How You Set Up a Travel Partner and Booking Sites

A travel partner is an online booking provider or a travel agency that provides travel services to your employees. A booking site is an instance of your travel partner's booking tool that's configured for a group of employees.

Before you can set up a travel partner and booking sites, your company must perform the prerequisite steps mentioned in the How You Set Up Prerequisites for Travel Partner Integration topic.

The following table contains mandatory and optional setups that you complete at the travel partner or booking site levels to integrate with a travel partner.

Mandatory	Setups	Level	Page
Yes Applicable only for GetThere	itinerary import	Travel partner	Create or Edit Travel Partner Integration
No	itinerary validation rules	Travel partner or booking site	Create or Edit Travel Partner Integration or Create or Edit Booking Site
Yes	booking sites	Booking site	Create or Edit Booking Site
Yes	booking site links	Booking site or travel partner	Create or Edit Booking Site or Create or Edit Travel Partner Integration
No	booking site assignments	Booking site	Create or Edit Booking Site

Only for GetThere, Itinerary Import

If you're setting up travel integration with GetThere as your travel partner, then you must enter these details at the travel partner level to import itineraries into Expenses.

• Connection user name and password

  Your travel partner provides the user name and password to your company.

• Super site name

  The travel partner's system assigns a name to your company.

Itinerary Validation Rules

Your reliance on accurate travel data to make strategic, company-wide travel decisions is essential. To improve the accuracy of travel data and to provide visibility of policy violations to approvers and auditors, you can enable validations on itineraries when they're imported into Expenses or when they're created using REST services. You manage itinerary validation rules on the Manage Travel Itinerary Validation Rules page. You can optionally assign itinerary validation rules at the travel partner level or the booking site level, based on your company's global and regional business requirements. You can also override an itinerary validation rule at the booking site level.

Booking Sites

You must create booking sites to import or create itineraries and to permit your employees to navigate to booking sites from the Expenses work area. When integrating with GetThere, the travel partner provides you with a booking site identifier for each of your company booking sites. Site identifiers identify your booking sites to your travel partner and are required for itinerary import.

When integrating with travel partners other than GetThere, called Third Party in the application, the travel partner and booking site names act as identifiers. Itineraries are created for these travel partners using REST services. When posting the itineraries from the third-party travel partner sites to Expenses, the travel partner and booking site names used in the itineraries must match the values used in the setup.

Note: You must create at least one booking site for your travel partner.

Booking Site Links

To allow employees to access travel booking sites from the Expenses work area, you can define a booking site link in the following ways:

• Booking site-specific URLs:

  Based on region, country, or employment type, your company may have different travel partners or your travel partner may have multiple travel sites. Each booking site has a specific link. In such a case, you create different booking sites using specific URLs so that employees are directed to the booking site applicable to them.

  Even if you have a single travel partner site, you can define an exception using a site-specific link. You may have to use booking site-specific URLs when:

  • Your company uses a SSO for most but not all of its locations.

  • You need specific booking sites due to local or regional regulations.

  To select this option, enter a URL at the booking site level in the Booking Site Link field in the Create or Edit Booking Site dialog box.

• Default booking site URL:

  In case you use the GetThere travel partner, you can define a default booking URL for employees who are not assigned to a specific booking site.

  To select this option, enter a URL at the partner level in the Default Booking Site Link field in the Booking Sites section on the Edit Travel Partner Integration page for GetThere. By default, all employees use this URL to access the travel partner unless you specify a booking site-specific URL on the Create Booking Site page.

  Note: A URL entered at the booking site level on the Create Booking Site page overrides the URL entered at the partner level on the Create or Edit Travel Partner Integration page.
  Note: If you have a third-party travel partner, you can't use the default booking site URL. You need to create booking sites and configure specific URLs depending on your company's preferences. You can create one booking site for all employees if your company has a single travel partner. Or, you can create multiple sites depending on the travel partners with which your company integrates.

Whether you select the default booking site URL or the booking site-specific URLs option, you can enter any of the following access links:

• Single sign-on (SSO)

  • From the Travel tab in the Expenses work area, employees navigate to their assigned booking site after the application signs them in automatically.

• Authentication by travel partner or travel agency

  • Employees navigate to the travel partner or travel agency's authentication page where they provide their user name and password and then they're taken to their assigned booking sites.

If your company permits SSO, you enter the SSO URL from the identity provider as the booking site link. When employees click Book Travel in the Expenses work area, they're automatically signed in and they automatically navigate to their assigned booking sites.

If your company doesn't permit SSO, employee credentials are authenticated by the travel partner or the travel agency. When employees click Book Travel in the Expenses work area, they navigate to the booking site URL that you set up. However, they must enter their credentials and sign in to the booking site.

The applicable URL can be your travel partner's site URL or a travel agency's booking site URL, depending on how you access your travel sites.

Booking Site Assignments

Assignment of employees to a booking site on the Create Booking Site page is required only if you select the booking site-specific URLs option as described in the Booking Site Links section of this topic. When you assign employees to booking sites, information you enter in Expenses and in travel partner site results in automatic navigation of employees to the correct booking site when they click Book Travel on the Trips page.

In your travel partner's system, you have set up employees and the travel sites to which they have access. In the Site Assignments section on the Create Booking Site page, instead of individually assigning employees to sites, you specify the association based on two parameters, country and employment. Within employment, site assignment of employees can be set up by job role or job management level.

The following table contains examples of employee booking site assignments by country, by employment groups, and by type of employment.

Scenario	Assignment by Country	Employment Groups to Which Assignment is Applicable	Assignment by Employment Type
Booking site is accessible to all employees in the company.	All countries	All employment	Not applicable
Booking site is accessible to all employees in the US.	Specific country	All employees	Not applicable
Booking site is accessible to all senior vice presidents in the company, except in Australia.	All countries with exceptions	Specific employment	Job management level

Note: Before you can select the Job role or Job management level option in the Site Assignments section on the Create Booking Site page, you must set up job roles and job management levels in Oracle Human Capital Management.