Another change you may see while using COURTS on-line is that when your session is experiencing a potential data cross-over or security breach, you may be redirected to a page asking you to EXIT out of the system. When this occurs, please follow the instructions presented, then hit the EXIT button on the page to properly close out your session and clear the error condition. You may then log back in to the system.  To avoid any loss of data, please remember to always Save your documents frequently while using the system.  We know that being redirected to this page will be inconvenient, but this temporary measure is designed to reduce instances of potential security breaches.

These changes will go into effect on June 23rd.  Thank you for your ongoing understanding and patience.

COURTS ON-LINE STATUS UPDATE AND REMINDER

Since the setting change installed a few weeks back, it appears the frequency of the periodic identity switching problem and the frequent session interruptions have decreased but they have not been entirely eliminated yet.

As indicated before, this issue continues to be handled at the highest priority level in the department. The company that developed the security front end for the COURTS on-line system has been actively working to resolve this issue and is closely monitoring the system. Therefore, it is critical that we report any anomalies or errors to them as they occur.

As a reminder, please look out for the following errors or behaviors. If they should occur, please report them to the Division’s technical support staff immediately (609) 984-2555, while the error is still occurring on your end so that it can be actively tracked in our logs. If errors are not reported, they may go undetected and unresolved.

1. You are having trouble logging into COURTS on-line or logging in is taking several attempts.
   
2. Upon logging into COURTS on-line, your name and firm name are not appearing correctly on the home page of COURTS on-line.
   
3. When you go to create a document (CP, Answer, etc.), the name of your firm and/or its mailing address is not appearing correctly in the template.
   
4. When you print a document before submitting it, the name of your firm and/or its mailing address is not appearing correctly in the document.
   
5. Documents appearing in your Message Box or in your File Cabinet do not belong to your firm.
   
6. You Save a document but it did not show up in your File Cabinet.
   
7. You cannot get access to one of your cases through the Full Background Search. The message “No cases found. Please note that you may only look up cases represented by you” appears. If you are certain that the search criteria you entered is correct and it is one of your firm’s cases, please let us know.
   
8. You are getting a white screen or are being redirected to a “I Agree” page when you navigate from page to page or when you hit Save.
   
9. You receive a hearing notice (attorney calendar) with a case that does not belong to your firm.

In closing, two things to be mindful of:

• Please remember to always use the EXIT button after you are done with your session instead of simply closing your browser with the “x”. Not exiting COURTS on-line properly may result in your session staying active for a certain period of time, possibly causing some failures of the system that manages the identities of the users logging in.
• Also, ensure that you are using the correct COURTS on-line address:  https://courtsonline.dol.state.nj.us.  We recommend creating a new shortcut with this address to your desktop and also adding it to your favorites list, just to be sure that the right address is always being used.

Thank you for your ongoing assistance and support.

IMPORTANT COURTS ON-LINE SECURITY NOTICE - STATUS UPDATE

This is a follow-up message to bring you up to speed on our efforts to resolve the ongoing access issue with COURTS on-line.

For the past several weeks, the Department of Labor’s IT staff has been working non-stop in troubleshooting this issue. In an attempt to pinpoint the source of the random identity switching, they have changed numerous settings with the system that controls access to COURTS on-line and have modified session timeout lengths.  They have inserted debugging protocols within the COURTS on-line system to assist technical staff in deciphering errors right after they occur.  They have also been carefully monitoring the access logs to identify any anomalous behavior in the system. The Division’s own technical support staff has been following up on all instances of questionable access to the system with the parties involved to verify if there were any access issues or mis-filings. Where there have been mis-filings, they have corrected the data inaccuracies in the system and have notified all the parties involved of the data discrepancy.

We appreciate your ongoing cooperation with regards to reporting issues and errors as they occur on your end. This has been a big help to us and we ask that you continue to remain vigilant while using the system and to report anything unusual to us immediately. These errors or red-flags not only include system issues, but also errors such as receiving a hearing notice for a case that does not belong to your firm, or conversely, not receiving a hearing notice or getting access to a case that has been filed by your firm.  

As noted before, please be aware that we may have to take the system down, with very little advance notice, for troubleshooting or system modifications. Please remember to save your work frequently to avoid losing any data and to always log off the system when you are not using it by hitting the EXIT button.

