Concur Invoice Professional Edition Administration Help

August 2017 Analysis/Intelligence Professional Edition Admin Summary

Last Update: 19 August 2017

Model Changes

Employee Budget Now Displays Fiscal Employee Budget

With the release of the enhanced fiscal calendar, the Employee Budget in the Cognos model now displays the Fiscal Employee Budget. The Employee Budget is based on the new Dim_Fiscal_Manager_Budget table.

Any custom reports that use the Year field (Expense > Lists > Employee Budget) as a display column in a report will need to have the Year field replaced with the new Year Name field (Expense > Lists > Employee Budget). The Year field will become the Fiscal_Year_key field, so the Year field may not be meaningful to display in reports anymore.

The enhanced fiscal calendar requires that budgets align with a fiscal year. Even if your company has a fiscal year that aligns with the Gregorian calendar year, your administrator will need to add a fiscal calendar if you want to use the Reporting Budget feature.

New and Updated Fields: Employee Budget

With this release, there are new and updated employee budget-related fields for Expense.

DESCRIPTION: These new and updated fields allow users to report on the employee budget information associated with the company's fiscal calendar.

The new and updated employee budget-related fields are located in the following folders:

  • Expense > Lists > Employee Budget
  • Expense > Lists > Employee Budget > Current Date Attributes
  • Expense > Lists > Employee Budget > Keys
  • Expense > Lists > Employee Budget > Prompt Keys
New Fields: Booked Date/Time and Issued Date/Time

With this release, there are new airline ticket booking and issuing date-related fields for Travel.

DESCRIPTION: These fields allow users to report on the booked and issued dates for airline tickets. These new fields can be used to help calculate the Number of Days in Advance value. The Number of Days in Advance value = Start DateBooked Date/Issued Date.

The new airline ticket booking and issuing date-related fields are located in the following folder:

  • Travel > Reservation and Ticket Dates

Localisation Changes

Additional Report Now Available in Dutch, Italian, Korean and Swedish

With the June release, Concur added support for Dutch, Italian, Korean and Swedish in the Analysis/Intelligence reports, model and archive.

As part of the June release, most, but not all, of the reports in the Analysis – Standard Reports folder for Analysis customers, and the Intelligence – Standard Reports folder for Intelligence customers, were made available in Dutch, Italian, Korean and Swedish for users that have their content language set to Dutch, Italian, Korean and/or Swedish.

With the August release, the following report in the Intelligence – Standard Reports folder is now available in Dutch, Italian, Korean and Swedish:

Expense Processing > Workflow Cycle Times - Details

REPORTS NOT YET LOCALISED

Some of the reports in the Analysis – Standard Reports folder for Analysis customers and the Intelligence – Standard Reports folder for Intelligence customers are not yet available in Dutch, Italian, Korean and Swedish. Concur is aiming to complete the localisation of these reports in a future release.

Until these reports are localised, these reports will continue to display in US English.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about language settings in Cognos, refer to the Localisation for Analysis/Intelligence fact sheet.

Other Changes

Enhanced Fiscal Calendar Now Available

The enhanced fiscal calendar for Analysis/Intelligence is now available. A fiscal calendar allows organisations to define their accounting periods independent of the standard calendar year. Many organisations define their own calendars to model their financial reporting to reflect seasons in their business, to compare results with direct competitors and to avoid the busy year-end season in January.

The new fiscal calendar provides much more flexibility and detail. It displays current and past fiscal years, and all fiscal periods within those years.

Fiscal years have a start date and an end date. Each year may have a different length to accommodate leap years and short years or long years. (Organisations use short years and long years when they change the start date of their fiscal year.) Fiscal years cannot overlap with prior fiscal years and no gaps can exist between fiscal years or between fiscal periods.

With the new calendar, fiscal periods can vary in length within a fiscal year; however, they typically represent months.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)

Question

Answer

What must I do to enable the enhanced fiscal calendar feature?

The enhanced fiscal calendar feature is enabled for all clients in August.

Will my existing fiscal calendars be migrated?

Yes, calendars will be migrated.

IMPORTANT: Gaps between fiscal years are no longer supported, so Concur is only migrating the most recent contiguous series of calendars.

