eTravel Expense Report Routing – FAMIS Setup eTravel/Concur Routing Paths – FAMIS DTV Routing Paths FAMIS Services has created the routing form ‘DTV’ (Departmental Travel) to define the Cost Object Approvals that eTravel/Concur Expense Reports will follow. eTravel/Concur approval sequences will be created directly from this routing path and will populate routing in the travel system each night. FAMIS Updates to the eTravel System Any changes to the DTV path or its desks’ memberships will be sent to eTravel each night. If urgent changes need to be made to the eTravel/Concur approval paths during the day, you must contact your eTravel Security Administrators. In most cases, they will be your FAMIS Security Administrators. Initial ‘DTV’ Path Creation A ‘DTV’ path was programmatically created for all existing department paths by copying the existing default (‘*’) routing paths and storing them as the new ‘DTV’ paths. Any existing approval desks from the ‘*’ path were duplicated, as well as the signer desk. A ‘creator’ desk was automatically inserted as the first approval in every path and called ‘CTE APPRVR’. The people put on this desk were pulled from each path’s creator desk. Once the ‘DTV’ path was created, its maintenance became the responsibility of the electronic office managers for each campus, college, or department, and no more automated changes will be made to it. From this point on, desks and desk memberships must be manually added or deleted from the path. The new paths should be reviewed extensively to ensure that the proper approvals are established for travel documents. Screen 919 was created to display the Expense Approvers that have been loaded into the eTravel/Concur system. A Cost Object Approver report called FCAR202 has also been developed to assist in documenting and reviewing your eTravel Expense Report approvals. It displays the approvers by department/sub-department and can be sorted in either mailstop or department/sub-department order. This report is currently produced every Tuesday evening and is available in Mobius. It should be reviewed periodically to ensure that the DTV path is setup up correctly. FCAR202 – eTravel Cost Object Approver Report FCAR202 TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY 01/31/2012 22:45 FY 2012 CC 02 ETRAVEL COST OBJECT APPROVERS PAGE: 1 SORTED BY: MAIL STOP MAIL STOP: C6000 DEPARTMENT: FISC HIERARCHY: FN CO SUB-DEPARTMENT: AC APPROVER UIN NAME SEQ ------------ ------------------------------ --- - xxxxxxxxx CHARGOIS BRIDGETT D 001 xxxxxxxxx MARIOTT PAULA L 001 * xxxxxxxxx GUILLORY JANET S 999 xxxxxxxxx GUILLEN PHILLIP L 999 * * Signifies the 2nd approver for the sequence. eTravel Expense Reports Routing – FAMIS Setup (cont’d) Approval Methodology Each System Member can decide how it wants Expense Report approvers (Cost Object Approvers) established in eTravel/Concur. There are currently two options: ‘Named’ and ‘Virtual’. The ‘Named’ option will route an Expense Report directly to the people designated in the approval sequences, whereas the ‘Virtual’ option will route to ‘Virtual eTravel/Concur Employees’. Both options allow approvers to access and approve Expense Reports, but the ‘Virtual’ option requires that employees ‘delegate’ for the ‘Virtual eTravel/Concur Employee’ before they can access the Expense Reports needing approval. The ‘Virtual’ option provides a mechanism for the Member to centrally designate the delegates who can sign for each sequence, where the ‘Named’ option sends the Expense Report directly to the named employee and relies on the employee to set up delegates for when the employee may not be available. There are pros and cons to both options which can be discussed later. Named Individual Routing Even though the ‘DTV’ routing structure is maintained in FAMIS and is used to populate the eTravel/Concur Cost Object Approvers, the ‘Named’ eTravel/Concur routing option does not work exactly like FAMIS. Concur routes an Expense Report to only the first ‘named’ person for each sequence (equivalent to a FAMIS desk) UNLESS the traveler is the approver for that sequence. The only time the system will ignore the first ‘named’ person and look to see if there is another individual at the same sequence is when the traveler is the approver. If there is not a second approver at the sequence, the approval step will be skipped. This is typically not a problem unless the traveler is the only signer. If the traveler is the only signer at the final sequence for an account, the Expense Report will go directly to the ‘processing office’ without being signed by anyone with signature authority for the account. Even if the ‘signer’ has delegated approver privileges to another individual, the delegate will not have the opportunity to approve the Expense Report because it skips directly to the ‘processing office’ with a warning message that the final approval was not received. At this point, the processing office will have to take manual steps to get authorization before approving the Expense Report. Since it is expected that signers primarily travel on their accounts’ funds, FAMIS builds the approval path in a deliberate manner in the hopes of defining two people at the signer step (and at other approval desks), if possible. FAMIS will never assign more than two people to the same sequence because eTravel/Concur routing looks at a maximum of two people for a sequence. (In fact, it ignores the second person except when the approver is the traveler). It should also be noted that eTravel/Concur “auto approves” a sequence if the sequence approver has already approved the Expense Report on behalf of a different sequence. Therefore, FAMIS will assign a specific individual to only one approver/signer sequence. If all the people on a FAMIS desk have been selected as signers or approvers on other desks, there is no reason to assign them to the desk since it would “auto approve” anyhow. Finally, FAMIS will not assign a person to an approval sequence if that person is not an active employee. Because of these rules and exceptions, it is very probable that the ‘DTV’ path as defined in FAMIS will not match, desk for desk, what has been sent to the eTravel/Concur system (reflected on Screen 919). These differences are not errors, just reflections of the differences in the two systems’ routing mechanisms. eTravel Expense Reports Routing – FAMIS Setup (cont’d) Populating Approver and Signer Desks from the ‘DTV’ Path Process The following describes the process by which the approver and signer desks are populated from the ‘DTV’ path. In all cases, an individual is rejected and not sent to eTravel/Concur if he/she is not an active employee: 1. Examine the signer desk membership. Pick a maximum of two valid signers: Select the first primary signer, if a primary signer is defined. Select the second primary signer, if a second primary signer is defined. If two signers have not yet been defined, pick the first, and if necessary, second substitute signers. Note: If there is a desire to have a particular person defined as the primary desk signer/approver, make sure that that person is the first one listed on the FAMIS approver/signer desk. (You may have to delete all people from the desk and re-add them in the order you wish them to populate the eTravel/Concur sequence). The second person listed should be the person who should sign if the first person is the traveler. The signer desk is always represented as the ‘999’ sequence. 2. Examine the first desk on the ‘DTV’ path (this MAY be the CTE-APPRV path) Review only the primary approvers in the order they are on the desk. If they have been previously selected as a signer or approver for a sequence (as either a primary or substitute), ignore them. . Stop after selecting the first available individual in this round. If all primary approvers have been selected, the desk will be skipped in the first pass. The people selected from this path will always be represented as sequence ‘001’. 