2018 Release Calendar

The 2018 release calendar is available. The release calendar shows all of the monthly releases for 2018, as well as the release note schedule, Travel client presentations and tradeshows.

Access the calendar here: Client Release Calendar (English Only)

Admin

For quite some time, In-Product Messaging (IPM) within Concur products has been available for US customers.

The messaging that is presented to each US user is based on data provided by a well-known US-based "recommendation" engine. That engine, however, is not the best fit for the stricter laws in the European Union (EU). So, in an effort to comply with the EU laws, Concur developed its own recommendation engine for its In-Product Messaging System.

In mid-November, IPM will be enabled for all EU customers, using Concur's In-Product Messaging System. Also, since the new system provides a better all-around IPM experience, US customers will soon see IPM using the new system.

Just like today for US users – the content, timing, location and frequency of a message are all defined by each message campaign and by the characteristics of each company and each user.

For customers hosted in the EU data centre, we provide a mechanism that allows any user to opt out of specific in-product messages.

The Spend Category list on the Expense Types page (Administration > Expense > Expense Types (left menu)) was updated to include spend categories for Invoice. The Spend Category list is now shared between Expense and Invoice. As part of this change, a number of the Spend Category list selections were added, renamed and removed. Spend categories determine the type of spend with which an expense type is associated. This information is used in Concur's reporting solutions. Certain spend categories are also used with travel allowance or mileage entries to present the appropriate fields to the user.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This enhancement provides clients with an updated list of commonly used spend categories for Expense and Invoice.

Japan Public Transportation (JPT)

The Japan Public Transportation (JPT) database of stations and lines received routine maintenance changes such as additions, name changes and removals.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Lists in Expense continue to reflect JPT's current stations and lines.

Terminology

In the November release, Concur changed the following French Canadian term.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change improves accuracy and consistency of the French Canadian version of all Concur solutions.

Travel Allowance

Allowances for mixed business trips are a combination of domestic allowances and foreign allowances.

Both these allowances are calculated based on domestic duration and foreign duration in the total business trip.

The domestic duration is a result of the difference between the total duration of the trip and foreign duration of the trip based on 12ths.

A new property use_tax_legislation_rule_for_mixed_trips has been introduced. For this calculation to work, the property has to be set to Y.

This new setting applies to 24-hour international day calculations, not to Calendar Day calculations.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change allows clients in Austria to maintain best-practice legal compliance.

Currently, for non-domestic extended trips, the system applies the extended trip reduction factor to the company allowance.

Now, with this new configuration option, the company allowance limit can be calculated for the government allowance.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change allows Concur clients to maintain best-practice travel configuration.

Admin

Concur is announcing the end of support for plain text FTP as a means to transfer data to and from Concur. Plain text FTP is not a secured protocol and has inherent security vulnerabilities. On 15th May, 2018, Concur Operations will apply a security update to our file transfer infrastructure, restricting the use of plain text FTP as a part of our ongoing commitment to securing our customers’ data and meeting the audited security requirements of the "Concur Trust Platform".

Available Expenses

The Available Expenses list on the Manage Expense page will soon no longer display expenses older than one year.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This new feature automatically filters expenses with transaction dates older than one year and only displays expenses added within the past 12 months, to provide an easier end-user experience. This change is consistent with behaviour in the Available Receipts sections (where unused receipts older than one year are hidden) and will result in improved performance by reducing the volume of old, unnecessary data.

Legacy Expense Authorisation Request

Concur plans to retire our legacy Expense Authorisation Request feature on 31 March 2018.

Concur offered this feature to some clients prior to the existence of the standalone Concur Request product. We now have feature parity as well as enhanced features and full support on the standalone Request product. Clients that wish to leverage a request capability within Concur should purchase and migrate to the Concur Request product.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This retirement allows Concur to focus development resources on further enhancements to our standalone Concur Request product whose functionality, innovation and value now exceeds that of our legacy feature.

Client Notifications

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

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