Set Up Your Agency
There are two parts to Travel Express Administration - Agency maintenance and User Maintenance.
1. From the Travel Express main menu, select Administration, and then click the Agency tab.
2. Click the BFY drop down menu to select the current budget fiscal year. The BFY determines the ability of the application to look up and validate fiscal codes such as the TC, PCA, Index, etc.
3. Click the drop down menus for Request Approval Levels or Voucher Approval Levels to create the number of approval levels needed.
a. You can create up to three levels. The levels are organized in a hierarchy, meaning that a request or voucher must be approved by the first level before it can be approved by the second.b. If your agency does not want users to create Requests at all, set the number of Request Approval Levels to 0. Then, requests would not available in the application. If your agency has been using requests, and then you set the approval levels to zero, any existing requests will no longer be seen in Travel Express. Users would have to resubmit a voucher instead.
a. You can create up to three levels. The levels are organized in a hierarchy, meaning that a request or voucher must be approved by the first level before it can be approved by the second.
b. If your agency does not want users to create Requests at all, set the number of Request Approval Levels to 0. Then, requests would not available in the application. If your agency has been using requests, and then you set the approval levels to zero, any existing requests will no longer be seen in Travel Express. Users would have to resubmit a voucher instead.
Figure 1: Approval levels and BFY
4. Type names for the request and voucher approval levels in the Header fields. These will be the names of the approval levels that users will see on the Travel Express screens and the names of the approval levels in Travel Express reports. Do not use special characters or symbols, including &, ', “, <, and \.
Figure 2 - Misc settings
5. Check the Email Notification checkbox if you want to enable e-mail notifications. (This e-mail notification is not related to the Mileage Only Email.)
a. An Approver will be notified when a request or voucher is ready for approval. The person who created the request or voucher (the user/traveler or their proxy) will be notified when it is 'final approved', disapproved, or routed back to them for further action. b. When there are several Approvers and levels, the person who creates a request or fiscal codes a voucher can select a specific approver to route it to. The approver should receive the email notification. When that approver routes it to the next approver, the second approver would get the email notification.c. When there are several Approver levels, a person in approval level 2 has the ability to approve requests or vouchers that are awaiting approval level 1. Whether or not they should is up to your agency or to unique circumstances when it may be required.
a. An Approver will be notified when a request or voucher is ready for approval. The person who created the request or voucher (the user/traveler or their proxy) will be notified when it is 'final approved', disapproved, or routed back to them for further action.
b. When there are several Approvers and levels, the person who creates a request or fiscal codes a voucher can select a specific approver to route it to. The approver should receive the email notification. When that approver routes it to the next approver, the second approver would get the email notification.
c. When there are several Approver levels, a person in approval level 2 has the ability to approve requests or vouchers that are awaiting approval level 1. Whether or not they should is up to your agency or to unique circumstances when it may be required.
6. If your agency will be using Mileage Only Vouchers, you can enter the e-mail address of the Fiscal Coder in the Mileage Only Email field. The Fiscal Coder will receive an e-mail notification when a voucher is ready for them.
7. By default, Travel Express will use the Board of Examiner's mileage reimbursement rate. To use your agency's mileage rate, check the Use Agency Mileage checkbox. The rate will be displayed in the Agency Mileage Table.
8. If desired, create a Group or groups which can be applied to requests or vouchers when they are created. Group is an optional tag to help filter or categorize the requests or vouchers so they can be more easily found, or used for creating reports. For example, you could create a group for a PCA code, a specific region, or a specific department name.
a. Click Add list item.
Figure 3 - Add a group
b. Type the name of the group (do not use special characters or symbols, including &, ', “, <, and \), and then click Save.
Figure 4 - Name of the group
c. Click Update. Click Remove to delete a group.
Figure 5 - Update agency setting
9. Click the User Maint tab to continue with setting up users.