WINNIE the Scoop! Newsletters

July 2, 2026

Upcoming important dates

• Friday, July 3 – observation of July 4th – MN Help Desk and State Office CLOSED

Reminders!

Guidance for MPL income determinations

The following was provided in a June 29 MIS & Data Communication email.

Although the majority of our WIC participants are adjunctively eligible, we recognize that trying to calculate MPL incomes can be difficult and time-consuming. Below are two new documents to help with navigating the Minnesota Paid Leave portal to find the information necessary to be able to calculate MPL income.

• Minnesota Paid Leave (MPL) – Income Determination (PDF): provides step-by-step guidance for assessing MPL and household income, including screen shots of the MPL portal, and entering the information into WINNIE.
• Minnesota Paid Leave (MPL) – Income Determination (Quick Reference) (PDF): provides abbreviated steps in a "cheat sheet" format.

These documents can be found on the MDH WIC website:

• Local Agencies page in the Staff Resources section >> Certification Procedures dropdown.
• WINNIE Training page in the Income Assessment section under the Income 3A – Traditional Income training module.

Please contact your State Consultant with any questions.

Alerts: Copy alert to note not correctly copying to other household members

The following bug was added to the WINNIE Bugs & Issues page on the MDH WIC website and included in a June 29 MIS & Data Communication email.

Added 6/25/26 (URB: 239373)

Description: When a household contains more than two members and you attempt to copy an alert to only specific members of the household, the system is incorrectly only copying the alert to a note for the last member listed in the Copy to Note - Household Members grid.

What to do: If you toggle on Copy to auto-select all household members then manually toggle off any members you don't want to copy the alert for, WINNIE will correctly copy the alert to only the selected household members.

Resolution: Not assigned to release.

WINNIE training

Training modules
The WINNIE training modules are a comprehensive review of all functionality and attempt to incorporate policy and requirements as well. They are detailed and try to address as many scenarios as possible, so that new staff can use the system with confidence. Training modules are referenced in the different phases of a href="/people/wic/localagency/training/nst.html”>New Staff Training on the MDH WIC website. They are available for your use however best fits your agency’s training needs or methods.

Training environment
Training environmentis available for new staff to "play around" in WINNIE. They can use this to identify questions they might have about how something "works" as well.

Searching for topics
You can use the Table of Contents (TOC) to find specific information in a training module. Expand the TOC by clicking the double arrow icon in the top left corner of each module. You can click on different sections or slides in the TOC to jump to that part of the module. You can also use the script. Use CTRL + f to find key words/topics.

If you have any questions/suggestion about the WINNIE training, please use the WINNIE Questions for the State Office form to submit your questions/suggestion(s).

Infoview - deleting agency-specific folders

Next week, we will be deleting all agency-specific folders in Infoview. A few agencies requested we move some of their reports to the new *AGENCY REPORTS folder and this has been completed.

Moving forward, if you make changes to a template that are specific to your agency and would like to share the edited version of the template with other Infoview users in your agency, please contact sarah.mallberg@state.mn.us to have the report moved to the *AGENCY REPORTS folder so that other users in your agency can access it. We will save that version of the template with your agency’s name preceding the title.

June 4, 2026

DIRECT SHIP ONLY added to powdered formula descriptions in WINNIE

As of one year ago in June, we added the WIC Contract Formula – Powder food item so that families could choose the type of contract formula they want to use while at the store. Guidance at that time was to select this food item for all new infant food prescriptions for powdered contract formula and that existing food prescriptions did not need to be updated.

As this time, all infants issued powdered contract formula should have the WIC Contract Formula – Powder food item in their food package unless the powdered contract formula has to be direct-shipped for some reason.

To ensure the specific powdered contract formulas are only selected if they need to be direct shipped, we have added “DIRECT SHIP – ONLY” to their descriptions in the WINNIE Food Item dropdown.

Agencies can use the FOOD AND FORMULA BY PFDTU Infoview template to identify infants whose food packages may need to be edited to provide the WIC Contract Formula – Powder food item. The Food Item IDs for the DIRECT SHIP - ONLY powdered contract formulas are: 153;399;405;409;411.

