February 2021 Travel Professional Edition Admin Summary
Initial Post
Release Note Summaries
Authorised Support Contacts
Security / Data Protection Contact Option to be Added to SAP Concur Support Portal ProfileSAP Concur solutions has added an option to the SAP Concur support portal that enables Authorised Support Contacts (ASCs) to designate whether they should be contacted regarding a security or data protection topic.
This enhancement gives clients more control over who in their company is contacted regarding security or data protection topics, and provides greater control over which notifications an ASC receives.
Flight
Express Checkout DecommissionedExpress Checkout is an enhanced user experience that reduces the finalisation process from five pages to two: the Review and Book page and the Confirmed page.
The Express Checkout feature was intended to replace the current five-page checkout experience for all travel segment types, such as hotel and car.
SAP Concur will decommission the existing Express Checkout functionality in February 2021.
Profile
Travel Profile API LastModifiedDate ParameterIn the current Travel Profile 2.0 API, the request to get travel profile summaries has one required parameter: LastModifiedDate. This allows users to get profile summaries of other users whose profiles have changed since that date. SAP Concur development discovered a defect where this required parameter is not enforced. So today, if a user omits the parameter LastModifiedDate, they receive profile summaries for all of their users.
Beginning in February 2021, SAP Concur development will enforce the inclusion of the LastModifiedDate parameter, as documented. Users who omit LastModifiedDate will receive an error.
For users who would like to get profile summaries for all of their users, they can set LastModifiedDate to 1900-01-01T12:00:00.
Fixing this defect to match current documentation ensures a consistent and improved experience for all users.
Miscellaneous
**Ongoing** Deprecation of Director SAML Service and Migration to SAML v2Support 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.
**Ongoing** Deprecation of HMAC Initiates Migration to SSO Self-Service
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).
SAP Concur provides a Single Sign-On self-service option that enables 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.
**Ongoing** SAP Concur Legacy File Move Migration
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 is in the process of 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 31 July 2021.
These changes provide greater security and efficiency for file transfers.
Preview Release Notes No Longer PublishedStarting with the January 2021 release, SAP Concur Technical Publications will no longer publish the preview release notes. This change is being made to streamline our client communication. With this change, only two sets of release notes will be published for each monthly release cycle: draft release notes and final release notes.
This change simplifies the release notes communications.
Rotating PGP Key Available for File Transfers (15 Jan)Files transferred to SAP Concur solutions must be encrypted with the SAP Concur public PGP key, concursolutionsrotate.asc.
- Key file is available in client’s root folder
- Key ID 40AC5D35
- RSA 4096-bit signing and encryption subkey
- Key expires every 2 years
- Client is responsible for replacing the key before it expires
Next expiry date: 4 September 2022
- SAP Concur plans to replace the current rotating public PGP key in the client’s root folder 90 days before the expiration date
The SAP Concur legacy PGP key (key ID D4D727C0) remains supported for existing clients but will be decommissioned in the future.
The rotating public PGP key provides greater security for file transfers.
Travel Operations / Technical Essentials
Offline PRN Reporting Performance ImprovementsIn order for Concur Travel to process offline bookings and updates to online bookings, Concur Travel currently monitors queues identified in the agency’s configuration at regular intervals. Today the interval is set by Concur Travel, is static and occurs regardless of the level of activity in the queue. Each time Concur Travel accesses the queue it does so through a set of GDS scans that are necessary to open the queue, open PNR, process PNRs and close the queue. Even when there is only a single PNR, the same number of scans is needed to open/close the queue.
With the planned changes, the interval will adjust dynamically based on the level of activity in the queue. When activity is low, the interval will increase proportionately. When activity begins to increase, the interval will dynamically decrease proportionately. As it relates to activity, the interval adjustment is not triggered by a set number of PNRs present in the queue, but rather the relative change from the previous processing time.
This enhancement will allow scanning intervals to be automatically modified by Concur Travel to suit the activity level of the queues identified in the agency’s configuration.
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 2021 Shared Planned Changes Professional Edition Admin Summary.
