API Release Notes, April 2021

Contents

Ongoing: Retirement and Decommission of Existing Concur Request APIs (v1.0, v3.0, v3.1)

Effective July 1, 2020, SAP Concur has retired the Concur Request APIs (v1.0, v3.0, and v3.1). These APIs are replaced by the Concur Request v4 API.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

The Concur Request APIs v1.0, v3.0, and v3.1 only support the previous authentication method, which is not best security practice and does not meet the Oauth2 standards. In addition, the previous versions of the Concur Request APIs provided limited possibilities for moving a Request through the approval workflow, as well as managing custom simple & connected list fields. These issues are resolved with the new Concur Request v4 API.

In addition, SAP Concur has run a backward compatibility project between the current Concur Request APIs and the new Concur Request v4 API (not iso-compatibility) in order to have the vast majority of use cases managed in the previous versions also be managed in the Concur Request v4 API.

Ongoing: Retirement of List v1 API

Effective July 15, 2021, SAP Concur will retire the List v1 API, so it will not be supported after that date. This API is replaced by the List v4 API.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

This update removes an outdated API. The List v4 APIs use more secure and modern, fine-grained methods. These APIs use Universal Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) and use JSON instead of XML. Also, authentication to the List v4 APIs may be performed with a User JWT or a Company JWT, providing the opportunity to apply the principle of least privilege.

Configuration / Feature Activation

The List v1 API is being retired in accordance with the SAP Concur API Lifecycle & Deprecation Policy.

If you currently use the List v1 API, please plan to migrate to the List Item v4 API as soon as possible.

Ongoing: Deprecation of List v3 API

Effective April 16, 2021, SAP Concur has deprecated the List v3 API. This API is replaced by the List v4 API. List v3 is planned to be retired in a future release.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

This update removes an outdated API. The List v4 APIs use more secure and modern, fine-grained methods. These APIs use Universal Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) and use JSON instead of XML. Also, authentication to the List v4 APIs may be performed with a User JWT or a Company JWT, providing the opportunity to apply the principle of least privilege.

Configuration / Feature Activation

The List v3 API has been deprecated in accordance with the SAP Concur API Lifecycle & Deprecation Policy.

If you currently use the List v3 API, please migrate to the List v4 API as soon as possible.

Ongoing: Deprecation of List Item v3 API

Effective April 16, 2021, SAP Concur has deprecates the List Item v3 API. This API is replaced by the List Item v4 API. List Item v3 is planned to be retired in a future release.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

This update removes an outdated API. The List Item v4 APIs use more secure and modern, fine-grained methods. These APIs use Universal Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) and use JSON instead of XML. Also, authentication to the List Item v4 APIs may be performed with a User JWT or a Company JWT, providing the opportunity to apply the principle of least privilege.

Configuration / Feature Activation

The List Item v3 API has been deprecated in accordance with the SAP Concur API Lifecycle & Deprecation Policy.

If you currently use the List Item v3 API, please migrate to the List Item v4 API as soon as possible.

Planned Changes: Deprecation of Travel Profile Notification v1 API

SAP Concur is deprecating the Travel Profile Notification v1 APIs due to low usage.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

The Travel Profile Notification v1 APIs support older, less secure authentication methods.

Configuration / Feature Activation

The Travel Profile v1 APIs are being deprecated in accordance with the SAP Concur API Lifecycle & Deprecation Policy.

Planned Changes: Identity v4 API Available

The Identity v4 service will enable callers to create, read, update, and delete a user’s core/identity profile information.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

With granular access control, this API can be used access to user’s profile information on a need-to-know basis.

Planned Changes: Cash Advance v4 API Available

The Cash Advance API will empower an employee to request and receive cash in advance of a trip. Cash Advance will ensure that a user is not out of cash during a business trip. In markets where corporate cards are seldom issued, Cash Advance will provide a useful mechanism to ensure the employee is not out of pocket.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

SAP Concur Cash Advance API will provide partners and customers the ability to manage cash advances. While using the API, customers can create, view, and issue a cash advance. The API will help customers to customize the usage of cash advances according to their needs.

Planned Changes: Travel Profile v2 Canonical Value Changes

Currently, SAP Concur will be enforcing validation for the NamePrefix, NameSuffix, and PreferredLanguage fields. SAP Concur will be enforcing canonical values for these three fields, in two phases:

  • In April 2021, existing values that are not on the list of canonical values for these three fields, will be returned to callers of the GET requests as empty strings.
  • In May, 2021, any updates to these three fields that do not conform to the lists of canonical values, will be set as an empty string in the user’s profile, and the API will return an error.

Updates to other user profile fields will not be affected.