Best practice: change Household ID when foster family custody changes

A local agency asked a couple of questions about what happens in the WIC app and HyVee Aisles Online when a custody change occurs, and a household ID change is completed, or cards are deactivated/reassigned.

MN WIC App
Deactivating a card does not affect the participant’s registration within the MN WIC App. If a custody change occurs and the CPA simply updates the proxy and issues a new card, the previous proxy will still be able to view all information in the WIC app, including benefits, appointments, and certification details.

However, when a change Household ID is completed and the child is successfully moved to a new household ID, the previous household will no longer see that child’s information. This is because the “old” household ID no longer has any account data associated with that child.

HyVee Aisles Online
If a WIC card is added to an Aisles Online account, and that card is later replaced, it does not affect the Aisles Online account’s access to the benefits. This is because the technology through which Aisles Online works authenticates the shopper to the household’s WIC account, not just to a specific card. If there is a custody change, the previous proxy would still have access and that would need to be removed on the back-end.

However, when a change Household ID is completed, the “old” household no longer has access to any benefits, and if they attempt to use benefits through Aisles Online, the transaction will be rejected because no benefits remain associated with the “old” Household ID.

Best Practice
In lieu of these scenarios, best practice is to always change the Household ID when foster care changes occur, even when custody remains within the same county and it is just a new foster parent gaining custody.

Reminders

Provide feedback about Help Desk assistance

You can use the Minnesota WIC Help Desk Feedback Form to submit feedback you want to give about a Help Desk experience. This form is currently found on the Local Agency page in the Forms section under Feedback/Questions/Complaints and the Local Agency WINNIE Support page.

Infoview reports that need revision

If you use an Infoview report that has any of the following information in the output, please verify that you are using an updated version since the transition to WINNIE. All revisions are listed on the Infoview Report Revisions and Corrections page of the MDH WIC website. If your template hasn’t been updated, or if you're not sure it is working correctly, please request that the template be revised using the Local Agency Reports & Data Request. The following can cause issues with the report output:

• Staff IDs – displays SWEB IDs for all new staff.
• Income create date/time – overwritten when new household members added.
• Cultural Identity (state use) – will not show new records.
• Local Use Answers – will not show new records.
• New certifications – may not be accurate.
• New households/participants – may not be accurate.

New food calculators in WINNIE

You’ve probably noticed that the food calculators have looked different since Release 3.5.1 was installed last October. They’ve been added for all food items to allow flexibility if new federal substitutions rules are created in the future. For most food items, the Category Limit (maximum combined amount that can be provided), Allocated (amount currently in food package), and Remaining (amount that can still be added to the food package) are all that are pertinent. However, with the new substitution rules for juice/CVB and eggs/legumes, the Substitutions Available and Substitutions Made have been added to provide additional information.

To explain how they work, we’ll use eggs/legumes. Substitutions Available shows for the food item that has an amount that can be added (legumes) based on what was removed (eggs). For instance, if you remove/delete one dozen eggs, when viewing the calculator for legumes, it displays 16 since 16 ounces can now be added in lieu of the one dozen eggs.

Clicking the information icon under Substitutions Available displays an explanation of the substitution that is available:

The Substitutions Made displays information for the food item that was decreased, or in most cases, deleted (eggs). In food packages 4-6, we won’t see this because they have only 1 dozen eggs and once deleted, you can’t view the eggs calculator. However, in Food Package 7 or 7+, where there are two or three dozen eggs, respectively, we can. If we were to decrease the eggs by 1 dozen, increase the legumes by a quantity of 1 (or 16 oz), and return to eggs, it would show that 1 substitution was made.

Clicking the information icon under Substitutions Made displays an explanation of the substitution that was made:

Whether these calculator changes are helpful or not, at least now you know how they work.

Infoview – new process for draft reports

We have a new process for agency review of requested new or revised Infoview templates. Once a draft has been completed and is ready for review, we will post the draft report to the new *DRAFT REVISIONS – Agency Review folder. Revised templates will be saved with the following format: <agency name> review – TEMPLATE TITLE (draft version #). Once the draft has been approved by the requesting agency, the guidance document has been completed, and the revised version posted, the draft template will be deleted from the DRAFT REVISIONS folder.

