SAP Community - SAP Concur

Ensuring Data Fortification: The Crucial Role of Strong Passwords in Employee File Imports

2023-12-13T19:17:58+01:00

In the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity, organizations are continually enhancing their defenses to safeguard sensitive information. One crucial aspect of this defense strategy is the strength management of passwords, particularly within the context of employee file imports. In this blog post, we will explore the reasons behind the imperative for password strength and how it contributes to bolstering the overall security posture of an organization.

The Security Imperative:

1. Proactive Defense:

Password strength validation serves as a proactive defense mechanism against potential security threats. By ensuring that passwords are strong organizations can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized access resulting from compromised credentials.

2. Incident Response:

In the unfortunate event of a security incident, swift action is paramount. One of the immediate measures taken is often the forced change of passwords. Password strength validation helps to contain the impact and thwart further unauthorized access by blocking weak or common passwords. When passwords do not meet the validation standards within password provisioning, the following will be seen.

Compliance and Best Practices:

3. Regulatory Compliance:

Various industries and regions have established regulations that mandate password strength validation. Adhering to these compliance requirements not only ensures legal conformity but also strengthens an organization's overall security posture.

4. Internal Policies and Guidelines:

Many organizations have internal policies and guidelines that advocate for password strength validation. Concur supports these policies that are designed to align with industry best practices and maintain a secure digital environment.

Employee Lifecycle Management:

5. Onboarding Security:

When onboarding new employees, assigning temporary passwords and mandating a change upon the first login is a common practice, this process opens a risk for the sharing of passwords without validation. Concur requires new users to set a password through the forgot password flow that validates password strength or use Concur's new 2FA functionality. Following these processes ensures that new hires are actively engaged in securing their accounts from the outset.

6. Offboarding Security:

Employee departures or role changes necessitate password resets to prevent any potential misuse of credentials. This essential step is part of the broader offboarding process to maintain data integrity.

Technological Advancements:

7. Password Complexity and Strength:

As security standards evolve, so do password complexity requirements. Organizations may initiate password changes during employee file imports to align with updated policies and enhance the strength of authentication mechanisms.

8. System and Software Upgrades:

With the continuous evolution of technology, system and software upgrades are inevitable. Password changes may be a necessary component of these upgrades, ensuring that security features remain at the forefront of protection.

Striking the Right Balance:

9. User Education and Awareness:

Active user participation is key to the success of any security strategy. Encouraging employees to change passwords regularly through education and awareness programs fosters a culture of cybersecurity consciousness.

10. Risk Mitigation:

Password strength validation in response to emerging threats or vulnerabilities is a strategic move to mitigate risks before they escalate. This approach demonstrates a commitment to staying ahead of potential security challenges.

Conclusion:

The implementation of password strength validation within employee file imports is not just a routine IT task; it's a fundamental pillar of an organization's cybersecurity strategy. By understanding the reasons behind these changes and adopting a holistic approach that combines technology, policy, and user awareness, organizations can fortify their defenses and stay resilient in the face of evolving cyber threats. Password strength validation is not merely a compliance checkbox; it is a proactive measure to safeguard the digital assets that underpin the success of modern enterprises.

New enablement content for SAP Ariba, SAP Concur and SAP Fieldglass

2023-12-20T00:04:24+01:00

In July 2023, we unveiled the SAP Enterprise Support value map for Spend Management and Business Network, which included dedicated learning content for SAP Ariba. We are excited to share that we have recently expanded the value map to incorporate additional content for SAP Fieldglass and SAP Concur. This enhancement ensures a holistic and integrated approach for SAP Enterprise Support customers across spend management solutions.

Value maps provide self-paced learnings, expert-led live sessions, collaborative forums, and access to SAP experts; all included as part of your SAP Cloud subscription contract.

In this updated version you will find new enablement material for SAP Ariba, SAP Concur and SAP Fieldglass, not to mention additional resources such as topic specific value accelerators and links to the most up-to-date release information, which can be found in the Release Navigator.

What’s New?

Redesigned home page layout

The addition of SAP Concur and SAP Fieldglass

Enablement material including new learning journeys, additional resources and value accelerators across solutions

Where to access

3 Easy Steps:

One-time sign-up for SAP Learning Hub, edition for SAP Enterprise Support, is required

Access value maps

Navigate to the SAP Enterprise Support value map for Spend Management and Business Network

Once in the value map, we welcome you to collaborate in our forums, ask questions or “Request a Call” to speak with one of our experts for further help. Value maps are easy to navigate but an on-boarding call allows us to tailor the conversation to suit your needs and highlight specific content for you.

Explore the new value map to unlock the full potential of SAP's intelligent spend management solutions. Dive in to discover what's new and make the most of our offerings tailored just for you. Your journey to optimized spend management begins here!

Got a question about the value maps, or our content? Leverage the “ask questions” feature in the value map or contact us:sapesvaluemaps@sap.com

Where can I get started with Concur Expense learning?

2023-12-22T17:46:09.725000+01:00

You can build the skills you need, for free and at your own pace with our Digital Learning Journey.
on our SAP Learning Site

Access our Getting Started with Concur Expense Learning Journey for Customer Users learning journey

Overview
This learning journey with demos and practice simulations will introduce business users to the basics of Concur Expense such as profile features, creating a new expense report, the expense report approval process and roles, as well as additional expense report features needed to be successful in submitting their expense reports.

Learning objectives

Explain an overview of SAP Concur and how to do basic tasks (signing in, profile, home page).
Set Up Your Concur Expense Profile.
Create a New Expense Report and basic expense line items.
Explain What Happens Once You Submit your Expense Report.
Set up Additional Expense Report Features.

Pass all the quizzes and receive a digital badge

Please ask a question related to the digital learning Journey in the Q&A area
Our SAP Learning Experts will get back to you as soon as possible! We are here to support you.

We appreciate your feedback and we will make sure to continue sharing interesting topics.

Kind regards
Margit

Migrating to User Provisioning Service v4 API from User v1 and Bulk v3x

2024-01-03T12:33:29+01:00

Welcome to the fifth installment in a six-part series made by actual Technical Consultants working at SAP Concur on Concur’s new Identity and User Provisioning Services (UPS). The last post discussed the use of Role Codes and entitlements. Today’s post is an introduction to migrating to UPS from older APIs. Much of this information also applies to migrating from the employee import flat file. This post will focus specifically on migrating from other APIs. Please note that the User v1 and Bulk v3x APIs are being decommissioned in May 2024.

