Hotel

SAP Concur has upgraded its hotel connectivity technology to offer a new API service known as HotelService 2.0 or HS2. The new API is designed as a standard solution for all hotel suppliers connected to Concur Travel. Throughout the next months, we are planning to migrate all hotel direct connect partner APIs from the existing legacy APIs (HotelService 1.0, HRS and Hotel.de) to our new microservice-based HotelService API 2.0.

The first hotel supplier we plan to migrate to our new API is HRS. Our migration plan has begun and we are targeting to complete the migration within the month of June.

Meetings

With the June 2018 release, due to increased concerns around security, meeting planners must specify an Access Code when creating or editing a meeting. Planners must provide an Access Code on the Meeting Admin page and then configure the third-party meeting management product with that same value.

This change does not affect meetings that are currently configured. For meetings that are already set up – unless the admin edits the meeting – no action is required. However, saving any changes to an existing meeting will require an Access Code, which must be provided to the third-party meeting management product.

Miscellaneous

The May release notes included an item named New Cookie Preferences Link in the SAP Concur Footer. It describes cookie-related process changes that were introduced in the May 12 release because of specific consent regulations in Europe.

To ensure that SAP Concur properly responds to the regulations, SAP Concur has enlisted the assistance of TrustArc, a global privacy and data governance provider. Please ensure that your organisation's IT (or similar) department adds TrustArc to its whitelist, so TrustArc can properly monitor and manage these processes.

TrustArc must be whitelisted by domain – not IP – since the IP is variable. Please whitelist these domains:

• trustarc.com

• prefmgr-cookie.truste-svc.net

Europe has very specific user-consent requirements for cookies. There are two types of consent when allowing cookies to be saved on the user's computer. As described on the following pages, each country decides which option to use. The options are:

• Active consent: The user actively agrees to allow cookies. In this case, SAP Concur is required to obtain user consent before saving any cookies on a user's computer.

• Passive consent: The user does not disallow cookies.

Each country decides which option it wants to use. Refer to the release notes (link at the end of this document) for additional information.

The Processor Privacy Statement link is available in the SAP Concur footer. However, not all pages in SAP Concur display the footer. In this case, the user can:

• Return to the Home page and click the Processor Privacy Statement link there

  – or –

• With the June release, click the Processor Privacy Statement link in online Help.

Planned Innovations/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.

Concur delivered a new UI for branded fares in 2016 and further enhanced in 2017, both in UI and with expanded branded fares coverage. With an upcoming release, we will move to utilise our new branded fare data store to populate all branded fare information. These changes apply to search by price and flex faring views. In addition, we will provide more brand detail in the Fare Details section, such as: Wi-Fi availability, food and drink, changes, mileage, standby and priority.

In a future release, Concur will announce support for Airbnb.com as a new Hotel Service supplier. Airbnb is the world’s largest community accommodation marketplace with over 3,000,000 listings in 65,000 cities and 191 countries.

Concur Travel currently provides rail content for US, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden. Concur will add content for Italy (Trenitalia) to the portfolio of Concur Travel rail carriers via the existing SilverRail integration.

Trenitalia is the primary rail passenger carrier in Italy, formed in the year 2000. With Trenitalia services, users can travel almost anywhere in Italy. Trenitalia offers high-speed train services via classic intercity trains as well as regional trains.

Currently individual or ghost cards are supported for SilverRail bookings, with SilverRail being the merchant of records. In order to provide the option for the TMC to be the merchant of records, Concur will implement the "On Account" payment feature within Concur Travel. It allows TMCs to extend credit agreements with customers that enjoy this arrangement with other modes of transport.

Trainline started supporting a new Ticket Delivery type – mTickets – which allows users to download the ticket directly on their Trainline mobile app.

mTickets can be downloaded on iOS (9.0 operating system and newer) and Android (4.1 operation system and newer). The Trainline mTickets are currently accepted by Virgin Trains West Coast, Virgin Trains East Coast, CrossCountry Trains, Greater Anglia, Northern Rail, First TransPennine Express, Heathrow Express and Great Western Railways.

For the current list of accepted routes, please visit: http://ehelp.thetrainline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4208 (English Only)

Targeted for the end of 2018, XML Profile Sync will no longer be available. SAP Concur recommends that all customers using XML Profile Sync move to Travel Profile API 2.0 at their earliest convenience. Version 2.0 functionality has been in production since May 2015 and affords better security and data validation that will support TMCs in meeting the needs of their travellers.

If TMCs need assistance in identifying their customers who are still using XML Profile Sync, SAP Concur will assist with the identification of those customers.

SAP Concur evaluated all reports that are available from within Concur Travel. The goal of the evaluation was to balance the need to meet strict data security requirements, customer usage of these reports, the availability of travel data elsewhere and the resources required to maintain the reports.

SAP Concur has identified Travel Reports that will be retired, with a planned retirement date in October 2018. Refer to the release notes for additional information and a complete list of reports.

Concur Open is the SAP Concur real-time service status dashboard, which displays outages and incidents for select SAP Concur services and all data centres. Concur Open displays the current service status as well as incident history for the past 20 days.

In a future release, there will be new functionality added to Concur Open. Users will continue to access Concur Open and view Concur service availability. However, in addition, SAP Concur users will be able to log in to Concur Open and:

• View service status for the services and the data centre specific to their company

• Access subscription options for updates about the incidents that affect the services specific to their company

• View service history for the past two years, including detailed root cause analysis information and the actions taken by SAP Concur for each incident

SAP Concur announced the End of Support for plain text FTP to transfer data to and from SAP Concur.

Plain text FTP is not a secured protocol and has inherent security vulnerabilities. On 1 September, 2018, SAP 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 SAP Concur Trust Platform.

Client Notifications

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

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