CDMIS Update #28

Child Development Management Information System (CDMIS)
May 19, 2022

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CDMIS M&O Overview
CDMIS M&O Phase I Updates

Overview of the CDMIS Maintenance and Optimization (M&O) Contract

In Early 2021, the Early Education Division (EED) at the California Department of Education (CDE) released a Request for Offer (RFO) with a Statement of Work (SOW) in order to perform maintenance and improvement work on the CDMIS. After reviewing the bids, the CDE contracted with Capitol Tech Solutions (CTS) to perform this work. The purpose of the M&O contract is to achieve the following:

• Improve the CDMIS to better serve our partners in early education and child development programs
• Improve the CDMIS user experience
• Modernize an aging database system to better meet current needs
  

The new and improved CDMIS will also include the following upgrades:

• Compatibility for all devices: Upon the completion of the contract work, the CDMIS will be accessible from various devices, such as laptops, tablets, or smartphones, and will automatically resize the screen to fit various devices using bootstrap technology.
• Automation of tasks: Tasks that used to require the involvement of additional staff or CDMIS technical assistance team members, such as recovering user passwords, will now be automated.
• New functionalities: These new functionalities will allow users to view their agency's report progress, log history, and reporting submissions.
• Communication between contractors: CDE and CDSS will be able to send text communications to contractors, addressing specific issues via the new CDMIS landing page.
• Status checks: CDMIS users will now be able to view comparisons between current and prior reporting periods, offering a helpful tool to view comparisons for the number of children reported between months.

CDMIS M&O Phase I Upgrades

The CDMIS M&O upgrades will be launched in a series of phases. Below are the upgrades that will be available for use on June 6th, 2022:

Username Recovery

Historically, if a CDMIS account holder had forgotten what their CDMIS username was, they would have to contact either their agency super user or CDMIS Support in order to recover their username. Users could not independently identify this information on their own.

In the Phase 1 upgrade, users will now be able to utilize the "Forgot Username" function, through which CDMIS users can enter the email address registered with their CDMIS account and quickly recover their username in an email from the CDMIS. This eliminates the need to reach out to other agency staff or CDMIS Support and minimizes the wait time to receive this information.

Password Recovery

Similarly, for Password Recovery, historically, if a CDMIS account holder had forgotten what their CDMIS password was, they would have to contact either their agency super user or CDMIS support in order to recover their password. Alternatively, there was a password hint option; however, if users still could not recall their password with the hint, they still had to reach out to retrieve their password. Because this information is secure and private, if users reached out to CDMIS Support for this information, a phone call had to be scheduled with a CDMIS Support staff in order to share the password over the phone.

In the Phase 1 upgrade, users will now be able to utilize the "Forgot Password" function, through which CDMIS users can enter their CDMIS username and quickly receive password reset instructions from an email. This process will ask users to reset their password and also allow users to update their password hint any time a password is reset.

Account Reactivation

Historically, super users could request for deactivated users to be reactivated. Alternatively, deactivated CDMIS users would often contact CDMIS Support staff directly at the CDMIS Support email to have their accounts reactivated. CDMIS staff would then manually reactivate these accounts, and users would be able to log back in if they remembered their username and most recent password upon reactivation. If users did not remember this information, they would have to go through the corresponding processes in order to retrieve that information again.

With the upgrade, if the user has been deactivated due to 90 days of inactivity, they can reactivate their account themselves by entering their username and receiving an activation email from CDMIS. Upon reactivation, users can log back in or follow the password and username processes in order to log in. For deactivation reasons other than inactivity for 90 days, the historical process will continue for security purposes. 

An upcoming webinar will be held on June 6th, 2022 to review all of the CDMIS M&O Phase 1 Upgrades. All active CDMIS users will be invited to this webinar, held by CDE and CDSS, via email from the CDMIS Support Inbox.