I have been a Technical Consultant with SAP Concur for more than 10 years, working with clients of all sizes to implement Concur. Many of those clients are looking for a method of maintaining Concur employee profiles that fits today's demand of near real-time synchronization.

SAP Concur's latest User Provisioning Service (UPS) API is a robust and powerful tool built on the SCIM standard. All functionality in User v1 and Bulk v3 API is supported by UPS v4

Now is a great time to consider migrating to UPS. To get started, please review the following Use Case.

Migrating to User Provisioning Service v4 API from User v1 and Bulk v3x

This use case covers:

Where to find attribute mapping from the employee import file, User v1 and Bulk v3 APIs.

General steps to plan out your migration

A link to a detailed implementation guide for UPS

When planning your migration, please keep the following in mind.

User v1 manages users as a batch, even if the batch contains only one user. UPSv4 has batch and individual user capabilities.

UPS follows the SCIM standard. SAP Concur has grouped the identity attributes of a user into the core and enterprise extensions separate from spend and travel attributes. When a new user is provisioned, an immutable UUID is created for that user. It is required for spend and travel provisioning updates.

Requests are processed asynchronously. The provisioning status URI must be reviewed to verify the status of the request and view any error messages should the request fail. Please refer to the 3rd blog in this series for more information regarding this. Concur User Provisioning Service: Synchronous vs Asynchronous calls with UPS and how they work together | SAP Blogs

Please take note that the User v1 and Bulk v3x APIs are being decommissioned in May 2024. If you would like to continue using APIs to manage your data after that time, you will need to migrate to UPS.

I hope you find this information to be helpful to start your profile maintenance migration planning. The last blog in this series on best practice and debugging tips will be posted soon. In case you missed our previous posts, please see the links below to access those.

Introducing SAP Concur’ s Identity and User Provisioning Webservices | SAP Blogs

Concur User Provisioning Service: Understanding the differences between Identity, Spend and Travel | SAP Blogs

Concur User Provisioning Service: Synchronous vs Asynchronous calls with UPS and how they work together | SAP Blogs

SAP Concur User Provisioning: Assigning Entitlements and Roles | SAP Blogs

Best Practices for Utilizing Concur’s Identity v4 and User Provisioning v4 Webservices | SAP Blogs

Best Practices for Utilizing Concur’s Identity v4 and User Provisioning v4 Webservices

2024-01-03T17:49:27+01:00

Hi all. I am back again to wrap up the final post in the six-part series made by actual Technical Consultants working at SAP Concur on Concur’ s new Identity and User Provisioning webservices. In this last post, we will address best practices and tips and tricks for using the new services.

Concur’ s User Provisioning Service and Identity APIs provide powerful capabilities for managing user accounts and access within the Concur platform. However, there are a few things to keep in mind that can help ensure you have a smooth integration and maximize the benefits of these APIs.

1. Plan Your Integration Strategy:

Create a clear integration plan that aligns with your company’s requirements. Determine the scope of the integration, such as which user fields or access roles should be maintained by the interface before coding a solution.

Spend some time clarifying the use cases with your business team that you will maintain with UPS and Identity and plan in advance where you will get the data. Many of the fields within Concur are best left to a system administrator or the employee themselves to maintain. It is also best to only populate the data that you really need. There are many more fields available in Identity and UPS than what is actually needed in Concur. If you are having difficulty determining the correct field to use, please reach out to a Technical Consultant for help.

Once you have identified the fields that you want to maintain, I recommend that you spend time mapping those fields into their corresponding extension sets so that you will know where everything needs to go in advance. As mentioned in a previous post, Concur has created a mapping guide for customers that are converting from existing flat files or upgrading to the new API’s from a previous version. These can really help. Here is a link to those guides.

Mapping guides between flat file types and APIs

2. Understand the APIs:

Before diving into implementation, take the time to thoroughly understand the functionality and capabilities of Concur’ s User Provisioning Service and Identity APIs. Familiarize yourself with the documentation, including all of the different calling methods, endpoints, request/response formats, and authentication mechanisms.

It is best to know upfront what you are getting into.   If you have any questions about authenticating, a Concur Technical consultant can help you get connected quickly. The previous posts in this series highlight the high-level concepts about how the services function. The next step is to decide what types of calls you will make. A recommended best practice is to create your users with Identity and then layer your data from Spend and Travel on top of it.

You will want to use a “Post” call to create a new user and we recommend that you use a “Patch” call to make your updates throughout the year.  Don’t use the “Delete” operation, inactivate your users instead and save the “Put” operation for a reorganization where you need to reset and reorganize all fields for a given user.

Also, despite the name, “bulk” updates are not necessarily a faster way of making your user updates because it can be more difficult to page through the update results to find errors. The “Users” update is almost as fast as bulk and makes troubleshooting much easier.

Finally, we recommend that you store a Concur user’s UUID after successfully creating a user in the system.   This will allow you to a) determine that the user has already been created in Concur and b) quickly and easily patch only the fields that need to be updated minimizing processing time while also leaving everything else that does not need to be updated untouched.

3. Consider the Timing and Frequency:

Consider the timing and frequency of data synchronization and the potential impact on user experience. A well-thought-out integration strategy will ensure a seamless user provisioning process.

By all means take advantage of the real time nature of the API updates, but consider the entire end to end flow and all of the systems that need to be updated in-between before making your updates in Concur. For example, if your HR system updates a 10 AM each day, but your financial system does not get updated until Noon, it may be best to wait until 1 PM to send data to Concur in order to avoid any unnecessary errors due a temporary delay in synchronizing master data between all of your systems.

4. Handle Errors and Exceptions:

Develop robust error handling mechanisms to handle exceptions and errors that may occur during the integration process. Implement appropriate error logging and notification mechanisms to ensure timely identification and resolution of any issues.

When making updates to Spend or Travel data it is critical to capture and check the provisioning id of the updates that you made. This will allow you to see the specific errors that have occurred in each update request. In addition, it is important to know that more than one error may be identified in the update request you make so your logging mechanism should attempt to capture as many error messages as possible in your logs to avoid having to make multiple update attempts.

5. Monitor and Maintain Integration:

Regularly monitor the integration to ensure its smooth operation. Implement monitoring mechanisms to identify possible reoccurring issues, track API usage, and performance metrics. Set up alerts and notifications to promptly identify and address issues.

