Concur Invoice Professional Edition Administration Help

December 2016 Request Professional Edition Admin Summary

Request

Passive Approval Now Available

Prior to this release, when the request approval date expires, the request remains in the Pending Approval status, leading to an inconsistency between the trip and the request status. With the Passive Approval feature, the approver can choose whether to act on a request that is pending their approval. If the approver does not act on the request, the request is updated with the passive approval action. The Passive Approval feature contains the following functionality:

  • The ability to set an expiration timeframe (in days post-submit) for requests pending approval. Once the expiration date is reached, the passive approval action is applied to the request.

  • The ability to choose the passive approval action, either Approve or Send Back.

  • The ability to trigger the passive approval action a number of hours prior to the Last Approved Date of the request. The Last Approved Date is configured in Travel. The passive approval actions settings are configured at the policy level.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: A passive approval option exists in Concur Travel standalone. Prior to this feature, in Request, if the approver did not approve a request before the Last Approval Date, the trip would be cancelled. The Passive Approval feature in Request allows clients to configure an auto-approval (or send back) before the Last Approval Date. This prevents the trip from being cancelled. This feature is important in countries where the approval time limit is very short. Many companies prefer to let the traveller book their trip even without approval, rather than cancelling it if the trip is not approved in time.

Post Approval Trip Update Now Available

Concur has added the Post Approval Trip Update feature to Request. Oftentimes, travellers book their trip in advance to attend a meeting, and the meeting is extended or moved. If their travel request is already approved, they can't change their plan unless they contact their TMC, and accrue higher booking fees. The Post Approval Trip Update feature allows users to make changes to an approved request without having to go through their TMC. The feature contains the following functionality:

  • The user can recall an approved request, and change the trip associated with it, then resubmit the request. Once the user recalls the request, if it is already past the Last Approved Date, then the user has 24 hours from the time they recalled the request to resubmit it, or the trip will be cancelled.

    If the approval time limit did not change and is in the past, the user has 24 hours from the recall to modify the trip and get the request approved. Otherwise the trip will be cancelled.

  • A new workflow variable, Previous Approved Amount, allows administrators to configure a workflow step rule based on how much difference exists between the previous approved amount and the new amount. Concur recommends that clients skip approval on the resubmitted request unless the amount has changed significantly.

  • If the request requires approval after re-submit, and does not receive that approval before the approval time limit, the trip is cancelled. The post approval trip update feature is only available to clients with a TMC that supports the feature.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The trip modification after approval exists in Concur Travel standalone. This enhancement allows clients with Travel integrated with Request to update trips after approval. It is also possible to require a second approval after the trip is updated.

Online Help - New Languages Available

Concur has updated and expanded the translated online help available for clients. In the December 2016 release, the Help menu links point to the new translated help. The following languages have been promoted from Tier 2 to Tier 1:

  • Czech (cs)

  • Danish (da)

  • Finnish (fi)

  • Korean (ko)

  • Norwegian (no)

  • Polish (pl)

  • Russian (ru)

In addition, the translations for the existing Tier 1 languages have been updated.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The new help content provides current translations for 21 languages, giving the end users of global clients more information to help them succeed.

Release Note Admin Summaries Now Available in Online Help

Concur has enhanced the release note information available in the online help, by adding new pages that present release note information and Admin Summaries. The What's New and Release Note Admin Summary links now appear in the left menu of the online help for all admin users.

The release note Admin Summaries (HTML format) will be translated into all Tier 1 languages. The administrator can also view the full release notes (English only, in DOC or PDF format), and the release calendar. The translated Admin Summaries will be available through these pages shortly after the monthly release.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The What's New page brings together all the information that Concur provides for each release, giving busy administrators a single location to check. The new Admin Summary translations provide global administrators a summary of monthly changes in their language.

Update Background Images on the Sign-In Page for ConcurSolutions.com

Every quarter the cycled background images on the Sign-In page are refreshed with new images. Applies to Sign-In page. Applies to both Professional and Standard versions.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Adds a fresh look to the Sign-In page.

Administration

Import Extract Admin – Job Run Confirmation and Logging Changes

With this release, the Import/Extract Administrator and Import/Extract Monitor roles will now see a confirmation message when they elect to execute an import or extract job using options in the Import/Extract Administrator tool. In addition, when the job is requested, the action is logged by the system to the Change Log tool where the email address of the employee originating the job run is recorded for auditing purposes.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This enhancement prevents accidental job runs by forcing the admin to perform a second step to confirm they want the job to run.

**Coming Soon** Support for TLS v 1.0 Encryption Protocol to End March of 2017

Concur announces an End of Support (March 2017) cycle for version 1.0 of the TLS encryption protocol, continuing support for the more secure 1.1 and 1.2 versions of TLS. As background, the TLS protocol allows secure back and forth communications between a phone or computer and a cloud-based service. Note that, since less than 1% of Concur users are logging in to Concur Solutions using browsers or phones limited to version 1.0, a very small number of users are affected by this support discontinuation.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Concur is taking this step after careful consideration of both the client’s security and ease of upgrade to the newer, more secure 1.1 and 1.2 versions of TLS. This end of life plan for TLS v 1.0 ensures our clients are communicating with Concur services in a safe and secure manner using TLS v. 1.1 and newer.