Travel Planning Possibilities

[Former Member]

Hi Experts,

From everything I've read it only seems possible to use the Travel Planning functionality if SAP is connected to a 3rd party booking system such as Amadeus or Sabre.  Is this absolutely necessary?  The reason I ask is that I have a client who wants to facilitate the following travel booking business process using SAP but it isn't clear if SAP is able to support it:

Example business process scenario:

1) Employee emails a request for travel to the client's travel office/department.

2) The Travel Office then obtains 2 quotes for the travel from multiple agencies/airlines/etc

3) Travel office then sends the best quote to the employee for review.

4) The Employee can choose to accept/reject the quote.

5) If accepted, the request is then sent to budget approver for approval.

6) Once approved, the travel office confirm the booking.

7) Travel office send booking information/confirmation to the employee.

Potential SAP process:

1) Request - created by employee as standard

2) Plan - would it be possible for the travel office to manually create a travel plan, which includes the travel details (flight times, prices, ticket numbers, etc, etc) instead of it requiring a connection to a 3rd party system.

3) Expense Report - created by employee as standard

Any advice about how SAP could be used to meet the business process here would be very much appreciated.

Many Thanks,

Jack

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

Hi Jack,

In general, if you want to have complete automatic integration with SAP, you can only do this with the following interfaces: Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre, BIBE, HRS; some of them partially with means of the Global Distribution Service Interface.

Partially, the business process you described is also present in my company. We have connected BIBE and are about to connect HRS which are standard interfaces in SAP; but we also have a flight provider and several rental car providers which cannot be connected into the standard FI-TV-PL module. Here's my solution approach:

Our potential defined business process:

1. Request sent by employee
2. Approval of Request by respective superior
3. Infirm Service Department receives the requested travel services of Request via Workflow
4. Infirm Service Department uses the Standard WDA to book Trains via BIBE and Hotels via HRS but does not yet 'close' / or 'complete' this WDA scenario yet. They then book flights and cars without SAP and without any data connection to SAP. Once this is done, they have the booking information from flight and cars (as PDF or in paper or whatever).
5. Infirm Service department 'records' the bookings made for flights and cars as "other services" category in the standard Webdynpro manually (there are no plausibility checks here etc. it's just mere documentary). We kind of 'abuse' the commentary field here for prices, flight numbers ticket number etc.. and all that stuff, so we aren't really able to do reporting on these factors later (but we don't need to, so it's irrelevant for us).
6. Infirm Service concludes and completes information for standard WDA. The "product" for us, as benefit, is, that we now have all items of the trip in one planning document (although parts of it is only documentary). We made our own Adobe Form for this.
7. The employee receives this PDF via Mail.
8. Expense sheet is created by employee etc.etc.

I think what you want to achieve is generally possible by respective customizing entries for "other services" and a subsequent documentary conclusion in the standard WDA; but be aware that you actually just 'fake' the SAP travel planning here and your only benefit is that you have all information recorded and reported in one document, nothing more.

Hope this helps

Cheers, Lukas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Lukas,

Many thanks for the quick and detailed response, it's very much appreciated.

Based on your answer and some other investigating; I'm thinking that we can use the travel requests (deactivate travel planning) and use the "Other Services" in the requests to enter the details of any flights/hotels/car hire booked by the travel office.  Unfortunately, we aren't going to be able to integrate with a 3rd party provider any time soon and that's why I'm proposing that we deactivate travel planning.

At your company, when the "Infirm Service Department" enters information into the "Other Services" of the travel request/plan.  Are they doing this through MSS/ESS and what kind of user/role are they using?

Thanks again and Kind Regards.

Cheers,

Jack

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

Hi Jack,

I left the travel planning switch in IMG in our system activated, because this influences ALL the standard applications; I then removed the planning portions from applications where it's not supposed to be used according to our business process (for example in FITV_POWL_TRIPS for the enduser).

