Concur Invoice Professional Edition Administration Help

February 2020 Travel Professional Edition Admin Summary

Initial Post

Release Note Summaries

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

Flight

CIBT – New Integration via SAP Concur App Centre

With this release, SAP Concur and CIBT will launch a new integration method through the SAP Concur App Centre, where the new CIBT app will be available. The legacy integration method with CIBT will still be supported during a transition period, but SAP Concur will communicate the retirement of the Legacy Batch File protocol, targeted for November 2020.

With the new integration method, the CIBT service is now available for additional countries. Travellers whose profiles are associated with a Concur Travel configuration based in Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway or Sweden can now benefit from CIBT’s visa services. The new integration method also reduces the configuration effort for admin users in Concur Travel.

Miscellaneous

HTTPS Protocol No Longer Allowed for File Transfer

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

Beginning 24 February, 2020 at 2 PM PST, connections via the HTTPS protocol will no longer be allowed when connecting to the SAP Concur file transfer system.

These changes provide greater security for file transfers.

Support Ending for TLS v 1.1 Encryption Protocol

SAP Concur is announcing an end-of-support cycle for version 1.1 of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption protocol, while continuing support for the more secure version 1.2 of TLS. As background, the TLS protocol allows secure back and forth communications between a phone or computer and a cloud-based service.

Refusal of TLS v.1.1 connections will commence on 20 February, 2020.

SAP Concur is taking this step after careful consideration of our customers’ security and ease of upgrade to the newer, more secure version 1.2 of TLS. This end-of-support plan for TLS v 1.1 ensures our clients are communicating with SAP Concur solutions in a safer and more secure manner using TLS v 1.2.

TLS v1.1 SSL Protocol Not Allowed for File Transfers

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

The TLS 1.1 (Transport Layer Security) SSL protocol has been removed from our SAP Concur file transfer system allowed list.

These changes provide greater security for file transfers.

Travel Operations / Technical Essentials

**Ongoing** Apollo/Galileo: Migrate Legacy Web Services to Galileo Web Services

To retire legacy connectivity with Travelport, Concur Travel is migrating from the XML Select connectivity platform to the Galileo Web Services connectivity platform. This change benefits SAP Concur customers as follows:

  • Allows better scalability and stability of Concur Travel’s Apollo/Galileo services

  • Enables SAP Concur to remove legacy code used for connectivity to Apollo/Galileo, which simplifies internal operations

  • May improve performance, since a more simplified connectivity approach will be used

  • May improve stability

While this connectivity change should be seamless for end users, it does require an access-related change that will affect agency fulfilment partners (TMCs). With this change, SAP Concur will require the Host Access Profile (HAP) for the booking pseudo city code.

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.

IMPORTANT: These Planned Changes may not be all of the upcoming enhancements and modifications that affect this SAP Concur product or service. The Planned Changes that apply to multiple SAP Concur products and/or services are in a consolidated document. Please review the additional Planned Changes admin summaries available in the February 2020 Shared Planned Changes Professional Edition Admin Summary.

Travel Operations / Technical Essentials

**Planned Changes/TMC Preview** Travelport Branded Fares – Full Support

In early 2017, SAP Concur announced support for simple branded fares for all Apollo, Galileo and Worldspan customers, and without need for configuration changes.

In the July 2017 release, SAP Concur announced support for an interim solution to provide branded fare content in Apollo and Galileo for the more complex branding schemes. SAP Concur was unable to extend this interim solution to Worldspan due to technical limitations.

The interim solution for complex branded fares requires some operational changes for fulfilment travel agencies, so it is a configurable feature. Due to the operational complexities, SAP Concur has limited this functionality to certain airlines.

**Planned Changes** Amadeus: Support for Amadeus Ticket Changer (ATC)

Historically, SAP Concur has offered post-ticket change capabilities for Sabre (via Sabre Automated Exchanges), Worldspan (via Rapid Reprice) and Apollo (via Worldspan cross-GDS Rapid Reprice).

With a future release, Concur Travel will also support exchange capabilities for Amadeus via Amadeus Ticket Changer. More details about this feature will be provided as soon as they are available.

Amadeus customers will be able to make changes to their ticketed reservations online, eliminating the need to call their agency.

