How You Set Up Travel Integration

You integrate with your travel partner to improve employee travel booking experience, to provide visibility to travel actions and patterns, and to facilitate reporting on noncompliant travel. The resulting travel data enables you to make cost-effective decisions with the travel supplier.

When you enable travel integration, the following actions can occur:

• Itinerary data is received by Expenses from your travel partner and trips are automatically created for valid itineraries.

• Updates to itineraries are also received by Expenses from your travel partner until the employee takes the trip.

• The travel administrator corrects itineraries with validation errors.

• Employees manage their trips.

• Expense reports are automatically created and appear in the Expenses work area.

• Approvers and auditors can view the difference between booked and actual travel expenses, booking policy violations, and justifications provided by users.

The following figure illustrates how a deploying company integrates with a travel partner.

Expenses supports integration with GetThere travel partner. In addition, integration with other travel partners is supported using REST APIs.

The steps to set up travel integration in Expenses is similar for GetThere and other travel partners but there are some differences. Here are the required tasks to set up a travel integration:

• Enable Travel Integration

• Assign Travel Administrator

• Configure Travel Partner and Travel Sites

• Only for GetThere, Schedule Import Travel Itinerary Process

• Only for Third-Party Travel Partners, Manage Travel Itineraries

To improve the quality of travel data and to enhance employees' user experience, you can set up the following optional tasks:

• Define Itinerary Validation Rules

• Enable Automatic Creation of Trip-Based Expense Reports

Enable Travel Integration

To receive itinerary data from your travel partner, you must enable travel integration. To do this, select Yes for the Enable Travel option on the Manage Expenses System Options page. You can set this option for all business units or for specific business units that are enabling travel integration.

In the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the following to navigate to the Manage Expenses System Options page:

• Offering: Financials

• Functional Area: Expenses

• Task: Manage Expenses System Options

Assign Travel Administrator

To monitor imported itineraries, create itineraries using REST APIs, and resolve itinerary data errors, you must have a travel administrator. To provide the travel administrator with access to the Travel Administration work area, you must assign him or her the job role of Travel Manager.

In the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the following to navigate to the Manage Users page:

• Offering: Financials

• Functional Area: Users and Security

• Task: Manage Users

Configure Travel Partner and Travel Sites

Your travel partner and its booking sites store the following information about your company's setup:

• Connection information to your travel partner

• Travel sites defined by your company

• Booking site links

• Association of your employees with booking sites.

As a travel administrator, you configure your travel partner and set up booking sites using the Manage Travel Partner Integrations page.

In the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the following to navigate to the Manage Travel Partner Integrations page:

• Offering: Financials

• Functional Area: Expenses

• Task: Manage Travel Partner Integrations

If your company uses GetThere to book trips, follow these steps to integrate GetThere with Expenses:

1. On the Manage Travel Partner Integrations page, click the Create icon.

2. On the Create Travel Partner Integration page, select GetThere from the Corporate Online Booking Provider list.

3. Enter appropriate details in the Customer Account and Contact Person fields.

4. In the Itinerary Import section, enter the connection user name, password, and super site name, which are provided by your travel partner.

5. Select an itinerary data validation rule.

6. Enter a URL in the Default Booking Site Link field.

7. Click Save and Close.

Here are the steps to configure other third-party travel partners:

1. On the Manage Travel Partner Integrations page, click the Create icon.

2. On the Create Travel Partner Integration page, select Third Party from the Corporate Online Booking Provider list.

3. Enter appropriate details in the Travel Partner Name and Contact Person fields.

4. In the Itinerary Validation section, select an itinerary data validation rule.

5. Click Save and Close.

Create booking sites for the travel partners as explained in the How You Set Up a Travel Partner and Booking Sites topic.

Only for GetThere, Schedule Import Travel Itineraries Process

To automatically import itineraries into Expenses from GetThere at predefined intervals, you must schedule the Import Travel Itineraries process. The first run of the process imports itineraries according to the specified import process start date and time. Subsequent runs import itineraries that are created or updated since the last import. You can schedule the process to import itineraries for each booking site. The process imports itineraries in both active and ticketed statuses. A ticketed status means that the travel partner or merchant has issued a ticket to the employee for the trip. Because the process runs in near real-time, it's advisable to schedule it frequently.

Note: The Import Travel Itineraries process also imports itineraries that have a status of Canceled. If itineraries were canceled before importation, they won't have any details. If itineraries are canceled after importation, their status is updated accordingly.

You can schedule the Import Travel Itineraries process from the Travel Administration work area Tasks pane by clicking the Import Travel Itineraries link. Navigation: Travel Administration > Import Travel Itineraries > Advanced button > Schedule tab. Alternately, you can schedule it from the Scheduled Processes work area. Navigation: Navigator > Tools > Scheduled Processes > Schedule New Process > Job > Name: Import Travel Itineraries.

