I also have Regional Administrators in each of my Regional offices who assist me with these duties now that that we have implemented fully.  It is easier for them to take care of their own regional people.

We have worked hard as a team in training our travelers, travel planners, reviewers, and approving officials on the E-Travel system.  We have utilized hands-on, classroom, online, and WebEx training.  We created handouts with quick tips for our employees to use. We also send out frequent e-mail messages with helpful hints to our employees.

I personally believe the greatest benefit of the transition to the E-Travel System has been the forced compliance to the Federal Travel Regulations.  This has been a real issue for many of our travelers.  They don’t understand why they can’t take this flight that they have always taken, or why they can’t just rent any car.  The forced compliance or having to justify why they are going out of policy has cause some real issues with a lot of our travelers.  We have seen some justifications that we have had to go back and train both train both traveler and approving official on.  “Because I wanted to” is not a valid justification, nor is “This system sucks”, nor is “Not applicable to this agency”.

All in all, some of our worst critics initially have become the biggest fans of   the E-Travel system now that they have learned how to use it.

By: Shirley Keller

“The comments made here are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of either my agency or the government.”

As E-travel came on line, some of the most vocal complaints that we heard from the program offices and individual travelers involved the sudden “appearance” of fees for booking online or going through an agent.  The fee schedule was confusing and could be complex.  Many claimed that they had never had to pay the fees before (they had, but often they were considered part of the ticket price), and there were a lot of complaints about having to pay fees if the traveler was “doing all the work” to book the travel on line. A good part of the initial outreach involved educating people about the fees, and how to budget for the fees when planning travel. Our government travel staff provided a working estimate for a “typical” online and agent-assisted ticket, and that helped programs simplify their budgeting which also reduced their anxiety about having enough funds on hand on the authorization.  Over the last three or four years travelers have become much less sensitive to changes in the ticket fees.

Today, we have seen the price sensitivity shift from the really minor cost of ticketing fees to more requests for waivers from having to use the city-pairs contract tickets.  This becomes a major issue particularly during the first quarter of the fiscal year and the very end of the fourth quarter when funds are in short supply.  Congress’s perpetual inability to pass a budget in a timely manner exacerbates the problem because continuing resolutions only provide a portion of an agency’s budget with a 10% reduction from the prior fiscal year.  When a researcher has travel scheduled several months in advance timed to attend a conference or do field research, it is not feasible to simply delay the trip.  This larger price sensitivity is also a long-term issue for GSA’s City-Pair program that will have to be addressed in future City-Pair negotiations if the program is to continue to be viable.  The paying programs and their travelers have become much more sophisticated in their use of the e-travel systems, both government and private, and they are expecting more from the government programs as well.

by Julie Speers

I started my government career ten years ago. There have been quite a few changes in those ten years. Change was happening when I started. At that time, my agency was converting to a new accounting system. There were a lot of growing pains during the conversion. However, I’m sure there is not one person who would want to use that antiquated system now. The accounting system that we converted to at that time was more user-friendly and had better reporting capability.

We are now in the process of converting our customers to an upgraded version of that accounting system! Once again, we are experiencing the growing pains that go along with conversions. However I am sure once we get used to the new version, we will not want to go back. We are learning new things about the accounting system every day. Our customers will benefit from this change too. We have been able to assign certain fields with important data, therefore making the reporting even better than what we were providing.

Not only are we changing accounting systems, but we will soon be converting to a new E-Gov Travel Service (ETS) system. It is hard to believe it has been eight years since we started using one of the mandated systems and that the current contract will be expiring next November. There were quite a few growing pains for our customers when they converted to the ETS system. Some agencies were using an in-house automated system, some were using a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) system, and others were still using paper! Needless to say, the conversions were not easy for us or for the document preparers and travelers.

We provided hands-on training, help desk support, written guidance and many other forms of support to the agencies. I am sure this time will be no different. Who knows what other ways we will come up with in order to get the customers adjusted to the new system. We are always trying to come up with different ways to communicate policies and procedures and to educate our travelers.

