Admin

Custom fields that are connected lists can now be added to the Expense Attendee forms in Forms and Fields (Administration > Expense > Expense Admin > Forms and Fields). The Expense Attendee forms are used to configure the attendee forms for Concur Expense, Concur Request and Concur Invoice.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update enhances the attendee functionality to allow connected list type custom fields.

API

A new version of the List Item API is available. The List Item v4 API provides solutions to retrieve and manage list items.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The List Item v4 API uses more secure and modern, fine-grained methods. This API uses Universal Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) and uses JSON instead of XML. Also, authentication to the List Item v4 API may be performed with a User or Company access token, providing the opportunity to apply the principle of least privilege.

A new version of the List API is available. The List v4 API allows you to view your configured lists and create new lists within SAP Concur products.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The List v4 API uses more secure and modern, fine-grained methods. This API uses Universal Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) and uses JSON instead of XML. Also, authentication to the List v4 API may be performed with a User or Company access token, providing the opportunity to apply the principle of least privilege.

Authentication

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 customers 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.

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 customers 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 setup 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.

• Customers 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

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:

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

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.

Expense Assistant

On November 16, 2020, if claims were auto-created using Expense Assistant, delegates who have the appropriate permissions were copied on the weekly Claim Summary emails.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update enhanced the delegate functionality by allowing delegates to receive the weekly Claim Summary email.

File Transfer Updates

This Release Note is intended for the technical staff responsible for file transmissions with SAP Concur. For our customers and suppliers participating in data exchange, SAP Concur is maintaining our file transfer subsystem to provide greater security for those file transfers.

SAP Concur will begin 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 the end of 2020. 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.

Financial Integration

The Financial Integration Service (FIS) allows an external system to interact with financial documents generated from SAP Concur, for financial postings into their financial system.

This service provides an automated solution to request available data objects such as approved expense claims, cash advances and invoices. The objects can be imported to the client internal ERP, then the integration can send posting confirmation back into Concur Expense and/or Concur Invoice.

The Financial Integration Service works with custom connectors, applications from the SAP Concur App Centre, and client-built integrations.

For more information, refer to the Shared: Financial Integration Service Setup Guide.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: With FIS there are several benefits:

• A complete end-to-end workflow of the expense claim and spend visibility between SAP Concur and ERP.

• The client ERP can now send posting feedback to SAP Concur via bi-directional communication.

• Posting feedback is captured in SAP Concur where claims can be either modified or sent back to employee for correction, and reposted to the ERP.

• Improved accuracy and synchronisation between systems.

• No more overnight processing as this process provides the client with near real-time posting and feedback.

NextGen UI

The continued evolution of the Concur Expense solution user interface experience is the result of thoughtful design and research that provides a modern, intuitive and streamlined experience for creating and submitting expense claims.

Concur Expense customers have the ability to preview and then opt in to the NextGen UI before the mandatory move.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The result is the next generation of the Concur Expense user interface designed to provide a modern, consistent and streamlined user experience. This technology not only provides an enhanced user interface, but also allows us to react more quickly to customer requests to meet changing needs as they happen.

Receipts

In December 2020, the ability to capture and upload electronic fapiao into Concur Expense will be available. The Fapiao Receipt Integration feature enables customers to attach an electronic fapiao to an expense according to Chinese regulatory or government authorities.

A fapiao is a legal receipt required for business transactions, employee reimbursement and VAT deduction. A fapiao is issued by the State Taxation Administration of the People's Republic of China, but provided by the merchant.

The feature is available to new and existing clients based in China and deployed to the China datacentre. Other data centres are not included at this time.

This feature includes:

• Offering an electronic fapiao solution in compliance with State Taxation Administration of the People's Republic of China and as provided by the merchant

• Providing reimbursement and VAT reporting process efficiency, reducing time to perform these tasks

• Offering capture of non-VAT fapiao and other documents, such as rail tickets, taxi fapiao and official airline tickets

• Improving efficiency when capturing and merging multiple documents into one e-receipt transaction

• Displaying fapiao information in custom fields in Concur Expense with assistance from an SAP implementation coach

For more information, refer to the State Taxation Administration of the People's Republic of China website.

