Trip Coordination Workflow for Policy-Compliant Corporate Booking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Organizing a trip within a corporation or other entity is complicated by numerous internal and external policies and regulations, requiring coordination across different departments, which is often difficult and error-prone, leading to incomplete and inaccurate record-keeping.
Innovation Solution
A central intelligent trip coordinator that integrates various workflows and processes, automates data collection, and manages communications, ensuring compliance with policies and regulations while maintaining a complete and accessible record.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If manual coordination methods (email, phone calls) are used for trip organization, then flexibility in communication is maintained, but information loss occurs and record completeness deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a trip coordinator system that acts as an intermediary between travelers and corporate systems. This mediator automatically collects trip data, maintains centralized records, and ensures information完整性 while still allowing flexible communication channels to be used for actual trip coordination.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates digital copies of trip information from various sources (email, forms, systems) and consolidates them into a centralized trip record. This copying process ensures information is preserved and made accessible without restricting the original communication methods.
2Reliability
If multiple disconnected systems are used for trip management, then departmental autonomy is maintained, but coordination difficulty increases and error rates rise
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple trip management functions and systems into a single coordinated platform. The trip coordinator consolidates data from travel requests, approvals, bookings, and policies into one unified system, reducing coordination errors while maintaining connections to existing departmental systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The trip coordinator is designed as a universal system that can interface with multiple different departments and existing systems (travel management, expense, HR, policy systems). This multi-functional approach enables centralized coordination without requiring complete system replacement.
3Manufacturing precision
If detailed record-keeping is implemented to comply with policies and regulations, then compliance accuracy is improved, but data management complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary data collection and validation during the trip request and approval process. By gathering required information upfront and structuring it according to compliance requirements, the system ensures complete records are created at the source rather than requiring complex post-processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The trip coordinator automatically generates compliant records and reports by pulling data from integrated systems. This self-service approach to record-keeping ensures policy and regulatory compliance without requiring manual data management intervention, reducing complexity while maintaining precision.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are various embodiments for an intelligent trip coordinator. A trip entry associated with a user can be received by a computing device, where the trip entry includes trip data. The computing device can generate a trip record based at least in part on the trip entry, where the trip record includes the trip data. Next, the computing device can send the trip record to an approval service. In response to receiving an approval from the approval service, the computing device can forward the trip record to a booking service. Finally, the computing device modifies the trip record based at least in part on booking data provided by the booking service.