**Planned Changes** Approve Then Book User Permission

The Profile User permission is used in Concur Travel for two purposes. First, in a setup using only Concur Travel, or Concur Travel integrated with Concur Expense, or Concur Travel integrated with Concur Request and a Book then Approve workflow, it allows customers to assign this permission to users that should not have access to the Travel Wizard to book travel (yet), but should already have access to all travel-related fields in their user profile to fill in (for example, preferences on seats and meals, frequent traveller numbers, and so on)

Also, this permission can be used with a setup where Concur Travel is integrated with Concur Request and an Approve then Book workflow. It can be used in this context to restrict user access to the Travel Wizard to book travel prior to receiving Request approval, while still enabling travel booking from an approved request.

To make a clear distinction between these two use cases, SAP Concur plans to introduce a new Approve then Book user permission that will enable travel booking from an approved request.

**Planned Changes** HRS: Update Hotel Passive Segment

As part of its standardisation effort, SAP Concur will be updating the standard hotel passive format for all GDS.

Once SAP Concur has migrated all hotel partners to the new hotel platform (HS2), agency fulfilment partners can programme mid-office routines around one format for all non-GDS hotel content in Concur Travel.

**Planned Changes** Retire Legacy Credit Card Feed

The legacy Credit Card Feed is used by fewer than five Concur Travel clients to import credit card information. However, this method of transferring sensitive information does not reflect SAP Concur’s security best practices. Due to the small number of clients still using this feature, and given that there are more secure alternatives, we are deprecating the Credit Card Feed. Targeted for 1 July 2020, existing credit card feeds will no longer be operable.

Reducing the number of supported mechanisms for exchanging data allows SAP Concur to focus on providing better security and ease-of-use for our clients.

**Planned Changes** Retire Legacy HR Feed Editor

The legacy HR Feed Editor is an outdated method for importing user information into Concur Travel and is used by less than five Travel-only clients. Due to the very small number of clients still using this feature, and given that there are superior alternatives, we are deprecating the HR Feed Editor. Targeted for 1 July 2020, feeds coming via the HR Feed Editor will no longer be operable. If you think you will be affected, please contact SAP Concur support or your TMC to identify a solution that’s best for you.

Reducing the number of supported mechanisms for exchanging data allows SAP Concur to focus on providing better security and ease-of-use for our clients.

**Planned Changes** Sabre: Hotel: Content Services for Lodging Support

Sabre has introduced a new Sabre Hotel Lodging platform, which works with orchestrated services, together commonly referred to as Content Services for Lodging (CSL). All customers using the current hotel services are required to migrate to the new CSL, targeted for Spring 2020.

While Concur Travel will utilise the new CSL services, we will not create hotel segments in the CSL format. Concur Travel will create all hotel bookings in the same format as is currently used by the hotel APIs (in the legacy format). Concur Travel will make all attempts to maintain the same number of scans, but the introduction of a new price validation step in the process does present the possibility of at least one additional scan per shopping/pricing event.

Users should not see any changes to their current booking flow, but additional data elements may be presented or used to improve the overall booking experience or breadth of hotel options.

**Planned Changes** User-Abandoned Trips Containing Cleartrip Segments Placed in the Refund Request Queue

SAP Concur changes the queuing logic for user-abandoned or orphaned PNRs containing passive segments for reservations through the Cleartrip API. Going forward, such PNRs will be put in the refund request queue.

Bringing awareness to TMCs of bookings that require manual intervention by placing them in the refund request queue helps them to follow up with travellers on unfinished bookings. TMCs can work with them to determine whether the booking should be cancelled and refunded (if possible) or finished manually to enable processing by mid-office routines.

It also better supports TMCs in their efforts to reconcile Cleartrip charges against their account with invoices to their customer.

**Planned Changes** Worldspan: Fare Store Changes

Over many years, SAP Concur has supported several options around fare storing for Worldspan. This has presented a high level of complexity for Worldspan PNR support. Recently, SAP Concur has seen that some of the legacy options are not well suited to work with newer industry faring, such as the Exclude Unbundled Economy Fares option (FXD modifier).

To reduce support costs and to ensure SAP Concur is using the most up-to-date pricing methods for our Worldspan customers, SAP Concur has made several changes. Due to other higher priority initiatives, the remaining settings will not be updated until further notice.

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 - Professional Edition