April 2018 Expense Standard Edition Admin Summary
Last Update: 14th April, 2018
Accessibility
Clarification: Keyboard Access for Working for Others Quick HelpWith the March release, SAP Concur announced that the Working for Others Quick Help became accessible via the keyboard.
To clarify, that means a user can use the Tab key to access the icon and then the spacebar or Enter key to access the Quick Help information.
Admin
Reminder: No Personal or Sensitive Data in Custom FieldsAll companies must take all reasonable steps to protect the personal and sensitive information of their employees. As per recommended security-related best practices, remember that custom fields should not contain personal and sensitive data.
If your company is currently using custom fields to store personal or sensitive data (for example, Social Security numbers, family member names or any other personally identifying information), you should plan to remove this information from your existing fields within the service and modify your current configuration.
Update: Users by Browser Report – North America Data Centre OnlyIn the March release notes, we described the updates to the Users by Browser report.
Be aware that the updated report is currently available only to customers using the North America data centre. The report will be updated for customers in the remaining data centres in a future release.
Budget
Budget Release NotesClients can view new budget functionality and enhancements in the new Budget Release Notes which are located on the same page as the other product release notes.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Standalone release notes provide greater visibility for Concur Budget.
Concur's Platform - Upgrade Postponed
Callout Server Requirements UpdateSAP Concur has postponed the previously scheduled maintenance (Monday, 16th April at 10:00 a.m. PST) of the servers that support the Concur Platform Callouts.
More information will be available in future Release Notes.
Expense Pay
Additional Card Programmes Now Supported for CADExpense Pay – Global for Expense now supports the following credit card programmes for the Canadian Dollar (CAD $):
- Bank of America MasterCard CAD
- Bank of America Visa CAD
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These additional options can expedite the processing of credit card expenses.
In-Product Messaging (IPM)
Opt Out of In-Product Messaging (United States)Last year, when in-product messaging was introduced in Europe, the feature included the ability for users to opt out of messaging.
With this release, SAP Concur will provide customers in the United States the ability to opt out.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Users in the United States can opt out of in-product messaging.
Japan Public Transport (JPT)
IC Card Readers Will Support Company-Level AuthenticationThe IC Card Reader solution will switch authentication processes during the weekend of 14 and 15 April, 2018.
The scheduled maintenance times are as follows:
- Saturday, 14th April, 2018 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Japan Time (Friday, 13th April, 2018 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. PDT)
- Sunday, 15th April, 2018 from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Japan Time (Saturday 14th April, 2018 from 8:00 p.m. to 0:00 a.m. PDT)
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change will simplify user activation and allow transactions to show more quickly in Available Expenses.
Jorudan MaintenanceThe Japan Public Transportation (JPT) database of stations and lines received routine maintenance changes such as additions, name changes and removals.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Lists in Expense continue to reflect JPT's current stations and lines.
Next Generation (NextGen) Expense
**Ongoing** New User Interface for Concur Expense End UsersSAP Concur is dedicated to the consistent improvement of our products, not only the features they provide, but also the experience of using those features. How users interact with technology changes over time, along with needs and expectations. We are constantly listening to our customers and soliciting feedback on how we can improve the user experience.
NextGen Expense is the continued evolution of the SAP Concur user experience. It was built from extensive user research and data analytics that include 680 1:1 conversations, 58 usability studies, 3,000+ survey responses and 1.3B monthly user actions.
Over the next year, customers will have the ability to preview and then opt in to NextGen Expense before the mandatory cutover date.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The result is the next generation of the Expense user interface designed to provide a modern, consistent and streamlined user experience. This technology not only provides an enhanced UI, but also allows SAP Concur to react more quickly to customer requests to meet changing needs as they happen.
Product Settings
Category List Now Displays Spend Category Suggestions (English and Japanese only)For clients viewing Expense in English or Japanese, the Category list on the Expense - Expense Types page (Expense Types for Expenses > Expense Types) in Product Settings now displays spend category suggestions at the top of the list.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update simplifies the spend category selection process for expense types.
New Configurable Expense Approval Timeout DurationAdministrators can now adjust the numbers of days that an expense claim sits in an approver’s queue before it is rerouted to the approver’s manager.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change allows greater control over the expense approval process.
Taxation
(Canada) Update for Prince Edward Island Province (PEI) RITC Phase OutFrom 1st April, 2018, the RITC (Recaptured Input Tax Credits) recapture rate on restricted expenses will be at the rate of 75% for the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. The RITC recapture rate will phase out over the next three years.