May 7, 2026

Reminders!

Some of this information was previously provided in MIS & Data Communication emails or the Weekly Update. New content is highlighted in the gray-shaded areas.

Reminder! WIC Hardware transition

As we continue the WIC hardware transition to all local agency-owned hardware, beginning Monday, May 11, 2026, we will no longer be replacing any WIC hardware.

Please refer to the WIC Hardware Transition (PDF) memo for the following guidance and information:

• Distribution of peripheral items
• Inventory Report and Ownership Acceptance form
• Technical specifications for WINNIE hardware
• Returning computers

Reminder! Agency-specific Infoview reports

One of the projects the state will be working on is performing a thorough review of all current Infoview templates in an attempt to streamline the Infoview folders and their contents. We will be:

• Combining templates providing the same or similar information.
• Updating outdated or old templates that are still being used.
• Removing obsolete templates.

At this time, we are asking all agencies to thoroughly review the reports found in their Agency-Specific folder. Your agency, or your Infoview users, must ensure that any reports in your agency-specific folder you want to keep are saved to Personal Folders. We will delete all agency-specific folders and their current contents on June 30.

The following agencies have an agency-specific folder found under Public Folders >> INFOVIEW TEMPLATES >> Agency-Specific: Anoka, Bloomington, Blue Earth, Chisago, Countryside, Crow Wing, Dakota, Douglas, Fond du Lac, Hennepin, Horizon, Kandiyohi, Leech Lake, McLeod, Mille Lacs, Nicollet, Olmsted, Pipestone, Rice, Scott-Carver CAP, Sherburne, Sibley, St. Louis, St. Paul-Ramsey, Stearns, Washington, White Earth, Winona, and Wright.

Please contact Sarah.Mallberg@state.mn.us with any questions.

High risk resolutions and pseudo-certs – follow-up

CPAs can resolve system-assigned high risk when it is no longer appropriate. However, CPA resolved high-risk is not maintained when a pseudo-cert is created. (A pseudo-cert is a new record added to the table where certification information is stored.) We can see that a pseudo-cert has occurred on the Risk Factors page when a risk factor is assigned or resolved or the WIC Category changes. However, there are instances that create a pseudo-cert that may not be obvious, or viewable, in WINNIE and we followed up with the WINNIE software contractor to see what other actions within the system can cause pseudo-certs.

The following is a list of other actions that will create a pseudo-cert and can cause the CPA high-risk resolution to revert:

• CPA saves Health Information and the breastfeeding amount has changed (e.g. fully breastfeeding to mostly breastfeeding, or to not breastfeeding).
• CPA saves Health Information and the participant's WIC category has changed (e.g. breastfeeding to non-breastfeeding).
• CPA saves a Nutrition Assessment Contact and interview answers are linked to risk factors.
• User saves Demographics and household fields tied to risk factors have changed (e.g. homelessness, migrant status).
• CPA completes a Mid-Certification Assessment that results in BF amount or category changes.
• End-of Day triggers an automatic category change from infant to child the night an infant turns one year old.

Infoview search - update

Although the Infoview search function no longer errs out, it still doesn’t appear to be working correctly. Gainwell is continuing to research how to complete the fix.

April 2, 2026

Security training updated

The security training modules have been updated with more information about electronic communications, Multi-factor Authentication (MFA), Mobile Management, and cybersecurity incidents. The review module has been divided into three modules; one for each training module that focuses on the specific topics covered.

All staff are required to complete annual security training each federal fiscal year (between Oct. 1 and Sept. 30).

Security training is found on the WIC Other Information System Training MDH WIC webpage.

March 5, 2026

Do NOT enter false data into WINNIE! Remember to issue last set of benefits for breastfeeding women first

We’ve learned from the Help Desk that some users are changing and entering false data into WINNIE. They are entering false data to work around no longer being able to issue the last set of benefits to a breastfeeding woman. Entering false data into the database is NOT allowed.

If baby has turned one year old and a breastfeeding mom has not yet received the last set of benefits that she is eligible to receive (Printed First Date to Use before Cert End Date), you must remember to issue her last set of benefits before updating the Breastfeeding Verified Date in Health Information. You do NOT need to update this date before you can issue to mom; it only needs to be updated to issue benefits to the infant/child.