Consider implementing a periodic data validation check to ensure that the data that you care about between systems is staying in sync. Also, if the same type of error message is received for many different users, it could indicate that something in the processing chain has failed or changed and an adjustment is needed. Be sure to have a process in place to identify and get notified if a spike in errors occurs.

6. Stay Up-to-Date with API Changes:

APIs evolve over time, and Concur's Identity and User Provisioning Service APIs are no exception. Stay informed about API updates, including new features, deprecations, and version changes.

As stated at the beginning of this series, you can expect SAP Concur to continue to expand the functionality available with Identity and UPS until we have reached near parity with everything that is possible with flat file integrations.   In addition, new functionality that is only available through the new APIs is likely. Remember to keep checking in on our monthly release notes to get the latest updates on what is coming up.

Ok, this completes today’s post and wraps up the final post in our six-part series.   While the series is complete, I am sure that we will come up with new and interesting topics related to Identity and User Provisioning Services at Concur in the future so please continue to look for updates from us. You can find all posts made by Technical Consultants at Concur by looking at the user tag ‘SAP Concur Technical Consulting’.

Below are the links to the previous posts in this series.   We really hope that they have helped you obtain a firm understanding of our new Identity and User Provisioning Services.

Introducing SAP Concur’ s Identity and User Provisioning Webservices | SAP Blogs

Concur User Provisioning Service: Understanding the differences between Identity, Spend and Travel | SAP Blogs

Concur User Provisioning Service: Synchronous vs Asynchronous calls with UPS and how they work together | SAP Blogs

SAP Concur User Provisioning: Assigning Entitlements and Roles | SAP Blogs

Migrating to User Provisioning Service v4 API from User v1 and Bulk v3x | SAP Blogs

If you are getting serious about UPS and Identity now, also please be sure to check out our implementation guide and a sample postman collection located at the following link.

https://developer.concur.com/api-guides/user-provisioning/user-provisioning.html

How to provision user identities into Concur using Identity Provisioning

2024-01-04T09:31:28+01:00

I have been a Technical Consultant at SAP Concur for some time and have worked with many clients to help them build interfaces between their systems and SAP Concur. One requirement I regularly see come up is the need to provision user data into Concur.

The Identity Provisioning service automates identity lifecycle processes and helps customers provision identities to various cloud and on-premise business applications.

In this blogpost we are focusing on SAP and SAP Concur customers who can make use of the Identity Provisioning in combination with the Identity Authentication service to manage user identities and to provision those identities into Concur.

Features :

Pre-configured or semi-automated trust configuration

Common identity for users

Unified way for user management

Prerequisites:

Concur Expense/Request/Travel/Invoice Module

Identity Provisioning and Identity Authentication tenants

Implementation Considerations:

Customer’s Identity Provisioning and Identity Authentication tenants must be already deployed

Users must be created and maintained in Identity Authentication

The data being sent to Concur for provisioning the profile is determined by the fields supported by the Concur API being used (Identity V4), therefore additional integrations (flat file, APIs) must be used in order to complete the full user profile – see Exclusions section

Customer must have a Web Services Administrator user in Concur in order to be able to generate the request token required for the authentication between Identity Provisioning and Concur

Exclusions:

The user profile data created is limited to the fields supported by the Concur API being used (Identity V4). The list of fields not supported includes, but is not limited to:

Expense/Request/Travel/Invoice roles

OrgUnits and Custom fields information

Approver assignment

User preferences

Detailed Walkthrough:

Step 1. Obtain the Company UUID and the Request Token from Concur:

Log into Concur using a user that has the Web Services Administrator permission. Once connected, navigate to Home – Administration – Authentication Admin and select the Company Request Token option:

In the App ID field enter the Identity Provisioning App ID you will find in the following setup guide and click Submit. Make sure to copy the Company UUID and the Company Request Token that appear on the screen:

Step 2. Create and configure the Source System:

Connect to your Identity Authentication / Identity Provisioning tenant and go to Identity Provisioning – Source Systems:

Click Add and fill in the Type as Identity Authentication, assign System Name of choice and Save:

Generate the certificate that will be used as authentication method between Identity Provisioning and Identity Authentication. Go to the newly created Source System and click Outbound Certificates – Generate – Download:

Add system as administrator by going to Users and Authorizations – Administrators – Add – System – assign system admin Name and Save:

Once you save the options to configure the authentication are displayed. Choose Certificate – Browse to search for the previously downloaded certificate and Save once the certificate is imported:

Configure the properties of the source system by going to Identity Provisioning – Source Systems – select the newly created system – click Properties – Edit:

Add the properties as described in the setup guide:

Click Add and fill in:

Type as SAP Concur

System Name of choice

In the Source Systems field select the newly created Source System

Click Save:

In the newly created Target System click on Properties – Edit – Add to define the properties as detailed in the setup guide. Once completed, click Save:

Important: Please note that there are 2 types of properties you can add - Standard and Credential - and most of the properties you will need add are Standard. However, concur.authorization.code is a Credential property, so please make sure to select the correct property type from the list:

Optional: if required, you can define different parameters for the transformations. Details on the default transformation logic available by default can be found in the setup guide.

Step 4. Run, schedule and monitor the provisioning jobs:

Once the configuration is completed, provisioning jobs are ready to run to get the users from the source system (Identity Authentication) and provision them to the target system (SAP Concur). The provisioning job be run manually or scheduled via Identity Provisioning – Source Systems – select the respective source system – Jobs:

Job logs can then be reviewed via Identity Provisioning – Provisioning Logs:

Documentation:

Configure an SAP Concur Entity as an IdP Target (Concur guide)

Set up Concur as a target system for Identity Provisioning (SAP guide)

Setting up Identity Authentication as source system for Identity Provisioning

Security and Privacy of SAP Concur Solutions

2024-01-04T10:01:43+01:00

Introduction

SAP Concur commits to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of customer data and the development of solutions through the adoption of the SAP global security policy and internationally recognised standards. This blog covers all SAP Concur solutions including Concur Travel, Concur Expense, and Concur Invoice.

SAP Concur Certifications and Compliance

The below certificates, reports, and attestations can be found in the SAP Trust Center:

ISO 27001	SAP Concur has had an ISO certified information security management system (ISMS) since 2004.
ISO 9001	SAP has an ISO certified quality management system (QMS) for development. SAP Concur has been part of the SAP certification since 2019.
ISO 22301	SAP Concur has had an ISO certified business continuity management system (BCMS) since 2021.
PCI DSS	SAP Concur is audited annually by a PCI qualified security assessor (QSA) for PCI DSS and is Visa level 1 compliant.
SOC1 type II	SAP Concur uses SSAE18 and ISAE3402 standards. Reports are made available twice annually.
SOC2 type II	SAP Concur makes a SOC 2 type II report available annually.

