November 18, 2024
Communications
All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:
Effective November 21, 2024, CARES-Live 2.8.31 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 21, 2024, and conclude at 11:00 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.
Users will not be able to access the CARES-Live application during this scheduled outage.
CARES-Live 2.8.31:
- This release addresses security findings and elastic search upgrades and other infrastructure updates and security patches not visible to CARES-Live users.
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 14, 2024
Communications
ALL SPOCs, Technical Contacts and CAD Contacts:
The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance of the SAFE Cloud service. The maintenance begins on Saturday, November 23, 2024, at 8:00 PM and concludes on Sunday, November 24, 2024, at 2:00 AM. The activity will cause interruptions in the SAFE Cloud service. Some Business Objects (BO) reports will fail to send, or automated scripts may fail to retrieve from SAFE during this scheduled maintenance.
Action Required
All users should logoff of the SAFE Cloud service prior to the start of the stated maintenance timeframe. Please check on your scheduled BO SAFE reports and automated FTP scripts. If needed, re-run the reports and scripts.
Contact the IBM Help Desk (800-428-8268) to report any issues with your Business Objects content in SAFE.
November 13, 2024
Customer Relations
The mandatory VB6 version of Release 9.5 will be implemented on Saturday, December 14, 2024.
Coexistent county CWSCMS.MSI file availability:
The CWSCMS.MSI file will be available by Friday, December 6, 2024, for technical staff to begin testing the installation of the release. The code will be located on the CWSDFSr share in the following location:
Perform any necessary testing, but do not install countywide before December 14, 2024. The new release will not work with the database until then.
Dedicated County CWSCMS.MSI file delivery:
By Friday, December 6, 2024, dedicated county users should start seeing the CWSCMS.MSI file copied to their workstations during Windows logon. Technical staff can verify that they have received the file by checking for its presence in the C:\CACW\R95. folder. This file must exist on the workstation for the installation of Release R9.5 to take place on or after December 14, 2024.
Release 9.5 documents are located on the CWDS website. More documents will be added as the release go-live date approaches.
November 08, 2024
Communications
Child Welfare Leadership and Core Constituents,
As part of our ongoing effort to provide you greater insight into upcoming meetings for the CWS-CARES project, please see the attached updated CWS-CARES Meeting Calendar for November and December 2024 and January 2025. This calendar includes all meetings hosted by the CWS-CARES project, including Core Constituent demonstrations, implementation meetings, and key workgroups.
The calendar includes Core Constituent Build Review Demonstrations, which are a follow up to the Core Constituent Demonstrations of CARES prototypes that occurred in September and October. Participants may see feedback they provided during the prototype demonstrations incorporated into this Build Review. Please note that the CARES Product Team is still prioritizing some of the feedback and suggestions from the previous sessions. Please also note that invites will come from either the PaaS SI Product Team or the Rework mailboxes.
The CWS-CARES project is in the process of identifying Milestone User Feedback session dates for January 2025. Milestone User Feedback is a feedback period to test specific functionalities for a subset of milestones in the developed product before Extended User Scenario Testing (EUST), which will begin in March 2025.
Action Required
Please share this information with those at your organization you feel should be informed. Note: This calendar is point-in-time and subject to change. The CWS-CARES project aims to deliver a sustainable, more real-time calendar solution that will be accessible to all meeting participants and leadership in the future. If you have any questions, please contact CWS_CustRel@osi.ca.gov.
November 08, 2024
Communications
CWS SPOCs and existing APD Contacts:
We are pleased to announce an update to the Child Welfare Digital Services (CWDS) Contacts page on the CWDS website. In an ongoing effort to provide better customer service related to Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS) Advance Planning Documents (APD), a new Advance Planning Document Contact is being added to the CWDS Contacts page under the CWS tab. This new contact type addition will go live on Monday, December 2, 2024. This website update is intended to support the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), Child Welfare System Branch (CWSB) in its efforts to proactively communicate APD updates and guidance to the relevant county contacts.
We anticipate that this outreach initiative will provide improved support to county and tribal staff in the submission of APDs and will facilitate a more efficient review and approval process by CDSS for these requests.
Screenshot Showing New Advance Planning Document Contact:
Initial addition of Users
CDSS is working with the CWDS Web Team to add the known APD Contacts for each county. Again, these will begin to appear on Monday, December 2, 2024.
How to be added as a APD Contact
Single Points Of Contact (SPOC) can utilize the CWDS County Contacts Page Guide (attached) to add staff to this new contact area. Please contact your SPOC in order to be added.
Action Required
For questions related to this communication, please reach out to the CWSB at CWSB-Fiscal@otsi.ca.gov.
November 07, 2024
Communications
CARES SPOCs, Implementation Coordinators, County, Tribe, Probation, State Leadership, OCM Coordinators and specific CWDA Staff related to child welfare
We are pleased to present the fifth issue of the CARES Compass, the two-page executive summary with upcoming project communications and brief informational highlights.
