March 2019 Invoice Standard Edition Admin Summary
Update 2
Release Note Summaries
Concur Invoice
**Reminder** New User Interface for Concur Invoice Accounts Payable Available for Client Review and Opt-InClients still have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the new user interface as SAP Concur prepares for general availability targeting the second quarter in 2019.
UPDATES FOR MARCH
For clients reviewing this feature, SAP Concur has now added the following features:
-
On the new summary pages, Request Name has been renamed to Invoice Name.
-
On submit or assign, a window appears asking users if they want to go to the next invoice or return to the list of invoices.
-
On the My Invoices page, Purchase Order Invoices have been renamed to All Sent to Purchasing and a new option, Sent to Purchasing, appears in the View menu.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The new Concur Invoice user interface enables clients to work more efficiently and provides them greater visibility into their invoices in flight.
E-Bunsho Timestamp Feature for Invoice Generally Available (Japan)With the e-Bunsho Timestamp feature for Japan, Invoice now supports digital timestamps of invoice images from companies and invoice service suppliers.
When this feature is enabled, rules are put in place to ensure that users provide the necessary invoice information to maintain legal compliance with Japan’s e-Bunsho regulation. A user must first confirm the invoice image is the valid image for the invoice being entered before they can timestamp the image and the invoice cannot be submitted for approval until the Invoice image has been successfully timestamped.
There is a validation process for monitoring received, pending, requested, and ineligible timestamps. The validation process revalidates the successfully timestamped invoice images and displays counts and totals by date range for valid and invalid timestamped images.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature enables clients in Japan to maintain legal compliance with e-Bunsho regulations if they use digital invoices in lieu of paper invoices.
Purchase Order
Purchase Order List Available for Clients Who Import Purchase Orders for MatchingFor clients who import purchase orders on entities that do not have the Purchase Request feature enabled, a user who is assigned the Purchasing Admin role can now see a list of imported purchase orders.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature enables clients that handle purchase order invoices to more easily manage and view imported purchase orders.
Vendor Management
Audit Trail for Vendor Changes (Released February 22)Clients with the Create and Approve Vendors feature enabled can now track changes to a vendor through the Audit Trail page within the vendor record in Vendor Manager. For example, when a vendor is approved or updated by the Vendor Manager, those actions appear on the Audit Trail page.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change enables users with the Invoice Vendor Manager role to track changes made to vendor information in Vendor Manager.
Company Administration
New SSL Certificate for concursolutions.com – Updated DateIn 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 client 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.
Clients who have not pinned the certificate do not need to take any action as the new certificate is updated automatically. Most clients 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.
Concur Open
Messaging for Concur Open and Personalized Concur OpenConcur 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 the email in order to receive the notifications.
Because some users are not completing the verification step, 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.
SAP Concur Email
**Ongoing** Email Infrastructure Change - Add IP Addresses to Safe Senders ListSAP Concur is transitioning to a new email infrastructure for outbound email from our services to SAP Concur users. Because of this, companies that filter inbound email based on the sending IP address must add new IP addresses to their Safe Senders 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 Concur 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.
**Ongoing** Updated Email FormatSAP 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:
-
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, the Expense approval email might be first, and then other Expense notifications might follow.
-
There is no assigned end date for the project. The changes might take longer than a year.
IMPORTANT FOR SSO CLIENTS
For clients who use SSO, a lengthy URL might be replaced with www.concursolutions.com. For example, the URL in the expense report status change email might be replaced. Because some URLs can reach 200 characters in length, the decision was made to provide the www.concursolutions.com link instead, providing a better experience for users.
The link in the email still works as it always has – redirecting the user for proper SSO authentication. The user can see the underlying URL at any time by hovering the mouse pointer over the www.concursolutions.com link.
This change does not affect those emails where the user clicks a button – instead of a link – to access Concur Expense.
Miscellaneous
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. Per recommended security-related best practices, custom fields should not contain personal or 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.
For additional information, refer to the FAQ (English Only).
Planned Change Summaries
Concur Invoice
**Planned Changes** New User Interface for Concur Invoice Targeted for April ReleaseSAP Concur will soon offer a new user experience that is particularly targeted at the Accounts Payable (AP) user who is constantly monitoring the health of the Invoice lifecycle within the system. With a new AP landing page, concepts of "call to action" and "work to zero" are being brought to the forefront to better inform AP users to ensure they are working on the highest priority task.
The new user interface in Concur Invoice that clients can now review and familiarize themselves with is targeted for general availability the second quarter in 2019.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The new Concur Invoice user interface enables clients to work more efficiently and provides them greater visibility into their invoices in flight.
**Planned Changes** Payment Request(s) Renamed to Invoice(s)In a future release, SAP Concur will replace instances of the term "payment request" and its iterations with the term "invoice" and its iterations. These changes will be made in the user interface, the Concur Invoice documentation, and in all other SAP Concur product documentation where it appears.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change helps to ensure that the terminology used in SAP Concur is consistent with industry standard terminology.
Purchase Order
**Planned Changes** Import Now for PO and PO Receipt ImportsThe Import Now feature enables clients to import PO and PO receipt files into Concur Invoice immediately without having to wait for an overnight scheduled import. This is beneficial for clients who need to import POs and PO receipts and work with them in the Concur Invoice product the same day they are created externally. This also allows clients to do multiple PO and PO receipt imports a day for more synchronized and up-to-date data.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature gives clients control over when and how frequently to import POs and PO receipts into Concur Invoice.
Budget
**Planned Changes** Workflows for BudgetIn 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 spending that is more important to the organization will be declined because less 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.
Security
**Planned Changes** No Future Bulk Password Resets or Updates via Import FileIn a future release, the ability to reset or update user passwords through the User Import and Employee Import features, will be removed. The ability to set passwords for new users during the initial import through the User Import and Employee import features will still be available.
USER IMPORT
The password field will remain available in the downloadable Excel template, but will only be read during the 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 Setup Guide for Concur Standard Edition.
EMPLOYEE IMPORT
The password fields will remain available in the 100, 300, 305, and 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.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides greater security for user passwords.
Company Administration
**Planned Changes** Single Sign-On (SSO) Self-Service Option Coming to SAP ConcurSingle 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.
SSO is currently supported for Concur Expense, Invoice, Request, and Travel. SAP Concur is planning to add a Manage Single Sign-On (SSO) feature to SAP Concur which provides SAP Concur 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 Concur 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 SAP Concur clients with a self-service option for setting up SSO.
**Planned Changes** New SAP Concur Sign In PageSAP 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, more convenient experience for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.
**Planned Changes** New Forgot Password Page and Related Feature DeprecationSAP Concur will add a new Forgot Password feature 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 is released (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 be displayed.
-
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.
Miscellaneous
**Planned Changes** Archive Deactivated User DataThis information will no longer appear in the release notes.
For more information about deactivated users, refer to the General Information: Archiving Deactivated User Data Fact Sheet.
Client Notifications
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