SAP Trust Center - Compliance Documents

SAP Trust Center - Certifications

Hosting

SAP Concur has over a hundred micro-services running in AWS which comprise of application, customer data, and backup services. Services are distributed across multiple availability zones with no single point of failure.

Data Center Regions

Customer's choose a geo-graphical zone for the hosting of their data and can choose between the US or EMEA. See below for the AWS regions SAP Concur leverages within each geo-graphical zone:

Data Center	Application, Data, Backup	Remote Backup
North America	AWS Oregon	AWS Ohio
EMEA	AWS Germany	AWS Ireland

Data Center Listing for SAP Cloud Services

SAP Cloud Services - Data Centers.

Shared Responsibility Model

Sets out the responsibilities shared between SAP, customers and third-parties providing services under the agreement:

Responsibilities

SAP Security

SAP is responsible for the security of the cloud infrastructure. Overview of the Trust Model applicable to all SAP Cloud Services:

SAP: Delivering Trusted Cloud Solutions

AWS Security

AWS as the hyper-scaler providing infrastructure-as-a-service is responsible for the physical security of the data centre.

Overview of AWS physical and environmental controls specific to physical data centre and infrastructure services:

AWS Data Centers - Security Controls

Security of customers

Responsible for securing the application and data within the cloud environment. SAP Concur publishes security best practices for customer's to follow:

Protect Your SAP Concur Cloud

RISE with SAP Blog

Read the following blog written by Jana Subramanian to learn more about how the shared responsibility model has been standardised and adopted across all of SAP Cloud Services:

RISE with SAP: Shared Security Responsibility for SAP Cloud Services

Data Protection and Privacy

How SAP meets regulatory requirements

SAP cloud services offer enhanced DPP (data protection & privacy) protection to customers through robust security measures, data encryption, strict access controls, and compliance with global privacy regulations.

Measures

BS 10012	SAP Concur in conjunction with SAP SE was one of the first global organisations to attain the British Standard (BS 10012). A framework for managing personal information and ensuring compliance with international data protection regulations.
Data Processing Agreement (DPA)	The SAP Data Processing Agreement is standard across all SAP products and services and sets out the required terms for SAP Concur data processing.
Standard contractual clauses (SCCs)	Provides a reliable & legally recognised mechanism for the transfers of personal data outside the EEA.
Technical and organisational measures (TOMs)	Ensures adequate protections, legal compliance, risk management, transparency and provisions for accountability of data processing activity.
Sub processors	SAP-affiliated and third-party entities perform a crucial role in the delivery of the cloud service. Sub processors may provide infrastructure, operational or agreed & defined data processing services on behalf of SAP Concur.
Transfer impact assessments (TIAs)	Sub processor listings and transfer factsheets are maintained and published for customers via the SAP My Trust Center. Customers can subscribe for updates and get an email when a new version is available.

SAP Trust Center - Privacy Page

Learn more about how SAP meets DPP requirements:

SAP Trust Center - Data Privacy

Disclaimer

© 2024 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. See Legal Notice on www.sap.com/legal-notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to SAP Materials for general audiences.

Strong Identity : Integrating SAP Cloud Identity Services with SAP Concur

2024-01-16T07:32:16+01:00

Strong identity and enhanced security are essential in today’s advanced and interconnected world. SAP offers a comprehensive Identity Access Management (IAM) solution to its customers. IAM is a core part of SAP’s efforts to deliver integrated solutions for Intelligent Enterprise which includes the SAP Cloud Identity Services.  

Many SAP cloud solutions come preconfigured with Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning such as SAP SuccessFactors, SAP BTP – Business Technology Platform, SAP Build Work Zone, SAP IBP – Integrated Business Planning to name a few (more information on bundles). You can reap the benefits of the SAP Cloud Identity Services with your SAP Concur solution.   

Benefits of using SAP Cloud Identity Services: Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning       

SAP Cloud Identity Services currently consists of two main components: Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning. 

Identity Authentication:   

In cross-application business scenarios, users often face the hassle of logging in multiple times which is tedious and frustrating. Identity Authentication allows users to log in once and use single sign-on across SAP cloud business applications. This offers centralized security for authentication, protecting system-to-system communication and simplifying the user experience. Identity Authentication supports third-party corporate identity providers by acting as a proxy for delegated authentication.  

For ease of cross application communication, Identity Authentication creates and assigns a unique identifier (Global User ID) to each user, allowing every SAP solution to use the same identifier.  

Identity Provisioning:       

Identity Provisioning streamlines user management and identity lifecycle processes, eliminating the need for multiple systems by ensuring seamless integration across the Intelligent Enterprise landscape, making user information available in all systems. Customers can provision user profiles from source to target systems like the SAP Concur solutions, benefiting from simplified configuration and centralized user management. 

For more information, https://help.sap.com/docs/cloud-identity/what-are-sap-cloud-identity-services/what-are-sap-cloud-identity-services

Please visit the SAP community page for a wealth of information on SAP Cloud Identity Services from the active SAP community,

https://community.sap.com/topics/cloud-identity-services

To learn more about licensing and usage with third party applications, please visit the Licensing and Usage.  

We currently support the following configurations for SAP Concur:   

Concur Expense, Concur Request, Concur Invoice, and/or Concur Travel & Expense (Concur Travel only is not supported)

Customers who use their own identity provider (third-party IdP)

Customers who do not have their own identity provider (third-party IdP)

Customers that have at least one existing tenant of SAP Cloud Identity Services

Customers who have at least one SAP cloud solution in addition to their SAP Concur solution.

Since Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning are existing tenant, the tenant will be reused.   

Steps to receive Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning tenant for SAP Concur 

Step 1: Check with your SAP Concur account team to determine if you are eligible for provisioning of a tenant with Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning services.  

Step 2: When eligible, create a support case to initiate the provisioning of an SAP Cloud Identity Services tenant with Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning services.   

NOTE: Customers must create a case to set up Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning tenant provisioning for your SAP Concur entity even if they already have existing Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning tenant from other SAP solutions.   

Step 3: When the above two steps are complete, you can now configure Identity Authentication as single sign-on (SSO) for SAP Concur and Identity Provisioning having SAP Concur as a target system from within the SAP Cloud Identity Services administration console.   