Only for Third-Party Travel Partners, Manage Travel Itineraries

For third-party travel partners, itineraries are created or modified using REST services. You must have the Travel Manager role to create or modify itineraries using REST services.

Here are some rules that you need to follow to post travel itineraries to Expenses:

• Only one itinerary at a time must be created or modified using REST services.

• You can post itinerary data at any time from the third-party travel site.

• Your itinerary can have one or more reservations. For example, a single travel itinerary can have air, rail, hotel, or vehicle rental reservations.

• An itinerary must belong to only one employee.

• The status of an itinerary must be active, ticketed, or canceled.

Note: Refer to the Expense Travel Itineraries task in the REST API for Oracle Financials Cloud guide for more information.

After itineraries are posted, you must run the Validate only process. This process checks the itineraries for violations and errors. If there are no critical errors, trips are created for the validated itineraries.

You can run or schedule the process to run at predefined intervals from the Travel Administration work area Tasks pane by clicking the Import Travel Itineraries link. Navigation: Travel Administration > Import Travel Itineraries > Validate only > Advanced button > Schedule tab.

Optionally, Enable Itinerary Validation Rules

Your reliance on accurate travel data to make strategic, company-wide travel decisions is essential. You can optionally enable travel itinerary validation rules to be applied when travel itineraries are imported or when validation process is run on itineraries posted from third-party. An itinerary validation rule identifies data errors so the travel administrator can correct them. Additionally, you can enable itinerary validation rules if you want expense report approvers and auditors to view booking policy violations and the associated justifications provided by employees.

Additional setup is required if you choose to enable the following validations for use in creating validation rules:

• Airline class of ticket

• Location

• Merchant

• Policy violation

The following table describes the validations that require additional setup, their validation types, source names, and high-level setup actions.

Validations	Validation Type	Source Name	High-Level Set Up
Airline class of ticket	Lookup	EXM_TICKET_CLASS	Add lookup codes to the EXM_TICKET_CLASS lookup type on the Manage Travel Policy Lookup Types page. Alternatively, you can create a new class of ticket lookup type that starts with the prefix EXM_TRAVEL In the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the following to navigate to the Manage Travel Policy Lookup Types page. Offering: Financials Task: Manage Travel Policy Lookup Types
Location	Trading Community Architecture	Not applicable	Review geographies on the TCA Manage Geographies page. Create a missing geography hierarchy for all possible city, state, and country values for itinerary reservations. In the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the following to navigate to the Manage Geographies page: Offering: Financials Task: Manage Geographies
Merchant	Table	EXM_MERCHANT	Open the predefined Merchant Codes spreadsheet from the Manage Merchant Codes task in the Travel Administration work area. Ensure that all merchants for itinerary reservations appear in the spreadsheet. Add any needed merchants to the spreadsheet.
Policy Violation	Lookup	EXM_POL_VIOLATION_TYPES	Add lookup codes to the EXM_POL_VIOLATION _TYPES lookup type on the Manage Travel Policy Lookup Types page. Alternatively, you can create a new booking policy lookup type that starts with the prefix EXM_TRAVEL. In the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the following to navigate to the Manage Travel Policy Lookup Types page: Offering: Financials Task: Manage Travel Policy Lookup Types

You can assign itinerary validation rules to your travel partner or to its booking sites. Creation and assignment of the validation rules occurs on the Create Travel Itinerary Validation Rules page. Navigation: Navigator > My Information > Expenses > Travel Administration > Manage Travel Itinerary Validation Rules task > Create icon > Create Travel Itinerary Validation Rules page. Alternatively, you can access the Manage Travel Itinerary Validation Rules page from the Setup and Maintenance work area.

Optionally, Enable Automatic Creation of Trip-Based Expense Reports

You can optionally enable automatic creation of expense reports based on trips. Automatic creation of reports simplifies and expedites expense entry for employees. To do this, you can take the following steps:

1. Select Yes for the Enable Automatic Travel Expense Report Creation option on the Manage Expenses System Options page. When travel is enabled, the default value for this option is Yes. You can set this option for all business units or for specific business units.

   In the Setup and Maintenance work area, use the following to navigate to the Manage Expenses System Options page:

   • Offering: Financials

   • Task: Manage Expenses System Options

2. Schedule the Processes Trip Expense Report process to automatically create expense reports from trips. This process creates expense reports from corporate card transactions that match those transacted over the trip's duration. The timing of the expense report creation is based on each employee's preference as specified on the Expenses Preferences page. Navigation: Navigator > Tools > Scheduled Processes > Schedule New Process > Job > Name: Processes Trip Expense Report.

When automatic creation of expense reports is enabled, employees can choose to generate expense reports upon completion of their trips or when they receive the first corporate card transaction. Employees can also choose to manually initiate creation of expense reports.