December 06, 2023
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and Training Contacts:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled security patching of the CalCloud Windows servers. The patching window begins on Friday, December 8, 2023, at 7:00 PM and concludes on Saturday, December 9, 2023, at 06:00 AM. The patching activity will cause intermittent interruptions in connectivity to the CWDS website and the CWDS Portals website during the patching window.
Action Required
If users experience any issues with the CWDS website or the CWDS Portals website, please follow your county process for reporting issues or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.
December 05, 2023
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and Training Contacts:
The CARES-Live team has scheduled maintenance to the CARES-Live Training Environment on Friday, December 8, 2023, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM. This scheduled maintenance is to upgrade the Training Environment to the CARES-Live 2.8.27 version. Users will not be able to access the CARES-Live Training Environment during the scheduled outage.
Action Required
If users experience any issues with CARES-Live Training Environment, please follow your county process for reporting issues. CARES-Live County Administrators may contact the CARES Service Desk through the CWDS ServiceNow Customer Support Management (CSM) Portal at https://cwds.service-now.com/csm. Alternate methods are phoning 1-855-292-3444 or via email at Servicedesk@cwds.ca.gov during normal business hours. You may also email after hours and a Service Desk representative will contact you the next business day.
December 05, 2023
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and SBC Administrators:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance on Saturday, December 30, 2023, beginning at 6:00 AM and concluding at 10:00 AM. During the maintenance window, CDT will apply Standard Monthly OS Security Patches to SBCS Infrastructure Servers. There is no anticipated outage for this maintenance; however, CDT is asking that everyone log off from the Citrix SBC system, if not actively using it during the maintenance window.
Action Required
If users experience any issues with CWS/CMS, please follow your county process for reporting issues or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.
December 04, 2023
Communications
All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and CAD Contacts:
An issue was discovered this past weekend with Business Objects (BO) reports scheduling services. BO scheduling services were restarted at 9:00 AM. Please check your scheduled jobs to confirm that they have completed successfully. The CWDS Office and IBM are reviewing the issue with the California Department of Technology (CDT).
Action Required
Review scheduled BO reports and rerun the report jobs, as necessary.
November 30, 2023
Communications
All Co-Existent County SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
The CWS/CMS application is required to migrate from the existing Visual Basic 6 (VB6) code, which is no longer supported by Microsoft, to the C Sharp (C#) code. For this effort the CWDS Office and IBM are conducting ongoing testing of the C# code for CWS/CMS in multiple environments.
The upcoming county test activity will test the C# code against images used by Co-Existent Counties. Participating testers will receive both broadly defined scenarios to test various areas of the CWS/CMS application along with a list of Incidents that have been identified in previous County Test Workshops (CTWs) that require retesting. In addition, testers will be asked to perform volume, robust testing of the C# code to see if it can handle various activities to support the way daily child welfare activities are performed by social workers.
Testing will begin on Monday, February 5, 2024, and will complete on Friday, March 1, 2024. The testing will occur within the County, isolated from the production CWS/CMS environment. For example, the test workstations could be used within a training room or set up temporarily in a conference room. The County’s IT support and Technical Contacts will need to work with the CWDS Infrastructure team to coordinate network and firewall configurations to be used during this phase of the testing.
Also, one additional workstation (not used by County testers) will need to be set up within the environment to allow IBM developers to recreate and test code changes. The County will need to provide the remote access to this one workstation. Instructions on how to provide this access will be provided when Counties register to participate in this phase of testing.
A separate communication that will be sent on November 30, 2023, will explain the process that IBM will use to gather/identify the County’s image/software used on the CWS/CMS workstations. This will assist the IBM developers and testers when testing against the County’s specific CWS/CMS image.
Prerequisites for workstations participating in C# testing:
Test workstations (for both the County testers and the “IBM test workstation”) need:
- To be at the supported level for Windows;
- To have .NetFramework 3.5 and .NetFramework 4.8 installed;
- To have at least 8GBs of ram memory;
- To meet all the requirements found within the CWS/CMS Workstation COTS Install Options guide.
The CWDS Office and IBM appreciate your continued support in this necessary C# testing activity. Please complete and submit this form (https://forms.gle/WS71t4wxQdjEjMUZ7) by 5:00 PM on Wednesday, December 20, 2023, to provide your County’s response to this request for Co-Existent County image C# testing participation.
Counties will also need to identify the testers who will participate in this activity. This is required so that IDs can be created for each of the testing participants. Please complete this form (https://forms.gle/uMBZgc1pgzHt86uQ6) to identify each C# tester for this phase of the testing. The deadline to submit the participation form is 5:00 PM on Wednesday, December 20, 2023.
Action Required
Complete and submit your form (https://forms.gle/WS71t4wxQdjEjMUZ7) for Co-Existent County image C# testing by 5:00 PM on Wednesday, December 20, 2023.
Complete and submit the form (https://forms.gle/uMBZgc1pgzHt86uQ6) to list the testing participants by 5:00 PM on Wednesday, December 20, 2023.
Send any questions that you have regarding this activity to the CWDS Customer Relations mailbox.
