Travel Buddy v1.2 User Guide

Travel Buddy is a powerful companion tool for all travelers. It is an all-in-one application that can track travel itineraries, expenses, project time, and driving mileage. It also provides global time, dialing code, and voltage information for 87 cities worldwide. And there are more, Travel Buddy include an easy-to-use currency converter for 48 different currencies, with downloadable online exchange rates. With loads of unique features, Travel Buddy is a must-have application for business and casual travelers.

Create your first trip

Tip: Through out this document, we use the notation [Create Trip] to indicate selecting the Create Trip command from the menu.

When you start Travel Buddy, you first enter Main Menu screen similar to Figure 1. To start tracking your trip, you must create an itinerary database. Lets consider a hypothetic scenario; a London sale person is traveling to New York for a trade show. Select [Create Trip] to create a new itinerary database for this trip. Entered “New York Trip” in Title field. Select [Menu] -> [Quick Note] -> [Trade Show]. The words “Trade Show” is entered into Note field. This feature is called Quick Note, and will be discussed this later. Now select [Save] to save this trip. We have just created a new itinerary database. Each itinerary database can hold many itinerary items. As our sale person moves along in his trip, we record these items to keep track of the flights, expenses, time, and mileages. You can create as many trips as you like, and maintain multiple itinerary databases at the same time.

Figure 1 Main Menu Screen

Working with itinerary

Our sale person is ready to start doing some tracking. You must enter an itinerary item for each trackable event. There are 8 types of trackable events and they are listed in Table 1. To enter these items, select the [Add …] command for the corresponding type of event.

Table 1

Command	Usage
Add Meeting	For tracking the time spent on client meeting or conference.
Add Work Hour	For tracking the time spent on each assignment or task. Typically for tracking time that is billable to customers.
Add Car Rental	For tracking the date and cost of renting a car. Both pick up date and return date can be recorded.
Add Hotel	For tracking the date and cost of accommodation. Both check-in date and check-out date can be recorded.
Add Meal	For tracking the cost of each meal.
Add Expense	For tracking miscellaneous expenses during a trip.
Add Mileage	For tracking the mileage of driving a car during a trip.
Add Flight	For tracking the flight schedule and departure/arrival cities.

Lets practice with some examples. From the My Trips screen, select New York Trip to enter itinerary screen. Our sale person needs to rent a car during the trip in New York. Select [Menu] -> [Add Car Rental] command, and enter the details of this rental. In the Note field, enters a short description of this item. Enter the pickup date and return date of the rental. Lastly, enter the cost of this rental. You need to enter dollar amount and cent amount separately. If you do not know the cost, enter 0 for now and modify it later. Entered the information as in Figure 2, and select [Save] to store the changes. The entry you just entered is now shown on the itinerary screen. Notice that Travel Buddy groups the entries by date with a separating date subtitle (i.e. -[ 5/18/2003 Sun ]- ). Also notice that a car rental item gives us two entries on the screen: one for picking up the car, and one for returning the car. Similarly, a hotel item and flight schedule also shown as two entries on the screen: one for checking-in and one for checking-out in the case of hotel, one for departure and one for arrival in the case of flight.

Figure 3 Car Rental

Tip: When you are selecting a city, select [Menu] and you see [Go to A..F], [Go to G..L] etc. Cites are sorted in alphabetical order, and you use the [Go to …] command to display the names within that alphabetical range. This also applies to selecting a city in Global Clock and selecting a currency in Global Currency functions.

Quick Note feature

Our sale person also spends some money for lunch on the first day of trip. Select [Add Meal], and start entering details. You can save some typing by using Quick Note. Quick Note is a collection of commonly used words for note description. This is a handy feature that allows you quickly compose the Note field by picking words. You can pick multiple words for each note. Quick Note is context sensitive; therefore, it presents you different words for different type of item. Select [Menu] -> [Quick Note] to access this feature on all editing screens. If you are creating a flight schedule using [Add Flight] command, you will not only found Quick Note feature from the menu, but also [Quick Departure City] and [Quick Arrival City]. These are a list of predefined cities that available in the Global Clock function. You may found wanted city name from this list.

Figure 4 Details Itinerary

Edit itinerary items

Our sale person continues to enter a few more items, as you can see in Figure. 3. You can modify these items by highlighting the item and press [Select] command. After editing the item, press [Save] to confirm the changes.

Figure 5 Daily Summary

Delete itinerary items

To delete an itinerary item, highlight the item and select [Menu] -> [Delete Item] command from the menu. Alternatively, you can also delete an item in the editing screen.