The new E-Gov contract will be in effect for 15 years. I am really anxious to see what the new ETS2 provider has to offer. My agency assisted our current ETS provider with many improvements to their system. We participated in user group meetings, questionnaires, and submitted requests for enhancements. I hope that the new system will be as good as what we have now, if not better. Therefore, I have high expectations for the new provider! We need and must stay up-to-date on the latest forms of technology, while providing easy and fast service to the government travelers. Our travelers are working under the motto, “do more with less”. Therefore, the systems that we use must be able to be accessed just about anywhere and must also be easy to use. I vision a system that can be accessed via a traveler’s cell phone from anywhere in the world. Maybe the system can be voice activated. For instance, maybe the new IPhones can be connected with the ETS2 system. It would be a convenient feature if a traveler could speak into their phone and book their reservations.

There are many changes happening in the government travel world. There is no time for boredom! It seems like the minute we get used to something, it is time for change. I am sure the new ETS2 system is not the only thing that will be changing. With the mergers of airlines, there could possibly be a change to the airline City Pair Program (CPP). We have already been notified that there is one change that is happening, which is actually no change! Most of the per diem rates for lodging and meals and incidentals (M&IE) will not be increasing this coming fiscal year. This is a first for many years. This was General Services Administration (GSA) way of cutting travel costs for FY 13.

BY PAM MORTON

“The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.”

Before the advent of the government travel credit card most Temporary Duty (TDY) travel was limited to a small cadre of individuals.  Service members often could not afford the added expense of traveling without an advance payment.  Travel advances created a series of challenges that were difficult to overcome: the major challenge of travel advances was that the system was labor intensive, it often resulted in more overpayments, and it was less secure for service members to travel with cash.

The lengthy travel advance process began with the service member completing a DD Form 1610, Request and Authorization for TDY Travel of DOD Personnel. The disbursing clerks were required to verify the requested dollar amount in order to ensure that it was in accordance with the Joint Federal Travel Regulations (JFTR) and the Marine Corps Travel Instruction Manual (MCTIM) prior to processing the advance for payment.  After the voucher was approved by the auditor for payment, the disbursing clerk created a DD Form 1351-6, Multiple Payments List. The member was then paid via cash or check depending on where s/he was located.  The government travel credit card eliminated the tenuous advance process; service members were able to receive funds for travel with the credit card. The new system reduced the number of indebtedness due to overpayment from advances. It also improved the security and safety of the service member, and reduced the disbursing work load required for advance payments.

The second major evolution for the Department of Defense was the elimination of the paper vouchers, and the conversion to the computerized DTS.  With the old system, the paperwork was completed by the service member, turned in to the administration office, and hand carried to the disbursing office where it would be logged in to an internal tracking system. The travel voucher package included an Original DD Form 1351-2, the original DD Form 1610 (travel order), airline itinerary and final stub, lodging receipts and one copy of all other receipts for expenses greater than $75.00.  Completed packages were difficult to obtain, and often a series of problems developed in the movement from service member to auditor.

If the travel voucher package was not logged into the disbursing system the service member would have no means of tracking the travel voucher package. Assuming the travel voucher package was logged into the internal tracking system properly, the next hurdle was ensuring the entire package made it to the disbursing clerk’s desk, was computed properly, and then sent to the auditor intact. If the entire process did occur, and the service member did not claim expenses that were not in accordance with the JFTR or the Joint Federal Regulation (JTR), then the claim was complete and the service member would be paid.

With the advent of the Defense Travel System (DTS), the service member is able to track his/her voucher from beginning to end on his/her office computer.  All receipts are loaded into the system electronically, and are maintained for six years and three months. Lost or misplaced items are no longer an issue.  When a member completes a voucher, DTS cross checks it against the Joint Federal Travel System for compliance, and problems with claims that are not in compliance with regulations are also eliminated.

It is not necessary to have lived through the previous stages of government travel to understand the current system, but it does help to have an understanding of the history of travel to better deal with the challenges of the future implementation of government credit cards and DTS.  As Fredrick Allen said, “Only fools who do not heed the lessons of History, are doomed to repeat it!” Travel professionals need to be aware of where we have come from in order to better facilitate the future.  Understanding the obstacles of the old system may circumvent challenges in the new one.

By G.W. McCurtis

By the late 1970s airlines were installing CRS’ in travel agencies throughout North America. For almost two decades, approximately 80 percent of the CRS’ in travel agencies came from two CRS companies—Sabre which was owned an operated by American Airlines, and Apollo by United Airlines. Travel agencies leased the CRS’, including the hardware, from the airline. The system looked much like a personal computer does today, but it was different in an important way. It was a dumb terminal: meaning it could exchange information with the airline’s central computer, but it could not do any processing of its own. Reservations on hundreds of major airlines throughout the world could be made on any of these systems.

