A: Counties will have a couple of ways to pull data from CWS-CARES. They will be able to create queries and reports using the CWS-CARES reporting tool, Tableau. A county can also ask the CWS-CARES Project Team to be part of the “Data Extracts” workgroup. However, counties should note that the current project efforts in this area are focused on the counties that currently get extracts from CWS/CMS. Therefore, we may not be able to include a county that’s not already a part of this group in time for V1.

A: While regional external systems are currently not in scope for CWS-CARES, in future iterations the opportunity exists to evaluate how CWS-CARES, as the single statewide child welfare information system, could replicate as much of the county-specific customizations as possible on a statewide basis to serve all counties and IV-E Tribes

A: The CWS-CARES project team does not currently have a recommendation. The project will be researching this functionality for consideration in CWS-CARES future scope after CWS-CARES V1 is implemented. The design and timing of this enhancement is currently unknown.

A: There is currently no timeline or policy limiting when a county can purchase and implement a new external system. However, if the external system has functionality that is duplicative CWS-CARES, the county will be required to decommission that system functionality once CWS-CARES goes live. If a county plans to purchase a new external system, they must submit an APD (Advance Planning Document) before signing a contract. Further, state policy requires CWS/CMS remain the system of record for child welfare data, and all case-related information must continue to be entered into CWS/CMS. Finally, there is no plan to convert data from external systems like Traverse into CWS-CARES, as all child welfare case related records should already reside in CWS/CMS and will migrate to CWS-CARES during the CWS/CMS data conversion process.

A: CWS-CARES continues to ingest new documents from CWS-CMS on a weekly basis. Counties can continue to upload documents into CWS/CMS until the day of CWS-CARES go-live and expect those files to be transferred into the CWS-CARES environment.

A: CWS/CMS limits the file size for uploaded documents to 5 MB per document. CWS-CARES will allow documents uploads of up to 100 MB. File types must be compatible with CWS-CARES, allowable file types include PDF, DOC/DOCX, XLS/XLSX, Jpeg/jpg, txt, mov/mkv/mp4 files. Users will be able to upload files into CWS-CARES using either individual or multifile selection into a case record.

A: Version 1 and Version 2 refer to the major releases of CWS-CARES. CWS-CARES Version 1 will be released in October 2026 and will include the functionality necessary to transition work from CWS/CMS systems to CWS-CARES. After that first big release, there will be small, periodic improvements to CWS-CARES. Version 2 will be the next major release of additional functionality.

A: There is no impact on the ultimate project release date—CWS-CARES V1 is still expected to go live in October of 2026. However, some project activities, like Extended User Scenario Testing (EUST) have been shifted to align with the new approach.

A: Counties have been designated to serve as Core Constituents for different Service Areas by recommendation from the County Welfare Director’s Association (CWDA). Up to this point in the CWS-CARES Project, we've used those Service Area designations to solicit input from Core Constituents. What Core Constituents will see moving forward in holistic design is a greater emphasis on getting input across Service Areas. For example, all Core Constituents are invited to provide feedback on the upcoming prototype demonstrations. It's not limited to just Core Constituents designated to those Service Areas. We encourage Core Constituents to forward these sessions to colleagues at their organizations with additional expertise.

A: The draft of the data dictionary will be published by the end of 2024.  CWS-CARES will remain in active development through March 2026. As a result, the data dictionary will continue to evolve till then. We plan on publishing updates to the CWS-CARES data dictionary every quarter after the initial draft is published by end of 2024.