As the system administrator for my Bureau’s E-Travel system, I have had my struggles in establishing all the routing lists, lines of accounting, groups, etc. that are needed to get a system off the ground. These are never ending duties in my organization; as employees are constantly moving around, lines of accounting change or new people need added to the groups.
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.”