 |
 |
 |
|
|
| Innovative personal and business products for Personal Digital Assistants using Palm OS | ||||||||||
|
| My Trip Boss
Diary I recently took a business trip to the PalmSource developer's conference in San Jose, CA, and thought the trip would be an ideal way to put Trip Boss through its paces. The following is a diary and tutorial; a real life example of how Trip Boss can be used for travel. Planning my trip To start a new trip, on the first Trip Boss tab, 'Trips' (the suitcase), I opened a 'new trip', which sets up a new database, I named the trip, PS DevCon. The preferences screen came up. The time zone for my T5 was noted as "USA (Central)," daylight savings, and I changed my Away TZ (time zone) to "USA (Pacific)" daylight savings. I left everything else as default. After hitting OK, I then added pertinent trip summary information in the Trips tab. I made my flight reservations with American Airlines. I tapped on the “Itineraries” tab (plane w/clock) and hit “New” to start a new item. I added Chicago O'Hare as a place and entered my flight information, including my confirmation number. I noted my seat and flight numbers under “notes,” as well as my frequent flier number. I repeated this for the arrival time and the return leg of my trip. Next, I made my hotel reservation and entered this data into Trip Boss. I entered the hotel address information when I added it as a place, and exported that data to my Address book. Observations: Our upcoming update, where you enter itinerary specific data in custom forms, such as one for flight information and one for hotel information, will really make data entry a lot easier. The update will also allow you to enter both departure and arrival information for each leg all at once, as well as including a large number of default places from which to pick from (like airports and hotels). NOTE: This feature released in 2.0 update. As I was entering my flight information, I exported these times to Calendar/Datebook. I set alarms in Trip Boss. The entries in "USA (Pacific)" (arrival in San Jose, for example), were translated into "USA (Central)," in which time zone my T5 was set. Observations: I noticed with my new T5 that there is now more information in Calendar, such as location and time zone. I had a few other items I for which I planned ahead. I paid the conference fee, and entered that into my expenses, under “Misc. Expense” (the receipt). I added the type “conference fee.” I had plans to attend a special dinner on the last night, with fellow developers, so I entered this expense under “Meals,” inputting the initial expense (it would increase, based on drinks, but it was a start.) I entered the address for the restaurant into Trip Boss and exported it into my Address book, for future reference. I also knew I would be traveling to and from the airport via Taxi, so I put more placeholders in expenses. I entered my airfare and hotel rates as well. I decided to also add a “mileage” placeholder in expenses, which I would calculate the mileage cost allowed for my trip to and from the airport. I would record the actual mileage in the “Waypoints” tab when I traveled. Based on the initial plans, I next went to the “Budget” tab, to plan the costs and to see how much this trip already cost. I decided to budget some food and other costs and set a total. I added a budget type “conference” to capture this fee separate from “other.” (drop down menu: “Tools” “Budget types”) I planned to meet with a few people, including Mike Rohde (www.rohdesign.com) and Bob Russell of mobileread.com. I started a pre-trip Journal entry to list the people I planned to meet. I also used this entry to note when I had actually made contact with each of them. Observations: One of our customers has requested a “travel agenda” option, which would allow him to do this sort of meeting and contact planning easier. Our upcoming update to the itinerary section has a custom form for “meeting,” which should make planning easier. This section will also allow you to check off completed items, so that will make that part of my record easier, as well. NOTE: This feature released in 2.0 update. Because I was not really doing any travel by auto, I did not use the Trip Planner section of Trip Boss. However, if you want some tips on how to use this, refer to the Trip Planner tips. I also did not use the Fuel Econ. tab, which records fuel expenses and calculates fuel economy for the trip, again, since this was not a road trip. I had considered recording exercise in the Pastimes tab, but I had no time at the conference, as there was plenty to do while attending. My husband wanted a copy of my itinerary so he could pick me up from the airport and also contact me while I was gone. We had a brief, huh? and then realized, since he also had a copy of Trip Boss, we could use FileZ, a freeware program, to beam “PS DevCon.pdb" onto his Treo. He could then access all the itinerary information that I had recorded. Note: You can now use the beam Trip option to send the database directly. Observations: While showing the program to several people at the conference and also from personal experience, I think it might be a good idea to create a Trip Boss 'reader' for family members, since they would not really need a full program. We should also add a “beam trip” action in Trip Boss (now included). In addition, it might be handy for administrative assistants to have a full copy of Trip Boss. They can plan trips and beam the databases to the travelers, and at the end of the trip, the trips can be beamed back so that the administrative assistants can prepare expense reports and/or transcribe journal information. (We do plan to set up an export feature for journal entries in the future.) Traveling with Trip Boss I started out the day by