Request

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

Initially, the issue described here affected only companies that use Concur Expense. Starting in January, email from other SAP Concur services (such as Travel and Concur Pay) will move to the new email infrastructure.

We will continue to add other services. Please monitor the release notes for more information about the timing of the additional changes.

All companies must take all reasonable steps to protect the personal and sensitive information of their employees. As per recommended security-related best practices, remember that custom fields should not contain personal and sensitive data.

NEXT STEPS

If your company is currently using custom fields to store personal or sensitive data (for example, Social Security numbers, family member names or any other personally identifying information), you should plan to remove this information from your existing fields within the service and modify your current configuration.

Refer to the FAQ (English Only) for additional information.

Budget

Workflows are now available for Budget. Workflows define how the system routes invoices, expense claims and requests through approval and processing steps. The flexible workflow feature for Budget that SAP Concur offers 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 committed.

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.

Request

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

Composite login functionality allows users to use a login ID that does not include a domain to log in to SAP Concur products.

All users who use only their username (ex: johndoe) to log in will need to use their CTE Login Name rather than their login ID to log in to SAP Concur products.

SAP Concur will no longer support composite login sign-in page URLs. The typical URL for a composite login page includes the name of the entity (ex: entity=pxxxxxxxxx) and looks like this: https://www.concursolutions.com/signin.asp?entity=pxxxxxxxxx.

All clients will be using the standard Sign In page to access SAP Concur products. The standard sign in page is https://www.concursolutions.com/nui/signin.

Deprecation of the composite login pages for https://www.concursolutions.com is targeted for 11 May 2019.

IMPACT ON USERS

Users who log in to a composite login page (https://www.concursolutions.com/signin.asp?entity=pxxxxxxxxx) and do not use the at (@) symbol in their user name will need to click the Forgot your user name? link on the Sign In page to retrieve their user name without assistance (preferred) or contact their company administrator to get their CTE Login Name. User passwords remain the same.

Single Sign-On functionality is not impacted by this change. The following users will not be impacted because they do not log in using https://www.concursolutions.com:

• SAP Concur web SSO
• Concur mobile username/password
• Concur mobile SSO

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Deprecating this feature improves login stability and login success rates, while reducing login dependency.

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

In a future release, SAP Concur will add a new Forgot Password feature to the SAP Concur Sign In page, providing an updated experience for users who log in with user name and password credentials.

Currently, depending on a company's configuration, there may be several other options available for the forgotten password process. When the new Forgot Password feature becomes available (targeted for 11 May), those additional options will be removed. They are:

• Security Questions: Users will no longer receive security question prompts for login authentication.
• On-page text: Company custom text will no longer display.
• Password hints: The Send me an email with my password hint option will no longer be available.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides greater security for user passwords and streamlines the user experience.

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

SAP Concur is planning to add a new Sign In page, providing an updated login experience for users who log in with a user name and password credentials. Current Single Sign-On (SSO) users will be able to start the SSO login process at https://www.concursolutions.com. 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 login success rate
• Multi-account login: allows administrators to log in with multiple accounts (planned for a future release)
• User avatar: enhances the user experience (planned for a future release)

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

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

The password field in the 100, 300, 305 and 310 record sets will no longer be used to update or bulk reset user passwords. SAP Concur will change the functionality in imports such that the password field is only used when a user account is created. The field will no longer be used to update or bulk reset user passwords. The update and replace password features on the 100 record will no longer be used.

This change impacts the employee import and the user import features.

EMPLOYEE IMPORT

The password field will remain available in the 100, 300, 305 and 310 record sets, but will only be read during an initial import of the file or when creating a new user in the system. Subsequent uses of the field will be ignored by the system. The update and replace password features on the 100 record will no longer be used.

For general information about this functionality, refer to the Shared: Employee Import Specification (English Only).

USER IMPORT

The password field will remain available in the downloadable Excel template, but will only be read during an initial import of the file or when creating a new user in the system. Subsequent uses of the field will be ignored by the system.

For general information about this functionality, refer to the Shared: User Import User Guide (English Only).

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides greater security for user passwords.

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

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 products that provides clients with a self-service option for setting up SSO for their organisation. SSO is currently supported for Concur Expense, Invoice, Request and Travel.

The new Manage Single Sign-On (SSO) feature is a replacement tool for clients using existing SSO configuration on the Security Keys page and a new tool for clients that now want to implement SSO at their organisation. Existing SSO configuration on the Security Keys page and the new SSO Self-Service tool will both be available until everyone has migrated to the new SSO Self-Service tool.

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

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

To simplify the Training Administration page, the functionality and content will be changing.

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

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These changes will make the Training Administration feature easier to find and use.

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.

Customers will need to access SAP Concur products and services via the following domains:

• *.concursolutions.com
• *.concurcdc.cn

This change is targeted for 8 June 2019.

SAP Concur recommends clients migrate to one of the domains at their earliest convenience, if they are not already using one of them.

Please contact appsec@sap.com for any questions regarding this change.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change will allow customers to access SAP Concur services in a consistent, secure manner.

Budget Insight

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 the new Budget product that SAP Concur 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 the new Budget product, which gives greater value to clients by making budgets visible, actionable and near real-time.