CAPTURING FAPIAO

To capture legal copies of original paper receipts, customers must use an SAP Concur mini programme embedded in the WeChat™ mobile app. Customers can also upload fapiao information from the WeChat wallet. The user takes a picture of the paper receipt within the mobile app. Once the picture is taken, the mobile app uploads the image to an approved third-party supplier for validation. A message is returned to the user in the mobile app indicating success or failure.

Once the image capture is verified, a Validated stamp displays on the electronic fapiao in the SAP Concur mini app in the WeChat programme, indicating the electronic fapiao is validated.

Concur Expense will post a Standard Accounting Extract (SAE) together with fapiao details to various SAP VAT management systems for monthly VAT processing and reporting to China's e-tax filing system.

The captured electronic fapiao displays for users in Concur Expense in Available Expenses, Available Receipts and in the expense list, like any other receipt.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides a paperless receipt option that adheres to requirements and regulations for China for paper into electronic tax receipt processing and compliance.

Release Notes

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 will be updated to reflect this change.

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

Security

Beginning with the November release, when a user prints an expense claim, a warning message now appears to inform the user that their web browser might cache some sensitive information contained in the expense claim. The message recommends clearing browser cache and deleting downloaded expense claims when they are no longer needed.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change improves the security of sensitive information that might be included in an expense claim.

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

In early October, the SAP Concur networking team noted that their configuration of the Content Delivery System had been blocking the protocols in the list that follows for some time.

As such, the notice to customers that we would be making a change to our F5 Client SSL profile was superfluous, as those aspects of the existing profile were not actually available. SAP Concur made changes to the F5 Client SSL profile on 7 October as well, in the interest of maintaining a strong security profile.

This means that there was no new effect for customers, as the following protocols had already been blocked previously:

• SSL v2

• SSL v3

• TLS v1.0

• TLS v1.1

• 3DES cipher suite

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update provides ongoing security for our products and services.

User Interface

Instances of Country or Countries on the user interface are being updated to Country/Region and Countries/Regions, respectively.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides a better global user experience.

API

The Launch External URL v4 callout enables Concur Expense to display a field with an attached button that launches a separate browser window when clicked. The window is controlled by an application connector, created by a third-party developer or the client. The application connector is a web server that presents information in the window.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The Launch External URL v4 callout gives clients and third-party developers the ability to extend the functionality of the SAP Concur platform, providing a means to deliver custom user interactions, or access functionality found in an external system.

The Launch External URL v4 callout will be available for Concur Expense within SAP Concur’s mobile app and NextGen UI at the Claim Header, Expense Entry or Allocation levels, which expands the locations of the feature as compared to the previous version. The Launch External URL v4 callout will provide enhanced security benefits, such as leveraging the latest SAP Concur API authentication methods. The Launch External URL v4 will also offer additional parameters and will work in conjunction with SAP Concur’s more advanced v4 APIs.

Attendees

These changes are also part of the NextGen UI experience.

Users searching for employees to add as attendees to an expense will soon have additional filter options that can be used to narrow search results, helping make the identification of employees accurate and efficient.

Currently, searching for employee attendees can prove difficult as there may be no fields available to search by other than first name and last name.

With this update, the default advanced search view for employee attendees will automatically include the addition of email addresses and country filters.

This feature update includes the following benefits:

• Accurate identification of employees, particularly for those with the same first and last name

• Improved efficiency for employee searches by providing filters that help narrow relevant search results

• Simplified employee attendee management, eliminating the need to use an attendee import to update attendee data for the SYSEMP attendee type

• Optional inclusion of inactive employees in attendee searches

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update helps make searching for employee attendees more efficient and also simplifies the management of employee attendees by removing the need to use an attendee import to update the attendee data of the SYSEMP attendee type.