3. Examine the second, third, and fourth desk(s), if they are populated. Perform the same process that was done on the first desk. People chosen from desk 2 will be sequence ‘002’, desk 3 will be sequence ‘003’, and desk 4 will be sequence ‘004’. 4. Re-Examine the first desk Review the primary approvers in the order they are on the desk. If they have been previously selected as a signer or approver for a sequence, ignore them. If all primary approvers have been selected, review the substitutes in the order in which they appear on the ‘DTV’ desk. Select a maximum of one individual in this round, if available. 5. Re-Examine the second, third, and fourth desk(s), if they are populated. Perform the same process that was done on the re-examination of the first desk. eTravel Expense Reports Routing – FAMIS Setup (cont’d) Example of an eTravel/Concur path built from a FAMIS ‘DTV’ path: Screen 921 – Dept Paths Create/Modify (Named Option) 921 Dept Paths Create/Modify 02/05/12 22:00 CC 02 Screen: ___ Office: FISCAL____ View: ACVIEW____ Description: ACCOUNTING CONTROL______________________ Office Mgr : GIBSON, CATHERINE D F Form Dept/Sub Category N Status and Desks - --- ---------- --------------------------------------------------------- _ DTV *_________ __________ _ CTE APPRVR _ __________ _ __________ _ __________ SIGNER DSK PF7 ‘Names’ for CTE APPRVR desk +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | DESK: CTE APPRVR | | | | PID STATUS NAME | | | | xxxxxxxxx CHARGOIS, BRIDGETT D | | xxxxxxxxx MARIOTT, PAULA L | | xxxxxxxxx MCCLENTON, CARLETTA R | | | | *** END OF LIST - 3 WORKERS FOUND | | PF4 to Quit | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ PF7 ‘Names’ for SIGNER DSK desk +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | DESK: SIGNER DSK | | | | PID STATUS NAME | | | | xxxxxxxxx S PHAIR, DEBORAH L | | xxxxxxxxx GUILLORY, JANET S | | xxxxxxxxx GUILLEN, PHILLIP L | | | | *** END OF LIST - 3 WORKERS FOUND | | PF4 to Quit | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ eTravel Expense Reports Routing – FAMIS Setup (cont’d) Result of how the ‘Named Individual’ eTravel/Concur path is ultimately built: Screen 919 – eTravel/Concur Expense Approvers (Named Option) 919 eTravel Expense Approvers 02/05/12 19:10 FY 2012 CC 02 Screen: ___ Dept: FISC_ Sub Dept: AC___ Account: ______ _____ Office: __________ View: __________ eTravel Employee ID Name SEQ ----------------------------------------- -------------------- --- xxxxxxxxx CHARGOIS BRIDGETT D 001 xxxxxxxxx MARIOTT PAULA L 001 * xxxxxxxxx GUILLORY JANET S 999 xxxxxxxxx GUILLEN PHILLIP L 999 * * Signifies the 2nd approver for the sequence. *** Records displayed are loaded into eTravel nightly *** Enter-PF1---PF2---PF3---PF4---PF5---PF6---PF7---PF8---PF9---PF10--PF11--PF12--- Hmenu Help EHelp FAMIS best practices recommend that at least one substitute be listed on every desk. Virtual Desk Routing The ‘Virtual’ Option for Cost Object Approvals turns each FAMIS desk in a routing path into a ‘Virtual Concur Employee’. With this option, each primary and substitute approver on a desk is loaded as a ‘delegate’ to the ‘Virtual Employee’. Routing using this option most accurately mimics routing within FAMIS. The biggest difference between FAMIS and ‘Virtual’ routing is that the MyConcur page InBox does not show pending approvals for the Virtual Concur Employees. In order to see that pending approvals are needed, approvers must first ‘delegate’ for the ‘Virtual Concur Employee’. The ‘Virtual’ option provides a mechanism for the Member to centrally indicate and control the delegates who can sign for each sequence and provides a structure so that workloads can be balanced. (Individuals on a Virtual desk cannot delegate approval authority to others that are not named delegates.) A downside to this type of routing is that the Concur Mobile app does not currently support the delegate function. Example of an eTravel/Concur path built from a FAMIS ‘DTV’ path: Screen 921 – Dept Paths Create/Modify (Named Option) 921 Dept Paths Create/Modify 02/05/12 22:51 CC 21 Screen: ___ Office: CHEM______ View: CHEM-VW___ Description: CHEMISTRY VIEW__________________________ Office Mgr : GLAS, MICHAEL W F Form Dept/Sub Category N Status and Desks - --- ---------- --------------------------------------------------------- _ DTV *_________ __________ _ CTE APPRVR _ __________ _ __________ _ __________ SIGNER DSK Enter-PF1---PF2---PF3---PF4---PF5---PF6---PF7---PF8---PF9---PF10--PF11--PF12--- eTravel Expense Reports Routing – FAMIS Setup (cont’d) PF7 ‘Names’ for CTE APPRVR desk +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | DESK: CTE APPRVR | | | | PID STATUS NAME | | | | xxxxxxxxx SHERMAN, MARY K | | xxxxxxxxx CURRIN, ALICIA | | | | *** END OF LIST - 2 WORKERS FOUND | | PF4 to Quit | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ PF7 ‘Names’ for SIGNER DSK desk +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | DESK: SIGNER DSK | | | | PID STATUS NAME | | | | xxxxxxxxx S BLOUNT, GRADY P | | xxxxxxxxx JANG, WEN-LONG | | xxxxxxxxx S WEEKS, SANDRA E | | | | *** END OF LIST - 3 WORKERS FOUND | | PF4 to Quit | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ Note that the ‘Virtual Concur Employees’ are named according to the following scheme: nn-office-view-desk (where nn is the FAMIS Part). This is the ‘Virtual’ eTravel/Concur path that is ultimately built: Screen 919 – eTravel/Concur Expense Approvers (Virtual Option) 919 eTravel Expense Approvers 02/05/12 22:48 FY 2012 CC 21 Screen: ___ Dept: CHEM_ Sub Dept: _____ Account: ______ _____ Office: __________ View: __________ eTravel Employee ID Name SEQ ----------------------------------------- -------------------- --- 21-CHEM-CHEM-VW-CTE-APPRVR 001 21-CHEM-CHEM-VW-SIGNER-DSK 999 * Signifies the 2nd approver for the sequence. *** Records displayed are loaded into eTravel nightly *** Enter-PF1---PF2---PF3---PF4---PF5---PF6---PF7---PF8---PF9---PF10--PF11--PF12--- Hmenu Help EHelp Names PF7 ‘Names’ for 21-CHEM-CHEM-VW-CTE-APPRVR desk +--------------------------------------+ | 21-CHEM-CHEM-VW-CTE-APPRVR | | | | UIN Delegates | | ------- ------------------------ | | XXXXXXXXX SHERMAN MARY K | | XXXXXXXXX CURRIN, ALICIA | | | | End of names or to Exit | +--------------------------------------+ eTravel Expense Reports Routing – FAMIS Setup (cont’d) PF7 ‘Names’ for 21-CHEM-CHEM-VW-SIGNER-DSK desk +--------------------------------------+ | 21-CHEM-CHEM-VW-SIGNER-DSK | | | | UIN Delegates | | ------- ------------------------ | | XXXXXXXXX JANG WEN-LONG | | XXXXXXXXX WEEKS SANDRA E | | XXXXXXXXX BLOUNT GRADY P | | | | End of names or to Exit | +--------------------------------------+ Any one of the delegates can approve the Expense Reports beneath the ‘Virtual Concur Employee’ unless he/she is the traveler. Again, FAMIS best practices recommend that at least two individuals be listed on every desk. Screen 919 Screen 919 – eTravel/Concur Expense Approvers displays the eTravel/Concur Expense Report (Cost Object Approval) routing paths that have been loaded into the eTravel/Concur system. This screen displays routing information by Department / Sub-Department, Account, or Office and View. For ease of use, the Action Line will pre-populate based on data from the current logon session’s previously viewed screens. Current session data access from the indicated screen(s) will populate the following Action Line Fields: 1. From Screen 860 - Department field will be populated 2. From Screen 02, 06, 51 etc. - Account fields will be populated 3. From Routing and Approvals screens (9xx) - Office and View will be populated * If more than one of the listed screens has been accessed, only one Action Line field combination (Department/sub-department, SL/SA, Office/View) will be populated. The field combination populated will occur in the order listed above. eTravel Expense Reports Routing – FAMIS Setup (cont’d) K:\FA\DOC\WRKNPRCS\ETRAVEL\eTravel Expense Report Routing.docx