 For more details, please check out, System Integration Guide for SAP Cloud Identity Services - SAP Concur integration scenario 

Detailed Walkthrough 

Here are the Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning configuration settings with SAP Concur, please refer to the below published blogs,   

https://blogs.sap.com/2023/12/05/sap-identity-authentication-service-ias-and-sap-concur/   and

https://blogs.sap.com/2024/01/04/how-to-provision-user-identities-into-concur-using-identity-provisioning/ 

NOTE: Identity Provisioning will provision core identity information into the SAP Concur solutions. SAP Concur offers two APIs – Identity v4 and User Provisioning Service to support the provisioning core identity information to SAP Concur. Based on your long-term goals, it is recommended using User Provisioning Service API to allow for the adoption of expansion of features without the need to reintegrate. The Spend profile information for the user must be updated using these SAP Concur APIs, or the SAP Concur user import.

Identity Provisioning may have identity attributes that SAP Concur does not support. Please reference Concur API documentation for supported attributes prior to transformation file creation. 

User Experience using Identity Authentication as Single Sign On (SSO) for SAP Concur   

The user experience for customers logging into SAP Concur using Identity Authentication as SSO is seamless, quick and user friendly.   

 Prerequisites:  

You already have Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning tenant provisioned.

Trust configuration is built between the SAP Concur solution and Identity Authentication

Identity Authentication is configured as the Source system in Identity Provisioning

The SAP Concur solution is configured as a Target system in Identity Provisioning

Users are created manually or via file import to Identity Authentication user management.

Users are provisioned from Identity Authentication/Source system into the SAP Concur solution successfully as active users.

Step 1: User to go to www.concursolutions.com     

Step 2: User to add their username/email address and Click Next.     

Step 3: Select the Sign in option for single sign on with Identity Authentication. Here, I selected “Sign in with IAS“ option (This field name is set up while configuring Identity Authentication for SAP Concur).  

Step 4: Since this is the first time logging in SAP Concur using Identity Authentication the user will get redirected to the Identity Authentication login page. Here the user needs to add IAS user credentials and click on “Continue”.   

Step 5: User is logged into Concur using IAS as single sign on.    

Step 6: Now the next time this user tries to login to an SAP Concur solution using Identity Authentication as single sign on, the user does not get the Identity Authentication page and does not need to put in the credentials. The user is directly signed into SAP Concur solution.   

Conclusion

The integration of SAP Cloud Identity Services with SAP Concur solutions offers a more streamlined and secure system landscape. By leveraging SAP Cloud Identity Services, you can benefit from a centralized security for authentication and access to all SAP business applications with a single click. Overall, this enhances the Identity Access Management solution capabilities for SAP Concur solutions.  

  

  

   

   

  

  

 

Out now: Register for the latest SAP Customer Engagement Initiative Projects until March 08, 2024

2024-02-05T11:40:37.285000+01:00

It’s time again to connect our customers and partners with SAP Development Teams - the first cycle of the SAP Customer Engagement Initiative (CEI) in 2024 started today with 37 new projects.

The SAP Customer Engagement Initiative enables you as an SAP customer or partner, to get early insights into SAP’s product developments and directly work with the developers to define and shape future product directions. By that we can create solutions that better meet your and other customers’ needs, leveraging process and technology innovations.

The projects will be open for customer registration until March 08, 2024. Find here the list of all projects:

SAP S/4HANA & SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Supply Chain Management

SAP Business Technology Platform

Innovation Center Network

SAP Globalization Services

SAP Concur

Smart Data Load - AI Supported Chart of Accounts Mapping

Data & Analytics

Migration to SAP HANA Cloud

Lifecycle Management

SAP Learning

Others

SAP Reference Architecture in SAP LeanIX

Visit the Customer Influence website on influence.sap.com to register.

Follow-up after registration: When you register for a project, you will be invited to an introductory call with the SAP project lead. At this point further participation is optional. Typically, all activities are governed by the Feedback Agreement with SAP.

Thank you in advance for your participation,

Customer Engagement Initiative Team

Your voice matters! Your benefits of the SAP User Research Panel

2024-02-12T15:40:00.013000+01:00

We’d love to hear your feedback on the SAP products you use every day.

Join a user research session so you can influence product update decisions, and SAP can keep providing you with products that fit your needs.

The SAP User Research Panel at its presentation at SAP TechEd in Bangalore in November 2023.
The SAP User Research Panel is SAP’s new core ingredient for user research. SAP users can now express their interest in participating in research sessions via a new database to take part in selected studies. Daily workflows and business processes can then be simplified and improved in direct collaboration with SAP’s product teams. Ina Prügel, project manager for the SAP User Research Panel, answers three questions about the benefits of the panel for users and why the panel is a gamechanger in UX for SAP.

Ina PrügelIna, tell us about the reasoning behind the panel.

User research is an essential part of product design and development at SAP. Our teams of product managers, developers, designers, and researchers had been organizing usability testing at events for a couple of years, for example at SAP TechEd and Sapphire. At first, virtual recruiting and testing was a temporary solution during the Covid-19 lockdown. And now we have a way to provide vital user feedback throughout the product lifecycle. With efficient tools at hand, virtual research is highly sustainable regarding travel, availability, and time. Our product teams also expressed their wish to have a participant panel so that SAP users can be included in the design and development journey of SAP products.

What benefits does the panel bring to SAP users?

The panel allows us to bring together SAP users and SAP product teams in selected studies to gain valuable insights to help improve the user experience. SAP users from all around the globe and from a diverse range of experiences and perspectives can sign up and share their insights. Together, we can bridge gaps in product processes and identify new opportunities to improve the user experience.

We are particularly interested to invite users across our product portfolio and services to join the panel: from SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP S/4HANA Cloud over solutions by SAP Build, SAP Signavio or SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Concur to SAP Ariba, SAP Business Network, and more.

When was the panel launched and how can SAP users get involved?

We initially presented the panel at the DSAG annual congress in Bremen last September. This was followed by activities at SAP TechEd in Bangalore in November 2023 and at customer and partner events in Paris, San Antonio, London, Hamburg, and St. Leon-Rot.

The SAP User Research Panel launched at the DSAG Annual Congress 2023 in Bremen.It was great to collect first feedback and to be affirmed that we are not only meeting the needs of our researchers and product teams with the panel, but also of our users and customers. They expressed their excitement, stating that the panel would be a great opportunity to be closer to product teams and to give more direct feedback. In parallel, researchers have launched first research studies with our new research participants.

