CARES SPOCs, Implementation Coordinators, OCM Coordinators, County Leadership, and State Leadership:
We recognize that forms development has been a significant concern for counties, so we are excited to share a major update that will drastically reduce county time building forms and ease the pressure on county teams.
The CWS-CARES project is currently finalizing a work order with one of our vendors to provide dedicated resources to build the top-prioritized 2,400 county CWS/CMS forms. This ensures that county forms in CWS/CMS are developed for testing in CWS-CARES Production Simulation prior to Code Freeze on July 31, 2026.
Below are the details on how the two types of county forms will be handled:
- County Forms Maintained in CWS/CMS: Our project vendor will begin developing the top-prioritized 2,400 county forms that are currently stored within the legacy CWS/CMS system. The project is providing resources to develop these specific forms.
- County Forms Maintained Outside of CWS/CMS: Please note that the vendor-led development applies only to county forms stored in CWS/CMS. It does not include county forms stored in external or local systems. Counties will remain responsible for developing and updating any forms housed in their own external systems. Forms may be built within the CARES 102 environment. Once built, forms may be published to the Production Simulation environment to test and validate.
Additional guidance, timelines, and instructions will be shared with county form authors soon.
We know how much of a priority — and a concern — forms have been for county teams, which is why we are incredibly pleased to share this news. Thank you for your continued partnership, dedication, and invaluable feedback as we work together to build CWS-CARES .
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