[MelvinBot]

Explanation of Change

Help site docs for the behavior shipped in Deduct home-office distance from valid requests when enabled (Expensify/App#100189).

That PR made the Exclude usual commute method on a workspace's Exclude commutes setting actually deduct from distance expenses. Before it, the option existed on the settings screen but only Remove fixed distance changed what a member was reimbursed. The help site has no article on Exclude commutes at all — searching docs/articles for "commut" returns only an unrelated Expensify Classic line — so there was nothing to amend.

What changed

• New: docs/articles/new-expensify/workspaces/Exclude-commutes-from-distance-expenses.md — admin setup for Exclude commutes, the addresses Exclude usual commute needs, how each method changes an expense, and what the member sees.
• Edited: docs/articles/new-expensify/reports-and-expenses/Distance-Expenses.md — one bullet under Distance expenses created on a Workspace, a cross-link, and one FAQ entry for a member whose expense came out shorter than the trip they entered.

Where the behavior claims come from

The three home-and-office outcomes in the article match getTransactionCommuterExclusionData and the PR's own test steps: whole trip excluded when the trip is the commute, home-to-office excluded when the trip continues past the office, nothing excluded when the trip starts at the office and ends somewhere other than home. Manual and odometer entry are excluded per src/libs/DistanceRequestUtils.ts:355-357; the workspace-chat-only scope comes from isPolicyExpenseChat in useDistanceRequestState; the "Original: …" label and "Removed … commuter miles" hint come from getDistanceDisplayDetailsWithCommuter.

Two things for you to confirm

1. Exclude commutes is still behind the commuterExclusions beta. I drove the live web app and the row is not on Distance rates > Settings for a non-beta account — it is gated by isBetaEnabled(CONST.BETAS.COMMUTER_EXCLUSIONS) in PolicyDistanceRatesSettingsPage. Every other label in the article was verified against the live UI or src/languages/en.ts. Publishing may want to wait until the beta opens up.
2. "work arrangement" is quoted verbatim from the option's help text, but I could not find where a member or admin sets it — it appears to be backend-side. If there is a place members configure it, the article should say so.

Fixed Issues

$ https://github.com/Expensify/Expensify/issues/642601
PROPOSAL:

Tests

// TODO: The human co-author must fill out the tests you ran before marking this PR as "ready for review".

Melvin ran, on the changed files only:

• npm run spell-changed — 2 files checked, 0 issues.
• ./.github/scripts/createDocsRoutes.sh — "The docs routes files is up to date!", so the new article needs no routes change.

This PR changes Markdown under docs/articles only; no app code is touched.

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

N/A — help site content only.

QA Steps

// TODO: The human co-author must fill out the QA tests you ran before marking this PR as "ready for review".

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

PR Author Checklist

• I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
• I wrote clear testing steps that cover the changes made in this PR
  • I added steps for local testing in the Tests section
  • I added steps for the expected offline behavior in the Offline steps section
  • I added steps for Staging and/or Production testing in the QA steps section
  • I added steps to cover failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
  • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
  • I tested this PR with a High Traffic account against the staging or production API to ensure there are no regressions (e.g. long loading states that impact usability).
• I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
• I ran the tests on all platforms & verified they passed on:
  • Android: Native
  • Android: mWeb Chrome
  • iOS: Native
  • iOS: mWeb Safari
  • MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• I verified there are no console errors (if there's a console error not related to the PR, report it or open an issue for it to be fixed)
• I followed proper code patterns (see Reviewing the code)
  • I verified that comments were added to code that is not self explanatory
  • I verified that any new or modified comments were clear, correct English, and explained "why" the code was doing something instead of only explaining "what" the code was doing.
  • I verified any copy / text that was added to the app is grammatically correct in English. It adheres to proper capitalization guidelines (note: only the first word of header/labels should be capitalized), and is either coming verbatim from figma or has been approved by marketing (in order to get marketing approval, ask the Bug Zero team member to add the Waiting for copy label to the issue)
• If a new code pattern is added I verified it was agreed to be used by multiple Expensify engineers
• I followed the guidelines as stated in the Review Guidelines
• I tested other components that can be impacted by my changes (i.e. if the PR modifies a shared library or component like Avatar, I verified the components using Avatar are working as expected)
• If a new CSS style is added I verified that:
  • A similar style doesn't already exist
  • The style can't be created with an existing StyleUtils function (i.e. StyleUtils.getBackgroundAndBorderStyle(theme.componentBG))
• If new assets were added or existing ones were modified, I verified that:
  • The assets are optimized and compressed (for SVG files, run npm run compress-svg)
  • The assets load correctly across all supported platforms.
• If the PR modifies code that runs when editing or sending messages, I tested and verified there is no unexpected behavior for all supported markdown - URLs, single line code, code blocks, quotes, headings, bold, strikethrough, and italic.
• If the PR modifies a generic component, I tested and verified that those changes do not break usages of that component in the rest of the App (i.e. if a shared library or component like Avatar is modified, I verified that Avatar is working as expected in all cases)
• If the PR modifies a component related to any of the existing Storybook stories, I tested and verified all stories for that component are still working as expected.
• If the PR modifies a component or page that can be accessed by a direct deeplink, I verified that the code functions as expected when the deeplink is used - from a logged in and logged out account.
• If the PR modifies the UI (e.g. new buttons, new UI components, changing the padding/spacing/sizing, moving components, etc) or modifies the form input styles:
  • I verified that all the inputs inside a form are aligned with each other.
  • I added Design label and/or tagged @Expensify/design so the design team can review the changes.
• I added unit tests for any new feature or bug fix in this PR to help automatically prevent regressions in this user flow.
• If the main branch was merged into this PR after a review, I tested again and verified the outcome was still expected according to the Test steps.

Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

Android: mWeb Chrome

iOS: Native

iOS: mWeb Safari

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

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@Gonals, please review the files changed and confirm they reflect the current behavior. Then post a new comment saying @MelvinBot mark this PR as ready for review.

[stephanieelliott]

No update needed on this, per tightened Melvinbot criteria (see https://github.com/Expensify/Expensify/issues/685679). Feel free to reopen if you disagree!