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.”

During the transition, GSA was very visible.  The Office of Charge Card Management provided support to Agency/Organization Program Coordinators (AOPC).  They provided a copy of the new Master Contract timely enough to allow AOPCs to review the information.  They also provided tools to help with agencies’ selection process and transition.  A timeline detailed recommended activities to ensure agency transitions were completed.  Conference calls were routine as agencies discussed their progress (or lack thereof) and shared their experiences and resolutions.

Treasury established a team of individuals from the various bureaus to:  determine task order requirements; do the bank evaluations and vendor selection; and develop a transition approach.  Citibank was selected as the vendor for the new contract period.  Bureaus had to consider the impact of the transition on the electronic travel system and the accounting systems.

The Bureau of the Public Debt’s (BPD) Administrative Resource Center (ARC) utilized its Program Management Office to establish a team to ensure a seamless transition for ARC and its customers.  A project manager was absolutely necessary to plan, coordinate, effect,  and document a project of this size.  The project team (core team) consisted of subject matter experts from Procurement, Accounting Services, Business Technology, and Travel.   Also partnering with us were project teams from Citibank, Northrop Grumman (the GovTrip e-Travel system provider), and our Travel Management Centers (TMC).

Throughout the life cycle of a project, there are lessons learned and opportunities for improvement are discovered.  It is in ARC’s best interest that these be documented for future projects.

KEY WINS:

Communication:  This came in the form of status reports to team members and customer contacts, weekly meetings with the core team and internal teams, timely email communications to cardholders and non-cardholders, and conference calls with specific teams or individuals.  Impromptu meetings were held when needed.

Pilot:   One of our customers agreed to transition in July 2008.  Having the opportunity to run through a simulated transition was helpful in determining key areas that needed additional attention.  It helped all the ARC internal teams, Citibank, Northrop Grumman, and the TMCs to identify the project activities and the processes that would be necessary for the final transition in November 2008 for all of the remaining customers.

ARC’s Internal Teams:  The collaboration between the different areas was outstanding.  All areas were accounted for when decisions were made.  Team members remained positive even during times of stress.  One team member decided to have her baby in September, just prior to the final stages of the transition!

Travel’s Internal Team:  The support from the Travel staff during this holiday week was great.   Guidance was developed to help staff with their group’s area of responsibility.  Customer Service took care of the TMC issues.  SAS took care of the split payment issues.  Both groups updated GovTrip documents.

GovTrip:  Taking the system offline during the transition allowed for a much faster and seamless travel transition.  Thanksgiving weekend proved to be a bonus for the transition as well.  The travel team was able to work on Wednesday before the holiday and Friday after the holiday and did not have to work the weekend.  Travel staff was able to update 1400+ travel documents with new card numbers in a timely fashion.

Single Sign-on:  This concept to CitiDirect was a true benefit coming from multiple login ids and passwords from  SP 1.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT:

Development of Project Schedule:  The bank played a very large role in the transition.  Getting the bank’s involvement and buy-in of tasks and deliverables earlier in the development of the schedule for ARC would be ideal.  The nature of our business required a very detailed plan.

Continuing Transactions:  As it turned out, we stayed with the incumbent bank.  The SP 2 contract stated that there was to be a complete break from SP 1.  All new cards had to be issued and they were active on November 29, 2008.  Some cardholders were able to use their SP 1 cards after the cutover.  The bank dropped the travel corporate account number down to $1.00 to stop this type of activity.

Electronic Access to Bank’s Systems:  Access for program managers prior to go-live would allow for a review of the data.  Accounting String Codes (ASCs), program entitlements, and profiles could be verified.

Helpdesks:  It is vital that all helpdesks, whether internal or external, are provided with the appropriate guidance to help program managers and cardholders post-transition.

Communication to the Cardholder community:  Regardless of the amount of information sharing that goes into a project, some people don’t get the message.  Our helpdesks had calls two weeks prior to the transition with people stating they had no idea what SP 2 was.  They didn’t understand why they received new cards.  Be very specific with key contacts that they must share information globally within their organizations.  Ask the bank to put a message on paper statements for the last three cycle periods prior to transition or on the electronic message boards.  We had an SP 2 alert posted to the GovTrip message board, on our voice message for the travel helpdesk phone line, and on all correspondence going out of the Travel email box.

Automatic Payments from Personal Accounts:  Individual cardholders who have their personal banks make payments to the charge card vendor for any remaining balance after split disbursement will need to notify their bank of the new charge card number or payments will go to the old account.  This will need to be included in the cardholder guidance for the next transition.