If you are updating Health Information and you see the following message that specifically tells you mom is going to be terminated, you must click NO.

After clicking No on the message, exit Health Information without saving and issue mom’s benefits.

If you click Yes on the message and are in the participant folder or certification mode, you will not be able to issue the last set of benefits to mom and you will have to call the Help Desk. The Help Desk may be able to assist you with providing the last benefit set.

(NOTE! You cannot correct this by removing the incomplete certification since any changes to infant/child Health Information are maintained.)

New State Use Question option

A new option for the First time formula/other given to infant (meds ok) State Use Question will be available beginning Friday, March 6, 2026. You can now select “BF, donor milk, and formula given in the hospital” if the infant was fed by all three methods during their hospital stay. This will allow us to more accurately track both formula exposure and donor milk usage for WIC participants. Guidance and definitions can be found in the Breastfeeding Exclusivity document in the INFOVIEW TEMPLATES >> State Use Questions >> Breastfeeding Exclusivity folder in Infoview.

Use hot keys to quickly select from dropdowns

After you’re familiar with the items in a dropdown, you can speed up selection using hot keys. Start typing the first few alphanumeric characters of the option you want, and the dropdown will filter or highlight matching entries automatically. Some dropdowns, especially Nutrition Education, can be more difficult to become familiar with due to the sheer number of topics.

As a potential reference, a new Infoview template called NUTRITION EDUCATION TOPICS LIST is now available in the INFOVIEW TEMPLATES >> Nutrition Education folder. This report has two tabs, PRIMARY and SECONDARY, and groups Nutrition Education topics by WIC type.

New Infoview report available – assignment of 400 risk factors

Per MOM, Section 5.3.4, a dietary risk factor should be assigned as part of the complete nutrition assessment performed during certifications. If a dietary risk factor is not identified, risk factor 428 (4-23 months) or 401 (2 years and older) should be assigned.

A new Infoview report (requested by a Local Agency), NOT ASSIGNED 400 (DIETARY) RISK FACTORS AT CERT, is now available in the INFOVIEW TEMPLATES >> Agency Management >> Audits/Chart Reviews folder and can help your agency assess whether this requirement is being met.

February 5, 2026

Reminders!

Do not issue 4 months of benefits

WINNIE will sometimes suggest 4 months of benefits, and participants should only be issued a maximum of 3 months of benefits at one time. We usually see a fourth set being suggested when a new member is added to a household and some of the existing members have already received benefits. The system provides a partial for the new member with a Printed First Date to Use (PFDTU) in the current month plus 3 additional months with PFDTUs in the next three following months. (This is not the same as providing a partial and full package where the PFDTU both fall into the same month.) In these instances, the new member should only be issued the partial and two following months, maintaining the household’s current tri-monthly issuance.

Infoview advanced concepts training modules available

If you’ve ever repeatedly modified your Infoview reports after exporting them or wondered how to organize your reports, these Advanced Concepts training modules may be helpful to you. The intent is to help you become a more effective and efficient user of Infoview. You don’t have to watch all the modules in their entirety; each training module has a Table of Contents that will help you find the topic you might want to review.

• Infoview Training 5A – Advanced Concepts: Managing Personal Folders (6 min.) – copy/paste templates to folders; move reports; add and rename folders.
• Infoview Training 5B – Advanced Concepts: Intro to Design Mode (7 min.) – design mode; advanced refresh; high-level overview of formulas, queries and dimensions.
• Infoview Training 5C – Advanced Concepts: Modifying Report Outputs 1 (9 min.) – add, rename, and delete columns; undo; format headers and cells; format tables.
• Infoview Training 5D – Advanced Concepts: Modifying Report Outputs 2 (9 min.) – move columns; format text; sort data; format tabs.
• Infoview Training 5E – Advanced Concepts: Adding Filters (11 min.) – add, edit, and delete input controls; use variables as filter.

These training modules can be found under Infoview on the Other Information System Training page of the MDH WIC website.

January 8, 2026

Always delete food items being replaced before adding new

Best practice is to always delete the food items you are replacing before adding the new food items when tailoring or adjusting food packages. The reason for this is twofold.

