Administration

On 24 September, the option to switch between the new design of the Users page and the legacy design was removed.

The redesign refreshes the look of the user management interface and provides a framework for future improvements to this administrative area.

Hotel

With this update, we have released API documentation for rate details for content providers to reference in development efforts.

Content providers will have access to the documentation regarding details on how to retrieve rate data available through the Hotel Service API when serving content to customers on SAP Concur Travel.

Profile

Previously, when the Travel Profile API was used to update mobile phone numbers, parenthesis () and alphanumeric characters were allowed, including dashes and spaces. However, this sometimes resulted in duplicate phone number entries.

With this change, SAP Concur solutions has reduced the allowed characters to dashes (-), spaces and digits. This change reduces the likelihood of duplicate entries and makes the API behaviour consistent with the User Profile Page behaviour on the user interface.

Miscellaneous

This release note is intended for technical staff responsible for file transmissions with SAP Concur solutions. For our customers and suppliers participating in data exchange through various secure file transfer protocols, we are making changes that provide greater security for those file transfers.

On 13 October, 2020, support for the 3des-cbc and blowfish-cbc SSH transfer ciphers were removed for file transfers.

Support for the Director SAML service is being deprecated. Travel Management Companies (TMCs) and SAP Concur personnel will soon begin assisting customers who currently use Director SAML to migrate to SAP Concur SAML v2 SSO (SAML v2).

Clients currently using Director SAML are encouraged to migrate to SAML V2 as soon as possible.

This change provides better security and improved support for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

SAP Concur support for Hash-Based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) is being deprecated. Travel Management Companies (TMCs) and SAP Concur personnel are currently assisting customers who use HMAC to migrate to SAP Concur SAML v2 SSO (SAML v2).

In November of 2020, SAP Concur plans to provide a self-service tool that will enable client admins to set up their SAML v2 connections without involving an SAP Concur support representative.

This change provides better security and improved support for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

This release note is intended for the technical staff responsible for file migrations with SAP Concur solutions. For our customers and suppliers participating in data exchange, SAP Concur solutions is maintaining our file transfer subsystem to provide greater security for those file transfers. SAP Concur solutions will begin migrating entities that currently use a legacy process for moving files to a more efficient and secure file routing process that relies on APIs.

These changes provide greater security and efficiency for file transfers.

Flight

For companies that participate in the American Airlines AirPass programme, Concur Travel will soon have the ability to support American Airlines’ next generation AirPass programme. This programme allows travellers to purchase unrestricted airfares at a pre-paid fixed rate.

AirPass utilises full-fare inventory, offering last-seat availability and flexibility, and is tied to a traveller's AAdvantage membership number.

There are several differences between the new and legacy AirPass programmes, but these differences are generally operational in nature. These changes allow Concur Travel to offer a more streamlined booking and fulfilment experience for AirPass fares.

In February 2020, SAP Concur solutions and CIBT launched a new integration method through the Concur App Centre, to make a new CIBT app available. The legacy integration method with CIBT is still supported during a transition period, however, SAP Concur solutions will eventually retire the legacy batch file protocol integration method. The original retirement date announced in the February 2020 Release Notes was November 2020. To give our customers and business partners more time for the transition, and to ease a little the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic may have had on some organisations, SAP Concur solutions has decided to extend the transition period. The targeted retirement date is now 15 April, 2021.

Hotel

With the October release, SAP Concur solutions will modify the template it uses to create passive segments in Amadeus for hotels. Consistent with existing practice, we will continue to create passive segments for hotels. However, after the October release, we will remove the Credit Card Guarantee field from the passive segments. By doing so, we will ensure that Form of Payment (credit card) information is not transmitted.

SAP Concur solutions is taking this step to avoid any possibility of compromising the security of PCI payment card information.

With this update, we have allowed Custom Hotel Sourcing Providers to override the sort order for rates for Desktop users.

Customers will have the benefit to rates display in the order specified by their providers who are participating in the Custom Hotel Sourcing programme.

With this update, we have released API documentation for rate details for content providers to reference in development efforts.

Content providers will have access to the documentation regarding details on how to retrieve rate data available through the Hotel Service API when serving content to customers on SAP Concur Travel.

Miscellaneous

Instances of Country or Countries on the user interface are being updated to Country/Region and Countries/Regions, respectively.

This change provides a better global user experience.

Profile

The current supported version of the Travel Profile API is version 2.0. However, there are still clients and partners who continue to call the Travel Profile 1.0 API/Profile endpoint to get user profiles. This old endpoint will be fully deprecated with the December 2020 release; users must switch to Travel Profile 2.0 API before this date.

By reducing the number of supported mechanisms for exchanging profile data, SAP Concur solutions is able to focus on providing better security, ease-of-use and additional functionality for those we support.