Will budgets that were added by BI Managers be migrated?

Yes, budgets will be migrated for clients, unless a client previously entered a non-calendar fiscal year (a fiscal year that does not align with the calendar year). Non-calendar fiscal year budgets will not be migrated.

Non-calendar fiscal year budgets cannot be migrated due to the differences between calendar quarters and fiscal quarters that do not align with calendar quarters.

My company’s fiscal year aligns with the calendar year so we never saw the need to create a fiscal calendar.

Does this new feature impact us?

The budget feature was enhanced so that budgets can be associated with fiscal quarters. An Expense Administrator must define a fiscal calendar in order for BI Managers to add and maintain their budgets on the Reporting Budget page.

Will there be any changes to the Actionable Analytics alerts?

With the August release, the Actionable Analytics alerts were updated to support the enhanced fiscal calendar.

For example, the Percent of Budget alert was updated so that the alert can be sent to the BI Manager when the defined percent of budget is reached during a fiscal quarter (for companies who have specified a fiscal calendar).

IMPORTANT: If BI Managers are using Actionable Analytics alerts, in order to ensure they continue receiving their Actionable Analytics alert emails, the company must have a fiscal year defined for 2017 and the BI Managers using Actionable Analytics alerts must have their budget defined for the 2017 fiscal quarters on the Reporting Budget page.

Will there be any changes to the Cognos model?

Yes, additional fields were added to support fiscal years.

Additional information about these fields is available in the current and previous versions of the release notes.

Also, with the release of the enhanced fiscal calendar, the Employee Budget model items in Cognos now pull data from new Fiscal Budget fields.

For more information, refer to the Employee Budget Now Displays Fiscal Employee Budget in these release notes.

With the release of the enhanced fiscal calendar, the fields that were added or modified to support fiscal years, in this release and previous releases, will now start being populated when applicable.

Will there be any changes to the Cognos reports?

An enhanced version of the Department Manager Overview dashboard that can be aligned to a fiscal year will be released in a future release.

Additional information will be provided in future release notes.

UPCOMING CHANGES FOR ANALYSIS AND INTELLIGENCE

With the release of the enhanced fiscal calendar, BI Managers can now create a budget that aligns with fiscal quarters. Previously, BI Managers could only align their budgets with calendar quarters.

Concur is planning additional enhancements associated with the enhanced fiscal calendar. For example, Concur will be updating several existing standard reports and dashboards, including the Department Manager Overview and Expense Management Overview dashboards, so that they can be aligned to a company’s fiscal year. The drill reports associated with the Department Manager Overview dashboard will also be updated to align with a company’s fiscal year.

Additional information will be available in future release notes.

MIGRATION INFORMATION

As part of the migration, we have generated fiscal calendars when budgets were found with no corresponding fiscal calendar. We have assumed the company’s fiscal calendars align with the Gregorian calendar year in this case. Administrators should review their migrated fiscal calendars to ensure the calendars are accurate.

Migration process:

  1. The most recent contiguous series of calendars are migrated, including calendar and non-calendar years.
  2. Budgets defined by BI Managers are also migrated if the company’s defined calendar is calendar-based OR the company did not define a calendar.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature gives clients the flexibility to define their accounting periods independently of the standard calendar year.

WHAT THE ADMIN SEES

The enhanced fiscal calendar is available in the Reporting Configuration tool.

In addition, the Fiscal Calendar Set Up tab is now called Fiscal Calendar.

The Fiscal Calendar tab has five buttons, which are described in the following table:

Button

Description

New

Enables the admin to create a new fiscal calendar.

Modify

Enables the admin to modify an existing fiscal calendar.

Activate

Enables the admin to activate a fiscal calendar. (This feature is not used by Analysis / Intelligence.)

Deactivate

Enables the admin to deactivate a fiscal calendar. (This feature is not used by Analysis / Intelligence.)

Remove

Enables the admin to remove a fiscal calendar.

On the Preferences tab in Reporting Configuration (Professional only), the Default to fiscal year in reports that support fiscal year check box is available for selection when a fiscal calendar is set up for a company.

When the check box is selected, the reports that have been enhanced for the fiscal calendar will align with the fiscal year.

