Concur Invoice Standard Edition Administration Help

March 2019 Expense Standard Edition Admin Summary

Initial Post

Release Note Summaries

The items in this section are summaries of the release notes for this month. The Standard Edition release notes are accessible from What's New - Standard Edition

Admin

**Ongoing** Updated Email Format

SAP Concur has provided a release note about the updated email notifications for several months. Be aware that we will discontinue this release note after this month.

IMPORTANT

Note the following:

  • Be aware that the email content has not changed – just the look and feel has been updated.

  • The changes will appear over time. Each product team (Expense, Invoice, Travel, etc.) decides when to use the new format. Timing will be based on resource availability and the priority of other scheduled enhancements.

  • Do not expect that all product emails will change at the same time. For example, perhaps Expense approval email will be first, and then other Expense notifications will follow.

  • There is no assigned end date to the project. Expect that the changes may take longer than a year.

Add IP Addresses to Safe Sender List

SAP Concur is transitioning to a new email infrastructure for outbound email from our services to SAP Concur users. Because of this, companies who filter inbound email based on the sending IP address must add new IP addresses to their Safe Sender list to ensure that their users receive email from SAP Concur.

Initially, the issue described here affected only companies that use Concur Expense. Starting in January, email from other SAP Concur services (such as Travel and Concur Pay) will move to the new email infrastructure.

We will continue to add other services throughout the first quarter of 2019. Please monitor the release notes for more information about the timing of the additional changes.

Messaging for Concur Open and Personalized Concur Open

Concur Open and Personalized Concur Open users can subscribe to email notifications about the SAP Concur products they use. As part of the subscription process, SAP Concur sends a verification email to the user. The user must click Verify in that email in order to receive the notifications.

It appears that some users are not completing the verification step so SAP Concur has added a reminder to the subscription page.

For more information about Personalized Concur Open, refer to the Personalized Concur Open fact sheet.

New SSL Certificate for concursolutions.com

In an effort to ensure the ongoing security of our products and services, SAP Concur has issued a new concursolutions.com SSL certificate. The current certificate will expire on March 16, 2019.

Any customer who has pinned this expiring certificate will need to update to the new certificate prior to March 16, 2019. If the pinned certificate is not updated prior to March 16, 2019, your organization and users will experience disruption to SAP Concur products and services.

Customers who have not pinned the certificate do not need to take any action as the new certificate is updated automatically. Most customers do not pin the certificate.

Please be aware: As an enhancement to our Security and Compliance program, this certificate will be updated on an annual basis.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update provides ongoing security for our products and services.

Reminder: No Personal or Sensitive Data in Custom Fields

All 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.

NEXT STEPS

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.

Refer to the FAQ (English Only) for additional information.

Expense Pay

Bambora Funding Account Debit Test– New!

For Expense Pay – Global clients whose funding accounts use Bambora as the payment-processing partner, it is now possible to manually initiate a debit test (commonly known as a penny test) transaction for Accepted (status) Bambora funding accounts.

The test will debit the amount of 0.01 in funding account currency (€, £, $, or C$) from the funding account and credit it back to the funding account.

To use the new debit test button, the funding account must meet the following requirements:

  • The payment-processing partner must be Bambora.

  • The funding account status must be Accepted.

  • A funding account must not already be on a temporary hold due to funding failure with Bambora.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The debit test allows clients to confirm that the payment processer (Bambora) can debit their funding account and that the funding account is ready to be used to pay employees and company cards. A client can review their bank statement with their bank to confirm a debit for 0.01 from Bambora before assigning a new funding account to an employee or card batch.

(USD/CAD) Update: Retirement of Classic Pay and Migration to Global Pay (Deadline Sept 1)

SAP Concur’s Expense Pay (classic) products execute payments associated with processing expense reports. To ensure compliance with ever-changing regulatory requirements, tailored to geo-diverse markets, SAP Concur has engaged dedicated, experienced, third party payment-processing partners and developed a next generation pay product: Expense Pay – Global.

As previously announced in these release notes (September 2017), moving forward, SAP Concur will use one Expense Pay product to service your business anywhere in the world. SAP Concur’s Expense Pay – Global product will replace our existing legacy Expense Pay (classic) offerings (including NA Pay, EMEA Pay, and next APA Pay.) For SAP Concur clients with an Expense Pay product, Expense Pay – Global will be our go-forward product. This notification begins our sunset process for all legacy Expense Pay (classic) products.

EXPENSE PAY – NORTH AMERICA AND EXPENSE PAY – EMEA LIMITATIONS

SAP Concur does not support client’s adding the following currencies with the classic product: United States Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Mexican Pesos, Euro, Swiss Frank, Danish Krone, Swedish Krona, or UK Pounds. If a client has already implemented and is using these currencies with the classic product, they can continue using these until they are migrated to the new platform or until the defined sunset date.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The Expense Pay – Global offering maintains industry best practices for payment processing functionality within SAP Concur.

Next Generation (NextGen) Expense

New User Interface for Concur Expense End Users **Ongoing**

Update: In order to respond to and take advantage of feedback from customers, and to align with the SAP Concur commitment to ensure a smooth and successful transition, we are working on a revised deployment strategy for Next Generation Expense.

SAP 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.

Customers will have the ability to preview and then opt in to NextGen Expense before the mandatory cutover.

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.

Planned Change Summaries

The items in this section are summaries of the changes targeted for future releases. SAP Concur reserves the right to postpone implementation of – or completely remove – any enhancement/change mentioned here.

Admin

**Planned Changes** New SAP Concur Sign In Page

SAP Concur is planning to add a new Sign In page, providing an updated login experience for users who log in with a user name and password credentials. Current Single Sign-On (SSO) users will be able to start the SSO login process at www.concursolutions.com. This feature is planned for 2019.