Our travel service department got the role SAP_FI_TV_TRAVEL_ASSISTANT and SAP_FI_TV_WEB_ASSISTANT for the standard Travel Assistant WDA (this is the reason I left the switch for travel planning active, otherwise this service won't work the way I want it to). They then use the POWL to create travel plans via FITP_PLANNING on base of approved requests for the respective employees. We do have another idea where we use a customized UWL with workitems to make the jump into FITP_PLANNING, but this is rather complicated and we didn't have time to realize this yet.

By the way: If you are still in the process of deciding whether to use Dynpro TP01 or FITP_PLANNING WDA, IMHO don't use TP01, according to the info I got, it's only being maintained by SAP for another couple of years and there will be no new developments.

Cheers, Lukas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Lukas,

Can you explain the process of travel planning, which were you do in your company with screen shots or in the form of SPRO path. I need to know travel planning without interfaces like Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre, BIBE, HRS.

Your inputs will be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Regards,

Narayana

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

Hi Narayana,

as I stated in my first response in this thread (where I also described our process), travel planning without 3rd party OBEs only makes sense for documentary purposes for category "Other Services". If the documentation itself is not your goal to achieve AND you don't want to use 3rd party OBEs then it doesn't make sense to use SAP Travel Planning at all.

Cheers, Lukas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Lukas, thanks again for your help on this topic and I have another question if you don't mind:

I've activated the "Other Services" option for the travel request, so it is possible to include this information when creating a travel request in ESS.

However, I can't seem to find how to also activate "Other Services" for the travel plan.  When creating a travel plan, I see only the standard options (flight, hotel, rail, car rental) in ESS.  Please could you help me understand how to add the "Other Services" to the travel plan?

Cheers,

Jack

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

Hi Jack,

in general it works like this:

You create entries for services in V_TA23OS and use the default office find keys because they'll have no functionality anyway. Then you need to define these entries in V_TA20C with category "O" for others, so the WebDynpro knows where to place them. These settings apply for both, the Travel Request and the Travel plan, you don't need to activate it for the travel plan seperately. The only thing that is still need then is in FITVFELD_WEB for schema PL that you are allowed to enter Travel Services, but this should be present in standard. Should look like this, then:

If you did both, it should actually be working. If it doesn't, can you provide more information what doesn't work with screenshots etc?

Cheers, Lukas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks again Lukas, that's very helpful.  I was missing the entry in V_TA20C.  Now I've entered it and the Other Service button is available in WDA.

I think I'm going to set up a similar process to the one you are doing, the only difference is that we won't have any connection with a 3rd party booking tool:

1) Employee Creates Travel Request

2) Sent via workflow for manager approval

3) Once approved, Travel office creates travel plan (SAP_FI_TV_WEB_ASSISTANT). Manually enters the best quotes for the travel it has received from travel agents.

4) Employee Reviews and submits.

5) Sent via workflow for cost approval.

6) Once approved, travel office make bookings.

7) After trip, employee creates expense report linked to the plan.

😎 I'm also looking into uploading credit card files for the lodged cards with the travel agents.  This will allow the employee to enter the cost of the centrally booked, company paid travel (flights mainly) into their expense report.

Thanks again for all your input, it's been a great help.

Kind Regards,

Jack

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

Very nice. Looks like you are on the right track

Good luck with the implementation!

EDIT: By the way, when your question is answered, you can either click the green star symbol on one of the posts or set the opening post "assumed answered". This way it's easier to find for people who search for answered threads for a certain query.

Cheers, Lukas

Message was edited by: Lukas Weigelt

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Lukas,

Sorry to bring up a post more than  2 years old but i can´t find anything else related to this topic about using the "Other Services" functionality in the travel planning section without any external system connected to it.

I´ve done all the configuration suggested by your post, the business functions are active, we are using ecc 6.0 EHP7.

I´ve managed to make the "Other Services" button to work on the travel request and planning but when i try to save the travel plan, SAP display an error FITP 473 "Booking in reservation system failed" and it doesn´t allow me to save the travel plan.

I´m using 01 (Amadeus) as office find key.

Have you ever seen anything like that?

Thanks in advance!