The 1990s brought many changes to CRS’, partly because of the spreading use of the personal computers and the Internet. The systems themselves are now usually called global distribution systems (GDS) and most systems are owned and run by companies independent of the airlines. Other changes in GDS’ are more obvious to users. Dumb terminals are a thing of the past; on today’s GDS’, users can run a host of programs to perform tasks such as word processing, accounting, and database management. Both command interfaces and graphical interfaces are available. And GDS’ offer a wealth of information on all travel products, not just air travel.

The companies that run GDS’ are sometimes called hosts or vendors. They obtain revenue from suppliers that pay to have their services included in the system as well as from travel agencies that subscribe to the system.

Many suppliers such as Southwest, Airtran, and Jet Blue have their own computerized reservation systems but still participate in a GDS. They have the choice of various levels of participation, for various costs. For example, an airline might have its schedule displayed on the GDS, but not information about the availability of seats on its flights–this is the least expensive level of participation. More expensive levels of participation may indicate the availability of seats on a particular flight or allow the reservations to be made through the GDS. At the most expensive level of participation, there is a direct link between the supplier’s computer system and the GDS allowing the user to receive up to the minute reservation information.

Airline, hotel, and rental car participation in a GDS paved the way for today’s E Gov Travel Systems. Our E Gov Travel vendor provides a one-stop shop that allows our government travelers to process their travel documents, book their reservations and claim reimbursement once their trip is complete all using the same system. This progressive evolution came from the government and the travel industry working together to forge relationships that modernized government travel.

by Carole Byrd

Disclaimer: The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.  Use of this equipment is consistent with the agency’s policy governing limited personal use.

Once we moved to an eTS we considered continuing with one of our current travel agencies as an accommodated TMC.  However, the one TMC, which partnered with our eTS and was embedded, offered a lower price for both traditional and on-line booking and came with a great reputation as a travel agent.   In addition, we avoided additional costs that the eTS vendor would charge us to accommodate our current TMC.  We also had a short time period for implementation and needed a solution that was already in place.

The first year of our eTS implementation was filled with TMC issues, both from the TMC and from the interface with the eTS.  Our travelers would arrive to the airport without reservations, reservations would get stuck in queue and agent international expertise was non-existent. Both the eTS vendor and TMC were willing to work with us to improve service.  We developed logs that tracked every issue and had standing weekly conference calls with the TMC to address each issue.  Many of the issues were due to lack of training for the agents as well as a lack of communication between the eTS and their subcontractor TMC.  Over time the logs reduced in size and travelers stranded at the airport became a thing of the past.

Looking back I believe we made the right decision by going with the embedded TMC.  Since we were the first to fully deploy an eTS I believe many of the issues would have surfaced regardless of the TMC we chose.  The vendor has continued to add additional embedded TMC’s to provide options to our customers.  Although we have more options now, most of our customers have decided to remain with the original TMC and are happy with the current level of service.

by Diana Bonnell

Disclaimer: The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.  Use of this equipment is consistent with the agency’s policy governing limited personal use.

The integration of the Federal Travel Regulations into the ETS system was one of the most controversial, yet needed requirements.  Many travelers were either not familiar with the Federal Travel Regulations or chose not to abide by them.  With the introduction of the new systems, travelers were forced to adhere to these regulations.  This caused frustration amid travelers and caused many of them to not like the new system.

Through the travel process, the ETS system has built-in regulatory requirements for each component that requires the traveler to be in compliance with Federal Travel Regulations.  The FTR addresses everything from who must use the ETS system, how and when authorizations should be completed, and within what timeframe a voucher should be completed.

Generally, travelers must have a written or electronic authorization prior to incurring any travel expenses. The most common way of creating an authorization is through the ETS system.  The authorization includes reservations and estimated expenses.  Once completed, the authorization electronically routes to the Travel Agency if reservations have been selected and then within the agency for approval.

