Concur Invoice Professional Edition Administration Help

January 2021 Invoice Professional Edition Admin Summary

Update #1

Release Note Summaries

The items in this section are summaries of the release notes for this month. The Professional Edition release notes are accessible from What's New - Professional Edition.

Invoice Pay

Cheque Configurations Page Changes (Dec 2020)

Beginning with the December 2020 release, on entities with more than 200 cheque configurations, some columns on the Cheque Configurations page do not display information. To view all the details for a specific cheque configuration, the user must open the Cheque Configuration page for the desired cheque configuration.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change improves the performance of the Cheque Configurations page for clients with more than 200 cheque configurations.

Funding Accounts Page Changes

On entities with more than 200 funding accounts, some columns on the Funding Accounts page will not display information. To view all the details for a specific funding account, the user must open the Funding Account page for the desired funding account.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change improves the performance of the Funding Accounts page for clients with more than 200 funding accounts.

Authentication

**Ongoing** Deprecation of Director SAML Service and Migration to SAML v2

These changes are part of the SAP Concur continued commitment to maintaining secure authentication.

Support for the Director SAML service is being deprecated. Travel Management Companies (TMCs) and SAP Concur personnel will soon begin assisting clients 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.

Deprecation of support for the Director SAML service is dependent on the following requirements:

  • SAP Concur technicians and TMCs assist existing SAP Concur clients to migrate from the Director SAML service to SAML V2.

  • All clients that currently rely on the Director SAML service have migrated from Director SAML to SAML V2.

Migration from Director SAML to SAML V2 requires the following general steps:

  • The client identifies an admin to act as the SSO admin and assigns the proper permission/role.

  • The SSO admin coordinates with their SAP Concur technician to obtain the SAP Concur SP metadata.

  • The SSO admin configures the SSO settings at the IdP based on information from SP metadata.

  • The SSO admin retrieves IdP metadata from the IdP and delivers the metadata to the SAP Concur technician.

  • The SSO admin adds a few testing users and tests the new SSO connection.

  • With successful testing, the company rolls out SSO to their SAP Concur users.

For more information about the Single Sign-On self-service option, refer to the Shared: Single Sign-On Overview (English Only) and the Shared: Single Sign-On Setup Guide (English Only).

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides better security and improved support for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

**Ongoing** Deprecation of HMAC and Migration to SAML v2 and the SSO Self-Service Tool

These changes are part of the SAP Concur continued commitment to maintaining secure authentication.

SAP Concur support for Hash-Based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) is being deprecated. Travel Management Companies (TMCs) and SAP Concur personnel are currently assisting clients 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.

For more information about the Single Sign-On self-service option, refer to the Shared: Single Sign-On Overview (English Only) and the Shared: Single Sign-On Setup Guide (English Only).

The HMAC deprecation includes two phases:

PHASE I:

  • Clients must have an identity provider (IdP) or a custom SAML 2.0 compliant solution.

  • Clients begin testing authentication using SAML v2.

  • TMCs prepare to onboard new SAP Concur clients to SAML v2.

  • Clients will be notified via release notes about the official deprecation date of HMAC. As of the official deprecation date, no new clients can be onboarded using HMAC; new clients must be onboarded to SAML v2.

  • Existing clients using HMAC must migrate to SAML v2.

PHASE II:

  • TMCs have migrated all existing SAP Concur clients from the HMAC service to SAML v2.

  • The HMAC service is deprecated. Phase II is targeted to end mid-year in 2021.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides better security and improved support for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

Authentication Administration

Company Request Token Self-Service Tool (8 Dec)

On 8 December 2020, SAP Concur released a new Company Request Token self-service tool that enables clients to generate the Company Request Token that is required to request a JSON Web Token (JWT) when connecting to APIs in the SAP Concur platform.

Requirements for generating a Company Request Token:

  • The client must obtain a link to the new tool from SAP Concur Client Web Services (CWS).

  • The client must obtain a Client ID from CWS.

  • A company admin must have the Web Services Administrator permission to access the Company Request Token self-service tool through the provided link.

  • For a request token to be issued, the Client ID (App ID) must be allowed to connect to the company.

Requirements for obtaining a JWT:

  • The Client ID provided by SAP Concur CWS

  • The client secret provided by SAP Concur CWS

  • The Company UUID generated by the Company Request Token tool

  • The Company Request Token generated by the Company Request Token tool

An admin with the Web Services Administrator permission can navigate to the Company Request Tokens page through the link provided by CWS, enter the Client ID they obtained from CWS into the App ID field and then click Submit to generate a Company Request Token. They will also be able to generate a replacement token if one is needed.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The new self-service tool enables an admin with the required permissions to generate a Company Request Token without relying on SAP Concur internal staff. The new tool also enables the admin to generate a replacement Company Request Token without assistance from SAP Concur support if their Company Request Token expires or is lost.

Authorised Support Contacts

Security / Data Protection Contact Option to be Added to SAP Concur Support Portal Profile (3 Dec)

SAP Concur 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.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: 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.

File Transfer Updates

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.

concursolutionsrotate.asc:

  • Key file is available in client’s root folder
  • 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 remains supported for existing clients but will be deprecated in the future.

SAP Concur strongly recommends that clients use the more secure rotating public PGP key for file transfers. To facilitate the use of the more secure rotating public PGP key for file transfers, SAP Concur added the key to existing client’s home folders on Friday 15 January 2021.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The rotating public PGP key provides greater security for file transfers.

**Ongoing** SAP Concur Legacy File Move Migration

This Release Note is intended for the technical staff responsible for file transmissions with SAP Concur. For our clients and suppliers participating in data exchange, SAP Concur 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. After they are migrated to the more efficient process, clients will see the following improvement:

  • With the legacy process, clients had to wait for the file move schedule to run at a specified time. With the more efficient and secure API-based process, extracts and other outbound files from SAP Concur will be available within the existing overnight processing period shortly after the files are created.

This announcement pertains to the following file transfer DNS endpoints:

  • st.concursolutions.com

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

Release Notes

Preview Release Notes No Longer Published

Starting 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.

The 2021 Release Calendar (English Only) will be updated to reflect this change.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change simplifies the release notes communications.

For more information about the publishing dates for the draft and final release notes, refer to the 2021 Release Calendar (English Only).

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 might not list 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 listed in a consolidated document. Please review the additional Planned Changes admin summaries available in the January 2021 Shared Planned Changes Professional Edition Admin Summary.

Concur Invoice

**Planned Changes** Download as Excel From All Sent to Purchasing List View on My Invoices Page

In a future release, clients will be able to export data by clicking the Download as Excel link in the All Sent to Purchasing list view on the My Invoices page.

There is no maximum number of items that can be exported, but the export process might take some time if there are many items to be exported.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides clients with flexibility in how they work with invoice data.

Client Notifications

The items in this section provide reference material for all clients.

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