Senior Project - ExTrA

The complexities associated with common business travel are often underestimated, particularly in companies with government contracts. There are many "rules" about maximum allowable costs for airfare, hotels, and meals; specified per diem rates that change periodically; rules about how to charge travel time and how to split charges; what to do if one changes plans in the middle of a trip; how to segregate certain "unallowable" costs such as alcoholic beverages; and how to properly fill out a travel expense report.

This project developed a user-friendly, PC-compatible software tool to help the traveler plan the trip, track expenses during a trip, and report expenses upon trip completion. This project provided a "window" look and feel user interface with interactive prompting advising the traveler about travel rules, displaying the rationale for the advice, and assisting the traveler in the provision of the necessary data relative to a trip. The output of the system includes the printed versions of the various travel forms required by Ball, automatically filled out with the information provided by the traveler. The project was implemented in the DOS operating environment, using the Knowledge Pro environment for user interaction and OBJECT VISION for forms generation.