First, due to how the maximums are set in WINNIE, adding a food item before removing the unwanted food item will exceed the maximum amount allowed. For example, if you want to exchange yogurt for 1 quart of milk, you cannot add the milk until you’ve removed the yogurt.

Second, WINNIE allows over-issuance when providing infant fruits/vegetables and infant cereal for children and women receiving Food Package III. The reason for this is that the maximums allowed for these food items are separate from the CVB and regular cereal so a combined maximum cannot be assessed. If you were to add infant fruits/vegetables before removing the CVB, the system would not remind you to remove the CVB and if you don’t remove it, you will over-issue.

Infoview tip! Remember to select Personal Folders when saving templates

When saving your own version of a template, Infoview defaults to the INFOVIEW TEMPLATES folder in the Save As modal, not your Personal Folders. Remember to select Personal Folders when saving. Otherwise, an error will display indicating you don’t have the rights to save the template.

December 4, 2025

Questions/suggestions from Local Agencies

Appointments in the App

Is there a way for the appointments tab to indicate to the participant if the appointment is virtual or in person?

Currently, the only way to designate an appointment as virtual is by scheduling it at a TeleWIC Appointment Clinic since only the clinic address displays in the app (and not the appointment type).

If scheduled at this clinic, TELEWIC APPOINTMENT displays in the app, and staff would need to ensure that participants understand that this type of appointment does not require them to attend the appointment in person.

Coordinators at agencies that don’t currently have the TeleWIC Appointment Clinic can request it using the Change Grantees, Agencies or Clinics in IS and/or on MDH Website form.

November 6, 2025

Reminder! When contacting the MN Help Desk, you must provide…

This is just a reminder that when you contact the MN Help Desk, you will be required to provide the following information:

• Your first and last name.
• Agency ID.
• Description of the issue.
• State WIC ID or Household ID (if appropriate).

This information allows both the Help Desk and the State to track issues that may be occurring at agencies and for specific users.

You can contact the Help Desk by calling or via email:

• Call: 1-800-488-8799, press 2, 2 (non-critical)
• Email: mnhelpdesk@gainwelltechnologies.com

Reminder! Infoview reports still need corrections

This is just a reminder that there are many Infoview reports that still need corrections since our transition to WINNIE. Any reports that provide information about new certifications, local use answers, state use answers, and staff ID will require revising to ensure accuracy. At this time, the State Office is only correcting reports based on requests from local agencies to prioritize revising reports that are currently being used. You can view corrected reports on the Infoview Report Revisions and Corrections page.

Questions/suggestions from Local Agencies

Race/ethnicity selection

Can there be an “Other” option for race/ethnicity if a participant does not feel any of the race options align with how they would describe themselves?

Unfortunately, we are limited by federal requirements on the selections we can provide for race and ethnicity. The Racial and Ethnic Data Collection (PDF) tool includes some helpful descriptions that can facilitate a participant’s selection, including some ideas for those who identify as Hispanic or Latino, and there is some clarifying information on the WIC Civil Rights Resources page as well. Please note that if a participant refuses to self-select, you must select based on your perceptions of the participant.

Benefit redemption

For a family with multiple household members (a woman, child over 2, and child under 2) with the WIC-allowed milk food item:

If they are buying evaporated milk, whose food package does it come off from? Does the fat content of the evaporated milk purchased make a difference?

The fat content is important since 1–2-year-old children, in general, should be receiving the Whole Milk (WIC-allowed) food item while children over 2 and women are receiving the Fat Free/Skim Milk or 1% (WIC-allowed) food item. If they buy a combination of lower fat and whole evaporated milk, it will pull the low-fat item from either the older child or woman’s benefits and the whole from the 1–2-year-olds benefits. If they buy only whole evaporated, it will only come off the 1–2-year old’s benefits.

How about soy milk?

Soy beverage is different in that it can only be purchased if issued the Fat Free/Skim Milk or 1% (WIC-allowed) food item. You can issue this to 1-2 year old children because it is the only option for soy (and goat milk). Please refer to the Food Package Changes to Implement on June 9 (PDF) memo for this information and reference.

Is there an order to which household member a food item is removed from first, such as for the cereal or the fruit and vegetable benefit?