The new Sign In page feature includes the following:

  • Two-step login: provides enhanced security, meets current industry standards, and provides a better login success rate

  • Multi-account login: allows administrators to log in with multiple accounts (planned for a future release)

  • User avatar: enhances the user experience (planned for a future release)

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides better security and a faster, convenient experience for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

Budget

**Planned Changes** Workflows for Budget

In a future release, workflows will be available for Budget. Workflows define how the system routes invoices, expense reports, and requests through approval and processing steps. The flexible workflow feature for Budget that SAP Concur offers allows companies to design workflows specifically tailored to their unique needs.

Without budget review, budgets may become fully consumed well before the end of a period or year leaving an organization with limited options and budget owners with, for example, exceeded budgets. In addition, early spending means that more important (to the organization) spending will be declined because lesser important spending consumed the budget early on.

Combining budget review in the workflow adds value. Audit rules and workflow step rules can help organizations to add in controls when it makes sense to fine tune to an organization's specific needs.

Equally important is the determination when a spending item is regarded as committed toward a budget. In most organizations, the commit is when a spending item is paid; it went through most if not all approval steps. In other organizations, the commit occurs much earlier. As soon as a purchase request or an authorization request is approved it is regarded as "promised".

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature will provide clients with control over the budget spend to, for example, avoid exceeded budgets too early in a budget period or budget year.

E-Receipts

**Planned Changes** New Look for Air E-Receipts

As part of our ongoing commitment to e-receipts and the effortless expense report, air e-receipts generated by SAP Concur based on ticket and coupon data from GDS and some TripLink transactions are getting a new look.

User / Customer Benefit: This change brings air e-receipts up to SAP Concur’s standard e-receipt format, providing users with a more consistent experience in Concur Expense. The format is also more convenient for users working in NextGen Expense. This change also eliminates a performance/stability issue for end users who would sometimes not see new air e-receipts as quickly as they should have.

Passwords

**Planned Changes** New Forgot Password Page and Related Feature Deprecation

SAP Concur will have a new Forgot Password feature added to the SAP Concur Sign In page, providing an updated login experience for users who log in with user name and password credentials.

When the new Forgot Password feature releases (targeted for May 11th), the following existing Forgot Password page functionality will be deprecated:

  • Security Questions: Users will no longer receive security question prompts for login authentication.

  • On-page text: Company custom text will no longer display.

  • Password hints: The option, Send me an email with my password hint, will no longer be available.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides greater security for user passwords and streamlines the user experience.

Product Settings

**Planned Changes** Single Sign-On (SSO) Self-Service Option Coming to SAP Concur

Single Sign-On allows users to access multiple applications using one set of login credentials. Currently, SAP Concur has two methods for signing in: with a user name and password or using SSO with identity provider (IdP) credentials, such as a user's login credentials for their organization.

SAP Concur is planning to add a Manage Single Sign-On (SSO) feature to SAP Concur Standard Editions of Expense, Invoice, Travel, and Request to provide clients with a self-service option for setting up SSO for their organization.

The new Manage Single Sign-On (SSO) feature will be accessible from the Access To Concur section of Product Settings.

  • Single Sign-On can be managed for Standard Travel if it is bundled with Expense, Invoice, and/or Request.

  • For standalone Standard Travel, the Manage Single Sign-On feature will be accessible from the Travel Settings page.

Other SAP Concur products and services are outside the scope of this initial release.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides a self-service option for setting up SSO.

Receipts

**Planned Changes** Receipt Digitalization (Paper into Digital) (France)

SAP Concur will soon allow the conversion of paper receipts into digital copies with legal value. Receipt Digitalization will provide SAP Concur customers the ability to conform a paper receipt into a legal digital copy according to their country's regulatory or government authorities.

Once it is available for general release, this feature will be available to new customers and existing customers in France and those who have configurations in France. Additional countries will be included in future releases.

The Receipt Digitalization feature requires that users must be using the NextGen Expense UI. It is recommended that customers migrate to the NextGen Expense UI before activating this service.

To capture legal receipt images, clients must also be using the SAP Concur mobile app and can use ExpenseIt with the mobile app, though ExpenseIt is not required.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides a paperless receipt option that adheres to local requirements and regulations for paper into digital tax receipt processing and compliance.

Security

**Planned Changes** No Future Bulk Password Resets or Updates via Import File

The password field in the 100, 300, 305, 310 record sets will no longer be used to update or bulk reset user passwords. SAP Concur will change the functionality in imports such that the password field is only used when a user account is created. The field will no longer be used to update or bulk reset user passwords. The update and replace password features on the 100 record will no longer be used.

This change impacts the employee import and the user import features.

Employee Import - The password field will remain available in the 100, 300, 305, 310 records sets, but will only be read during an initial import of the file, or when creating a new user in the system. Subsequent uses of the field will be ignored by the system. The update and replace password features on the 100 record will no longer be used. For general information about this functionality, refer to the Shared: Employee Import Specification.

For general information about this functionality, refer to the Shared: Employee Import User Guide for Concur Standard Edition.

User Import - The password field will remain available in the downloadable Excel template, but will only be read during an initial import of the file, or when creating a new user in the system. Subsequent uses of the field will be ignored by the system. For general information about this functionality, refer to the Shared: User Import User Guide.

For general information about this functionality, refer to the Shared: User Setup Guide for Concur Standard Edition

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides greater security for user passwords.

Client Notifications

The items in this section provide reference material for all clients.

SAP Concur Non-Affiliated Subprocessors

The list of non-affiliated subprocessors is available here: SAP Concur list of Subprocessors (English Only)

Monthly Browser Certifications

Monthly browser certifications, both current and planned, are available with the other SAP Concur monthly release notes, accessible from What's New - Standard Edition