New Expense, Manually Create, and select the Distance tab for automatic calculation and map receipt creation.If you decide to stay with friends or family instead of a hotel / Airbnb for a business trip, the company will pay you 50% of what would have been the cost of a reasonable hotel. A reasonable hotel would be the negotiated hotel rate a conference provides. This is in keeping with our values of frugality and freedom, and intended to reward you for saving company money on accommodation expenses. Contractors should take a screenshot of a hotel search from the same location in TripActions and submit this along with your expense report or invoice. Employees will be paid through payroll by submitting the screenshot by email to People Operations for processing.
Before booking any flights please ensure that you have the proper visas in place.
When your accommodation booking is confirmed, you may want to communicate the dates and address with your manager.
Below is some more information to help you get set up with your TripActions account.
Flights
All flights need to be booked through TripActions (Business related flights), the costs will be added to the GitLab invoice and no credit card is needed. Please note that all business related flights will not have the option to pay with a personal credit card. Also to note that while it is possible to find a cheaper flight outside of TripActions, we get overall better rates in the aggregate with the buying power of the whole company.
Hotels and Cars
If you book Hotels and/or Cars through TripActions, the costs will need to be charged to a personal credit card. For business related bookings, you can submit the costs for reimbursement via our corporate expense reimbursement tool.
Trains
If you book Trains through TripActions, business related bookings can be added to the GitLab invoice and no credit card is needed.
Personal Bookings
In TripActions, you have the ability to book Personal trips. Note that when selecting this option, a personal credit card will be required at time of booking. Personal trips will not have the option to be added to the GitLab invoice.
Many airlines offer basic economy fares by default. This can create confusion and stress on the traveler if the conditions of their airline ticket aren't known.
To ensure a trouble-free experience with air travel booked through TripActions:
CONFIRMATION field in a TripActions trip entry, look up your flights with the airline's own website to ensure times and conditions are what you expect.If your trip is out of policy, you will have the ability to continue booking the trip and a "soft" approval email will be sent to your direct manager. Please refer to "Booking shows Out of Policy" below.
Note: Once a flight is booked, re-routing is at person’s own cost unless requested by the company or force majeure (in the latter case often the airline will cover the difference).
Please read through these FAQ entirely.
TripActions FAQs is a great resource for questions surrounding TripActions features.
Please also review our TripActions Q&A doc.
GitLab offers travel insurance for business travel. Full details of GitLab's Business Travel Accident Policy can be found in the benefits section.
Working remotely while being abroad can be quite different. For example it can be harder to arrange good working internet and you may need extra tools to have a similar level of comfort to be able to work effectively.
Learn more about optimizing comfort and efficiency when taking your office with you while traveling.
Planning flights far in advance can help you get cheaper fares when booking. For example you can set alerts when there is a significant drop in price for your travel destination.
What if you find a cheaper flight outside TripActions? If you are able to find a better price elsewhere, feel free to contact support@tripactions.com or call +1-(888)-505-TRIP (8747) for help. Please note, TripActions cannot match flight pricing found on “discount websites” or “flash sales” that are sometimes advertised as part of an airline sale. They are bound to the prices set by the airlines.
Offline navigation content is key when you are not certain of an internet connection.
When you have an internet connection, it can save you quite a bit of money to be able to communicate just using data.
Application which are all around wonderful to have when traveling.
The following tools make paying someone back in their own currency a lot easier.
Traveling together or letting someone else pay something for you? This makes it easier to see how costs add up or should be split up.
VPNs can help you reach services or sites that are blocked, get contents that are not available abroad or let you browse the internet as if you were home (with your own language preselected).
Note that a VPN may not always work as intended. For example both Netflix and China have blocked certain VPNs, limiting their usefulness.
The following services provide offline functionality for their content if you have a paid membership.
Electricity is a requirement on your journey abroad. Be it to power your phone or your laptop.
During your working travel your restricted data could be exposed. If you feel that your travel frequency may expose your data please keep in mind the following points to ensure that sensitive data contained in your devices will not be compromised:
When travelling, there is the possibility that customs, border control, or other law enforcement agents demand that you provide the password to your laptop or mobile device. If this happens to you in regards to a company-owned account or device, GitLab recommends that you comply with any such requests without protesting. If you do end up providing a password to any device or account that has access to GitLab resources (including your personal devices), you should follow the process to engage Security on-call as soon as you can safely do so. Even if you do not provide a password, if any of your devices are permanently seized or even temporarily removed from sight, you should also engage the Security on-call.
For additional security specifically when travelling through an airport, the following advice is provided:
#security-department Slack channel.Our top priority is the health and safety of our team members.
The COVID-19 Travel Working Group is comprised of the Covid Response Committee that was formed in 2020. Members are: Chief People Officer, Chief Legal Officer, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer with additional support by the Staff EBA and Principal Internal Communications Manager. This group meets once monthly for 25min to review the current travel guidance around COVID-19. The meeting generally occurs on the second Thursday of every month which began on 2021-03-11
Meeting Schedule:
These meetings are subject to change and we will continue to evaluate the frequency of them. The Principal Internal Communications manager is responsible for drafting any shareable updates as a result of the meeting, which include MRs and messaging around changes to the travel guidance on this page.
If you have a question or feedback related to the working group, please post in the slack channel: #covid19-response-committee
Guidelines on who can travel, to which locations, and for what purpose is necessary to avoid non-business critical travel during this time and to help keep GitLab Team Members safe.
Purposes of travel: Business critical events and/or customer-focused meetings or sessions to sell, support, or provide focused care for a current or potential customer account with GitLab. Customer/Partner representatives must be present at the meeting or in-person session.
Who can travel: GitLab Team Members responsible for business critical events or those responsible for selling, supporting or caring for customer accounts and whose presence will increase the effectiveness and outcomes of the meeting/session. This is voluntary only - no team member is required to travel.
Where Can GitLab Team Members Travel: While some areas of the world have decreased cases of Covid-19, some are increasing. Team Members must refer to the CDC website to ensure that both locations (traveling from and to) are safe locations in which to travel.
Required of/by Team Members Prior to Traveling:
Please discuss your travel plans with a senior leader in your function (Sr. Director/VP) to determine whether travel is necessary. Each request will be routed to the E-Group Member of your function for final approval. Request approval for business travel by completing this form: Travel Exception Request
When expensing approved travel please attach a link to the E-Group member approval.
General recommendations/precautions:
You must make your own decision about what is right for you regarding travel. Please be aware that any risk of potential exposure to Covid-19 may subject you to potential restrictions from GitLab or third parties (ex. customers, vendors, conferences, etc.) on your ability to attend in-person meetings or events for some period of time, even after the removal of general travel restrictions. Consult authoritative agencies at both departure and arrival locations before embarking on international travel. If you choose to travel internationally, please note the resources provided by agencies such as the CDC (in the USA) and your local government, and we ask that you notify your manager with your travel dates so we can help set expectations for timing to return to possible in-person meetings in the future. Always consider ways to get the business results remotely before requesting travel approval.
