the Sandbox environment, which will be retired once Production Simulation is activated. It is important to note that Business Process Validation (previously called Process Simulation) is not a standalone environment. Instead, it is an activity conducted within the Production Simulation environment to validate workflows.
Unlike temporary testing sites, the Training environment is a permanent resource that will remain available after CWS-CARES V1 go-live to support onboarding and continued learning using generic (non-production) data and artificial cases.
Environment Summary:
- Sandbox: Temporary testing environment; will be replaced by Production Simulation.
- Production Simulation (Pending Federal Approval): Real-data practice environment that will be retired once CWS-CARES is live.
- Training: Ongoing staff development environment using non-production data.
- EUST: Extended User Scenario Testing environment, scheduled to retire after EUST 3.
Q: Following Go-Live (in addition to Production), which CWS-CARES environment(s) (e.g., staging, readiness, training, etc.) will remain available to organizations so that users can continue to "practice/train" in a non-Production environment?
A: Following go-live, counties and organizations will maintain access to multiple environments in addition to Production. This multi-environment structure enables them to develop and test county-specific forms and reports, conduct ongoing practice sessions and staff training, and support continuous learning without disrupting live operations.
Available non-production environments include:
- Training Environment – For staff training and onboarding
- County/Organization Dev Environment – Specifically for forms and report authors to continue development work. This environment will have non-production (test/simulated) data
- Readiness Environment – For ongoing practice and readiness activities. This environment will have production data (refreshed from the Production environment at a yet TBD interval). Can also be used for testing county-developed forms and reports against production data
Q: Once we transition to CWS-CARES, will probation staff still access via Citrix?
A: Yes, probation staff will still access via Citrix after the transition to CWS-CARES.
Q: Will a CWS-CARES county admin be able to limit access for a page or section of the system?
A: Yes, CWS-CARES administrators will be able to limit access to areas of the system. Administrators will also be able to limit the number of records users can view or edit (including sealed and sensitive referral/cases). For further questions, please contact CARES Administration.
Q: Are tablets compatible with CARES?
A: Currently the Project recommends utilizing Windows Desktops/Laptops - HP, Dell, or MS Surface devices. These are the systems that the current development and testing teams are utilizing. CWS-CARES will be accessed via a "stable” version of Chrome or Microsoft Edge Chromium.