Administration

Until now, an alternate connector could not be associated with an agency GDS that is the same as the primary GDS type. For example, a Sabre travel configuration could not be set up with an alternate connector using Sabre. With this release, a travel configuration can have an alternate connector and primary GDS point to the same GDS in the same pseudo city (PCC).

With this release, the HTML editor on some administration pages will be upgraded. For example, the admin uses an HTML editor to edit the text that appears in the Company Notes section of the home page. Be aware that existing HTML will not be affected, but going forward, unsupported HTML tags and attributes will no longer be accepted.

Business Purpose: This change provides the admin an up-to-date HTML editor utilising today’s standards including HTML5. It also removes security vulnerability where a malicious user could inject dangerous code.

Flight

With this release, Concur will support branded fares for our mutual customers using Amadeus’ Airline Fare Families product.

Business Purpose: With multiple fare options in each booking class, travellers have more options when booking their flights. Passengers can thus always choose the exact fare that best meets their needs and only pay for the services they actually want to use.

Historically, Concur has supported branded fares in the Australian and Trans-Tasman markets through the Flex Faring functionality, but has not been able to support the intra-New Zealand market due to some technical limitations with how fares are filed in that market. With a recent change by Air New Zealand (NZ) in how their intra-New Zealand fares are filed, Concur will now be able to support those fares through our Flex Faring functionality.

With this release, Concur will start the process for supporting these fares for our Amadeus customers.

Business Purpose: Concur Travel users with business in New Zealand will have access to a better assortment of fares for their travel within New Zealand.

Air Canada (AC) was originally planning to enhance their fare structure in May 2017. With this change, Tango and Flex fare families may share a common booking class. This can affect the way fares are presented in Concur Travel, depending on how customer sites are configured to obtain Air Canada content.

Air Canada has now advised that these changes are on hold until further notice.

Web Fares

On July 17, Travelfusion will start sending an email receipt that shows the TF-Pay-related card charges – that is, the charges that Travelfusion will make on the card submitted for the booking when Travelfusion acts as the merchant (TF.Pay). The email will be sent to the email address that appears in the booking contact details.

Train

With the evolution of the rules for punctuality guarantees, SNCF wants to digitalise the "Bon Voyage" compensation given to the clients. "Bon Voyage" is used by SNCF to provide financial compensation to a customer when a train is delayed, for example. Today, SNCF gives paper vouchers as compensation. These vouchers can be used only one time on station channels and travel agency channels. In order to digitalise those vouchers, SNCF will use "CUI codes," which are already supported in Concur Travel.

With this release, we provide travellers with the ability to use the Digitalised Bon Voyage code to deduct the voucher amount from the total booking cost.

Business Purpose: This feature provides easier access to the "Bon Voyage" compensation.

Starting in 2016, the French government established a law about the organisation of the regional trains (TER Trains). An official communication was sent regarding the first two regions that decided to exit RESARAIL.

As of that date, TER-only trips will no longer be available through RIVA for the affected regions. TER + TGV connections from these two regions will continue to be supported at this point.

For bookings in non-GDS content sources, typically passive PNR segments are created to allow TMCs to handle those bookings in their mid-office systems and to provide reporting to the customer. In scenarios where passive segments are not needed or not desired, passive segments can be deactivated globally or for specific non-GDS content sources. Evolvi is currently not available in the list of non-GDS sources. With this release, we will close this gap and allow clients to deactivate the creation of passive segments for Evolvi bookings.

Business Purpose: Customers can now decide if passive segments for Evolvi should be created or if passive segments should be deactivated to save costs for passive segments.

Currently when setting up Evolvi, the admin can add only one set of credentials (login ID and password) that connect Concur to the Evolvi interface. The login ID and password determine the organisation and policy details within Evolvi. Since companies may have several organisations and travel policies set up with Evolvi, Concur plans to provide the ability to use multiple credentials that will be linked to the Concur profile. Using this feature, the TMC will be able to add up to 8 credentials to a travel configuration, linking them to the user profile based on custom fields.

Profile

Over time, Concur will make adjustments to the XML Profile Sync so that it is more scalable as TMCs move from XML Profile Sync to Travel Profile API 2.0. Most of these changes involve rare cases, for example, where Concur receives unexpected data, such as alpha characters for numeric fields. As these adjustments occur, Concur will provide complete details in the release notes.

