In November 2003, GSA announced that three contracts had been awarded for eTravel. The three vendors were:
- Carlson Wagonlit Government Travel (CWGT), E2 Solutions, San Antonio, Texas
- Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS), FedTraveler, Fairfax, Virginia
- Northrop Grumman Mission System (NGMS), GovTrip, Fairfax, Virginia
The Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) was amended in January 2004 to require the use of the government wide eTravel Service. This final rule amended the FTR requirements governing employee’s use of their agency’s Travel Management Services (TMS) and the eTravel Service (eTS) by no later than September 2006.
Being employed with an agency that provides travel services to approximately 30 other government agencies, this requirement had a huge impact not only on us but for our customers as well. Our travel office took the lead for the Department to select an eTravel vendor that would best meet the needs of our customers. With the past knowledge of implementing and administering Travel Manager for our customers, we were in a good position to participate in the GSA Independent Validation & Verification Plan (IV & V). The Initial Operational Capability (IOC) pilot took place January through the beginning of April. We performed exhaustive 2-1/2 day evaluations for each of the eTravel vendors.
Various functions and deliverables for all systems were analyzed before a task order was awarded to a vendor in June 2004. We were the first Department to award a task order to an eTravel vendor. This aggressive approach put us in position to start migrating our customers to the new eGov travel solution to meet the September 2006 deadline.
by Julie Gilchrist
The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.