We’ve already had great sign-up numbers to the SAP User Research Panel, but to cover research activities across all of SAP on a regular basis, we are hoping many more SAP users will sign up for this exciting opportunity.

Panel participation in a nutshell

If you are an SAP user, join our panel to actively influence your user experiences for both unreleased and existing products and solutions. SAP users of all expertise levels, backgrounds, and continents are welcome.

Possible formats are one-on-one interviews, surveys, and unmoderated tests. There is no obligation to participate if contacted.

Click here for sign-up.

More information about the panel is available on the official website.

We’re excited to hear from you at userresearch_panel_support@sap.com if you have any questions.

Invitation to join a test event for SAP Concur integration into SAP Funds and Grants Management

2024-02-20T02:08:22.447000+01:00

We recently released functionality that enables direct cost control between SAP Concur and SAP Financials Public Sector management. This functionality enables funds checking ("Do we have funds available?"), and funds reservations ("Reserve these funds for this traveler/spend"). Read more about it in this blog.

What is a test event?

A test event is an opportunity to get first hand experience with newly released or upcoming functionality. Through your testing, you can experiment with the functionality on familiar business processes, while having direct access to experts. You'll have the opportunity to share feedback and help shape our understanding of your needs.

You'll bring your processes around budget control and funds reservations (also known as encumbrances, obligations, commitments, earmarking, etc), and we'll help you set up in our test environments.

The test environments include access to Concur and SAP Financials.

Who can participate?

To ensure we can support all participants throughout the process, we have a limited number of spots available. Participants should be familiar with all of the following:

SAP Concur Expense
SAP Concur Request (optional)
SAP S/4 HANA Financials Public Sector Management

Participants will need to dedicate time to the event, participating in testing activities, kickoffs, and feedback sessions.

Both partners and customers are invited participate.

When is the event?

The event is scheduled to occur April 23, 2024 through April 25, 2024 between the hours of 9 AM and 6 PM Central European Time.

Registration will close March 4, 2024.

Where is the event?

This is a virtual event, so participants will be remote. The event will be facilitated by teams in Germany, so it will be held in Central European Time working hours.

What should I expect at the event?

Details will be shared with participants. High level plan is as follows:

Day 1:
- Kickoff with guided demo of the product
- Participants will be guided through access to the test environments
- All day testing with open lines to Product, Engineering, and SME teams
- Closing feedback session

Day 2:
- Daily kickoff with Q&A
- All day testing with open lines to Product, Engineering, and SME teams
- Closing feedback session

Day 3:
- Daily kickoff with Q&A
- All day testing with open lines to Product, Engineering, and SME teams
- Closing feedback session

How can I register interest?

If you are interested in participating, please send an email with subject "I want to register for PSM Test" to: sapconcurintegration@sap.com and someone will be in touch to get more information.

Open for Registration: SAP Customer Engagement Initiative Projects for SAP Concur

2024-02-21T12:45:16.195000+01:00

Connect financial data and take control of spending! By automating spending processes your business can run efficiently anywhere, anytime, and under any circumstances.

Concur Expense: Automate expense management and take control of spending, no matter where it happens.
Concur Invoice: Automate AP management to be more efficient, increase profitability, and get more visibility into spending.
Concur Travel: Simplify travel management and let employees book business travel on their own, at the best rates, and within spending policies.

New projects around SAP Concur are open for registration. Scroll through the list of SAP Customer Engagement Initiative projects for SAP Concur and get informed about the planned new features and functions.

Don’t forget to register for one of the projects until March 08, 2024

SAP Concur Solutions projects for registration:

Visit the Customer Influence website on influence.sap.com to register.

What’s next after registration? When you register for a project, you will be invited to an introductory call with the SAP project lead. You can then decide if you want to actively participate. Typically, all activities are governed by the Feedback Agreement with SAP.

If you are also interested in other CEI projects that are currently open for registration, see the full list here.

Thank you in advance for your participation!

'UX' is incomplete without the crucial 'U': A User Research Fellowship Experience at SAP Design

2024-03-04T18:33:54.060000+01:00

SAP offers flexible internal fellowships that allow people to grow by experiencing a different role and team. I completed a fellowship with the SAP Design Research Foundations team, which increases end user engagement with user research services and training activities.

From the moment I embarked on my UX journey, my enthusiasm for user research has been unwavering. It became clear early on that 'UX' is incomplete without the crucial 'U'—understanding and learning from users. The prospect of a fellowship with the Research Foundations team first caught my attention during a tooling enablement session and I was instantly excited.

Learning through tooling management

My role extended beyond learning about and managing research tools; I actively contributed to ongoing research projects. From managing tooling and conducting surveys to updating research enablement materials, I became an integral part of the team. This hands-on experience provided a holistic understanding of the research lifecycle and the impact it can have on product development.

Navigating new waters with the SAP User Research Panel

Also, it was exciting to experience first row how the team set up the new SAP User Research Panel. It will be a game changer for user research by easily connecting SAP users to the people who create the products. Their feedback helps shape existing and future products and participants can see new features exclusively before they release.

Opt-in form of the SAP User Research Panel. ALT text: Opt-in form for the SAP User Research Panel including a short welcoming, what to expect, and how to get started with the registration process. The blue SAP logo is shown on top of the form.

Any SAP user can sign up for it here. More information about the panel is available on the official webpage.

ALT text: A smiling lady with a phone in her hands. On the top, the image says "Your voice matters".

Seamless integration with my design team

One of the major highlights of this fellowship was the ease with which I could convince my manager to let me participate. The prospect of bringing back valuable knowledge to the team was met with immediate support, emphasizing the forward-thinking culture within the organization. This smooth integration allowed for a seamless transition between teams, ensuring a collaborative and enriching experience.

A vibrant mentorship with Dilara

From day one, Dilara Rousseau, my mentor, stood out with her infectious enthusiasm and a genuine passion for research. Her bubbly personality not only made the learning process enjoyable but also created an open space for exploration and creativity. Dilara's wealth of knowledge in research tools and methodologies became a guiding light for me as I delved into the world of user-centric research. Her hands-on approach and willingness to share insights made the learning process not only informative but also enjoyable.

Supportive leadership from Tracy

Behind every successful team is a supportive leader, and in this case, it was Tracy, the team's manager. Tracy's leadership style centered around nurturing a culture of appreciation and teamwork. She genuinely cared about the development of each team member, fostering an environment where everyone felt valued. This supportive atmosphere played a pivotal role in our ability to explore new tools and methodologies.