Our SmartPay 2 Project Team officially dissolved on March 13, 2009.  The transition from start to finish took over a year.  It was quite a challenge and an opportunity for personal growth.  It made team members see the big picture and how much of an impact each area has on another.   It is now business as usual and SmartPay 3 is a few years away!

By Pam Enlow

“The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Bureau of the Public Debt, or the U.S. Department of the Treasury.”

As we approach the five-year anniversary of completing implementation of ETS1 at my agency, it is important to look back at a key reason ETS1 was a success here:  communication.

ETS1 was a major change at my agency.  We had been doing electronic authorizations and vouchering for a few years in a home-grown system, but ETS1 added integrated online booking and system-controlled adherence to travel policies to the equation.

It was mandatory to implement ETS1 so it was vital that our employees knew that it had to happen.  At my agency, executives were consistently given the message that ETS1 was going to happen and why, and they were provided with regular updates about the progress of the project to implement ETS1.

This executive-level communication could then cascade down from the top of the agency – and travelers knew that their bosses were on board with the change to ETS1.  The same will be needed for ETS2.

At the same time executives were being engaged, our agency’s project team utilized “super users” from locations nationwide to interact directly with the travelers in their parts of the country.  “Super users” not only provided face-to-face communication with their colleagues, but also served as a first-line of defense for travelers having difficulties with our new ETS1 system.

I believe that a strategy of communicating at all levels of an agency will be needed to make ETS2 successful.

By:  Kevin Young

E-Gov Travel is a Government-wide initiative that is mandated by the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) for all federal travelers and is one of 24 E-Gov initiatives outlined in the President’s Management Agenda (PMA).   The E-Gov Travel vision is to deliver a unified, simplified service that delivers a cost-effective travel experience, supports excellent management and results in superior customer satisfaction.  The E-Gov Travel goals are defined as follows:  develop a government-wide, web based, world-class travel management service; establish a cost model that reduces or eliminates capital investment and minimizes total cost per transaction for the government; and create a policy environment based on the use of best travel management policies.

Recent studies have shown that approximately 70% of travel system users are new or infrequent travelers that travel less than three times per year.  Therefore, the system must be intuitive and easy to use.  Otherwise the traveler is having to learn the system each time they have a need to travel on official business.  Many travelers encounter problems when creating the travel authorization, making reservations, and using online help.  We routinely hear that commercial systems are much easier to use than the government travel systems.  However, government travel is more complex with the addition of the Federal Travel Regulations, agencies internal policies, required justifications for certain types of travel, funding sources, approval requirements, reporting requirements, etc.

Communication is the key to identify agency travel needs and develop requirements for the next ETS2 contract.  Many agencies customized the current ETS travel systems by funding enhancements to meet their agency’s mission.  These enhancements further complicate the concept of “one system fits all”.  In order to be better prepared for the next contract solicitation, agencies are collaborating their needs and identifying problem areas to ensure that the requirements for the next ETS2 systems are clearly defined and existing functionality is not lost with a new system(s).

In order to make a more intuitive and easy to use system, some of the areas that need to be addressed are, but not limited to, the following:  easier navigation through document preparation to ensure that the user knows what steps have been completed and what areas still need to be completed, the terminology needs to be consistent and easy to understand throughout the application, page-based help and help links, timely email alerts on actions needing to be taken in the system, up-to-date training materials, clarification on error messages so travelers know how to correct the issue, timely table updates by the vendor such as per diem rates, mileage rates, FedRooms rates, timely agency table update requests, auto fill of certain fields to avoid duplicate entry or excessive clicking from drop down menus, forward and back buttons to allow travelers to move within the application, ability to copy expenses through a date range for reoccurring expenses throughout a trip, constructive voucher functionality for comparison when traveler deviates from official business for personal reasons, dynamic routing capability for the building of the accounting string (most travelers don’t know their funding source), and other functionality to stay current with technology evolution.  As you can see there is a variety of areas that can be improved upon with the next ETS2 applications.

In addition to developing requirements for the ETS2 contract solicitation, agencies also place task orders on the contract.  These task orders further define requirements that are agency specific.  It is very important for agency personnel to know the master contract requirements as well as their task order requirements.  If the requirement is not addressed in either of these contracting vehicles, then the vendor may ask for additional funding to provide the service to the agency.

The EGov Travel Service has come a long way since its inception in 2003.  Collaboration, communication, and policy and system training are a few of the important components of the success of this initiative.  All parties involved must form meaningful relationships with each other for continued success, share best practices, and application enhancements government-wide.