XML Profile Sync is being retired. After this release, Concur will no longer developmentally support XML Sync as all of our resources will be focused on Travel Profile API 2.0 as our designated profile synchronisation process.

As per API Lifecycle & Deprecation Policy, only critical issues will be addressed between January 2017 and June 2017. After June 2017, Concur will ensure that the service is available, but will not address any bugs discovered in the service.

TMCs who are interested in using new version 4.0 APIs (e.g. Receipts v4.0 API) have found that they need the user’s UUID in order to connect records. Travel Profile API 2.0 will offer the UUID field, with the proper TMC permissions, in order to provide a seamless experience between APIs at Concur.

Miscellaneous

Currently, a client can elect to configure their Concur site to comply with current accessibility standards. Soon, the accessibility feature will no longer be optional. The feature will be defaulted to ON for all Concur sites and it will not be available for change. This process will take several months to complete. During this period, the accessibility setting in Profile > Profile Settings > System Settings (left menu) will be removed.

Concur has invested in new e-receipt technology that will allow Concur’s partners to deliver richer, higher-quality receipts than is currently possible. This is an important step in the fulfilment of our vision of the effortless expense claim. To deliver the best user experience, e-receipts will now only be available for customers that have Concur Expense.

In earlier release notes, we announced that the Users by Browser report would be removed in June. The decision has been made to keep the report. A replacement may become available in the future. An announcement will be made in future release notes.

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.

As announced last year, Concur plans to offer unique capabilities to our mutual customers using Compleat. The first step in this process is to identify the mutual Compleat and Concur Travel customers. When the PNR is populated with the configuration ID, Concur will be able to identify itineraries that will then be able to take advantage of new capabilities. The second phase will be to begin delivering the new capabilities.

Our first offering for mutual customers – targeted for August – will be Compleat SeatFinder.

Concur has been working with Travelport for many months in an ongoing effort to support branded fares for our Apollo/Galileo customers. While working to support Travelport’s approach to branded fares, Concur identified additional Travelport development requirements that are currently in-process with Travelport.

Concur has developed an interim solution. Concur is targeting delivery of this interim solution within the next several weeks. Please watch release notes for additional updates.

During 2016, Concur improved the user experience for SNCF multi-passenger bookings. The Companion page, which is displayed before the search, gives travel arrangers the opportunity to specify the companion information for the selected trips, including any discount cards that may be applicable for those travellers. This process results in having a multi-passenger booking that may include different fare types for each passenger, depending on their discount cards.

In a future release, we will improve the display to ensure that the exact fare name and fare rule information is easily identifiable for each passenger.

Business Purpose: Travel arrangers booking SNCF trips for multiple passengers will be able to clearly identify the applicable fare name and fare rules for each traveller.

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.

For Renfe and Swedish Rail, Concur delivered the basic features and will continue to add additional functionality in order to meet all market requirements.

In the first release iteration, passive segments were not supported. To ensure that TMCs are able to view client rail bookings, Concur will support passive segments starting with Amadeus, the primary GDS in Spain and Sweden.

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 mode 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

Starting 01 January 2018, Concur Meeting will not be available to meeting planners or to meeting attendees. Concur advises clients to enable Concur's Third Party Meetings feature.

XML Profile Sync is being retired. After June 2017, Concur will no longer developmentally support XML Sync as all of our resources will be focused on Travel Profile API 2.0 as our designated profile synchronisation process. As per API Lifecycle & Deprecation Policy, only critical issues will be addressed between January 2017 and June 2017. After June 2017, Concur will ensure that the service is available, but will not address any bugs discovered in the service.

The Quick Tips section of the Concur home page will be removed. We are targeting this change for the July service release.

UPDATE: Please note these dates:

- EU datacentre: Completed on Tuesday, 4 April 2017

- US datacentre: MOVED TO Wednesday, 12 July 2017

Support for Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) version 10 browsers under Concur products will end on 18 August 2017. Concur strongly advises clients using IE v.10 to update to the latest IE browser version before that date, or to install and work with another supported browser.

In 2017, Concur Travel will be partnering with Conferma, a technology provider that works with banks and travel suppliers, to issue virtual cards for use with their network of travel suppliers across 184 countries. The first phase of the integration will apply to GDS hotels. Additional travel services (flight, train, etc.) will follow soon after. TMCs will have one month’s early access, beginning in July. The feature is targeted for everyone with the August release.

Client Notifications

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

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