General Usage Questions:


I cannot find a child that I know is in the system.


Try searching for the child with the ‘All Counties’ option in the County prompt.


Reports: Are there reports available in CPRS?


Yes. To access these reports, login to CPRS, and select the Reports link at the top of the screen. Reports include:

Children in Care – This report lists the children in Foster Care in a requested county and associated information such as assigned judge, length in care, # of moves, & assigned CASA.

Recently Updated Documents – For a given county, this report will provide listing of cases for which documents (usually Court Orders) were uploaded & stored in the case Documents tab.

Cold Cases – Per county see the children who have been in foster care for an extended period of time, and who appear to be aging out of foster care without attaining permanency. See the Cold Case Project Website for more information.

WTLP – See the children ages 14-18 in your county, and see whether they have a WTLP.


Reports: How current is the Children in Care report?


The CPRS data is updated every night from DFCS.


Reports: I see you are collecting data on {topic}. How can we get a report on {topic}?


Make a request to gtl@gacprs.org or contact the J4C office at 404.676.9999.


Is there a way for the system to highlight what has changed in a case?


Yes, utilize the Snapshot feature.

CPRS allows you to monitor changes in a specific child’s case. How many times have you pulled up a case plan and wondered what changed since the last time you looked at it? CPRS2 stores a lot of information about a case, and it can be difficult when reviewing a case to determine what has changed since you last examined the case. Wouldn’t it be nice to visually see what parts of a case have changed? (To see a larger image of any of the following pictures, simply click the picture.)

The snapshot feature allows you to save the state of a case at that moment in time. As new updates to the case come in from Georgia SHINES, CPRS keeps track of changes made to the case plan since you created the snapshot for the child. When you open the case plan, the Roadmap screen displays symbols to indicate what screens have modified data. The green plus sign indicates new data added, the yellow triangle indicates an update, and a red minus sign indicates a section or element was removed. These same symbols are displayed on the detail pages to indicate what fields have been changed.

No snapshots of a case are stored or created until you press the Snapshot button to create one.

In the screen shot above, you can see the new Snapshot button. Pressing that for a child stores the current values of that child’s plan for comparison to future updates. If the child already has a snapshot created for him, pressing this button will create a new snapshot for the child and clear the screen of all change indicators until another update to the plan comes in from SHINES. Once you have reviewed changes to a plan, creating a new snapshot is a good idea so that you know when it has been updated again.

Taking a snap shot for a child is the only action you need to perform to use this feature. The rest is just noticing what has changed and on screen details, hovering over the change indicator to see the previous value. Please note that a snapshot is for a specific child. If you want to track changes to all children in a group, you need to press the snapshot button for each child.

In the case where we have lists of items, we have indicators to let you know what items have been added or updated, and an indicator towards the top if an item has been removed. For example, a goal can have multiple steps. If one of those steps is removed in SHINES, CPRS will display a message such as:

And if a step has been added, you will see something like this:

CPRS2 will do the best it can. There are instances where CPRS2 can’t always tell what exactly changed, or instances where it can be confused. For example, if a goal step has the priority, status, responsible party or to be completed information changed, you will see change indicators for that specific step and fields. If the step text itself is changed, that will show up as a deleted step and a new step. There are lists in the system where we lack an identifier that never changes to track. These issues also apply to visitation and health providers as well.

Important note: Snapshots are associated with the CPRS user id used to log into the system. So if two people with two different user accounts create a snapshot for the same child, those are two separately maintained snapshots. You do not need to be concerned that someone else can overwrite your snapshot with theirs.

When you add a case to your My Cases list, that case will automatically be snapshot’d for you. If you already had a snapshot for that case, your existing snapshot is not changed.

Technical Questions:


Can I copy & paste text into a field on CPRS screens?

Yes and no. You can copy & paste plain text into CPRS fields. Programs like Notepad use plain text. However, you should not copy from a MS Word document and paste into CPRS because Word text contains invisible & hidden characters that CPRS does not like. If you try to save pasted Word text, you can lose information.


When I click on a link, the system logs me out.


Typically, you can correct this behavior by changing a setting in your browser. In Internet Explorer, visit the Tools menu at the top of the screen. Select Internet Options. Under the General tab, select the Browsing History: Settings button. You should see a popup like the one below:

Select the Every time I visit the webpage option. Click the Ok button to save your changes.
If that doesn’t work, contact us.


Can you add Spell Check to the system?


Some modern browsers have Spell Check built-in. In Firefox 8.0, open the Tools menu, visit the Internet Options popup, select the Check my Spelling… option to turn on Spell Check.

In Internet Explorer, you have to add an accelerator such as ieSpell or the Google bar.


Why doesn’t my home page display correctly? I cannot see all of the fields.


It’s possible that your browser font is set too large. You can hold down the Ctrl key and select the ‘-‘ key (minus sign) to reduce the font size or the ‘+’ key to enlarge the font size. Optionally, you can open the view options in Internet Explorer and set the font size:

Administrative Questions:


How can we learn more about CPRS and what your team can do for us?


Contact the J4C team (gtl@gacprs.org). And we’ll schedule a meeting with your organization.


How do we get user IDs for new users?


You request new IDs from gtl@gacprs.org. Please provide the user’s name, role, organization, contact email address, and best phone number. If applicable, we need to know who supervises the user as well.


How do I change my password?


Once you login, select the My_CPRS link at the top/right of the screen. Then select the ‘Change Password/Edit User Profile’ link. Update your password & save the screen.


What kind of equipment do I need to run CPRS?


You need a computer with Internet access.


What software do I need on my computer to run CPRS?


You need an Internet browser, Adobe PDF reader, and in some cases a spreadsheet package (Microsoft Excel or Open Office Calc).


What browsers does CPRS support?


Currently, we support Internet Explorer 7x, 8x, & 9, Firefox 6, 7, & 9.