Thank you again for your patience and support.

 IMPORTANT COURTS ON-LINE SECURITY NOTICE

Please be advised that we have recently received two reports from COURTS on-line subscribers that when they log into the system, the name of the firm that appears on their home page is not their own. Furthermore, there have been two other instances being reported of documents being electronically filed with the Division where the attorney noted on the e-filed document was not the actual filer. We have alerted the Department’s IT security team and have asked them to investigate and advise as to whether there is an error with the security configuration of the system and if so, to provide us the remedy to address it.

This is a very unusual error, one that has never occurred previously, and we will be devoting all our technical resources in trying to troubleshoot it.  Consequently, over the next several days, we may need to take the system down for short periods of time in an attempt to troubleshoot and ask for your patience during this time.

In the meantime, to assist us with troubleshooting, we are asking you to do the following:

1. Every time you log into COURTS on-line, verify that your name and firm name appears correctly on the first page.
   
2. Every time you create a document (CP, Answer, etc.), verify that your firm’s name appears correctly on the data entry screen.
   
3. Every time you print a document (Save & Preview or View Document), verify that your firm’s name appears correctly on printed document.
   
4. Every time you print a document sent to your Message Box from another firm, verify that it is your firm’s case.

If there are any data inconsistencies or unusual behavior, please do not shut down your session. Call us immediately at (609) 984-2555 and provide us with the following information:

• Your name and firm name
• The name of the other firm that comes up, with address, if available. Take a screen shot if you can (hit “Print Screen” and then paste the image of the screen into a Word document)
• The time of day this data discrepancy was noticed
• What you were doing in the system (Save, Save & Preview, Search, etc…) and the type of document you were working on (CP, Answer, etc..)
• If you experienced the system being very slow or if a white screen came up, requiring you to close your session down.
• If you were searching for a case belonging to your firm but received an error message indicating that the case does not belong to you
• Your computer IP address (if you don’t know this, you can find it by opening up another browser window and typing in the following address: http://whatsmyip.net)
• What Internet browser and version you are using

Lastly, as a general reminder to ensure that your session is properly closed once you are done, please do not forget to always hit the EXIT button at the top right hand corner of the screen.

Thank you for your patience as we work through this issue.

Please be advised that the current web address (URL) for the COURTS on-line application (https://courts.dol.state.nj.us) is being phased out.

The new web address of COURTS on-line, effective today, will be: https://courtsonline.dol.state.nj.us. Please update your existing shortcut to this new address.

The old address will continue operating in the short term but you may receive a security prompt as follows.

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Internet Explorer users:

1.       You may get a security prompt that states “There is a problem with this website's security certificate”. 

Select the option: “Continue to this website (not recommended)”

2.       Next you will get a security warning as follows:

‘The current Web page is trying to open a site in your Trusted Sites list. Do you want to allow this?

Select “YES”.

3.       You will then be taken to the COURTS on-line login page

Firefox users:

1.       You may get a security prompt that states “This connection is untrusted. What should I do?”

Select “I understand the risks” and then hit the “Add exception” button which identifies the COURTS on-line website as a safe site.

2.       The next security prompt that comes up allows you to confirm the security exception for COURTS on-line.

Check off the box that allows you to “permanently store this exception” so that you don’t have to go through this process every time you access COURTS on-line.

Then hit the button called “Confirm Security Exception”.

3.       You will then be taken to the COURTS on-line login page.

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To avoid receiving these security prompts, we encourage you to begin using the new web address, https://courtsonline.dol.state.nj.us immediately.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact us at courts@dol.state.nj.us

Please be advised that COURTS on-line is now operational. It has been upgraded with the new Logon/Password Access Manager.

The next time you visit the COURTS on-line site (https://courts.dol.state.nj.us), you will be automatically re-directed to the new Identity & Access Manager page where you can create your new user profile. Please follow the step by step instructions that have been mailed to you.

Please note that if you are using an old bookmark for COURTS on-line, please confirm that the address (url) is exactly https://courts.dol.state.nj.us. If it is not, you will not be redirected to the new registration page and you will get an error. We suggest that you recreate your bookmark to the correct address to avoid getting connection errors in the future.

