All Products

SAP Concur is transitioning to a new email infrastructure for outbound email from our products to SAP Concur users. Because of this, companies who filter inbound email based on the sending IP address must add the new IP addresses to their Safe Sender list to ensure that their users receive email from SAP Concur.

Be aware that – at this time – the issue described here affects only companies that use Concur Expense and filter incoming email based on IP addresses. (This includes all editions of Concur Expense – whether the company uses Concur Expense by itself or integrated with any other SAP Concur product or service.) Other SAP Concur services (such as Concur Travel and Concur Pay) are not currently affected.

We are currently targeting the first quarter of 2019 to make additional changes. Be aware that all affected companies will be notified well ahead of time and will be provided all possible options for managing this issue.

SAP Concur is in the process of updating the format of all email notifications. These changes will provide a fresher, consistent look and feel across all SAP Concur services.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The intent is to provide a consistent, updated look for users.

Concur Expense, Concur Invoice and Purchase Request

New Supplier Name Exporting Option in Budget Dashboard

The Budget Dashboard export option now provides a new Supplier Name column, which enables users to see how much is spent per supplier when they export spending line items of a budget.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This enhancement provides clients with more control over their budget by letting them see how much is spent per supplier.

Planned Changes - All Products

**Planned Changes** Workflows for Budget

In a future release, workflows will be available for Budget. Workflows define how the system routes invoices, expense claims and requests through approval and processing steps. SAP Concur's flexible workflow feature for Budget allows companies to design workflows specifically tailored to their unique needs.

Without budget review, budgets may become fully consumed well before the end of a period or year leaving an organisation with limited options and budget owners with, for example, exceeded budgets. In addition, early spending means that more important (to the organisation) spending will be declined because lesser important spending consumed the budget early on.

Combining budget review in the workflow adds value. Audit rules and workflow step rules can help organisations to add in controls when it makes sense to fine tune to an organisation's specific needs.

Equally important is the determination when a spending item is regarded as committed toward a budget. In most organisations, the commit is when a spending item is paid; it went through most if not all approval steps. In other organisations, the commit occurs much earlier. As soon as a purchase request or an authorisation request is approved, it is regarded as "promised".

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature will provide clients with control over the budget spend to, for example, avoid exceeded budgets too early in a budget period or budget year.

**Planned Change**New Budget Type Added

SAP Concur has added a new budget type, Restricted Account, to Budget. The Restricted Account budget type has the same functionality as the Budget Account budget type except that it is sorted and displayed separately from the Budget Account to make it easier for clients to distinguish between "regular budget accounts" and "restricted budget accounts".

In higher education and in the public sector, a restricted account is another name for a grant or a purpose-driven budget. An example of a restricted account is funding for a new research project. The organisation has a $20,000 budget and a $10,000 grant. The grant needs to be spent in a specific period, so the organisation wants to use the grant first; otherwise they might lose the grant due to time restrictions. The organisation configures a restricted account and uses the date range for the time limitation. The rest of the budget ($20,000) will be configured as a regular budget account with a possible longer date range.

The Restricted Account budget type is configured in the Add Budget Item and Modify Budget Item windows. This budget type is also available in Audit Rules. In addition, the budget type will appear in budget cards on the Budget Overview page and will also appear on the Budget Details page.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature makes it easier for the clients to differentiate between budget account and restricted account budget types by sorting them separately.

**Planned Changes** Search Filters in Budget Dashboard

Clients will soon be able to search and filter for budgets on the Budget Overview page. These are some of the new functionalities:

• Search for a budget name or description

• Filter for budget periods and date ranges

• Filter for budget owners

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These features will make it easier for clients to quickly find the budget information that they are looking for.

**Planned Changes** Single Sign-On (SSO) Self-Service Option Coming to SAP Concur

Single Sign-On allows users to access multiple applications using one set of login credentials. Currently, SAP Concur has two methods for signing in: with a user name and password or using SSO with identity provider (IdP) credentials, such as a user's login credentials for their organisation.

SAP Concur is planning to add a Manage Single Sign-On (SSO) feature to SAP Concur which provides SAP Concur clients with a self-service option for setting up SSO for their organisation. SSO is currently supported for Concur Expense, Concur Invoice, Concur Request and Concur Travel.

Other SAP Concur products and services are outside the scope of this initial release.

The new Manage Single Sign-On (SSO) feature will be accessible from the Administration > Company > Company Admin page.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides SAP Concur clients with a self-service option for setting up SSO.

**Planned Changes** Optimising and Relocating the Page

To simplify the Training Administration page, the page will no longer have tabs, only the current contents of the Alternate URL tab will remain.

In addition to this change, access to the Training Administration page will move from Company Admin to Tools.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These changes make the page easier to find and use.

**Planned Changes** Retiring the Purge Test User Transactions Functionality

SAP Concur is retiring the functionality in the Test User Admin feature that removes the transactions of test users from Concur Expense, Concur Invoice, Concur Travel and Concur Request.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change will allow SAP Concur to devote more resources to development and maintenance of features that are used by many or most of our clients.

**Planned Changes** New SAP Concur Sign In Page

SAP Concur is planning to add a new Sign In page, providing an updated login experience for users who log in with user name and password credentials. Current Single Sign-On (SSO) users will log in without having to enter additional credentials. This feature is planned for 2019.

The new Sign In page feature includes the following:

• Two-step login: provides enhanced security, meets current industry standards and provides a better log in success rate

• Multi-account login: allows administrators to log in with multiple accounts

• Password hint removal: provides better security for users and SAP Concur

• User avatar: enhances the user experience (planned for a future release)

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides better security and a faster, more convenient experience for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

**Planned Changes** Archive Deactivated User Data

As SAP Concur continues to grow, steps must be taken to enhance and improve the performance of our system so that we can meet customer expectations and the needs of their business.

Our overall goal is to significantly improve the performance of SAP Concur services by reducing the amount of data that is stored in our Production datastore. By reducing the data in the Production system, we can use server memory much more efficiently, which reduces processing time for transactions. For this reason, SAP Concur is developing an archive process for users who have been deactivated by their employers for at least three years. The archive process moves this "deactivated" user data from our Production datastore to a separate Reporting datastore.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Moving deactivated user data will provide faster processing time for transactions. In addition, it provides a more secure environment for inactive users' personal information.

Concur Expense and Concur Request

**Planned Changes** Budget Insight (Legacy) to Retire in 2019

Budget Insight is a budget management tool that is being retired on 30 June 2019. Clients who want to use budget functionality are recommended to purchase SAP Concur's new Budget product which released earlier this year. The new Budget feature offers greater functionality, an improved UI and additional integrations with SAP Concur products. Most notably is the inclusion of additional expense data from Concur Expense, Concur Invoice, Concur Travel and Concur Request (previously only data from Concur Expense and Concur Request were available).

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The retirement of Budget Insight will provide clients with the opportunity to purchase SAP Concur's new Budget product that gives greater value to clients by making budgets visible, actionable and near real-time.

Client Notifications

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

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