Note: This Quick Start Guide is for case consultants or litigation support attorneys who contract directly with OCR and are not members of the same "Office" in CARES as an attorney appointed to cases. (If you are court-appointed to cases or if you did not sign your own contract with OCR's Executive Director, this Quick Start Guide is not applicable; please contact OCR for different directions.)

Welcome! The Office of the Child's Representative (OCR) billing and case management system, CARES (Court Appointed Reimbursement Electronic System), is an online application which allows contract attorneys, case consultants, and their staff to record all case-related activity.

When you are working on an OCR case, you will request access to the attorney of record's "appointment" in CARES and add your activities to that appointment over the course of each month. On or before the 15th of the following month, use CARES to submit an invoice for your activities to OCR for review and payment (i.e. January's activities need to be submitted on an invoice by February 15th). This is the core functionality of CARES; there are many additional features to explore over time.

This Quick Start Guide will walk you through how to:

Note that all blue text in these help articles, such as in the bullets above, indicates you can click on that text to move to that specific information or to find more help on that topic.

Log In to CARES

Important: CARES will only run properly in Chrome, Firefox, or Safari. To avoid errors and data loss, do not access CARES through other web browsers such as Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge. Help remind yourself to do this by creating a bookmark for CARES only in Chrome, Firefox, and/or Safari.

Download Chrome, Firefox, or Safari to use when accessing CARES. Never access CARES through other web browsers such as Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge. More on this
Navigate to https://cares.coloradochildrep.org/#!/forgot. Carefully type your email address that is on file with OCR and click Submit. You will receive an automated email within a few minutes. Note your CARES user name at the beginning of that email. Need help?
Follow the hyperlink in the email from Step 2. Create any secure password you would like to use for the CARES application. Click the blue Reset Password button to save it.
Click the blue Login button.
Enter your user name (it was at the beginning of the email from Step 2—not your email address).
Enter the password you made up in Step 3.
Click Login.
Last, you may see a pop-up message asking you to secure your CARES account with "two-factor authentication," a very important security feature enabling CARES to occasionally text you information to access to your account (message and data rates may apply). Click "Quick Setup Now" to jump to User Settings > General Settings. First check the box beside Use Two Factor Authentication, then enter your mobile phone number as shown below. Click Save in the upper right of the screen. Follow the prompts to verify your device based on a text sent to your phone. More on this
Welcome to CARES! Bookmark cares.coloradochildrep.org and visit that address any time from now on to log into CARES.

Navigation Tips Throughout CARES

If you don't know what to do next, look for a blue button—blue buttons in CARES suggest typical next steps.
Red text or asterisks denote required information. The system will prevent you from saving a page or pop-up window unless you have entered data everywhere you see red text or an asterisk.
Hover your mouse/cursor over question mark icons within CARES to see pop-up explanations or help article reminders.
You may need to scroll up or down to see all of a window's or menu's options and requirements. Try scrolling if you can't save a window--maybe some required information is missing.
If you see a spinning blue circle or progress bar, you should wait for it to stop before the current page and its menus will work properly.
Always look for a Save button to save your changes. Clicking either "Cancel" or an "X" in the corner of a window in CARES will close the current screen without saving changes.
Save entries regularly and if you get called away from your computer. For security, if you are inactive for 30 minutes, CARES will automatically log you out, meaning you will lose any unsaved activities, notes, etc. Do not leave or close your device without saving open entries.

Left-Side Navigation Menu

You will always have access to the left-side navigation menu in CARES. It either is open and already displayed on the left OR collapsed into an icon with three white bars. Click on that icon to open the menu if needed. Click on the words to navigate to each area or to select from sub-menus.

Zoom In or Out

On supported web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari), you can zoom in and out to change the font size and display. In CARES, if you are zoomed in, the left-side menu will collapse (see above); if you are zoomed out, it will always show. You may want to experiment with zooming to adjust your CARES screen display. Please note, zooming is not a CARES setting; it depends entirely on your individual web browser's settings. More on this

Home Screen

The Home Screen will show some data, important announcements from OCR, and important alerts. You usually see the Home Screen when you log in, or you can find it by clicking "Home" on the left-side navigation menu. It's a helpful habit to skim the bright orange alerts on the right side of the Home Screen. Click on one to read and/or dismiss it. Some alerts cannot be dismissed; instead, to remove them, take the action they recommend. This screen also shows charts of your caseload and invoicing--because they record monthly points in time, they will look blank in the beginning:

Cases and Appointments

After you are asked to support an appointed attorney with a specific case, your first step in CARES will be to locate that case and the attorney's appointment to it, then request access to it so you may record and bill for your activities, such as meetings and investigation. That's next in the Quick Start Guide!

Next: How to Request Access to an Appointment >>>