Administration

Amadeus – Add Credential Validation Link to Agency Configuration

While discussing the upcoming Amadeus Web Services migration with our TMC partners, we received feedback that agencies would find great value in credential validation. With this release, Concur has updated the Amadeus Web Services section of the Agency Configuration to include a credential validation link.

Flight

Support Flex Faring Airline – Norwegian Air International (D8)

Concur is pleased to announce flex faring support for airline Norwegian Air Shuttle (D8). Norwegian Air Shuttle offers service to select destinations in Europe, but this specific enhancement is specific to flights within Finland.

Baggage Fees

Concur extended the branded fare display to all flight and train results with the June release. That display includes the Fare Matrix and baggage information. Now:

• If the result is a true branded fare, then we will display the number of bags included in that particular branded fare; it is part of the brand and is provided to us by the GDS.

• If the result is not a branded fare, we will provide a link to the airline's website and, specifically, to their baggage details page.

With this release, we have made several updates to links where the website changed and have removed the Baggage Fee Policies link.

Imperative Split Condition for Bookings Containing Both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines Content

In the latter part of 2015, Delta (DL) and American (AA) discontinued their interline agreement. This meant that reservations made using both airlines had to be ticketed a special way. With this release, Concur has updated our split ticketing/faring logic to automatically store separate fares for American and Delta, respectively, when creating the booking in the reservation system (GDS). This process is seamless for the end user; material changes will be visible only to travel agencies. Mixed Flight/Train

Flight/Train

Number Visibility and Sort

Based on customer feedback, we have updated the way we display flight and train numbers within Concur Travel to make them more prominent. In addition, we have added a search filter to find a specific flight or train.

Web Fares

Avianca Brazil Available via Travelfusion

Avianca Brazil (O6) – present in 23 cities and operating in 24 airports in Brazil with more than 200 flights daily – is now available in Concur Travel via Travelfusion.

**COMING SOON** Mandatory User Login for Ryanair

Travelfusion has informed us that large LCCs in Europe plan to require user login in the near future. Ryanair is the first LCC that will introduce mandatory user login – other LCCs may follow. On the Ryanair website, once the traveller selects the flight, the Flight Options for Ryanair popup appears. Each user must register (create a user name and password) on the flight options page if they do not already have one.

Car / Train

Show Train Station Names When Selecting Train Segment to Add Car

With this release, Concur has improved the user experience when adding a car to an existing Amtrak or SNCF itinerary. Users are now able to see the train station name when selecting the trip leg instead of the name of the closest airport.

Hotel

**COMING SOON** Hotel Recommendations

With the December release, each hotel listing will indicate if a traveller or anyone in the traveller's organisation/company has stayed at that hotel previously. This matches the feature that already exists in Mobile today.

**COMING SOON** Auto-Cancel if Hotel Service Segment is a Part of the Trip

Currently, if a Hotel Service supplier (as defined in the Hotel Service TSG) hotel reservation segment is a part of the trip, the trip cannot be auto-cancelled in these cases: trip unfinished by the user, trip on hold time-out, trip rejected by the manager, trip not approved in time by the manager. With the November release, these exceptions will be removed; auto-cancel will work the same for Hotel Service suppliers as for GDS hotels – based on the client configuration.

Train

** COMING SOON ** Sabre - Rail Carrier 2A (Deutsche Bahn) Changing Structure of Passive Segment and Must be Updated for Parsing by 11 December, 2016

The new structure of the PNR will be introduced for the Deutsche Bahn data merged to Sabre PNR. Changes are within the RAL GK segments, OSI lines, Remarks and Accounting lines.

Profile

**COMING SOON** XML Profile Sync Moves to Deprecated State 1 January, 2017

Starting in the October release, XML Profile Sync will move into a deprecated state. Moving to a deprecated state means that Concur will address only mission-critical issues between January and June 2017. After June 2017, Concur will no longer support XML Profile Sync as a way to synchronise profile data with Concur. Concur recommends that all customers using XML Profile Sync move to Travel Profile API 2.0 at their earliest convenience. https://developer.concur.com/api-reference/travel-profile/01-profile-resource.html

Miscellaneous

Enhancements for Active Tabs and Buttons

Currently, for tabs like those on the search results page or the Travel home page, the font colour indicates if a tab is active – with black text being active and blue text being inactive. With this release, the font colours are unchanged but the active tab will also have a dark blue band – making the active tab easier to see.

Improvements to Car E-Receipt Success Rates

With this release, Concur will eliminate the requirement for a credit card to be enrolled in the E-Receipts program in order for travellers to receive car rental e-receipts. By removing this requirement, many more users will receive the e-receipts they expect and will spend less time completing expense claims.

Ticketing Time Limit – Remove "By Agent"

Concur automatically sends an email to the user/arranger when a trip is placed on hold or submitted for purchase. This email confirmation includes a notation about when the trip must be ticketed. We have removed "by agent" in this message. With this release, "by agent" has been removed.

Currency Conversion

With the October release, we have extended the Currency Conversion feature beyond hotel (delivered in September) to all the other segment types, allowing a user/arranger to change the default currency to any other currency. This now applies to: Flight, Train, Hotel, Car and Ground.

**COMING SOON** Preference Level Supplier Name Changes

Coming in November, based on feedback after the June release, Concur is updating the naming convention for preferred suppliers:

• Air preferences change from Supplier to Airline

• Train preferences change from Supplier to Train Service

• Car preferences change from Supplier to Car Supplier

• Hotel Chain preferences change from Supplier to Hotel Chain

• Hotel Property preferences remain the same as Hotel

For example, today we show Preferred Supplier for Concur when there is an Air preference. With the update, it will say Preferred Airline for Concur.

File Transfer Security Update

During the month of October 2016, Concur Operations will apply a routine security update to our File Transfer infrastructure (SecureTransport). This is part of our ongoing commitment to securing our customers’ data and meeting the audited security requirements of the "Concur Trust Platform". As part of this update, only TLS v1.1 and TLS v1.2 will be supported for FTP/S (FTP-SSL) and HTTPS protocols. New ciphers will be in place for EMEA (st-eu.concursolutions.com) on 8 Oct, and US migration (st.concursolutions.com) on 22 Oct. The expected time of each modification is 14:00 GMT.

For more information on TLS and cipher support, refer to the File Transfer User Guide (English only).

Concur has created a SecureTransport staging environment that US and EMEA customers can test against. The URL is st-staging.concursolutions.com. The testing is for connectivity only. It’s possible to upload files in this environment, however the files will not be processed. Protocols available in SecureTransport staging environment are: HTTPS, SSH (SCP, SFTP), and FTP/S.

**Coming Soon** Support for TLS v 1.0 Encryption Protocol to End March of 2017

Concur announces an End of Support (March 2017) cycle for version 1.0 of the TLS encryption protocol, continuing support for the more secure 1.1 and 1.2 versions of TLS. As background, the TLS protocol allows secure back and forth communications between a phone or computer and a cloud-based service. Note that, since less than 1% of Concur users are logging in to Concur Solutions using browsers or phones limited to version 1.0, a very small number of users are affected by this support discontinuation.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Concur is taking this step after careful consideration of both the client’s security and ease of upgrade to the newer, more secure 1.1 and 1.2 versions of TLS. This end of life plan for TLS v 1.0 ensures our clients are communicating with Concur services in a safe and secure manner using TLS v. 1.1 and newer.

More Information: Additional information about this change for TLS support will be included in upcoming release notes included in monthly service releases.