Conclusion

My fellowship with the research enablement team was a transformative experience, filled with knowledge, challenges, and growth. Dilara's mentorship, Tracy's leadership, and the collaborative environment made this journey unforgettable. As I return to my team armed with newfound insights and skills, I am not just a UX Designer with some research knowledge; I am an ambassador of a culture of continuous learning and innovation. As I move forward in my career, I carry with me the lessons learned and the appreciation for a team that exemplifies the true spirit of research enablement.

Managing SAP Concur Lists Using List v4 API Webinar

2024-03-20T18:29:53.552000+01:00

Dear SAP Community members,

I'm glad to invite you to the "Managing SAP Concur Lists Using List v4 API" webinar where you will learn how to manage SAP Concur lists using the List v4 API. The List v4 API is accessible as part of the Client Web Services offering for SAP Concur that provides access to Spend, Invoice, Travel, and Request APIs.

This webinar will cover the following topics as part of its agenda:

1. Three Ways to Manage Lists
2. Types of Lists
3. List v4 API Scopes and Usage
4. List v4 and List Item v4 APIs Process Flow
5. List v4 and List Item v4 APIs Demo
6. Q&A

Audience:
SAP and SAP Concur Customers only

Register Here:
https://events.sap.com/managing-lists-using-list-v4-api/en/registration.aspx

Date and Time:
March, 26
2PM to 3PM EST | 1PM to 2PM CST | 11AM to 12PM | 10PM to 11PM CET

Kind Regards,
Daniel Grings

Deliver Real-World Results with SAP Business AI: Q4 2023 & Q1 2024 Release Highlights

2024-03-27T09:51:25.335000+01:00

Artificial intelligence (AI), and above all, generative AI, marks a paradigm shift on how computer systems learn from data, solve complex problems, and even provide creativity when it’s needed. We believe this paradigm shift will fundamentally change work, business, and society.
The impact that AI is expected to have on the global economy of the next three years is tremendous. Morgan Stanley estimate that the impact will be about $4.1 trillion dollars, about the size of the GDP of Germany.

SAP is committed to helping organizations through this transformative moment by creating business outcomes that were unimaginable before through SAP Business AI. Tailored to your unique data landscape and industry nuances, SAP Business AI enables smarter decisions and efficiencies at scale:

AI delivered in the context of your business processes
AI trained on the industry’s broadest business datasets
AI built on leading ethics and data privacy standards

SAP Business AI is relevant, reliable, and responsible. It’s deeply embedded in our business processes and analytics. Already today, more than 27,000 of our customers are seeing the benefits of AI that is built for business every day across every business function. No other technology company can combine the power of AI with the processes and data that run the business world. SAP is helping change how people interact with business software and make work more efficient and more delightful than ever before.

Let’s delve into the newest SAP Business AI capabilities made available for SAP customers helping them deliver real-world results.

Joule

Conversational Search

Introduced last year, Joule, SAP’s natural language generative AI copilot, revolutionizes the way people interact with SAP business systems, making every touchpoint count and every task simpler.

SAP customers can now get quick and seamless access to the exact SAP Help Portal content they need when asking a question in Joule, without ever having to leave the application they are working on. This generative AI-powered feature will be available in all SAP cloud solutions. We started with SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Start in 2023, continued with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition early 2024, and this will be followed by additional product integrations planned throughout this year.

Using Joule, SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Start users can save up to 10 minutes for an inquiry without leaving the UI and search in different content repositories, including search engines. This is another step towards helping our customers to become more productive and efficient. It drives product adoption, creates business value, and saves our users time and effort in accessing information quickly.

Joule Delivers Seamless Access to SAP Help Portal Content from SAP Solutions

Learn more on the product page.
Get started with the product documentation.

Cloud ERP

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition

We have built Joule directly into SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, redefining user interaction, streamlining business processes, and enhancing productivity.
Joule can offer quick, contextual access to content and applications; users can simply ask Joule for guidance and get pointed in the right direction.

Looking for help to execute certain finance operations or looking for guidance how to change sales document entries? Joule provides quick and easy access to SAP Help Portal content and creates a summary leveraging generative AI. No need to browse through long search result lists anymore and reading into several topics to find the correct information.
Not sure which application could help to check the status of sales orders? Just express the need in natural language and Joule will propose the most reasonable applications for the required business operation.
Want to quickly check the status of a specific purchase order? Joule can also assist in providing insightful information about specific business objects. Once Joule shows up the required business information directly in the natural language user panel, users can directly jump into the business application from there.

Joule in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

Learn more on the product page.
Register for the SAP Early Adopter Care program to test this feature before anyone else.

Are you tired of manually inputting incomplete sales order data? Filling in these missing details requires significant manual data management effort.
The sales order autocompletion capability in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition eliminates this hassle by providing smart recommendations for seamless data input. Missing fields are automatically populated,
simplifying incomplete sales order handling, delivering cost savings and boosting sales expert productivity.

Sales Order Autocompletion in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

Read the blog post.
Get started with the product documentation.

SAP Enterprise Service Management

Shared service centers drive business value by enabling organizations to provide fast and reliable service cost-efficiently. However, too often organizational silos, distributed data and duplicated processes cause complexity and reduce the productivity and quality of service.

With generative AI capabilities in SAP Enterprise Service Management, shared service teams can:

summarize text in email interactions for cases with Case Summary
draft email replies or interactions for cases with Email Draft Recommender
get all the information related to an account that helps the sales representatives with Account Synopsis

Implementation results in significant reductions in overdue items ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction and streamlining processes. By implementing SAP Enterprise Service Management, businesses can save up to 70% of the cost for across various service scenarios or processing service requests 30% faster, like one of our global customers in the automotive industry has achieved for their accounts payable shared-services teams.

SAP Enterprise Service Management Homepage

Get started with the product documentation.

SAP Transportation Management

Imagine the chaotic scene at a freight clearing dock. Freight logistics providers arrive with stacks of manual papers, causing delays, inefficiencies, and the need for manual rework. Anomalies in freight orders are often detected late, leading to even longer processing times. It's a frustrating and time-consuming process for anyone involved.

Generative AI capabilities have been infused as part of SAP Transportation Management to expedite freight verification and documentation seamlessly. Businesses can automate the processing of tens of thousands of goods receipts and delivery notes in SAP Transportation Management, avoiding data entry errors and processing many types of document layouts without needing to do any training.