No and yes. For most food items that are issued to multiple family members, the order appears to be random (it is actually based on some internal number assigned by the eWIC processor but looks random to us). For example, although two members may both have cereal and eggs, in one transaction, the eggs may be removed from member 1 while the cereal is removed from member 2. This is why Adjust Benefits aggregates food items issued to multiple members, so that regardless of the benefit transaction, as long as the household total is greater than the redeemed, you can still make changes to the food item for any of the members issued that food item.

That said, there are certain food items, like yogurt that is removed from the member issued the more “restrictive food item” first. For example, mom is issued the Yogurt (low fat/nonfat) option while her 1–2-year-old child is issued Yogurt (any WIC-allowed). The low fat/nonfat food item issued to mom is more restrictive because only low fat/nonfat yogurt can be purchased while both low fat/nonfat OR whole yogurt can be purchased with the any WIC-allowed option. So, when the family buys a low-fat yogurt, since that is the more restrictive food item, it will come off of mom’s benefits first.

Please note that although this information may be helpful to staff in some way, participants should always be referred to their aggregated benefit balance in the app.

October 2, 2025

WINNIE Questions & Answers webpage removed

We have removed the WINNIE Questions & Answers webpage since it was created to house local agency questions and answers before we transitioned to WINNIE. Any still pertinent information has been moved to the WINNIE User Tips page.

Please contact the MN Help Desk (1-800-488-8799, press 2, 2 or mnhelpdesk@gainwelltechnologies.com) with any information system (WINNIE, Mobile Management, Infoview) questions.

The following forms are still available on the Local Agencies webpage (in the WIC Forms for Local Agencies section >> Information System dropdown):

• WIC IS Software Change Request Form – suggest potential changes to the information system.
• WIC App Suggestions – suggest changes or enhancements to the WIC mobile app.
• Local Agency Reports & Data Request – submit data requests or report questions.

End-of-Month (EOM) information in Weekly Update

Beginning in September, we have started providing EOM information the week prior to running EOM in the Weekly Update – IMPORTANT section. It will include when EOM will be run, when the Infoview Year-to-Date Participation report can be run after EOM, and when initial and closed-out participation counts will be available on the Monthly Participation webpage and Local Agency Portal.

September 4, 2025

Due to the NWA Technology Conference, there is no WINNIE the Scoop for this month.

August 7, 2025

Other language access added to eWIC customer service line August 7

An option to go directly to a customer service representative that can connect the participant to the Language Line has been added to the eWIC Customer Service line and will be available beginning August 7. The following has been added after the voice prompt to press 2 for Spanish:

• "For other, press 3."

Once the participant presses 3, the voice prompt says:

• "I’ll transfer you to a representative who can help you. Please hold."

When the customer service rep answers, state the needed language, and the rep will use the Language Line for the remainder of the call.

This information has been updated in the eWIC Customer Service training module. The revised version is now available on the WINNIE Training page.

July 3, 2025

Request training accounts AFTER database refresh

There has been some confusion about when to request new training accounts when a training database refresh has been scheduled. Since the quarterly refresh completely wipes out all access to the database (accounts or usernames and passwords), if your agency uses a training account, you will need to contact the Help Desk after the refresh has been completed to have your training account re-created. The earliest the Help Desk can re-create your training account would be the day after the scheduled quarterly training database refresh.

June 5, 2025

New weekly Mobile Management purge begins June 15

Beginning June 15, a new purge of Mobile Management records will occur every week on Sunday. This regularly-scheduled purge will assist agencies in managing their conversations by removing old conversations and their attachments. This may also improve its processing speed. This purge will include:

• Closed conversations: 1 month after the closed date.
• Open conversation and any attachments:
  • 1 month after the date of the last response.
  • 1 month after being created if have never been replied to and/or viewed.

May 1, 2025

Initial Contacts and Unexpected Participants in Infoview Outputs

We’ve seen a couple of instances whereby participants are displaying on the Initial Contacts Requirements Not Met Infoview report that show an Initial Contact has been completed when the modal is opened in WINNIE.

