Concur Invoice Professional Edition Administration Help

March 2020 Expense 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.

Authentication

**Ongoing** Deprecation of HMAC Initiates Migration to SSO Self-Service

These changes are part of the SAP Concur continued commitment to maintaining secure authentication.

SAP Concur will soon begin the deprecation process of removing Hash-Based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) as an SSO option. The replacement service for HMAC is SAML SSO, a self-service method of setup whereby client admins have access within SAP Concur to complete their SAML connections.

Clients currently using HMAC are encouraged to migrate to the SSO self-service tool as soon as it is released (targeted for Q2 2020). The new SSO self-service tool allows multiple portals (Identity Providers) to be added.

The HMAC deprecation includes two phases:

PHASE I:

  • Clients must have an Identity Provider (IdP) or a custom SAML 2.0 solution.

  • Clients begin testing the new SSO self-service tool.

  • Travel Management Companies (TMCs) prepare for onboarding new SAP Concur clients using the new SSO self-service tool, which is targeted for release in Q2 2020.

  • Once the SSO tool is available, customers will be notified via release notes about the official deprecation date of HMAC. As of the official deprecation date, no new clients can be onboarded using HMAC; new clients must be onboarded using the new SSO self-service tool.

  • Existing clients using HMAC need to be migrated using the new SSO self-service tool.

PHASE II:

  • Travel Management Companies (TMCs) continue migrating existing SAP Concur clients from the HMAC service to the new SSO self-service tool.

  • Shut down the HMAC service after everyone has migrated from HMAC to the new SSO self-service tool. Phase II is targeted to end mid-year 2020.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides better security and improved support for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

File Transfer Updates

**Ongoing** SAP Concur Legacy File Move Migration

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, SAP Concur is maintaining our file transfer subsystem to provide greater security for those file transfers.

SAP Concur 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.

Clients whose entities are currently configured to use the legacy process will be migrated to the more efficient process sometime between now and the end of 2020. After they are migrated to the more efficient process, clients will see the following improvement:

  • With the legacy process, clients had to wait for the file move schedule to run at a specified time. With the more efficient and secure API-based process, extracts and other outbound files from SAP Concur will be available within the existing overnight processing period shortly after the files are created.

This announcement pertains to the following file transfer DNS endpoints:

  • st.concursolutions.com

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These changes provide greater security and efficiency for file transfers.

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 has made changes that provide greater security for those file transfers.

As of 2 PM PST on 24 February, 2020, connections via the HTTPS protocol are no longer allowed when connecting to the SAP Concur file transfer system.

  • Existing HTTPS file transfer accounts must now switch to SFTP with SSH Key.

This announcement pertains to the following file transfer DNS endpoints:

  • st.concursolutions.com

  • st-eu.concursolutions.com

  • st-cge.concursolutions.com

  • st-cge-dr.concursolutions.com

  • vs.concursolutions.com

  • vs.concurcdc.cn

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These changes provide greater security for file transfers.

Financial Integration

SAP Payroll Integration Generally Available (6 March, 2020)

SAP Concur has created a new integration with SAP, to connect Concur Expense with SAP Payroll. This integration is built on the SAP ICS (Integration with Concur Services) for SAP ECC, S/4HANA (on-premise) or SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and requires that clients have Financial Posting configured and utilised. The integration polls Concur Expense for eligible payroll documents and pulls them into SAP Payroll for processing.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This integration allows clients using the Financial Integration to pull payroll information from Concur Expense Professional Edition to SAP Payroll.

NextGen Expense User Interface

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

Update: In order to respond to and take advantage of feedback from customers, and to align with SAP Concur’s 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 Concur Expense user interface designed to provide a modern, consistent and streamlined user experience. This technology not only provides an enhanced user interface (UI), but also allows SAP Concur to react more quickly to customer requests to meet changing needs as they happen.

Quick Expense

**Ongoing** Quick Expense v1 and Quick Expense v3 Retirement and Decommission

Effective 31 March 2020, the Quick Expense v1 and Quick Expense v3 APIs will be retired and decommissioned. We encourage all current users to migrate to Quick Expense v4 as soon as possible.

Please refer to the deprecation policy for definitions and additional information.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update removes two outdated APIs.

Miscellaneous

Modified Home Page Appears When Some Products and Services Are Unavailable (Late March)

Targeted for late March, when a user signs into SAP Concur, if some products or services are unavailable while other products and services are up and running, a modified version of the user’s Home page appears, providing access to the products and services that are up and running.

Prior to implementing this improvement, if a user attempted to sign in to SAP Concur when one or more products or services was not available, a 503 (service unavailable) message appeared, the user’s Home page could not be accessed, and the user had to wait until all services and products were available before signing in to SAP Concur.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This enhancement enables users to complete tasks that rely on the products and services that are up and running even when other products and services might be unavailable.

Security Enhancements

Support Now Ended 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 has commenced as of 20 February, 2020.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: 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.

Workflow

Updated Link in Expense Claim Status Change Emails (26 Feb)

Email notifications for "Expense Claim Status Change" emails now include a link directly to the relevant expense claim for users who are already logged in.

Users who are not already logged in are directed to the SAP Concur log in page.

The contents of the email have not changed. Only the destination of the View Claim button is updated.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change is an added convenience for end users and provides consistency with the existing behaviour of links in "Pending Approval" emails.

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 March 2020 Shared Planned Changes Professional Edition Admin Summary.

Cards

**Planned Changes** Amex Business Card Connection (US)

SAP Concur will soon offer an American Express (Amex) business card connection. The Amex Business Card direct connect feature will allow customers to connect Amex business credit cards while in Concur Expense.

The Amex Business Card feature provides the following functionality:

  • Provides an automatic daily refresh of transactions from Amex to SAP Concur (Concur Expense users do not need to sign into Amex to refresh transactions)

  • Offers compatibility with SAP Concur Expense Assistant

  • Allows the primary card holder to manage transactions without having to view all supplemental card transactions

  • Supports Delegate and Proxy capabilities on transactions

  • Provides transaction currency handling for foreign transactions

  • Includes viewing available transactions

  • Includes Concur Analytics for Standard reporting (including unsubmitted transactions)

This feature is targeted for Q2 2020. Additional countries will be included in future releases.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides SAP Concur customers with a business card connection.

Workflow

**Planned Changes** Retirement of Email Confirmation for Faxed Receipt Images

SAP Concur will retire the email message that is currently provided to a user confirming that Concur Expense has received a faxed receipt image.

This release note is specifically about the retirement of the email message. SAP Concur continues to support faxed receipt images.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change allows SAP Concur to focus resources on alternate methods for receiving information using contemporary communication tools.

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