With the evolution of technology, who knows what the next generation of ETS2 has in store for the government traveler.  Travelers, travel planners, budget reviews, and approving officials can prepare and submit travel documents electronically from several different media (computer, laptop, PDA, blackberry, other electronic devices) from anywhere in the world at anytime.  All government travel data will be consolidated into one reporting tool for consistent and accurate reporting.  Only time will tell where we will be in the next 10 years of federal travel management.

By:Julie Gilchrist

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

My agency went from a very effective, simple in-house electronic authorization and vouchering system to using one of the three ETS systems 5 years ago.  The old electronic travel authorization and voucher system did its job very well, particularly in facilitating the timely payment of vouchers.  But the old system enforced little travel policy – Federal and agency travel policy that users of the ETS system may not have even known existed.

The old system also did not have an integrated Online Booking Engine (OBE).  Unlike a travel agent, an OBE can’t really answer your questions or help you with anything that you don’t specifically ask for.  While very convenient for simple trips, an OBE isn’t ideal for more complicated multiple city travel.  Travelers and travel arrangers had to be educated that there are some trips were it makes sense to spend a little extra by using a travel agent.

The challenges of system-enforced travel policy and an integrated OBE have been successfully overcome now with use of our ETS system.  It is unlikely that we will need to jump these hurdles again with ETS2.

The user interface of our ETS system was a little rough around the edges initially, but the vendor has made improvements over the years to make the system more user-friendly.  The new user interface of the ETS2 system may very well be the biggest change overall that will need to be addressed.  The ETS2 system’s user interface won’t be “worse” than the ETS system’s user interface, just different.

So, how should we successfully manage the change from an ETS system to an ETS2 system?

It will be very important to have buy-in of ETS2 from Executive leadership at the agency.  For ETS, we had this.  For ETS, we had a strong Executive Sponsor who kept peers updated on a regular basis on the status of implementing our ETS system.  This message was communicated by our Executive Sponsor over and over:  ETS is happening, believe it and be ready!  This same strong leadership will be required for ETS2 to be successful.

Communication with and training of users are also extremely important.  For ETS, communication with users was primarily of key upcoming events like demos and training courses.  Some public relations, PR-type communication to build interest prior to implementation was done, but more could have occurred and likely helped ease the change.  Training was provided on-site in offices throughout the United States.  Those that attended training seemed to handle the change to the new system much better (no surprise there).  In hindsight we could have been more pro-active in ensuring more users attended the training.

For ETS, we identified “super users.”  Super users are highly-trained employees that are willing and able to provide support to users of the ETS system at a local level, within their office and/or geographical area.  Super users supplement formal help desks, and we asked super users to even be the first line of defense whenever possible.  Super users had direct access to the team that implemented the ETS system, including attending recurring conference calls and meetings both prior to implementation and after.  It was particularly important to meet with super users on a regular basis in the weeks immediately following implementation.  These calls and meetings let an individual super user get an answer from the implementation team that may be pertinent to many super users.  The recurring calls and meetings also facilitated super users talking amongst themselves to share best practices in helping users.

On a personal note, I do find it interesting and even a bit amusing that in my experience the same people who complain about a new system are often those that complain when that system is later being replaced.  I expect that some of the biggest opponents of our ETS system will be some of its biggest proponents now that it will be going away.  Makes you think that it might not be the system that is the “problem,” but maybe the real issue is users resisting changing the way they have been doing things.  No matter, the change still needs to be managed.

By: Kevin Young

This partnership explains in depth the understanding of the contracting requirements, acquisition rules and travel regulations. Communication on this information is essential between the two partners.

The travel industry initiated different methods in order for government employees to have a thorough understanding of the travel industry and its regulations, etc.

These methods were presented to the employees by means of conferences and educational sessions. These educational events are very informative for people to learn and expand their knowledge inn this industry.

Educational conferences are main components for improvement, hands-on learning, and current information. Conferences offer an overall view of the information one seeks; providing information on many different areas along with specific workshops, and many materials with valuable information.

These educational sessions should be mandatory to all government travelers.  All travelers should have knowledge of the travel industry and take advantage of the valuable information being offered.  Unfortunately, in many organizations this type of information is only available on paper and it’s unused. Even though, the government spends astronomical money on travel – compared to other organizations, it’s crucial for its employee learn through these educational sessions.

