General

Available CWS-CARES Environments for User Access

July 31, 2025 Communications
CARES SPOCs, Implementation Coordinators, OCM Coordinators, County Leadership, Tribe Leadership, Probation Leadership, and State Leadership:

We are pleased to share a new resource that will help you understand the various CWS-CARES application environments that are currently available to users.  

In order to build, test, and safely launch changes to CWS-CARES, we use different environments. These environments are essentially different versions of the application that allow us to develop, test, train, and eventually deploy new features with confidence. Each one serves a different purpose in the development lifecycle, or a different audience. Some of these environments will help users gain early, hands-on exposure to and familiarity with CWS-CARES, provide a safe space to practice, and will directly support your CWS-CARES go-live readiness activities without impacting real data.  

We have made several of these environments available to county users, including V1Readiness (Sandbox), V1DCVAL (for Data Conversion Validation activities), and CARES102 County Development (for Forms, Reports, and Data Extract activities). The PDF document, titled ‘CWS-CARES Environments’ includes more details about each one, including: 
  • Activity Name
  • Environment name 
  • Intended Purpose/Usage
  • Intended Users/Audience
  • Access and Duration 
  • Associated Teams Channel or Contact.
Please review this guide to identify the environments most relevant to your role. If you have any initial questions about this resource, please reach out to the designated contact listed, or Customer Relations.  
We appreciate your continued commitment to staying informed. 
 
Action Required
No action required. If you have any questions, need clarification, or have any accessibility issues, please do not hesitate to contact Customer Relations.
CARES, CWS-CARES, General

CWS-CARES: New Core Constituent Orientation Guide

March 21, 2025 Communications
Core Constituent Points of Contact:

Core Constituents,

You shared in quarterly Core Constituent surveys that new meeting and demonstration participants would benefit from onboarding resources to better understand CWS-CARES and how to engage effectively. In response, we are introducing the Core Constituent Orientation Guide, a one-page resource designed to support your onboarding and participation.

What’s in the Guide?
  • Essential resources to get started
  • Key activities for Core Constituents
  • How to provide feedback
  • Contact information for questions
You can access the guide in the attached document. It will also be included in all Core Constituent meeting invites moving forward.

We would like to hear from you! If you have suggestions to improve the guide, please send them to the Customer Relations Team.

Thank you for your continued participation and valuable contributions to CWS-CARES.

Action Requested
Send your suggestions to improve the Core Constituent Orientation Guide to the Customer Relations team.
 
Customer Relations, Announcement, Notice, CWS-CARES, General