STM-ADMINS: Travel approvals via email

[Jsajdak]

I am an EA in STM North America. Since this latest Concur update, there are several issues for travel approvers:

1. When receiving an email to approve travel I do not have any description regarding the purpose or reason for the travel request. I receive the travel request with the flights/hotel/car selected, the comparison pricing and the name of the traveler. I need to understand why they are booking the travel to properly approve. It WAS included before this update.

2. When approving the travel we receive an email confirmation that the travel has been approved. However, now it contains only the travelers name and there is no indication which trip the approval is confirming. When you have several trips from the same name it is impossible to tell whether or not it is still waiting for approval unless you log into Concur. The EA's get many trips a day for approval. This is a huge issue. I have been told by Concur to log in and do the approvals from Concur/SAP. It is not always possible to log into Concur to approve the travel.  Approving travel via email has worked fine for the 10+ years i have been approving travel via email. If Concur is trying to move forward and constantly IMPROVE their product I would say this isn't the answer that I should be given. The issue with travel approvals via email started when this new update was implemented.

[KevinD]

@Jsajdak hello there. I just want to be 100% clear on what you are describing. You are talking about the actual Travel Itinerary approval, not a Travel Request approval? I know many people use these terms synonymously, but we do have a Travel Request module, so I want to make sure that isn't what you are talking about. 

If you are talking about actual travel bookings being approved, as far as I remember, entering a purpose or reason is usually optional. I would say that your company may have made this required for a booking, but if you aren't getting a reason or purpose, then travelers might not be entering it. I'm speculating here as I obviously cannot see what your travelers are doing in their bookings. It seems odd to me that travelers would, for no reason, stop entering this information. 

As for the email notifications that the travel has been approved, I would like to think there is some sort of identifying piece of information other than the trip name. Notice I said, "I would like to think"...Concur Travel isn't my strongest area of expertise so I have to choose my words carefully. Would you be willing to forward me the emails where the trip name is the same, but they are for two different travelers, please? If so, private message me here on the Community and I'll provide you an email address to send them to. 

Is the issue that the approval via email isn't working or that the email isn't specifically identifying which trip it is, who the traveler is and whether it has been approved or not? Are EAs getting the same approval emails and they don't know if another EA has approved that trip already? 

[Jsajdak]

Entering the reason for the trip is optional but the field would still show. It would just say "no description". In this case whether they enter information in the field or not the field simply is not included in the travel booking approval request. Nor is there a trip name included. Both of these fields used to be included in the approval request but are no longer included. Example below. with name blanked out.

[Jsajdak]

I am not sure how to private message you.