Admin

With this release, SAP Concur will consolidate the shared Planned Changes release notes into one document, instead of having the Planned Changes information repeated in several sets of release notes.

This consolidated Planned Change information is provided in addition to the product-specific Planned Changes release notes. For example, if a planned change applies only to Travel, it will only be available in the Travel release notes. So, users are encouraged to read the product-specific release notes as well as the Shared Planned Changes.

User / Customer Benefit: This change allows users to find shared Planned Changes release notes in one place. It also makes it easier for clients to keep track of updates to the Planned Changes release notes.

Authentication

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, which will be a self-service method of setup whereby Company Admins will 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. The new SSO self-service tool will be offered as a free feature to all clients. The new SSO self-service tool allows multiple portals (Identity Providers) to be added.

The HMAC deprecation includes two phases:

Phase I:

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

• Clients begin testing the new SSO self-service tool. Testing can begin as soon as July 2019 if preparation steps have been met.

• Clients prepare for onboarding new clients using the new SSO self-service tool, which is targeted to release in September 2019.

• As of 1 November 2019, no new clients will be onboarded using HMAC. New clients will 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:

• Clients continue migrating existing HMAC clients 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.

Company Cards

For customers using the JP Morgan Chase (JPMC) MasterCard card feed, SAP Concur has modified the handling of certain inbound transactions to allow them to display as regular expenses. Specifically, inbound transactions that have the following ARC type and description pairings:

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change allows certain transactions to display (as intended by the issuer, JPMC) as regular expenses (rather than being hidden as they currently can be based on your configuration) so that users can include them on expense claims.

Company Notes

When configuring messages that display to all users in the Company Notes section of the home page, use of HTML in the Headline field is deprecated. Headlines containing HTML will not render, cannot be executed and will be displayed as plain text.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides greater security for company data.

E-Receipts

Uber will be deprecating an older connection method to Concur Expense, called SMTP or "Receipt Images via Email", on 16 August. Uber is currently emailing certain SAP Concur users asking them to reconnect their Concur Expense account to their Uber account.

This is a result of Uber updating their integration to the more robust SAP Concur Receipts v4 API and subsequently deprecating the SMTP connection. SMTP is a non-App Centre connected / non-OAuth integration which forwards PDF images of receipts to the user’s Concur Expense account.

Specifically, SAP Concur users who received this email are those that set up a Business Profile within the Uber app, selected Concur as their Expense provider and verified an email address associated with their Concur Expense account. Connecting to SMTP was available until March 2019.

SAP Concur users who, when prompted by this email, reconnected their Concur Expense and Uber accounts will continue to receive e-receipts from Uber displayed in Concur Expense.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Uber will be deprecating their SMTP/"Receipt Images via Email" connection in favour of the more robust Receipts v4 integration in the SAP Concur App Centre. The SMTP connection did not provide many of the features offered by the Receipts v4 integration, including pre-populated expense fields and matching to corporate card transactions (if available).

Benefits of the new Receipts v4 integration available in the SAP Concur App Centre include:

• Global availability – works across US & EU Data Centres

• Easier connection login

• Better receipt image rendering

• Richer receipt data, such as ride location and times

• All standard Expense fields are pre-populated with data

• Automatically matched to a corporate card transaction, when applicable

Expense Pay - Global

Expense Pay – Global for Concur Expense now supports the following commercial credit card programme for the United States Dollar (USD $):

• Beneficial State – Visa – US

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This additional option can expedite the processing of credit card expenses.

A step-by-step direct deposit authorisation instruction link has been added to assist users who did not receive expected funds because they had not yet authorised the payment-processing partner to make deposits to their bank account.

The account history information of banking information in the user's profile now includes a link to step-by-step instructions in the description column.

Additionally, the Expense Pay notification email that the user receives when the system could not make a payment to their account now contains a link to step-by-step instructions.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change helps users to authorise the payment-processing partner.

Expense Pay

SAP Concur’s Expense Pay (classic) products execute payments associated with processing expense claims. To ensure compliance with ever-changing regulatory requirements, tailored to geo-diverse markets, SAP Concur has engaged dedicated, experienced, third-party payment-processing partners and developed a next-generation pay product: Expense Pay – Global.

