Certified Approval in Chrome River

[sche...@umn.edu]

How are people handling Certified approval for travel on sponsored funds when the travel expense reimbursement is done in Chrome River?

[Carrie Meyer]

Certified approvers (the primary CA as listed in EFS for each DeptID) are set up in Chrome River and things are routing to CAs within Chrome River just as they do in EFS. The only real difference in routing is that there are no alternate approvers in Chrome River. So CAs have to set a vacation delegate if they'll be unavailable (someone who is also a Certified Approver). An additional twist, CAs who are also supervisors should keep their vacation delegates informed of that, in case one of their employees submits an expense report for supervisor review. People only get one vacation delegate for approvals.

If re-routing is needed, just as with EFS transactions, the Financial Helpline (contr...@umn.edu or 612-624-1617) can assist based on a request from the unit's CFM, RRC, or cluster director.

A nice thing for CAs, Chrome River sends an email alert of activity awaiting review and everything needed to review the activity is in the email (including attachments/supporting documentation), along with a button to approve the transaction and one to return it. Pretty fancy!

This job aid provides some basic description of approvals: http://z.umn.edu/chromeriver5

Does the Certified Approver community want more detailed information about Chrome River--a live Q&A or something more than just the occasional question/answer on this forum? We can set something up, if people really want that!

Carrie

[Andrew Carlson]

It's routed to the CA as mapped in Chrome River - here's the language from the U travel pilot website (https://travel.umn.edu/pilot.html):

Activity in Chrome River will route based on predefined logic.

Pre-Approval activity routes to your supervisor (as defined in the Human Resources system).

Expense Reports route to your unit's financial approver and, if sponsored funds are used, to a Certified Approver (both as defined in EFS by department ID).