You can create and edit the different travel management objects (travel request, travel plan, travel expenses) from the initial screen of the travel manager.

The initial screen is divided into two main areas:

In the upper area, you can

• create a travel request
• book flights, hotels and rental cars (create travel plan)
• create a travel expense report

In the lower area of the screen the list of open trips is displayed. This list appears as soon as you have created at least one travel request, travel plan or travel expense report. You thus have an overview of all your current trips that still have to be processed.

The general trip data and the possible follow-on activities (that you can start directly via links) are displayed for each of the trips in the list.

The specification of follow-on activities for each trip eases the further processing of the trips considerably.

Possible follow-on activities could be changing the existing travel requests, travel plans or travel expense reports and creating the respective follow-on object:

• Travel request -> Follow-on object: travel plan
• Travel request -> Follow-on object: travel expense report (if planning unnecessary)
• Travel plan -> Follow-on object: travel expense report

If you have not processed a trip further within a certain period of time, the corresponding travel request, travel plan or travel expense report is marked with an alarm indicator as a warning.

These warnings indicate that you should take immediate action. For example, an alarm indicator is set if a travel request or travel plan is to be completed within the next two weeks or if a travel expense report has (four weeks after the end of the trip) still not been completed.

The alarm period depends on the enterprise settings. You can make the settings for this in the Customizing for Travel Management under Travel Expenses ® Master Data ® Check Travel Expenses constants.