[UF Bridges Forum Travel & Expenses]

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1 [UF Bridges Forum Travel & Expenses] Thank you for attending the UF Bridges Forum concerning Travel & Expenses. We look forward to addressing any questions and concerns that you have. For your convenience we have created a guide that addresses a number of questions you may already have. How do I approve travel? Forum Questions for 8/6/04 There is currently a guide that will walk you through the process of approving travel that is located on the Bridges website. It can be found at How do I budget check travel transactions? Budget checking is done automatically in a batch process. Travel Authorizations are done every night; Expense Reports are done at noon and midnight. What are the different levels of approval? There is only one level of approval for all travel workflow. Although you can assign multiple approvers to a DeptID, each has an equal ability to approve or deny travel workflow. How do I find locations? There is currently a guide that will walk you through the process of finding travel locations on the Bridges website. It can be found at How do I add locations? To get a city added to the system you will need to contact the UF Helpdesk by calling 392-HELP or by ing helpdesk@ufl.edu. If you need to create a Travel Authorization right away and the location is not already in PeopleSoft, it is acceptable to use the nearest Metropolitan city as the location. For example, if you were traveling to Lake Mary, FL and the location was not already in PeopleSoft it would be acceptable to use Orlando as the location. You ll want to keep in mind that this only applies to Travel Authorizations and not to Expense Reports.

2 The process for finding locations in PeopleSoft is slightly confusing, so you ll want to make absolutely certain that the location does not already exist before contacting the Help Desk. An instruction guide that details how to go about finding locations can be downloaded from the bridges website at How do I enter project costing? The chartfield combinations required for travel funded by Grant Projects need to be entered in a specific sequence in order to be recognized by PeopleSoft. There is currently a tutorial on the Bridges website that gives instruction on how to enter these Chartfields and how to set your personalization to make the process easier in the future. It can be located at: Where can I find GSA rates? The federal GSA rates can be found on the web at: Can PeopleSoft do this for me? Unfortunately, PeopleSoft cannot automatically look up the GSA rate associated with a specific location at this time. As of right now, this feature is planned for a future release. What about time of departure and time of return? Time of departure and time of return does still have an impact on how much a Traveler can collect for Meals reimbursement. The same rules apply as before, the only difference is the rate (allowance) amount. If you have any questions on how this works, you can call the travel office at How do I enter Originators? Forum Questions from 8/2/04 In order to associate Originators with UF Travelers who are active employees, the Department Security Administrator will need to go into the Financials Setup page in the Access Request System for each of the users that need to have Travel workflow created for them. Under the Travel and Expense tab, there is a section entitled People that can create Expense Reports for me that will allow them to associate the Traveler with the appropriate Originator.

3 1. Navigation: 2. Add a new effective date under the Data Entry Default page: 3. Select the Travel & Expense Tab: 4. Enter in the UFID s of the people that will be creating travel workflow: 5. Select the Save button Why can I not see the travelers that I need to enter transactions on their behalf? This problem has to do with Travel Originators not being associated with the Travelers that they re going to be creating workflow for. Although the UF_EX_ORIGINATOR role gives an individual the ability to create travel on behalf of another employee, it does not specify which employees they can create travel for. If an Originator is not associated with any travelers, the system will prompt them to create a TA / Expense Report in their name rather than allowing them to search for the UserID of the person they re creating it for.

4 Another reason that an Originator would not be able see a traveler is if that person is marked as inactive in their employee profile. Users that are not currently marked as active (example: Faculty Members on leave for the summer) cannot have travel workflow created on their behalf. How do I enter Approvers? To setup a DeptID with the appropriate Approvers, the Department Security Administrator will want to do the following. 1. The Department Security Administrator (DSA) must check to see if the person who should be approving the transaction has the UF_EX_APPROVER role. If not, the DSA will use the Access Request System in the myufl portal to request the role for the approver. 2. A department administrator must then complete the Authorize Approver Request form located on the Bridges Web site under Resources > Travel and Expense < Please fax to the UF Travel Office as indicated on the form. [Note to DSA: This request form supersedes the Financial Setup requirement for travel approvers in the Access Request System (i.e., Access Request System > Requests > Financial Setup]. 3. Once the role and the form have been processed (each generally takes hours, so it is recommended you do them on the same day for the quickest turnaround), the individual will have access to the pages/component associated with the manager approval process in PeopleSoft. Why are there no approvers when I try to submit a travel transaction? There are actually a couple of different issues that could be causing users to experience this problem, the most obvious being that there is not an approver setup. This can be resolved by having your Department Security Administrator follow the steps listed in the previous question to setup an approver for the appropriate DeptID. Another reason for this is that many departments are setup with sub-departments that do not have approvers assigned. For example, if DeptID is setup with approvers it does not necessarily mean that DeptID is setup. For each DeptID that your Department uses for travel workflow, you will need to fill out an Authorize Approver Request form and fax it into the Travel Office.

5 How does travel workflow work? The flowchart provided below gives an exact model of how travel transactions are routed in the my.ufl.edu system.