Pre-Trip Approval (PTA)

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Overview

Pre-trip approval (PTA) is a process put into place to better manage business travel by allowing a trip to be approved or declined before it is ticketed. It offers an automatic method of controlling travel spending by designating travel approvers who can approve or deny a user's travel request.

Useful Terms

Primary approver: User responsible for approving or declining trips triggered by the process.
Secondary approver: User identified to take action for trips triggering the process if the primary approver does not take action within the configured amount of time.
Expired Bookings: Bookings which have not been approved or declined by the primary or secondary approvers within the configured amount of time. These are not automatically canceled.

Benefits and Limitations

Task	Process / Helpful Hint
Benefit	Robust policy capabilities – Deem uses JavaScript, which allows for creativity when configuring approvals or notifications. Allows for offline and online approvals Simple and quick process for Approver, simply click on the Approve or Decline button within email Set up notifications and/or approval based on groups
Limitations	Offline bookings – Etta is limited to what they can pull from offline bookings Etta cannot see what the lowest logical fare was at the time of booking with an agent. Both Hotel and Air Example: If Policy states: Require approval or notification if travel booked is $200 over the lowest logical fare, or if booking a hotel that is $250 dollars over the lowest hotel rate. Etta is unable to process For these examples, you would need to say all offline air or hotel bookings require approval or notification. Approvals and notifications are completed through email only Not available to approve through Desktop or Mobile app Approval and notification emails cannot be re-generated Single layer approval process. Unable to require approval from more than one person

Let’s Get Started

Enabling PTA - Who to Contact

Task	Process / Helpful Hint
Contact Deem Channel Sales Director	Statement of Work (SOW) is required and there is an initial cost to have Pre-Trip Approval set up. Your Deem Channel Sales Director can discuss this further with you. Deem will help you set up your first site. Once you have Pre-Trip Approval set up on your Deem company domain, you will have the ability to program PTA on each of your clients’ sites as needed.
Open Support Ticket	If you have Pre-Trip approval set up at the domain level Open a Support Ticket to request PTA turned on within the client’s individual site. The Deem Configuration Team must enable Pre-Trip Approval before you deploy within your client’s site. You can complete your programming while the ticket is opened with Deem. Once Deem has completed their process and you have completed yours, you can then go live.

Gather information

Task	Process / Helpful Hint
Approvals or Notifications	Determine if approvals will be sent to a static email or manager within the profile. Approvals: Approval email is generated, thereby requiring a manager from the traveler’s profile or a static approver to approve or decline a reservation before being sent to the TMC for ticketing Notification-only: Notification email is generated to manage within the traveler’s profile or static approver for notification purposes only. No action required on the behalf of the email recipient.
Policy	Identify Policy requiring Pre-Trip approval or notifications
Queues	Identify processing queues Pending/Awaiting approval Approved/Ticketing Declined Expired

Ready to Configure

Let’s get Started

Task

Process / Helpful Hint

Custom Field Collection

Configure pending queue under Custom PNR

Under the Service tab click on Travel Agency

Click on Custom PNR

Click on Mapping which you would like to update

Move to the bottom of the mapping and click on Add PNR Line

Under Line No. enter line number which script will reside in your mapping. In this example we are using line 159
PNR Field Type: select Pre-Trip Approval
Custom PNR Requirement: Enter Script
Requirement Type: Select Script
GDS: Click on GDS your mapping should write to

The below example Is for a Sabre client, script written to line 159 follows the screen shot. You can adjust the output based on the GDS you are writing to

PNR Script:

//Ticketing Field for PTA Pending Approval

function zeroPad(num,count)

{

var numZeropad = num + '';

while(numZeropad.length < count) {

numZeropad = "0" + numZeropad;

}

return numZeropad;

}

if ((UserPnrData.DataType=="new" || UserPnrData.DataType=="purchase_hold")&&(UserPnrData.UserBooking.PreTripApprovalInfo.CurrentApprovalState=="WAITING_FOR_APPROVAL")){with (UserPnrData.UserBooking.AgencyTransactionDate)

{

var day=UserPnrData.UserBooking.AgencyTransactionDate.Day;

day=zeroPad(day,2);

out.print("7TAW" + day + Month + "/HOLD");}}

Approved, Ticketed/Declined and Expired Queues

Programmed under Agency Configurations

Go to Service tab click on Travel Agency
Click on Agency Settings
Click on Setting Name to be configured

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Add PTA Configurations

Enter Pseudo-city and Queue for each Approved, Declined and Expired bookings
Enter the time window for the primary approver to approve or decline the trip, and the time window for the secondary approver. The primary approver window is best set to 4 – 6 hours, with the alternate approver well before the 24-hour void window
- Tip: The time windows should total less than 24 hours. Declined flights can be automatically canceled within 24 hours of purchase. If the flight is declined within the 24-hour void window, the ticket cost can be fully refunded.
Click on Save

Setting Passenger Name Record (PNR) Configuration

Task	Process / Helpful Hint
Tip	In order to ensure PNR scripts trigger properly Mark the PNR Field Type as Pre-Trip Approval
	PNR and Pre-Trip Approvals JavaScript are in many cases interchangeable. JavaScript Examples