Authentication
**Planned Changes** PSD2 Strong Customer Authentication
Payment Services Directive (PSD2) is a European regulation for electronic payment services. It seeks to make payments more secure in Europe, boost innovation and help banking services adapt to new technologies. One major development in PSD2 is the introduction of new security requirements, known as Strong Customer Authentication (SCA).
SCA is a European requirement created to make online payments more secure. The directive requires that purchasers be authenticated using multi-factor techniques to increase the security and reduce fraud opportunities. It is up to each supplier and bank/card issuer to determine on a transaction-by-transaction basis whether this extra level of authentication is required.
SAP Concur will deliver an SCA solution in partnership with our 3DS provider. We will communicate our progress and provide updates through future release notes.
Flight
**Planned Changes** CIBT – Retirement of Legacy IntegrationIn February 2020, SAP Concur and CIBT launched a new integration method through the Concur App Centre, where the new CIBT app has been available since then. The legacy integration method with CIBT is still supported during a transition period but SAP Concur will eventually retire the Legacy Batch File protocol integration method. The original retirement date announced with the release notes in February 2020 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 has decided to extend the transition period. The retirement is planned for the second half of 2021. More details will be provided closer to the retirement date.
Benefits of the new integration method: the CIBT service is 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.
CIBT has integrated with SAP Concur’s Itinerary API and Travel Profile API and has released an App Centre Connector to facilitate the continuous, real-time flow of itineraries to better serve clients and travellers.
**Planned Changes** Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi Decommission
Concur Travel currently provides scheduled Wi-Fi availability for a flight, and the ability to purchase Wi-Fi access in advance for a select number of airlines via Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi.
The feature was introduced in the early days of in-plane Wi-Fi when this capability was less widely available.Targeted for the April 2021 release, this feature will be decommissioned for the following reasons:
- Most users purchase this product in-flight rather than in advance; accordingly, it is not optimal to have this item for purchase in the air shopping path of the booking tool.
- Other Wi-Fi options are available to travellers in addition to the Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi product. The Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi indicator icon for scheduled flights does not fully reflect available Wi-Fi offerings and capabilities across the entire global airline landscape.
- eReceipts are not supported (requires manual reimbursement process for travellers).
- The Concur Travel vision for Air includes the introduction of more comprehensive and universal coverage of airline product details, including Wi-Fi offering by flight.
Concur Travel currently provides travellers with the capability to purchase Park ‘N Fly off-airport parking near certain airports at a discounted rate at the time of booking.
This feature was provided to offer a cost-effective alternative to on-airport parking at many airports in the United States.
Targeted for the April 2021 release, this feature will be decommissioned for the following reasons:
- Continued pre-pandemic declines in usage of Park ‘N Fly booked via Concur Travel, combined with requirements to maintain the service and necessary functional updates (such as airport locations due to permanent Park ‘N Fly location closings) makes future investment in this feature uneconomical.
- Other discounted off-airport parking options are available to travellers in addition to the Park ‘N Fly product. A generic parking solution that is limited to US locations does not fully reflect all offerings and capabilities across the global off-airport parking landscape.
- eReceipts are not supported (requires manual reimbursement process for travellers).
Hotel
**Planned Changes** Corporate Discounts Notes Support for Custom Hotel Sourcing (Professional Edition Only)
Corporate Discounts Notes allows Concur Travel administrators to include additional information specific to the hotel to help travellers compare and select their hotel choice, for example:
- parking fitness centre
- airport shuttle
- breakfast
Currently, Corporate Discounts Notes is configured through the Manage Corporate Discounts Administration page and is only available for properties returned in search results that have GDS rates. This excludes properties returned in search results from Custom Hotel Sourcing partners.
Targeted for the first quarter of 2021, Custom Hotel Sourcing providers will be able to link Corporate Discount Notes written against GDS properties in Concur Travel to the same properties they return to Concur Travel via the Hotel Service v2 interface. The link will be facilitated by mapping between the CHS Provider IDs and the GDS IDs via the properties’ GIATA IDs. More specifically, the TPA_PropertyReferenceInfo extension has been added to allow providers to include the property’s GIATA ID in the Hotel Service v2 API search response.
This enhancement will ensure a consistent experience for all users by providing the ability to view Corporate Discounts Notes for properties which were previously not available through Custom Hotel Sourcing.
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 - Professional Edition