For more information, refer to the Travel Profile v2 API Travel Service Guide.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

Reduction of risk in sharing personal data in unintended ways. More consistent user data will result in better stability and fewer escalations.

Configuration / Feature Activation

This feature is enabled by default. There are no configuration steps.

Planned Changes: Deprecation of Bulk User v3.1 API

SAP Concur will be deprecating Bulk User 3.1 in 2021. This API will be replaced by Identity v4. After the deprecation of Bulk User v3.1 retirement will follow.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

This update will remove an outdated API. The Identity v4 API allows for a granular access control and fetch limited data as per the need. This service is more resilient than Bulk User v3.1 API.

Configuration / Feature Activation

The Bulk User v3.1 API is being deprecated in accordance with the SAP Concur API Lifecycle & Deprecation Policy.

If you currently use the Bulk User v3.1 API, please plan to migrate to the Identity v4 API as soon as possible.

Planned Changes: Request v4 API Agency Proposal Endpoint

SAP Concur will soon be releasing an additional Request v4 API endpoint that will offer the ability for travel agencies to interact with Concur Request to propose travel itineraries directly into a request, via the agency proposal feature with Request v4 API.

The support of the agency proposal feature through our v4 APIs, available on the Request NexGen UI, will bring benefits of a better experience, simpler connectivity, and deeper integration between travel agencies and Concur Request, as well as a better user experience in their interaction with their travel agencies.

This new endpoint will provide added value to the existing Request v4 API, which already offers the ability for a user to interact with Concur Request to perform the following:

  • Get the list of existing Requests.
  • Get the detailed information of existing Requests.
  • Create, Read, Update, or Delete an existing Request.
  • Move an existing Request through the approval flow.
  • Get the list of Expected Expenses (including trip segments) in a Request.
  • Create, Read, Update, or Delete an expected expense (including trip segments) for a Request.
  • Get the list of Request policies assigned to a given user.
  • Get information of a travel agency office.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

This additional endpoint will provide better capabilities for travel agencies who want to benefit from the Concur Request agency proposal feature with a direct consumption of the Request v4 API.

Configuration / Feature Activation

Depending on your travel agency, this feature may not be available for your company. Please liaise with your travel agency to confirm their development completion of the required Request v4 API endpoints to benefit from this feature.

Additional information, please see the Request v4 API documentation.

Planned Changes: New Invoice Pay v4 GET Call Parameter

SAP Concur will be releasing an additional parameter for the Invoice Pay v4 API. GET calls will have the option to use the new invoiceId parameter to retrieve payment information and the ERP Document ID associated to the invoice.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

This update will allow Invoice Payment Provider Partners to retrieve the payment information and ERP Document ID of a single invoice.

Configuration / Feature Activation

The feature will be automatically available; there will be no additional configuration or activation steps.

Planned Changes: New Invoice Pay v4 PATCH Endpoint

SAP Concur will be releasing a PATCH endpoint for the Invoice Pay v4 API. With the new PATCH, the invoice will be updated with the erpDocumentNumber value in the body whenever an invoiceId is passed as part of the API URL.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

This update will allow Invoice Payment Provider Partners to update the ERP Document ID field on an invoice. Customers will then be able to use the ERP Document ID to help reconcile extracted invoices from SAP Concur with invoices in their ERP system.

Configuration / Feature Activation

The feature will be automatically available; there will be no additional configuration or activation steps.

Comments v4 API Available

SAP Concur has introduced the Comments v4 API to provide comments data. Customers and partners can read the data recorded in the comments at the report and expense level.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

Employees and approvers use comments to record an exception with respect to a spend policy or reasons for approving an expense that would normally not be allowed. This data can be beneficial for audit and compliance partners who are flagging these expenses for review, thereby creating false positives for downstream approvers.

Event Subscription Service API Available

The Event Subscription Service (ESS) is part of event-driven architecture in the SAP Concur platform. This allows clients and partners to be notified through webhooks when certain actions take place in any business workflow. When the business or system event occurs, ESS will send that event to the configured endpoint with the relevant information.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

Subscribing to a SAP Concur topic is the best way to integrate business workflow with SAP Concur products. If you already have an integration with SAP Concur, ESS allows you to move from an API polling pattern to an Event Driven approach in order reduce reaction time on your user’s or customer’s actions within SAP Concur products.

Expense v4 API Event Subscription Service Topic Available

Concur Expense has introduces a Report Status Changed event using the Event Subscription Service API on the public.concur.expense.report topic. Customers and partners can subscribe to events that will be published as the report traverses through the workflow.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit

Notification when a report is at a workflow step avoids the need for a client to keep polling via APIs at regular intervals to identify reports that are in a particular status. The event message bus is a reliable medium for receiving these notifications and will simplify the sequence of calls required to complete the use cases for clients and partners.

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