How to Set Up a Travel Policy on Swile Travel?

In your admin area, go to Policies from the side menu. The Travel Policies page has two tabs: Employee Policies, where you set your budgets and rules, and Approval Rules, where you set up validations.

From the Employee Policies tab, you can:

• add a new travel policy;
• edit or delete an existing policy;
• view a clear summary of what each policy contains, without going into the details of the rules;
• drag and drop policies to set their order of priority.

Creating a travel policy takes five steps, from the Employee Policies tab.

1. Step 1: On the Travel Policies page, click Add a policy, then give your travel policy a unique and easily identifiable name.

   

2. Step 2: When creating the policy, choose who it applies to: one or more travellers, an analytical field, or both.

   

3. Step 3: Enter the policy rules for each programme, in the Train, Accommodation, Flight and Car sections. Click Add a rule in each section to see all available rules and their documentation.

   

4. Step 4: Add any exceptions to the policy, for example a higher hotel budget in a specific city.

   

5. Step 5: Save the travel policy. Then check its summary on the Travel Policies page.

   

We recommend creating a default policy that matches the rules for the vast majority of your employees, then creating additional policies if needed to target specific groups (for example, members of the executive committee).

On the Travel Policies page, drag and drop the policies to reorder them. The first matching policy applies. So, put your most specific policies above your broader ones. Keep your default policy, which should apply to most employees, at the bottom.

A travel policy applies to a group of employees who share the same rules. The best practice is to match a policy to a traveller profile: for example, a policy for all employees by default, a policy for sales staff, or one for executive committee members.

You have two assignment criteria, which can be combined:

• By traveller: you select one or more employees from a list.
• By analytical field: you target a group, such as a team or cost centre. This is the recommended method, as the group updates automatically through your employee imports.

An employee who doesn't match any travel policy is assigned to the default policy.

You can assign a travel policy to a cross-analytical field, meaning a field not linked to the employee profile, such as a project code or client. In this case, when the employee starts their travel search, a form asks them to enter the value for this field. The policy applied to the booking depends on their answer. The same employee can therefore be subject to different policies depending on the project they're travelling for.

To set your travel policy on Swile Travel, we offer more than 60 rules, organised by travel programme and grouped by category: budget, booking, class, company and prohibition. Each rule comes with an explanation and usage examples in the interface.

We regularly add new rules. Here are some of the ones currently available:

Rules in the Prohibition category actually block the booking: the employee cannot select the relevant offer. For example, if you block a train company, journeys operated by that company can no longer be booked.

The dynamic budget automatically adjusts to the market price, instead of setting a fixed amount. It's available for all four programmes: train, accommodation, flight and car. You set the allowed difference from the market price, either as a percentage or in euros. For example, you can allow a price up to 20% above the market price.

The booking window, available for all programmes, encourages advance booking. You set a minimum period before departure: any booking made outside this period is considered out of policy. For example, with a 7-day window, a booking made 3 days before departure is considered out of policy.

Exceptions apply different rules depending on certain conditions, such as destination or journey duration. An exception automatically overrides the base rule set higher up in the policy when the condition is met. All rules can be overridden in this way.

1. Step 1: In the travel policy, open the relevant programme section, then the Exceptions part.
2. Step 2: Click Add an exception, then set the trigger condition using Add a condition.
3. Step 3: Click Add a rule to specify the rule that replaces the base rule when the condition is met, then save.

Example: your accommodation budget is €150 per night per traveller. You add an exception with the condition "destination is Paris" and a budget of €220 per night. In Paris, the €220 budget applies.

No, duplicating a travel policy is not available on Swile Travel. To create a policy similar to an existing one, add a new policy and enter its rules.

• Create an exception in the existing policy for a one-off and stable case, for example, a manager who has a different budget in a small organisation.
• Create a dedicated travel policy as soon as the difference in rules is ongoing, or if the group concerned will have its own update schedule. A dedicated policy gives you more flexibility, as you can then set your own exceptions within it. On the other hand, managing lots of cases through exceptions becomes difficult to maintain over time.

The employee is assigned to your organisation’s default travel policy. To make sure they’re on the right policy, check that their analytical field is filled in correctly, or add them to the list of travellers for the relevant policy.

If your company doesn’t have a default travel policy set, there are no restrictions and all travel options are included in the policy.