In this issue, you will find:
- CWDS Planning Roadmap Update: The CWDS Planning Roadmap is enhanced with milestone descriptions, critical training and implementation activities, and Extended User Scenario Testing (EUST) periods. A high-level roadmap focusing on the CARES V1 Project Lifecycle is also available.
- Stakeholder Briefings Series: We're pleased to announce the dates for all upcoming Stakeholder Briefing sessions. These sessions will provide you with valuable insights into CWS-CARES and an opportunity to ask questions.
- Core Constituent Survey 2: We describe how we are applying the feedback collected from this survey.
- Holistic Design Update: We share statistics on the feedback and sessions conducted related to holistic design.
- Upcoming Events and Communications: A list of CWS-CARES communications that will be released in the next three months.
The fifth issue of the CARES Compass is available here: The CARES Compass, Volume 1 – Issue 5 – November 2024
We appreciate your continued commitment to staying informed.
Action Required
If you have any questions, need clarification, or have any accessibility issues, please do not hesitate to contact Customer Relations at CWS_CustRel@osi.ca.gov.
November 01, 2024
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 October 2024:
MS Windows 10 22H2 Patches
MS24-OCT: Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 10 - KB5044020 (x64) Important
MS24-OCT: Cumulative Update for Windows 10 - KB5044273 (x64) Critical
MS Windows 10 21H2 Patches
MS24-OCT: Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 10 - KB5044020 (x64) Important
MS24-OCT: Cumulative Update for Windows 10 - KB5044273 (x64) Critical
MS Windows 1607 (LTSB) Patches
MS24-OCT: Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 4.8 for Windows 10 Version 1607 - KB5044021 (x64) Important
MS24-OCT: Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 - KB5044293 (x64) Important
MS Office 2016 Patches
MS24-OCT: Security Update for Microsoft Excel 2016 - KB5002643 Important
MS24-OCT: Security Update for Microsoft Office 2016 - KB5002635 Important
Office 365 Patches
Office 365 Version 16.0.18025.20104 Available - Current Channel - Office 365 (English (United States)) Important - Unspecified
Mozilla Firefox Patches
TS - Mozilla Firefox (x64) 128.3.1 ESR Available 10/1/2024 – High mfsa2024-47
Action Required
No action is required. Informational only.
November 01, 2024
Communications
All SPOCs:
As discussed at the last CARES-Live Meeting in September, we will now be using a newly added ‘Role’ on the CWDS website (cwds.ca.gov) as our foundation for the CARES-Live Quarterly Meeting attendees list. This new ‘Role’ allows a user to self-select it to be added to the new CARES-Live Quarterly Meeting series, beginning in January 2025.
In an effort to form this list and perform some distribution list cleanup, we kindly ask that you follow the steps detailed in the attached ‘CARES-Live Profile – Create Account’ document, to add the role to your CWDS website profile.
Please complete this by 5:00 PM on November 27, 2024, so that we have sufficient time to create the new CARES-Live Quarterly Meeting series and send out the invite to everyone who wants to participate in the meeting.
Action Required
Please share this information with any relevant individuals in your organization who may be interested in attending this meeting series. If you have any questions or issues on the process to add this role to your profile, please reach out to Customer Relations.
October 30, 2024
Communications
All SPOCs:
We are pleased to announce an update to the CWDS Planning Roadmap posted on the CWDS public website. The updated roadmap illustrates planned releases in the following systems: CARES-Live, CARES RFA and CWS/CMS. The updated planning roadmap includes CARES Version 1 (V1) milestone descriptions, critical training and implementation activities, and Extended User Scenario Testing (EUST) periods. In addition to the CWDS Planning Roadmap, we are posting a high-level roadmap focusing on the CARES V1 Project Lifecycle.
Accessing the new page:
- The CWDS Planning Roadmap and high-level CWS-CARES V1 Project Lifecycle is located under the ‘Stakeholder Resources’ dropdown, under the ‘Project Reporting’ link.
- Under ‘Project Reporting’ you will find the ‘CWDS Planning Roadmap & Timeline’ link.
Roadmaps are subject to change and will be updated as needed. For a more detailed status of product development please see our latest CWS-CARES Monthly Legislative Update.
Action Required
If you have any questions, need clarification, or have any accessibility issues, please do not hesitate to contact CWDS Communications.
October 28, 2024
Communications
All Pilot County RFA Implementation Coordinators and SPOCs:
The CWS-CARES team has scheduled maintenance activity for the CWS-CARES production environment for Friday, November 1, 2024, beginning at 6:00 AM and concluding at 8:00 AM. During the maintenance window, the CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process will be accessible for pilot counties Contra Costa, Fresno, Placer, and Santa Clara.
During the maintenance window, document related functionality in the CARES application will not be accessible.
Action Required
No action required from end-users during this maintenance window.
If users experience any issues with the CWS-CARES, please follow your county process for reporting issues. CWS-CARES County Administrators may contact the CARES Service Desk through the CWDS ServiceNow Customer Support Management (CSM) Portal. 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.