recording my departure time and mileage in the “Waypoints” tab (red car). When I arrived at the airport, I recorded the time and mileage. Tapping the A->B button, I could see that it took me over an hour to get to the airport and travel 23 miles! I hit my first travel glitch since it took so long to get to the airport. American Airlines locked me out for checking baggage, since I arrived too late. I had to rebook my flight. I entered the new legs into Trip Boss, while I was waiting for my new flight to leave. I picked up some coffee at Starbucks and sat down to wait for my new flight. I entered the expense as a snack in “Meals.” I noted my troubles in the “Journal” tab. While in the air, I had to purchase my lunch (which was horrible), and noted the expense. I created the place “airplane” for this lunch and was able to add a one diamond rating for future reference, and so I'd remember next time to eat before boarding. I picked up some water and a snack in the LAX airport (part of my re-booking), easily noting the cash expense in Trip Boss. I switched my time zone in my Palm to PST. I opened Trip Boss and all my exported items were readjusted to the new time zone. Upon my arrival in San Jose, I took a taxi to the hotel. While waiting in line to check in, I noted the cost of the taxi in Trip Boss. I noted my room number in my lodging expense. Since I lost several hours with the new booking, and also did not eat properly, I only had a short time to pick up dinner before the evening's Palm User Group meeting. I quickly quaffed a Guinness and had another snack at the bar. I added a payment type “charge to room” when I entered the expense. Using the tip calculator that pops up for meal expenses, I could easily determine how much to include for the final bill. I finished the evening by making some notes in my Journal of whom I had met, plus some key newsworthy items from the PUG meeting. I continued through the conference, noting expenses here and there, including gifts I had to bring home for my kids. I checked the “Expenses” tab (three sheets of paper) to see a list of all my expenses. I used this tab to find ones that were placeholders, so I could enter in the amounts as I spent. I reviewed my progress on my budget—not too bad. I noted interesting tidbits and people I'd met in the Journal. On my return trip, I referenced my itinerary for my flight plans. I used the ref. # to get my eTicket and check in. I noted the taxi, hotel expenses, and a Starbucks breakfast while waiting for my plane to depart in the morning. I added a few more observations to my Journal. When departing O'Hare airport for home, I noted the parking expense, as well as the odometer and time, for the mileage record. We took a toll road home and I noted that expense. I recorded the time and mileage upon arrival at home. I checked the “Expenses” tab once more, to see if I had any placeholders ($0) left to enter real data, and to made sure I had not missed any expenses. Post trip wrap up I used the “Expenses” tab to find the mileage placeholder and enter the amounts for 40.5 cents per mile. I could highlight the expense, tap “Details...” and Trip Boss opened the form for me for entry. I reviewed the receipts I'd collected to ensure that I had recorded all expenses for the trip. I went to the “Ratings” tab to review the places I'd visited and rated a few (the restaurant on Thursday night was excellent), by highlighting the place and tapping on “Details.” This action brought up the place details and I could rate it from there. (I also could have rated the places directly in the expenses tabs.) Finally, to export the expense data, I tapped, from the drop down menu, “Record” “Export Expenses...”. This action exported all my expense data to a memo entry, already in CSV (comma separated value) format. The date and time of the export was noted in the memo. I could have then “beamed” this memo via IR to my laptop (which has IR). In Windows, this memo will show up on your desktop as a .txt file. Instead, I hot synced my T5. The trip database was backed up and the memo pad was accessible on my Palm desktop. To export the memo, I opened the Palm desktop. I opened “Memos,” then highlighted the expense memo I wanted. From the menu, I selected “File” “Export...” A dialog box came up and I clicked “Export.” I left the default location to store the file as Desktop, and chose “Text (*.txt)” as the “Export type:”. I gave it a file name, “PS DevCon expenses.csv”, and hit OK. I accepted the default on the next dialog box by clicking OK. Now that I have the file on my desktop, I can bring it up into Excel. I could cut and paste information into a company expense report, but since we don't have a set format, I can sort the categories and sum the expenses in any way I wish from within Excel. Lastly, I could print the Excel file for tax purposes and as a record for reimbursement. Comments: FYI, the reason I selected “Text (*.txt)” instead of CSV is that the exported memo is already formated in CSV. If I were to select CSV again, I would get double double-quotes and it wouldn't import properly. The reason I gave the file the extension .csv is that this will allow me to click on the file on my desktop and, by default, Excel/Open Office will load up to read it. If I left the .txt, Word, or Notepad would want to read it and the file would not import nicely into the Excel format. We also have written a detailed tutorial for transferring expenses and mileage into a spreadsheet onto your PC. Trip Boss proved to be a valuable resource for recording all those little expenses, as well as a good way to keep all my itinerary information in one place. I also had a nice place to record many things from my trip, for later reference. I was able to use it for my trip from start to finish. |