Prince Edward Island HIT Recapture Periods | P.E.I. RITC Recapture Rate |
|---|---|
01 April 2018 to 31 March 2019 | 75% |
01 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 | 50% |
01 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 | 25% |
01 April 2021 and beyond | 0% |
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Businesses maintain best-practice tax compliance.
Planned Changes
The items in this section are targeted for future releases. Concur reserves the right to postpone implementation of – or completely remove – any enhancement/change mentioned here.
**Planned Changes** Expense Assistant Can Create Trip-Based Expense ClaimsMore information will be available in future Release Notes.
**Planned Changes** Removing the "Privacy Agreement" Page
For customers who currently display the Privacy Agreement page to users, be aware that – targeted for May – SAP Concur will eliminate that page. That means the privacy agreement will no longer display under any circumstances. In addition, the options to customise the privacy agreement text and to apply policy (for example, to require that a user accept the privacy agreement) will be removed.
In a separate release, SAP Concur will provide a standard privacy statement, which can be accessed via a link in the page footer.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The intent of the change is to ensure that all customers see the same unmodified SAP Concur privacy statement.
**Planned Changes** New Privacy Statement Planned for May Release
In the release note named **Planned Changes** Removing the "Privacy Agreement" Page, we describe changes that will occur when the current customisable privacy policy is discontinued. We also discuss the new Privacy Statement that SAP Concur will provide as a requirement of being a "processor" of customer data.
The intent is to replace all occurrences of customised or unique policy text – in all SAP Concur products and the mobile app – with the SAP Concur Processor Privacy Statement, which describes our processing activities of customer data.
Be aware that the new text will be available soon, targeted for May.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The intent of the change is to ensure that all customers see the same unmodified SAP Concur privacy statement.
**Planned Changes** Addition of Income and Transfer Transaction Categories to Yodlee
In an upcoming release, users of Yodlee will be able to work with transaction data from the Income and Transfer categories. Currently, transactions falling into either of these categories are set as undefined and hidden by the system. With the upcoming change, these transactions will now be correctly categorised for the client.
Please note that this feature enhancement will still filter out transactions categorised as payment or account settlement because they are not expense-claim related. As the integration is based on an individual registration, the end user would delete what is not eligible to expense claim reimbursement.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This enhancement extends the scope of what flows into Concur allowing clients to process their card transactions by bringing support for the missing Income and Transfer categories to the Expense product.
**Planned Changes** New Feature for Outdated DataThis new feature will allow clients to control how long Concur stores their data based on who, when and where criteria.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature gives clients the ability to meet their specific compliance needs regarding data retention.
**Planned Changes** New 23-Month FilterA 23-month filter will be included with the new Data Retention feature. The filter will impact the following areas:
- Available Expenses
- View Transactions
- Unassigned Cash Advances
This new feature will automatically filter older transactions. The 23-month time is not configurable. Clients who opt to enable the new Data Retention feature automatically turn on the 23-month filter.
Under View Transactions, statement periods older than 23 months will also be filtered out.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This filter will reduce the accumulation of unprocessed transactions over time and support the new Data Retention feature.
**Planned Changes** Support for Plain Text FTP to End on 15 May, 2018Concur is announcing the End of Support for plain text FTP as a means to transfer data to and from Concur.
Plain text FTP is not a secured protocol and has inherent security vulnerabilities. On 15 May 2018, Concur Operations will apply a security update to our File Transfer infrastructure, restricting the use of plain text FTP as a part of our ongoing commitment to securing our customers’ data and meeting the audited security requirements of the "Concur Trust Platform".
For more information, refer to the Plain Text FTP Retirement FAQ.
What This Means – The Client Experience: Transfer of data to and from Concur using plain text FTP after the End of Support date will result in a failure of incoming connections. Clients using plain text FTP must utilise one of the approved secured methods to continue transferring data as outlined in the File Transfer User Guide. This change is required on the client side, and Concur is available to support these efforts.
Client Notifications
Concur Non-Affiliated SubprocessorsThe list of non-affiliated subprocessors is available here: Concur Non-Affiliated Subprocessors (English Only)
Monthly Browser CertificationsMonthly browser certifications, both current and planned, are available with the other Concur monthly release notes, accessible from What's New - Standard Edition