Setting Up Approvals and Notifications (Custom fields)

Task	Process / Helpful Hint
Creating Custom Field Collection	Enter the collection name into the Name field for each collection, such as PTA, pretripapproval or pretripnotification. Use a label which clearly defines the collection. Be sure to click the checkbox for Ask for User Input on the Purchase Page. This will display on the Trip Purchase page, allowing travelers to enter additional notes to approver.
Creating Custom Fields	Click the radio button for Approval required or Notification only Decide whether to send the approval email to the manager within the profile, or to a default approver If you would like the manager listed in the traveler’s profile to receive the approval/notification email, click the box next to Send approval email to traveler’s profiled approver Leave unchecked if you would like the approval/notification email to be sent to the default approver email, which you will need to provide in the next section Note: If the setting for "Send approval email to traveler’s profiled approver" is used, the default approver email value is ignored unless the traveler doesn't have a profiled approver (secondary approver field is still applicable) Enter the email addresses for the default approver and the secondary approver. If the default approver has not approved or declined the itinerary within the defined period, an email is sent to the secondary approver default email address Decide whether or not to automatically cancel declined itineraries Click the box next to action you would like the system to take Note: Offline-generated or offline-changed PNRs and itineraries with expired approvals are not auto-canceled Click the Advanced link at the bottom of the Field Type Preference section to enter the JavaScript criteria for this field
Use Case JavaScripts	PNR and Pre-Trip Approvals JavaScript are in many cases interchangeable. For further Information: JavaScript Examples Need further help creating a script, please open a Support Case
Example Script	Flying to specific airport //Alaska and Hawaii if((UserPnrData.UserSession.AirSearch.FlightLeg[0].DestinationAirportCode=="ANC")\|\| (UserPnrData.UserSession.AirSearch.FlightLeg[0].DestinationAirportCode=="FAI") \|\| (UserPnrData.UserSession.AirSearch.FlightLeg[0].DestinationAirportCodee=="HOM")\|\| (UserPnrData.UserSession.AirSearch.FlightLeg[0].DestinationAirportCode=="JNU") \|\| (UserPnrData.UserSession.AirSearch.FlightLeg[0].DestinationAirportCode=="HNL") \|\| (UserPnrData.UserSession.AirSearch.FlightLeg[0].DestinationAirportCode=="KOA") \|\| (UserPnrData.UserSession.AirSearch.FlightLeg[0].DestinationAirportCode=="LIH") \|\| (UserPnrData.UserSession.AirSearch.FlightLeg[0].DestinationAirportCode=="ITO")) {out.print("true");}else {out.print("false");}
Add to Custom Field Set	Once you have completed programming PTA collection, you will then need to add it to the custom field set Go back to Custom Field Configurations, and Click on Custom Field Sets Click on Set which you would like to add PTA Click on Add Collection to Set Click check box next to collection you would like to add to the set and click on Add You can adjust the order in which the fields appear and select Save Confirm you have Service Rules updated as well Ensure you have the correct custom field sets assigned to the correct groups Commit Changes shown at the top of the screen Please be sure to test.

Setting up Permissions

Task	Process / Helpful Hint
Designating Approver Status Manually	Click on User tab Click on Account Permission Click on Travel Approver Permission Click on Save
Assigning Manager Manually to Traveler Profile	Click on User tab Click on Personal and Employee Info Click on Travel Approver Name Select Approver from list Click on Save
Upload Approver	You can upload a file to establish user-approver relationships. Templates are available under the Profile tab. Before preparing your profile upload, consider, as a profile upload can be damaging if not managed correctly. See Preparing a Profile or Delegate Upload File, and keep in mind the following: Save the upload file template as a new file before adding or changing rows and columns Follow the template instructions to enter information in the new file Follow these general steps when assigning the approver role to any profile: Consulting the User Profile Fields page, locate the Role column (roleSet.role) in the new file for each approver Enter ROLE_TRAVEL_APPROVER in the Role column (roleSet.role) for each user to be designated as a travel approver. Other roles may also appear in this column, such as ROLE_PURCHASE_APPROVER and ROLE_APPROVER (for Expense). Upload this new file to establish the approvers in your site Follow these general steps to assign approvers to users: After uploading the file to establish approvers in your site, you can then assign approvers to users Consulting the User Profile Fields page, locate the Travel Approver ID column (userInfo.travelApproverID) in the new file for each user Enter the external ID of the approver for this user, defined previously as ROLE_TRAVEL_APPROVER in the Role column (roleSet.role). For example, if the userInfo.travelApproverID value is 28846, then the user whose external ID is 28846 should already have been uploaded and already have been assigned the role of Travel approver (ROLE_TRAVEL_APPROVER) in the Role column (roleSet.role). Upload this new file to establish the approver-user relationships Ensure that all custom fields, corresponding collections, and custom field sets are created first before uploading profiles containing custom fields. If not, the upload will possibly fail.

pre-trip Offline booked PNRs