Daily Summary

Daily Summary is a useful feature in Travel Buddy that summarizes your itinerary on a daily basis. In the Daily Summary screen, the total expense, total time spent and total mileage are calculated for each individual day, and listed day-by-day. The date subtitle is used to separate them. From the itinerary screen, select [Menu] -> [Daily Summary] to view this screen.

Trip Summary

Trip Summary is a unique feature in Travel Buddy that further summarizes your itinerary items. In the Trip Summary screen, the total expense, total time spent, and total mileages of the entire trip are calculated. You can also review the trip note in this screen. From the itinerary screen, select [Menu] -> [Trip Summary] to view this screen.

Tip: You can also view trip summary from the My Trips screen. Highlight a trip and select [Trip Summary] from the menu.

Import your itinerary into MS Excel (Email Itinerary)

Our sale person is now returned from New York, with loads of itinerary items in his mobile phone. He needs to prepare a spreadsheet for his expenses and time sheet. There is no need to enter them again manually. Instead, he can Email the itinerary to his email account, and open the data using MS Excel. Select [Menu] -> [Email Itinerary] from Itinerary screen. Enter the Email address of the sender and receiver. (If you are emailing to yourself, you can enter the same for both fields). Select [Send] to send the Email. The Email that you receive will contains an attachment in CSV format (Supported by MS Excel). You can save file to your computer and open it using MS Excel. The file contains all the itinerary items of a trip.

Figure 6 Global Clock

Global Clock

Global Clock is a handy tool that lookup 87 worldwide cities time, and more. It is also a handy reference for dialing code, electric voltage, and socket plug model for these cities. Since our sale person is traveling to USA, You can lookup the type of socket and voltage requirements for USA. You can make sure you bring the right adapter along.

You can access [Global Clock] from Main Menu screen. Global Clock shows two city times in the screen. Typically, set the top clock to be home city time, and the bottom clock to be visiting city time. These clock also come with two styles: round and digital. Use the [Menu] -> [Switch Clock Style] command to toggle between these styles.

Tips: Don’t forget you can select [Menu] -> [Go to …] command to browse more cities.

Select a Home city

In order to adjust the global time zone correctly, one must select a home city before using Global Clock feature. Use [Menu] -> [Pick Home City] to select the city where your mobile phone time is being set. If your home city is not listed, pick a city that share the same time zone as your home city.

Select a different city

In our sale person example, he is visiting New York City. So change the top clock to London time. Select [Pick City 1] and select “London, United Kingdom” from the city list. Change the bottom clock to New York time. Select [Pick City 2] and select “New York, USA” from the city list. See Figure 5.

Figure 7 Currency Converter

Global Currency Converter

Currency Converter is another popular tool for all travelers. Travel Buddy provides a wide selection of 48 worldwide currencies, with the most up-to-date exchange rate available for download. Currency Converter is easy to use. First select the currency you want to convert from, and the currency you want to covert into. Then enter a numeric value in the From currency field. Select [Cal] and the answer is displayed in the To currency field.

You can quickly calculate the reverse conversion by swapping the From and To currency. For example, if you are doing conversion from US dollars to United Kingdom pounds, selecting [Menu] -> [Swap From <-> To] change your conversion from United Kingdom pounds to US dollars.

Select a different currency

Use the [Pick From Currency] and [Pick To Currency] to display a list of supported currency, and select one from the list to change your currency.

Download latest exchange rate

Tip: Don’t worry if you don’t have Internet access. Travel Buddy includes build-in exchange rates for all currencies as of May 17, 2003.

Tip: A WAP (wireless web) only access may not work with exchange rate download. Please consult your network operator for full Internet access.

Another unique feature of Travel Buddy is the ability to download latest exchange rate from the Internet. These exchange rates are updated on a daily basis, and you can download them when needed. To download exchange rates, you mobile phone must have Internet data access. Select [Menu] -> [Download Exchange Rate] and start downloading. When completed, these exchange rates are save into your phone until the next download. You can view the last update date at the bottom of currency converter screen.

Delete a trip

Deleting a trip permanently erase all itinerary items stored in the trip. This function should be used with care. To delete a trip, highlight the trip in My Trips screen using the arrow buttons on your phone and select [Menu] -> [Delete Trip] command.

Troubleshooting

I cannot download exchange rate and email my itinerary.

You mobile phone must have full Internet network access, not just wireless web (WAP) access, in order to download rates and email. This may be a separate wireless plan that you need to subscribe from your carrier. Consult your carrier or network operator support for more information.