November 29, 2023
Communications
All Co-Existent County SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
As requested, here is the list of patches that IBM tested and applied to the Dedicated County Windows 10 Workstations for November 2023:
Windows 10 21H2
MS23-NOV: Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 10 Version 21H2 - Windows 10 Version 21H2 - .NET Framework 3.5/4.8 - KB5031988 (x64) Important
MS23-NOV: Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 21H2 - Windows 10 Version 21H2 - KB5032189 (x64) Critical
Windows 10 1607 (LTSB)
MS23-NOV: Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 4.8 for Windows 10 Version 1607 - Windows 10 Version 1607 - .NET Framework 4.8 - KB5031989 (x64) Important
MS23-NOV: Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 - Windows 10 Version 1607 LTSB - KB5032197 (x64) Critical
MS23-NOV: Servicing Stack Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 - Windows 10 Version 1607 - KB5032391 (x64) Critical
Browsers
Google Chrome 119.0.6045.160 Available 11/14/2023 High Unspecified
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Adobe Acrobat Reader 2023.006.20380 Available - Adobe Acrobat Reader - Continuous Track 11/14/2023 Critical APSB23-54
Action Required
No action is required. Informational only.
November 29, 2023
Communications
All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
EFFECTIVE December 13, 2023, CWS-CARES RELEASE 0.11 PRODUCTION RELEASE IS PLANNED TO MOVE INTO PRODUCTION
The CWS-CARES team has scheduled release activity that will interrupt connectivity to the CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process for pilot counties Contra Costa, Fresno, Placer, and Santa Clara. The release activity is planned to begin at 5:00 PM on December 13, 2023, and conclude at 11:00 PM. During this scheduled outage, users in pilot counties will not be able to access the CARES RFA application.
CWS-CARES Release 0.11:
The purpose of this release is to primarily deliver fixes for known issues, enhancements to behind-the-scenes functionality and security improvements to CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process.
CWDS is excited to share the new RFA features that are planned to be available following the implementation of CWS-CARES Release 0.11 on December 13, 2023, to the CARES-RFA Pilot County users. These new features are derived from user feedback as well as project planned enhancements.
As a resource to pilot counties, over the next few weeks, your organization can expect to receive information regarding a Webinar along with an updated Participant and Quick Reference Guide. These resources will provide the system users with details of the features/functionality that have been added since the last production release.
RFA Application Process:
The RFA Application process is the Receipt, Record, Submission, and Assignment of an Application. The RFA Application process was selected as the first software build for CARES. CARES will ultimately replace the legacy Child Welfare System CWS/CMS. The RFA Application Process will operate in a totally new Production Environment without integrating with other legacy systems, such as the CWS/CMS and CARES-Live applications.
RFA Application Process Features:
- Allows an applicant or County staff member to initiate an emergency or standard application to become a resource family home
- Creates a facility profile that tracks required information to complete this process, including background check results, completion of orientation and training hours, physical home assessment, and family evaluation
- Aggregates information into a report to recommend approval or disapproval of a resource family application
Action Required
RFA Pilot County users review new features in the CWS-CARES Production Environment after December 14, 2023.
All Release Notes, including information for this release once available, can be found here: https://cwds.ca.gov/rfa_application_process_release_notes
November 27, 2023
Communications
All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
EFFECTIVE NOVEMBER 30, 2023, CARES-Live 2.8.27 RELEASE IS SCHEDULED TO MOVE INTO PRODUCTION
The CARES-Live team has scheduled release activity that will interrupt connectivity to the CARES-Live application. The release activity will begin at 6:00 PM on Thursday, November 30, 2023, and conclude at 9:00 PM. During this release, the CARES-Live team will focus on application changes, and users will not be able to access the CARES-Live application during this scheduled outage.
CARES-Live 2.8.27:
CWS-CARES-Live Training Portal (Dashboard):
Action Required
If users experience any issues with CARES-Live, please follow your county process for reporting issues. CARES-Live County Administrators may contact the CARES Service Desk through the CWDS ServiceNow Customer Support Management (CSM) Portal at https://cwds.service-now.com/csm. Alternate methods are phoning 1-855-292-3444 or via email at Servicedesk@cwds.ca.gov during normal business hours. You may also email after hours and a Service Desk representative will contact you the next business day.
November 27, 2023
Communications
All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled a change window on Thursday, December 7, 2023, to upgrade switches at the Gold Camp Data Center. The change window will begin at 8:30 PM and conclude at 12:00 Midnight.
The CARES-Live application will experience up to a 40-minute interruption in service within the change window.
CWS/CMS connections through the Gold Camp facility will failover to either the Orange or Vacaville Data Center facilities while the change is in progress. CWS/CMS users may experience a slightly longer time than usual to connect to the CWS/CMS application while the network looks for connections to the other two Data Centers. No interruption in service is expected for the CWS/CMS application during this activity.
There is no impact to connectivity to CWS-CARES.
Action Required
CWS/CMS Users: If users experience any issues with CWS/CMS, please follow your county process for reporting issues, or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.
CARES-Live Users: Please follow your county process for reporting issues. CARES-Live County Administrators may contact the CARES Service Desk through the CWDS ServiceNow Customer Support Management (CSM) Portal at https://cwds.service-now.com/csm. Alternate methods are phoning 1-855-292-3444 or via email at Servicedesk@cwds.ca.gov during normal business hours. You may also email after hours, and a Service Desk representative will contact you the next business day.