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

reservation system will not know your personal "other service". So you need to make sure that this is forwarded in a GDS compatible format, like special service request SSR/ or remark RM* ...whatsoever.

Pls check customizing of other services if there is an active/ inactive switch for GDS integration. There are los various BADIs and some enhancement spot to write "your" other service to PNR in GDS.

regards, Michael

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

Hi Hugo,

I haven't fully understood what you're trying to do. Are you trying to use the "other services" as mere documentary items without a reservation system like Jack and I did or are you trying to connect them to a third party provider via GDS/Amadeus?

Cheers, Lukas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Lukas. I´m trying to do the same "other services" like you and Jack were talking.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Michael, thanks for the answer.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Just to make clear, i mentioned Amadeus because that´s the default office find key that i used for the configuration of the OFFLINE "other services".

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

OK, I just checked on demo system:

YOUR "other services" have a flag "PNR integration" in V_TA23OS-PNR.

If this is inactive, line item will not be written to PNR - but you need to have a valid "office find" key. If you have SAP online booking up and running, you will have this. If not, you need to make sure to have a valid dummy config, including dummy queue handling and whatsoever.

If this is active, you need to create a valid AMADEUS command to make it be written to PNR. Otherwise, AMADEUS will not know what you are trying to do.

You can check command lines in transaction AMADEUS.

You can write ANY item to PNR if you have valid AMADEUS command for command line. SAP standard unfortunately is restricted to certain objects, as types of PNR elements are restricted in some domain to RM*, RMS* and others, but e.g. not SSR elements - the ones you will need for full TMC compliance.

To write valid AMADEUS command to AMADEUS command line, you need to go with BADI as follows, feeding field "a_command" with any input you like. In your case, add details for other services instead of xxxxxx - you need to the read them before, which is not part of this sample.

Enjoy, Michael

SAMPLE:

***********************************

METHOD if_ex_fitp_cust_remarks~create_rm.

  data: lt_bapirettab type bapirettab.

********************

* Daten der PNR

  data:

    pnr_acknowledgement type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_ack_data,

    pnr_main_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_main,

    pnr_flight_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_flight,

    pnr_hotel_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_hotel,

    pnr_car_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_car,

    pnr_other_service_out type standard table of

                            ftps_api_pnr_other_service,

    pnr_auxiliary_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_auxiliary,

    pnr_name_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_name,

    pnr_address_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_address,

    pnr_phone_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_phone,

    pnr_fop_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_fop,

    pnr_remarks_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_remarks,

    pnr_remarks_to_del type standard table of ftpt_pnr_remarks,

    pnr_fqtv_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_fqtv,

    pnr_seat_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_seat,

    pnr_seat_details_out type standard table of

                                ftps_api_pnr_seat_details,

    pnr_misc_ssr_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_ssr_misc,

    pnr_ssr_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_ssr_misc,

    pnr_osi_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_osi,

    pnr_tk_element_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_tk_elem,

    pnr_seg_assoc_out type standard table of ftps_api_pnr_seg_assoc,

    wa_flight type ftps_api_pnr_flight.

**********************

* Für Verbindung

  data:

   a_t_output       type table of ftps_api-text initial size 0,

   a_error_type     type ftps_api-error_type,

   a_error_code     type ftps_api-error_code,

*   p_rc             TYPE i,

   a_destination    type rfcdes-rfcdest,

   a_contexthandler type ftps_api-ctxtid,

   a_changed(1)     value space,

*   a_lines_of_table TYPE i VALUE 0,

   a_command(100)   type c value space,

*   a_once           TYPE c VALUE 'Y',

   a_msg_text(80)   type c.

  DATA wa_cust_remarks TYPE ftpt_pnr_remarks.