In the next few days, we will be publishing an FAQ guide to answer some common questions regarding the new access system.  The guide will be available at the Division’s website at: http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/wc/egov/col/courts2_index.html.

Thank you for your patience during this transition.

Division of Workers’ Compensation

COURTS Project Team

courts@dol.state.nj.us

  June 26, 2009 
NOTICE TO ALL COURTS on-line SUBSCRIBERS
re: June 29^th Transition to UserID/Password from Digital Certificates

As you know, we are in the process of transitioning from the digital certificate program to a new access management system that uses UserID’s and passwords.

By now, you should have received paperwork from the Division which gives you your individual pin number and instructions on how to create your new user profile.  If you have not received this paperwork, please notify your firm’s contact person immediately.

This new access management system is currently in its final round of testing. We are optimistic that it will go live on Monday, June 29, 2009.

To allow us to put the new system into place, we will have to take COURTS on-line down on June 29^th from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. After COURTS on-line is brought back up, users will be automatically redirected to the new registration site where they can create their user profile. If their registration is successful, they will automatically be forwarded to the COURTS on-line site.

Should this deployment be delayed, we will notify you. You can simply continue using your existing digital certificate until the new system is ready.

We hope the switch to an ID – Password system will be a smooth one, resulting in better accessibility and performance of the COURTS on-line site. Thank you for your patience during this transition.

The Division of Workers’ Compensation uses digital certificates to confirm the identity of a user accessing the COURTS on-line website. The certificates are valid for a period of one year, at which time, they need to be renewed.   We have found over the years that many subscribers have had difficulty with the renewal process - whether it’s a technical issue that prevents the certificate from loading properly or simply that the subscribers have misplaced the original pin number information provided by the Division. Many times, the system that supports the digital certificates is not functioning properly. This has been a frustrating problem most recently with the sporadic outages of the COURTS on-line website.

In light of this, we had planned to transition out of the digital certificate program and replace it with a system that uses UserID and passwords at some point in mid-2010. However, we have recently been advised that due to the increasing costs associated with supporting this program, the digital certificate program will need to be phased out by June 30, 2009. 

To meet this tight deadline, we have dedicated technical resources in the department to develop a UserID/password system for the Division and are hopeful that the system will be available by the end of June. Please expect to receive a follow-up communication from us in the next week or two with additional details regarding this transition. If you have any questions, we encourage you to wait until the next set of instructions is communicated.

In the interim, we have suspended accepting new subscriber applications for COURTS on-line until the new access system is in place.

Thank you for your cooperation during this transition.

 May 11, 2007

NOTICE TO COURTS ON-LINE E-FILERS
We have recently been advised by the State of NJ’s Office of Information Technology that VeriSign, the company that issues the digital certificates used to access the COURTS on-line website, has discovered a security vulnerability affecting their digital certificates.  This vulnerability was found in an ActiveX control, which is downloaded to end-user machines running Internet Explorer (IE) on Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP and 2003 during the certificate enrollment process.   Potentially, an attacker could execute code on an end-user machine that has downloaded this ActiveX control.

The server which issues the digital certificate has since received the required patch and therefore any new certificates downloaded or renewed after March 6, 2007 (with an expiration date of March 6, 2008 or later) will not have this security vulnerability.

To avoid this security issue, we strongly recommend that all COURTS on-line subscribers revoke their current certificate and download a new one with the updated security patch, if the expiration date of their certificate is prior to March 6, 2008.  Please review this with all your firm’s active COURTS on-line subscribers and have them refer to these instructions.

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.  If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact us at the following:  COURTS on-line Help Desk (609) 777-4921, (609) 984-2555 or courts@dol.state.nj.us.

 April 10, 2006
NOTICE TO COURTS ON-LINE E-FILERS

Application for Review and/or Modification of Formal Award (ARM)
Answer to ARM
Amendment to CP
Amendment to DCP
Amendment to ARM
Amendment to Answer to CP
Amendment to Answer to DCP
Amendment to Answer to ARM

For specific information about this upgrade, please click here.

For information about the COURTS on-line electronic filing program, please visit the E-Filing webpage or contact us:  courts@dol.state.nj.us, (609) 777-4921.