Authentication

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.

Cards

These changes are part of the NextGen UI experience.

With this release, clients who have migrated to the NextGen UI for Concur Expense are now able to access Company Bill Statement (CBS) reports. CBS has been updated with a new look, and the purchasing card owner now has gained visibility and clarity on tasks that need to be performed. While the user interface (UI) has been improved with new elements and messaging, the basic functionality of creating Company Bill Statement reports remains the same.

Company Bill Statements includes the following enhancements:

• Manual creation of a statement report from Available Expenses

• Reduced number of unassigned purchase card transactions displayed in Available Expenses (including when an expense type is undefined)

• Improved visibility of unassigned purchase card transactions using a new All Expenses filter in Available Expenses, which includes the display of all purchase cards

• Clarified messaging to inform users when selections cannot be moved to a single report

• The ability for delegates and proxy roles to view the statement report

For more information, refer to the NextGen UI for Concur Expense – End User Transition Guide (English only).

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change allows existing clients who use Company Bill Statement reports to migrate to the NextGen UI for Concur Expense and benefit from the new enhancements.

With the January 2021 release, the Account Number field on the Create New Card Account page was updated to allow configuration of account numbers with as few as 12 digits. Previously, the Account Number field would only allow configuration for account numbers with at least 14 digits.

This change occurred because AirPlus will separate Virtual Cards from the company account and implement new 12-digit account numbers for them in March 2021.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change ensures that lodge accounts with account numbers as few as 12 digits can be configured. This change also helps ensure that there is no disruption in the processing of card transactions for AirPlus clients.

Expense Pay – Classic

The classic Expense Pay solution from SAP Concur made changes required to support electronic Direct Debit Authorisation (E-DDA) process for the Hong Kong Dollar (HKD).

A unique "Debtor’s Reference" number is now required to be submitted using the Direct Debit Authorisation form which is sent to the SAP Concur processing bank.

This unique reference number will be provided to you by SAP Concur implementation or support resources and will be displayed in the new Customer's Reference Number field on the Funding Account page in Concur Expense.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These changes maintain compliance with the requirements of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).

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 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.

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

• Key ID 40AC5D35

• 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 (key ID D4D727C0) 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.

This announcement pertains to the following file transfer DNS endpoints:

• st.concursolutions.com

• mft-us.concursolutions.com

• vs.concursolutions.com

• st-eu.concursolutions.com

• mft-eu.concursolutions.com

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

Help Menu

SAP Concur has added the Service Description Guide link to the Help menu on the SAP Concur home page. This change is provided in accordance with SAP Concur Legal requirements.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update allows access to the Service Description guide from within SAP Concur products.

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.

Policies

This change is part of the NextGen UI experience for Professional edition clients.

A new policy setting, Disable Travel Allowance, is available for clients using the NextGen UI .

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change gives admins the ability to configure each policy to prompt or not prompt the user for travel allowances.

Workflow

If enabled, a new setting labelled Automatically assign authorised approvers will ensure that all authorised approval steps in the workflow are pre-populated with an assigned authorised approver.

Without this new setting, when there are multiple authorised approvers to choose from, the user is required to select a name before the report can proceed to the next workflow step.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Using this setting ensures that all authorised approval steps have an assigned approver for the expense report without user action. For most organisations, there is typically one choice per step or a small number of possible approvers, whereby any of them is eligible.

There are no planned changes this month.