***************************

  call function 'FITP_RETRIEVE_PNR'

    exporting

      variant                 = wa_variant-variant

      record_locator          = wa_variant-rec_locator

      operation_mode          = 'R'

      sw_portal               = ' '

    importing

      t_return                = lt_bapirettab

    tables

      pnr_main_out            = pnr_main_out

      pnr_name_out            = pnr_name_out

      pnr_flight_out          = pnr_flight_out

      pnr_hotel_out           = pnr_hotel_out

      pnr_car_out             = pnr_car_out

      pnr_other_service_out   = pnr_other_service_out

      pnr_auxiliary_out       = pnr_auxiliary_out

      pnr_address_out         = pnr_address_out

      pnr_phone_out           = pnr_phone_out

      pnr_fop_out             = pnr_fop_out

      pnr_remarks_out         = pnr_remarks_out

      pnr_fqtv_out            = pnr_fqtv_out

      pnr_seat_out            = pnr_seat_out

      pnr_seat_details_out    = pnr_seat_details_out

      pnr_misc_ssr_out        = pnr_misc_ssr_out

      pnr_osi_out             = pnr_osi_out

      pnr_tk_element_out      = pnr_tk_element_out

      pnr_segment_association = pnr_seg_assoc_out

      pnr_acknowledgement     = pnr_acknowledgement

    exceptions

      no_pnr_found            = 1

      others                  = 2.

*   Check/Establish connection

  call function 'TP_START_STOP_CONNECTION'

    exporting

      variant              = wa_variant-variant

      start_connection     = 'X'

    importing

      destination          = a_destination

      contexthandler       = a_contexthandler

      changed              = a_changed

    exceptions

      no_destination_found = 1

      no_valid_variant     = 2

      others               = 3.

****************************************

*   Verbindung o.k. ?

****************************************

  if sy-subrc is initial.

clear: a_command.

***********************

*SSR ELEMENTE ERZEUGEN

***********************

* Befehl füllen_001

        concatenate 'SSR xxxxxxxx'

                    into a_command.

* AMADEUS-Befehl erzeugen

        call function 'FITP_AMADEUS_ENTRY' destination a_destination

          exporting

            command               = a_command

            context_handler       = a_contexthandler

          importing

            error_type            = a_error_type

            error_code            = a_error_code

          tables

            t_output              = a_t_output

          exceptions

            communication_failure = 1  message a_msg_text

            system_failure        = 2  message a_msg_text.

********************************

  endif.

endif.

endif.

endif.

endmethod.

endmethod.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Lukas,

We also have a similar requirement. We do not want to use travel planning / integrate with 3rd party tools, however we need to document the travel services for the trip. We are in EHP7 with business function FIN_TRAVEL_1 activated and using the POWL inbox in the portal.

The approach taken is as follows:

1. Request by employee through ESS portal
2. In FITVFELD_WEB, the " Enter Travel Services" check box has been enabled so that the travel request screen has the " Travel Services" button.
3. The portal screen for the Travel Services (Add flight / add hotel/ add car rental) has been enhanced with additional fileds like say for example flight class ( economy or Business) and flight type and flight time ( preferred range like 9 AM to 11 AM), train class ( First / second) etc as per the client's requirement.
4. Employee will create the request as well as will add the flight / hotel and car services details in the request and send it for approval via workflow.
5. Approval of Request by respective superior
6. On approval the inhouse travel desk receives an intimation of the travel request. The travel desk accesses a ztransaction in ECC to view the details ( A link is planned to call and display the pdf request form(adobe form change as per client requirement)  when the Travel desk clicks on a specific request) Then proceeds to book the flight / hotel etc (outside SAP) sends the ticket to the employee through mail (outside SAP)
7. Hence the travel request will have all the details of the tranportation and accomodation in the FTPT_REQUEST table

When the employee selects the Enter travel services - Add flight the system defaults the trip dates and the " To destination" as given in the request screen. And also for the hotel and car, system defaults the date.

But in case there are additional destinations in the trip, the system still defaults the date and location of the 1st destination. Is there a way that the system would display the additional destinations in the Enter Services tab page ( like in t.code TRIP) wherein you can select each of the destination and add the flight / hotel.

The system just allows to add any number of lines for "Add Flight" but I am unable to link this to the additional destination line.

Is there a way that this requirement could be achived in the portal?

Regards,

Neeraja