Policy & Procedure update - March 15, 2023

March 15, 2023

The following draft documents, which have completed the committee stages of their formal review, are now available for community review and comment and are posted on the Policies & Procedures Drafts web page. The documents will be posted on the drafts page for two weeks. Please discuss the documents with the appropriate people in your department and send any applicable feedback to controllers.office@yale.edu.

Policy 3301 Travel on University Business

Related documents:

  • Policy 3301 Travel on University Business Revised
  • Procedure 3301 PR.03 Air Travel on University BusinessRevised

These documents, which were previously announced as drafts on March 1, 2023, have since completed the committee stages of their formal review and approval process. They are now available once more for community review and feedback.

The revised policy and procedure are proposed by the Controller’s Office, the Office of Research Administration, and Yale Travel Management (the “policy sponsors”). The updates are intended primarily to reflect the use of the World Travel/Concur tool. As many departments know, this tool has been in a pilot phase since August 2022 for use with travel on federally sponsored awards.

The majority of the updates to the air travel procedure reflect streamlining to the process of booking air travel on federally sponsored awards, as made possible by the incorporation of World Travel/Concur into that process. These updates incentivize the use of World Travel/Concur for federally sponsored travel in that, when using the tool, there is no incremental requirement to obtain comparison screenshots for pricing purposes. In addition, use of the tool streamlines the processes around compliance with the Fly America Act. We heard the community’s feedback clearly that these requirements were burdensome. The recognition of those challenges ultimately drove the initiative to identify a new tool and modify the existing processes to ease the burdens.

In addition, the air travel procedure has been modified by aligning the language regarding allowable pricing for all air travel. Previously, federally sponsored air travel carried a different set of pricing standards than all other air travel. The revisions to this procedure now eliminate that difference.

Finally, the policy document itself received minor updates to align with the procedure’s substantive updates.

To review the draft documents, please visit the Policies & Procedures Drafts page.


Reminder:

Always check the Policies & Procedures web pages for the latest revisions of all documents. This will ensure you that are utilizing the most up-to-date version.

If you have any questions, please contact Policy & Compliance Services at controllers.office@yale.edu.