Tech Tips: Travel Grants & Approvals

Institutions of all sizes manage travel grant and approval processes. Students, staff, and faculty members leave campus for experiential learning, professional development, or research. Grants to fund travel for conferences or other activities are frequently run through InfoReady as well. Aside from approving and funding travel, InfoReady helps with the important activity of tracking safety plans and other general reporting needs.

Challenges

• Various individuals in different offices need to be aware of and approve travel.
• Specific information must be gathered in a particular way to comply with policies and regulations.
• If funds are being awarded for travel, then it is important to collect budget information in a systematic way that can be compared across multiple requests.
• When the individual returns, you may want to document specific amounts spent and other outcomes from the trip.

Solutions

• Create separate routing steps for each office that needs to provide approval. Depending on your needs, the steps can be run concurrently to collect approvals quickly or sequentially if you have a specific approval order that must be followed.
• The custom form builder on the Requirements page lets administrators build questions in a specific order that can be exported to Excel, such as start and end dates, amount requested (if a grant), and location(s).
• Progress reports can be used to collect both quantitative and qualitative information from travelers that can then be shared with relevant stakeholders.
• Customize and save which columns are displayed on the Data Grid to easily sort and filter the travel information. Non-administrators can then be invited as Viewers to view this critical data as well.
• If set up correctly, InfoReady can serve as a repository of travel itineraries and emergency contacts.

• For quick eligibility or verification, use Yes/No questions on the application form, such as "Have you submitted international travel details to the Office of International Affairs?"
• If the traveler needs to identify one or more individuals to approve the request, use Applicant-Driven Routing Steps to automate the request. For example, students can identify a faculty advisor if the travel relates to their major.
• Give clear instructions for all questions, especially supporting documents (file uploads). For scanned documents like passports or itineraries, you may want to ask travelers to combine all images on one Word or PDF file for easy viewing.
• For group trips, use the co-applicants section to collect individual travelers' information in a standardized way.
• Decide if staff members in other offices need to be reviewers assigned to a specific routing step, or if they only need to view the requests after they have come in. If the latter, utilize the Viewer functionality or assign them as an administrator, if appropriate.
• Progress reports can be assigned after the trip to collect scanned receipts as uploads to verify exactly how much was spent. If the trip was for more experiential or research purposes, ask for outcomes achieved, such as a short reflection or data collected.