During the authorization process, when searching for flights, the ETS system will display the Government City Pair Fares first.  If the traveler does not select one of these fares, the system will “flag” the selection and require an approved justification for not selecting a city pair fare.  The approved justifications appear in a list for the traveler to select from.  If one of the justifications is not appropriate, the traveler should reconsider their flight selection.  The most common justification used by our travelers is “space on a contract flight is not available in time to meet mission requirements, or use of contract service would incur overnight lodging costs which would increase the cost of the trip”.  Some travelers have a carrier preference in which they accumulate air miles and other rewards.  This is not a valid justification for not using a government contract fare.  Furthermore, any additional costs associated with using an unauthorized carrier may be the traveler’s responsibility.  Another common “flag” on authorizations is when a hotel is selected that is not a Fedrooms property or exceeds the per diem rate for the location.  Fedroom properties must be given first priority by a government traveler or a justification is required.  Furthermore, any time a hotel room rate exceeds per diem, the traveler must explain why they were not able to obtain the per diem rate.

When a trip is completed, the FTR states that the traveler must submit their voucher within 5 working days.  The voucher should include a copy of the approved travel authorization and a detailed itemization of all travel expenses incurred.  The FTR specifies what expenses can be claimed on the voucher.  It also specifies what receipts are necessary.  Receipts for any reservations or expenses over $75.00 should be electronically attached to the voucher.  Once the voucher is completed and electronically signed by the traveler, the document routes to the approving official for approval.  The approving official is responsible for ensuring that the voucher was prepared in accordance with the pertinent regulations and agency procedures, the types of expenses claimed are allowable, the amounts claimed are accurate, and that the necessary receipts are attached.  Although, the traveler bears the responsibility to ensure that all travel expenses are prudent and necessary, the approving official must review the validity of the claim and ultimately assumes responsibility.  The FTR mandates that agencies reimburse their travelers within 30 calendar days after a proper travel claim has been submitted.

Once the payment is made to the traveler, it is the travel financial office’s job to implement internal audit controls to ensure that travel payments comply with the Federal Travel Regulations.  Features of the ETS system reduce the risk of improper payments; however, the financial office still has the duty to ensure that the process is compliant with the FTR as well as laws and regulations governing use of federal funds.  The most effective way that we ensure that our payments meet the requirements is through random audits.  During an audit the entire trip is examined.  The mode of transportation is reviewed to make sure that it was the most cost effective way of traveling.  The type of lodging accommodation is reviewed; whether or not it was a Fedroom property. The validity of miscellaneous expenses claimed is reviewed as well as, appropriate receipts verified.

The Federal Travel Regulations is an important part of the E-Travel System.  Travel is an essential part of conducting business within the government and the FTR ensures that taxpayer’s money is not wasted.

By:  Chanda Garrett

The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.

This isn’t just the case with problems in the system but also changes to the system.  Anytime an upgrade is done that is meant to enhance the user’s experience, they need to be made aware.  If they login the system to create a document and find something they aren’t used to, it causes problems.  Even if the experience is better it still causes undue stress on the traveler and in turn on the help desk.

The best solution is to notify the travelers via email or through the system that changes have been made.  Make them aware before they encounter it on their own and it makes for a more pleasant work environment for everyone.

By: Jason Caltrider

One of the goals of the President’s Management Agenda E-Gov Travel Service was to provide a cost savings to the agencies. The agencies can only achieve these cost savings by promoting and encouraging self-service reservations whenever possible. A simple trip from Washington Dulles to Atlanta should not require agent intervention. Yet it does even if booked online, because the City Pair carrier is Air Tran. It is conceded that Air Tran and another similar carrier, Jet Blue offer very low city pair fares, some of the lowest in all the markets. In this day and age of automation and 3GB I-phones, a Government traveler should be able to book any city pair fare online as a self-service transaction.

by Jacqueline Lynch

When the E-Travel initiative came about, representatives from my agency were chosen to help in the testing and selection of which electronic travel system our department would select. The system that our department ended up choosing was the system that was the most advanced electronic travel system at the time. This e-system has a reservation module which made it possible for travelers to make air reservations and hotel reservations at the time they enter the travel authorization.  By becoming a “One Stop Shop”, the e-system has simplified the vouchering process for government travelers. The e-system has also made improvements to the reporting information needed to run a successful travel program.

As much as I hated to see the old electronic system go, I was glad to have a travel system that allows reservations to be made. Like any new system, the new e-system had its’ bugs, but by working with the manufacturer directly has steadily made enhancements to correct them and continue looking for better ways to improve their systems.

By: Linda Ruppel

The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.