Explanation: Upon research, we have determined that this occurs when you complete the Initial Contact after the certification. When an Initial Contact record is created, it has two dates associated with it: the Initial Contact Date that you see in the modal and that you can change (up to 30 days prior to the current date) and the record’s Create Date/Time. The Create Date/Time is when the Initial Contact record was added in WINNIE and can only be seen in the database. The Create Date/Time is how we can determine that these Initial Contact records are being created after the certification is completed.

How Initial Contacts Work: When an Initial Contact is created, a record is inserted into the database with a blank Certification ID. If a certification is completed after the Initial Contact, but within 60 days of its Create Date/Time, the unique Certification ID assigned to that cert when it is completed is entered into the Initial Contact record, linking the Initial Contact to that certification. However, if the Initial Contact is created after the certification, the system does not retroactively link it to the cert. Instead, the Initial Contact record waits for a certification to be completed on a date that is after the Initial Contact’s Create Date/Time or it is removed during End-of-Day after 60 days, whichever occurs first.

While the Initial Contact record waits to be linked (within 60 days of its being added), it appears as if it has been completed correctly, especially if you have changed the Initial Contact Date to a date prior to the certification.

Initial Contacts and Infoview Outputs: Infoview reports that identify incomplete or unmet requirements compare the Initial Contact’s Create Date/Time to the Cert Start Date. If the Initial Contact’s Create Date/Time is after the Cert Start Date (and other report criteria are also met) the participant will display in the output as not having a completed Initial Contact.

April 3, 2025

Infoview Reports – Counting Certs/Recerts

This is just a reminder that in order for Infoview reports to correctly count certifications, they must be started and completed on the same date. This is due to the criterion used to exclude pseudo-certs, which requires the Cert Start Date (date started) to be equal to the Cert Effective Date (date completed).

March 6, 2025

All content has been deleted since no longer timely or relevant OR has been moved to the WINNIE Bugs & Issues or WINNIE User Tips pages.

February 6, 2025

All content has been deleted since no longer timely or relevant OR has been moved to the WINNIE Bugs & Issues or WINNIE User Tips pages.

January 9, 2025

All content has been deleted since no longer timely or relevant OR has been moved to the WINNIE Bugs & Issues or WINNIE User Tips pages.

December 5, 2024

All content has been deleted since no longer timely or relevant OR has been moved to the WINNIE User Tips page.

November 7, 2024

All content has been deleted since no longer timely or relevant OR has been moved to the WINNIE Bugs & Issues or WINNIE User Tips pages.

October 3, 2024

WINNIE Training

“Cheat Sheets” and WINNIE Functionality

At this time, we are not providing “cheat sheets” for most of WINNIE’s functions. However, we’ve created two that address specific scenarios:

• Change Household ID – Direct Shipped Formula
• In Case of Participant Death

Both of these can be found under Change Household ID on the WINNIE Training page.

If, once you have reviewed the training modules, you feel there is another specific scenario that may require a cheat sheet, please use the WINNIE Questions about Training form to submit your suggestion.

September 12, 2024

Future Approved Change Requests for WINNIE

Any suggested changes to WINNIE must be documented by the State Office and assigned a severity, discussed with (and approved by) the SPIRIT Users Group (SUG), and then prioritized by the SUG for inclusion in a future release.

The following were suggestions provided by our pilots that will be included in a future release.

August 1, 2024

All previous WINNIE the Scoop content has been deleted since no longer timely or relevant.

July 11, 2024

Training - Reference Documents Available

Per requests from local agencies, we’ve added a couple of documents to assist with training.

1. WINNIE Training Module Checklist (WORD) – lists all modules by topic and their duration and can be used to keep track of the modules or information in modules that you’ve completed.

2. Reference for browser settings based on your preferred default browser – “how to”: set your default browser, ensure your login isn’t saved, clear your browse cache, bookmark the WINNIE login page, set your zoom preference, allow pop-ups in WINNIE, ensure downloads are deleted daily, and open the Develop Console, which may be helpful when working with the MN Help Desk.

• Browser Settings for Microsoft Edge (PDF)
• Browser Settings for Google Chrome (PDF)

June 6, 2024 - November 18, 2020

All previous WINNIE the Scoop content has been deleted since no longer timely or relevant.