CalSAWs Waves Map (click to enlarge)
by Lina Bickel, CalSAWs Project Manager
We are almost halfway through 2021, and to me it feels like we are on a high-speed rail train as we move towards April 2023 and our migration to CalSAWS. It is so exciting to be part of this statewide project! Read on to learn more...
Late last year, Los Angeles’s LRS system quietly became CalSAWS with the release of additional functionality—CalSAWS exists!—but the next migration will be anything but quiet. All 39 C-IV counties will migrate together to CalSAWS in September 2021. THIS September. To explain in simple terms: In 1995, California established four separate consortia to implement automated eligibility determination systems. Los Angeles’s LEADER system was first to go live in 2000, followed by four counties in the C-IV consortium in 2004. CalWIN went live for 18 counties beginning in 2006, and 35 more counties went live in C-IV in 2010. In 2011, the state legislature approved the eventual migration of C-IV to the LEADER Replacement System (LRS); LRS went live in 2016. LRS and C-IV are built on a very similar platform, so LRS’s transformation to CalSAWS was a pretty easy lift. The CalSAWS platform has the best of LRS and C-IV but with added enhancements and robust automation. Releases will continue for the life of CalSAWS, just as releases occur for CalWIN—once the C-IV counties migrate to CalSAWS, the releases will be focused on the functionality and enhancements needed to ensure CalWIN counties have everything they expect and more in CalSAWS. The CalWIN platform is very different from CalSAWS, and that is why the 18 CalWIN counties will migrate to CalSAWS in waves of 3-4 counties at a time, beginning in October 2022 and ending in October 2023.
When did I say Santa Barbara goes live? April 2023!! We are in Wave 3 with Orange and Ventura counties. I think this positions us nicely for a very successful migration. Forty counties will have been in CalSAWS for over a year by then, and five CalWIN counties will have migrated before us. We will learn from those who go before us.
5 Things to Know about CalSAWs (click to enlarge)