Approve A Concur Travel Request

Overview

If you are an assigned approver in the Concur Travel Request (TR) workflow, either based on funding or as a traveler's supervisor, this guide walks you through the approval process.

Please be sure to review the trip information, make the appropriate edits if applicable, and either approve or send back the TR as needed.

 

Here are the Approver steps in the TR workflow and the roles/responsibilities at each step:

  1. International Threat Committee - this only applies to TRs with international destinations, and will be reviewed for safety/risk and export control by the following: 
    1. Global Risk & Security -all International TRs
    2. General Counsel - TRs with high-risk destinations
    3. International Affairs - TRs with high-risk destinations
    4. HR Leadership - TRs with high-risk destinations
  2. Fund Coder/Reviewer- this is generally a Finance SSC, LSI, ISPR, or support staff. They review the TR to ensure the fields are filled out properly based on the information the traveler supplied in the Explain Business Purpose & Funding field.
  3. Cost Object Approver- this is the grant or departmental budget officer. They review the TR data and funding, editing funding as needed, and sending back a TR to the traveler if edits to the amounts are needed.
  4. HR Supervisor* - this is the traveler's supervisor in HR Pay. They review the TR data and acknowledge/approve if they are ok with the employee traveling to the location on the TR trip dates.
  5. Cash Advance - this is central KUCR audit and only applies to TRs with KUCR project funds and a Cash Advance added to the request.

NOTE: The Concur Mobile App can be used not only by travelers, but also by approvers to perform needed tasks in Concur.

Approvers should make every effort to approve items assigned to them, however when a situation necessitates the need for an Approver to set up a Delegate Approver one can be set up with the knowledge that ultimately the assigned Approver is accountable for anything approved on their behalf.

Travel Request Policy

  • Out-of-State & International travel must have an approved Travel Request(TR) completed in Concur before making travel arrangements. Employees must complete TRs no later than 14-days before domestic and 30-days before international travel.

  • A TR is not needed when traveling in-state, or when traveling to a border city if there is no overnight stay.

Questions and Assistance

  • For Travel Request questions and assistance, please contact Travel Services at travel@ku.edu or the Financial Services help desk at concurhelpdesk@ku.edu

Step One: 

You will receive an email from Concur that looks like this. Use the link in the email or access Concur from your internet browser at concur.ku.edu. 

Sign in using your KU SSO.

Image of Request Pending Your Approval email with link to Concur.

Step Two:

If you are an Approver Delegate, you must use "Act As" to switch to the person you are approving on behalf of. 

Navigate to your Approvals page.

Image of Act As approver delegate and Approvals page navigation.

Step Three:

From the Requests tab, select the Request Name you wish to open.

Image of Requests Approvals list

Step Four:

Review the estimated Expenses, Attachments, and open the Request Header to review trip details. Please be sure to review all the information necessary in order to approve for your approval role. Cost Object Approvers CAN edit the Header funding on a Travel Request as need for budgetary purposes.

Image of Request Header navigation

If needed, approvers can add a comment to the traveler that will be visible to them on their Concur Request Status Change email.  Save or Close the Header to return to the Approve page.

Approver Comments field

Step Five:

At this point you are ready to: Approve, Approve & Forward, or Send Back to Employee. 

  1. Use Approve - when you want the Travel Request to route to the next assigned step/person in the approval workflow. Once approved, you will return to your Approvals page to review/approve other Travel Requests if needed. Image of TR Approval options
  2. Use Approve & Forward - if you need to add someone else to the approval workflow. Type in their name, select it from the list and Save.  Then when you Approve it will route to the Added Approver. Image of adding an approver to Approval Workflow

  3. Use Send Back to Employee - if you need to send a Travel Request back to the employee to edit their estimated trip expenses or are denying the Request. 

     Image of Send Back to Employee

    Step Six:

    Once you have approved a Travel Request, you will return to your Approvals page to continue with your approvals.  If finished approving and ready to exit Concur, the Sign Out is found in the upper right corner were Profile Settings is found.

    Image of Concur Sign Out

     

    *NOTE: Concur only allows for ONE default Supervisor Approver, which is the employee's primary supervisor in HR Pay.  If an employee has more than one supervisor and their TR needs to be approved by a supervisor other than the default, the default supervisor approver must use Approve & Forward to add the other supervisor to workflow at the employee's request.

    Image of Default Supervisor Approver