It appears  the government and the travel industry have built an effective communication and understanding foundation ,as well as meeting each other’s needs through its partnership.  They have a high interest to educate the government’s employees.

by Ana Ferrara

However we have noticed that our Helpdesk has expanded somewhat in the scope of questions being asked. We receive more than just the routing administration questions such as routing lists and group changes. Travelers have questions about finding the correct flights or hotels in they system. In effect, we are an intermediary between the software and the TMC. While we are not travel agents, flight, hotel and car rental questions are common as they relate to the FTR and/or agency regulations. Also if a TMC is busy and callers can not contact them due to weather delays or disasters, they often call us to assist.

A common questions is how to create a valid document when combining personal and official travel. This type of question takes into account the software as well as travel policy. Other questions we receive are about reservations not being issued, charges to a traveler’s credit card that are in error or possibly charged to the CBA when they should have been charged to the IBA. Sometimes a TMC will contact us when a traveler’s card will not accept a charge. It could be the traveler is delinquent and the card is suspended. Other times a card will not work at a certain location and may be blocked due to the MCC codes being used by the merchant.

So in effect, while travelers use E-Gov Travel and often seem like they have fewer communication options, with my agency’s E-Gov Travel helpdesk, we feel they are never alone in the federal travel process.

By Daniel Carozza

“The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Bureau of the Public Debt, or the U.S. Department of the Treasury.”

Before today’s technology the tools we were constrained to from a hotel perspective seem primitive.  Although I have never had the prodigious opportunity to utilize the ETS/DTS from an end user vantage, I believe my experience can lend testimony to the giant technological leaps and improved systems we have come to develop and implement in a very short time.  I feel the same holds true in most aspects of business and life.

Before global, web-based RFP systems and advanced lead delivery instruments existed, nearly everything in the hotel world was accomplished with paper documents via mail and/or fax.

I recall the year 1996.  It was my first RFP season and I was one of several support employees tasked with completing global, consortia RFP.  I remember the burden of literally being on an RFP assembly line that my boss later coined “the Mamba Line.”  The first step of this grueling, extensive procedure was delivering hard copies of RFPs to our entire hotel community via mail.  It was repetitive, monotonous work.

Needless to say, things didn’t get any easier when we received the completed RFPs back from the hotels.  Many late nights were spent on corrections, revisions and renegotiations.  I personally recall endless afternoons and triplicate copies at the Xerox machine

As I am quickly approaching 40 years of age, I consider myself fortunate to have lived in two different worlds; in the first I was limited to the tools and lack of sophistication of yester-year, however, in the second I have had access to the speed and efficiency of  21st century technology.

In my opinion, most Generation Y Millennials could not image life without Blackberries, cell phones, video games, remote controls and wireless internet access.  In certain aspects, I feel  fortunate to have a much deeper appreciation of the convenient tools we know today, because I can still vividly remember a time when television actually stopped broadcasting shortly after 1:00 a.m. and the atrocious confinement to only three major networks.  I also remember how much slower things seemed to crawl prior to nearly all business and government organizations transitioning to electronic systems.

In certain capacities, I believe the strides taken by U.S. Federal Government are parallel to that of what fits other businesses and our society as a whole.  I think this is especially true as it pertains to environmental strategies and corporate responsibilities.  I firmly trust our ever-evolving quest to make systems paperless is greatly appreciated as it relates to EPA expectations.

In our industry, the communication between our best customers and our hotel community seem to be growing at a healthy pace in the right directions.  I hypothesize, as technology advances, so will “adaptability” and soon thereafter “dependability” until finally the next better evolution of tool presents itself to make the system better again.

by Christopher McLaughlin

The Government Travel Professional’s responsibility is to clearly communicate with the agency and its peers of any new updates, transitions, policies, and procedures.  Special attention is placed when a new system is implemented.  In addition, the Government Travel Professional keeps daily communication through phone or e-mail with TMC/CTO.  Communication is transferred in various means in which keeps the government organized while keeping their employees informed.

The government ensures all stakeholders are informed of a new system/s. They cover all aspects when a new system will be taking place this is accomplished through the successful communication factors they’ve instituted.  In addition, all stake holders are informed in different communication methods.  E-mails, meetings, and newsletters, are some of the few communication factors composing the communication plan.

Traditional communication throughout the travel authorization to payment process is a standard in the government agency.   Communication occurs through phone or e-mail, this is also a standard communication of the set up payment communication progress.

Many challenges are faced with ETS, the traveler undergoes the process of authorization payment and it can at times be inconvenient as in the middle of the progress things can run less smoothly from all ends.

The government has established a concrete communications program. In which the agencies, organizations, and those under the umbrella of the Government Travel Professional receive.   The communication methods the government uses to annunciate its latest news, programs, systems, etc;  demonstrates its concern for the employees to obtain the most effective communication.

by Ana Ferrara

By:  Scott Carver