March 20, 2024 UPDATE: At this time, we would like to provide CWS SPOCS and CWS Technical Contacts with an update on MS Teams use in sharing specific CWS/CMS Reports as well as the CANS Duplicate Reports. After reviewing the feedback from our testing counties, we have determined that use of MS Teams can move forward.
We plan on going live with all county CWS SPOCS, SPOC Backups, and CWS Technical Contacts starting April 2, 2024. The rollout of MS Teams will be completed on a phased approach. Beginning on the morning of April 2, 2024, we will add users to the MS Teams county/organizations channels following this schedule:
| Date – Onboarding of users | Region |
| 4/2/24 | Bay Area region counties |
| 4/2/24 | Mountain Valley region counties |
| 4/2/24 | Southern region counties |
| 4/3/24 | Central Valley region counties |
| 4/3/24 | Northern region counties Yurok and Karuk Tribes |
We are confident that the use of MS Teams will be a mutual benefit to our counties/organizations as well as to CWDS in sharing specific reports and eliminating the need to email these sensitive reports, which has been problematic.
Beginning on April 2, 2024, CWS SPOCS, CWS SPOC Backups, and CWS Technical Contacts will begin to see county/organization MS Teams channels in their MS Teams application. The naming convention selected for the channels is: MO_Reports_Countyname. This name will be used since these reports fall under Maintenance & Operations. We hope this prevents any confusion with the other existing CARES Workgroup MS Team channels that some county/organization staff may have access to now.
This is a sample screenshot of how it would look in MS Teams.
Once the user clicks on the County/Organization MS Teams Channel, this will be the folder structure under the Files tab in MS Teams:
Channel / Folder Access
CWS SPOCS and CWS SPOC Backups will be granted access to all the folders shown above. However, CWS Technical Contacts will only be granted access to the CWS CMS User ID Reports and Windows Workstation Reports folders and not the CANS Duplicates folder.
For additional security, all documents contained in these folders will be password protected. Your Customer Relations team member will provide you with those passwords in a separate encrypted communication.
Thank you in advance for your patience as we begin rolling out MS Teams to the CWS SPOCS, CWS SPOC Backups, and CWS Technical Contacts.
If you have any questions regarding this process, please reach out to Customer Relations at CWS_CustRel@osi.ca.gov.
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The CWDS Project is excited to announce that Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) will soon be used by CWS/CMS as method to share reports previously sent via encrypted emails. MS Teams will support sharing various reports, including the following:
- CANS Duplicate Reports
- Windows Workstation Reports
- CWS/CMS User ID Clean Up Reports
On January 2, 2024, it was shared that the use of MS Teams would be implemented on a phased approach, starting with the CARES Analytics Workgroup on January 8, 2024. This work was completed by our CARES Data Infrastructure (CDI) lead engineer, Craig Woody, in partnership with OTSI’s Information Technology Office (ITO). Thanks to that effort, we feel that it can now be expanded to use for CWS/CMS report sharing.
A major difference in the use of MS Teams for CWS/CMS, as opposed to its use in CARES, is that each individual county/organization will have a siloed/isolated County MS Teams channel. Due to the nature and security of the reports to be shared, only the Single Points Of Contacts (SPOCs) and Technical Contacts will have access to these county MS Teams channels. Additionally, channel members from one County will not be able to access or view another County’s MS Team channel.
Starting on March 11, 2024, a small subset of counties will assist CWDS in testing access to MS Teams for the use mentioned above. Those test counties are:
- Fresno
- Placer
- Sacramento
- San Diego
- Shasta
- Solano
Please send Customer Relations an email if your county does not plan to use MS Teams for collaboration with the CWDS Project at this time. Customer Relations will document your county’s decision and/or identify a future timeframe to explore setting up an MS Teams channel with your county.
Action Required
Please reply by March 15, 2024 if your county does not plan to use MS Teams at this time or in the near future.