WHAT THE BI MANAGER SEES

After the Expense Administrator defines a fiscal calendar for a company on the Fiscal Calendar tab in Reporting Configuration, BI Managers can create a budget that aligns with fiscal quarters on the Reporting Budget page (Profile > Profile Settings > Reporting Settings > Reporting Budget).

CONFIGURATION/FEATURE ACTIVATION

Concur automatically implemented these changes; there are no configuration or activation steps.

To access the Fiscal Calendar (Professional):

  1. Click Administration > Expense or Invoice > Reporting Configuration (left menu). The Reporting Configuration page appears.
  2. Click the Fiscal Calendar tab.

For more information, refer to the Shared: Reporting Configuration Setup Guide.

To access the Fiscal Calendar (Standard):

  1. Click Administration > Expense Settings or Invoice Settings > Reporting Configuration. The Reporting Configuration page appears.
  2. Click the Fiscal Calendar tab.

For more information, refer to the Shared: Reporting Configuration Setup Guide for Concur Standard Edition.

Purchase Order Data Now Visible for Non-Global Users

Concur has enhanced its abilities around the collection of purchase order data. Though global users have always been able to access this data, with this release, users with non-global access can now see the purchase order data associated with their level in the Reporting hierarchy.

Microsoft IE v.10 Browser Support Ends 18 August 2017

Support for Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) version 10 browsers under Concur products ends 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.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update reminds users that the version of Internet Explorer they are using is obsolete and they should upgrade in consultation with their organisation.

Planned 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.

Report Changes: **Planned Changes** Persona Dashboard: Department Manager Overview (Intelligence)

Company averages will be removed from the Average Spend section on the Department Manager Overview dashboard.

Over the past few months we have been announcing that fiscal calendar support is coming soon. This feature is a highly requested feature that we are very excited to be able to offer. In order for us to be able to release this feature sooner rather than later, we made a decision to remove the comparison of the department's Average Spend to the rest of the company that is located below the Average Spend metric. The decision to do this was strictly based on weighing the value that fiscal year support would provide versus the value a department manager would find in being able to compare his/her Average Spend to the rest of the company.

Concur is aiming to make this update to the Department Manager Overview dashboard in the September release.

WHAT THE USER SEES

The comparison between the company averages and the department averages for each spend category will no longer be calculated or displayed in the Average Spend section.

BEFORE

The company average comparison results are displayed below each spend category.

AFTER

Only the department averages will be displayed for each spend category.

LOCATION OF THE DASHBOARD

You can access the Department Manager Overview dashboard from the Quick Access Menu page on the Persona Dashboard by clicking Department Manager.

The Persona Dashboard is located here:

  • Intelligence - Standard Reports ‎> Persona Dashboards

The Department Manager Overview dashboard is located here:

  • Intelligence - Standard Reports ‎> Persona Dashboards > Department Manager Overview

For more information about the Department Manager Overview dashboard, refer to Chapter 16: Folder – Persona Dashboards in the Standard Reports by Folder guide.

Report Changes: **Planned Changes** Persona Dashboard: Department Manager Overview (Intelligence)

With the release of the enhanced fiscal calendar, Concur is planning to enhance the Department Manager Overview dashboard to align with a company’s fiscal year. We are also taking this opportunity to optimise the performance of the dashboards when reporting across large data sets, and to improve the appearance of the dashboard when the dashboard is emailed.

To best accomplish this, Concur will be dividing the current dashboard into two Department Manager Overview dashboards – one dashboard for the current Spend tab and another dashboard for the current Expense Claims tab. Both dashboards will support fiscal years.

Additional information will be available in future release notes.

Other Changes: **Planned Changes** Naming Convention for Intelligence Extract Service Files

Currently, the files generated by the Data Dump Extract job are created using the following naming convention: dd_<entitycode>_DataDump_yyyy_MM_dd.zip. Sometimes this can result in duplicate file names. In an upcoming release, the files generated by the Data Dump Extract job will include both a date and time stamp to ensure each file name is unique. The new naming convention will be: dd_<entitycode>_DataDump_yyyy_MM_dd.hh-mm-ss.zip.

Client Notifications

Concur Non-Affiliated Subprocessors

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

Monthly Browser Certifications

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