Caseflow Certification #

• Certification tables diagram

Certifications #

Caseflow Certification ensures accurate Veteran and appeal information are transferred from the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) to the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA). The Certifications table facilitates this process by ensuring necessary documentation has been submitted with an Appeal and is consistent between VBMS and VACOLS. Caseflow Certification is also responsible for verifying the veteran’s representation and hearings request are accurate and ready to be sent to the Board.

• poa_correct_in_bgs
• poa_correct_in_vbms
• nod_matching
• soc_matching
• already_certified

Form8s #

Once an Appeal has been certified, the information on a Form8 form will be sent to the Board and the representation and hearing information will be updated in VACOLS accordingly.

• hearing_requested
• hearing_held: nil if hearing_requested set to No
• certification_date
• soc_date
• power_of_attorney information pulled from BGS

LegacyAppeals #

The LegacyAppeals table stores records of non-AMA appeals, appeals which originated in VACOLS, that are worked by Caseflow.

• changed_request_type is either the value of R representing a virtual hearing or V representing a video hearing. Those are the only two options when updating a hearing request
• vbms_id is either the Veteran’s file number + “C” or the Veteran’s SSN + “S”

CertificationCancellations #

The CertificationCancellations table stores instances of cancelled certifications.

• cancellation_reason can be one of the following:
  • VBMS and VACOLS dates didn't match and couldn't be changed
  • Missing document could not be found
  • Pending FOIA request
  • Other

Relationships #

In the diagram below you will see the certifications table’s id is stored on the certification_cancellations table as well as the form8s table.

The form8s table connects with the certifications table through the certification_date, representative_name, representative_type, and vacols_id, which also connects it with the legacy_appeals table. It is connected with a Veteran by storing the veteran_file_number.