As previously announced in these release notes (September 2017), moving forward, SAP Concur will use one Expense Pay product to service your business anywhere in the world. SAP Concur’s Expense Pay – Global product will replace our existing legacy Expense Pay (classic) offerings (including NA Pay, EMEA Pay and next APA Pay). For SAP Concur clients with an Expense Pay product, Expense Pay – Global will be our go-forward product. This notification begins our sunset process for all legacy Expense Pay (classic) products.

Expense Pay – North America Sunset Date: 1 SEPTEMBER 2019

Over 4000 customers have already migrated to Expense Pay – Global. Customers paying in USD and CAD must switch their subscription from the depreciating service, “Expense Pay – North America”, to “Expense Pay – Global” prior to the 1 September retirement date. Expense Pay – Global supports USD, CAD, GBP and EUR today. Customers using other currencies on classic Expense Pay are not required to migrate those currencies this year but are welcome to start the migration process. Contact paymigration@concur.com to discuss and schedule your migration.

Expense Pay – North America and Expense Pay – EMEA Limitations

SAP Concur does not support clients adding the following currencies with the classic product: United States Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Mexican Pesos, European Euro, Swiss Franc, Danish Krone, Swedish Krona or UK Pounds. If a client has already implemented and is using these currencies with the classic product, they can continue using these until they are migrated to the new platform or until the defined sunset date.

Please also be aware of the following release note in the June version of this document: Expense Pay | New Approval Process for Classic Funding Accounts.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The Expense Pay – Global offering maintains industry best practices for payment processing functionality within SAP Concur.

File Transfer SSH Protocol

• (key exchange) diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1

• (encryption) aes128-cbc

• (encryption) aes192-cbc

• (encryption) aes256-cbc

• (message authentication code) hmac-md5

• (message authentication code) hmac-sha1-96

• (message authentication code) hmac-md5-96

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.concurcdc.cn

If assistance is required, please contact SAP Concur support.

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

Japan Public Transportation (JPT)

The Japan Public Transportation (JPT) database of stations and lines received routine maintenance changes such as additions, name changes and removals.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Lists in Concur Expense continue to reflect JPT's current stations and lines.

Miscellaneous

Over the next several weeks, users will see several enhancements to Concur Open and Personalised Concur Open.

Next Generation (NextGen) Expense

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 Expense user interface designed to provide a modern, consistent and streamlined user experience. This technology not only provides an enhanced UI, but also allows SAP Concur to react more quickly to customer requests to meet changing needs as they happen.

Quick Expense

SAP Concur is deprecating the Quick Expense v3 API due to security vulnerabilities identified. This API is being replaced by Quick Expense v4. Quick Expense v3 will be decommissioned in a future release. Please migrate to the Quick Expense v4 API.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The Quick Expense v3 API only supports the previous authentication method, and it provides access to some fields that are not necessary to expose. These issues are resolved with the new Quick Expense v4 API.

SAP Concur is releasing Quick Expense v4 for partner and client use. Quick Expense v4 includes the following improvements over Quick Expense v3:

• Secure authentication: This API supports the current SAP Concur authentication method.

• Multi-part messages: A developer can post both the data & receipt image in a single call rather than separate calls required by v3.

• Supports digitisation status: Quick expense v4 POST API supports the eBunsho timestamp requirement, if the client is using this functionality and has completed the required configuration in Concur Expense.

• Global availability: Quick expense v4 POST API is supported in all SAP Concur data centres.

Quick Expense v4 removes some of the functionality available in v3:

• ReceiptImageID attribute will no longer be exposed: This attribute may contain personally identifiable information and therefore has been removed to increase data security.

• GET, PUT and DELETE endpoints will no longer be exposed: These endpoints are not provided in v4 as there is no known business need.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This new version of the Quick Expense API supports the latest SAP Concur API authentication method, and provides several enhancements to the POST functionality.

Screen Share for SAP Concur Support

SAP Concur support is implementing the Co-browse feature, a screen-share application that is available to all Authorised Support Contacts (ASCs).

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Screen sharing often makes a problem easier to describe, easier to understand and quicker to resolve – saving time for ASCs and SAP Concur support.