The benefits of this solution are immense. First and foremost, there's faster processing time with greater accuracy, minimizing errors and reducing the need for manual checks. This means less waiting time for logistics carriers and the potential for reduced yard space through optimized turnaround times. Additionally, the entire operation experiences enhanced operational efficiency and improved data quality for subsequent processes. Delivery notes are processed 50% faster, saving valuable time and resources. And the cost for truck delivery processing is reduced by an impressive 50%.

This capability is available as pilot phase for SAP customers, with a general availability planned for Q4 2024, including new features.

Expedite Freight Verification in SAP Transportation Management

Learn more about SAP Transportation Management.

SAP Digital Manufacturing

Visual inspection for SAP Digital Manufacturing is now available as a redesigned beta release for SAP Digital Manufacturing customers and will be generally available in the second quarter of 2024. This feature transforms human visual inspection experience to overcome human cognitive limits and empowers production engineers to enable AI models to visual inspections.

AI is leveraged to simplify and optimize visual inspection processes, assisting workers in finding defects earlier, faster, and more accurately. Operator productivity, product quality, and user experience are all improved at the same time. According to the first customer pilots, visual inspection can reduce the time to visually inspect parts by 60% when AI-assisted.

Visual Inspection - Detect Product Defects Faster on the Shop Floor

Learn more about SAP Digital Manufacturing.
Get started with the product documentation.

Human Capital Management

SAP SuccessFactors

Joule is integrated natively in SAP SuccessFactors, enabling employee and managers to quickly complete tasks in natural language such as requesting a wide range of record updates, providing feedback, checking and viewing your payment statement, approving time off requests, and much more.
You can access Joule via SAP Start and all pages in the SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite.
Let's enable a future-ready workforce with our AI copilot that truly elevates every employee's experience.

Access Joule on the SAP SuccessFactors Homepage

Start the product tour to test Joule capabilities in SAP SuccessFactors yourself.
Get started with the product documentation.

In addition, SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting customers can now create compelling job descriptions and interview questions with the help of generative AI.

Attracting the right talent begins with the right job description. That’s why our generative AI-powered assistant gives hiring managers and recruiters a huge jump start to write non-biased, compelling job descriptions in seconds, while still allowing them to edit and improve it afterwards. Not only does it save a significant amount of time – from 2 hours to 5 minutes – as well as costs in creating job descriptions, but it also improves the quality of interviews and preparation. This, in turn, increases attractiveness as employer of choice, because potential applicants can sense the professionalism and attention to detail that the company brings to the hiring process.

Writing Job Descriptions in SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting

Conducting an effective interview is crucial to ensuring you’re making the best hiring decision. Interviewers can now generate interview questions based on the job description using generative AI capabilities and evaluate applicants in Microsoft Teams after they complete their interviews. AI-powered questions will make it easier for you to create an insightful discussion that dives deep into a candidate’s skills and potential. Your hiring process becomes more streamlined and ultimately leads to better hiring decisions.

Generating Interview Questions in SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting

See how these new capabilities help organizations attract, develop and retain top talent:

Put Your People and Their Experiences First with SAP Business AI

Customer Experience

SAP CX AI Toolkit

Available for existing SAP CX users with SAP Sales Cloud, SAP Service Cloud or SAP Commerce Cloud (standard edition) solution licenses, SAP CX AI Toolkit empowers your sales, service and e-commerce teams with proactive and contextual generative AI:

Apply AI models to data from sales, service, and e-commerce, along with operational data, to help your teams make more intelligent decisions.
Enable your teams to use AI to automate routine tasks from right where they work using a stand-alone app or Joule.
Understand customers and answer their questions faster than ever before with proactive insights and answers derived from enterprise data.

Capabilities available for e-commerce teams:

Product Tagging: Unlock the full potential of your products by harnessing the power of AI to extract and enrich your product tags. Take your catalog to new heights.
Personalized Product Descriptions: Let generative AI transform your customer experience with personalized product descriptions that enrich your catalog data.
Visual Search: Improve product discovery - simplifying the process and delivering quick and accurate search results based on AI image detection.
Commerce AI Tools: Commerce role specific prompts utilizing CX data to generate a blog post, social media posts and more.

Capabilities available for sales teams:

Intelligent Customer Profile: Uncover insights with a 360-degree view of every customer through Customer Data Platform integration. Quickly view segment data and profile summarization contextually on top of email and Sales Cloud.
Sales AI Tools: Create your own AI Tools for unique business needs or utilize our standard sales role specific prompts utilizing CX data to generate discovery questions, emails and more.
Intelligent Q&A: Proactively identify questions within your conversations and deliver trusted answers from company knowledge.
Smart Scheduling: Streamline and optimize your calendar management, saving you time and ensuring efficient allocation of appointments with personalized AI responses.

Capabilities available for service teams:

Intelligent Customer Profile: Uncover insights with a 360-degree view of every customer through Customer Data Platform integration. Quickly view segment data and profile summarization contextually on top of Service Cloud.
Service AI Tools: Create your own AI Tools for unique business needs or utilize our standard service role specific prompts utilizing CX data to generate responses, case overviews and more.
Intelligent Q&A: Proactively identify questions within your conversations and deliver trusted answers from company knowledge.
CX Record Summarization: Align your organization on customer issues, pathway to resolution, sentiment, and responsiveness with service and leadership specific case summaries.

Drive Profitable Growth with SAP CX AI Toolkit

Learn more on the product page.
Get started with the product documentation.
Additional AI-powered functionalities are planned to be released as part of SAP CX AI Toolkit throughout 2024.

SAP Sales & Service Cloud Version 2

Generative AI-powered capabilities have also been introduced as part of SAP Service Cloud Version 2 and SAP Sales Cloud Version 2, enhancing sales & service teams productivity:

Account Synopsis (in SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 & SAP Service Cloud Version 2) summarizes all the information related to an account that helps the sales representatives, such as the business, the culture or the competitive landscape. It ensures that your team is always equipped with the latest information, enabling them to make well-informed decisions and deliver a superior customer experience.
Case Summary (in SAP Service Cloud Version 2) automatically fetches a text-based interaction (e.g. email) and pre-processes it. Display summary to customer service rep to quickly grasp the topic and simplify the agent experience.
Email Draft Recommender (in SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 & SAP Service Cloud Version 2) generates a response email based on the previous email reply and purpose selected by the user for which an email needs to be drafted.
Lead Booster (in SAP Sales Cloud Version 2) provides tailored information that enhances the sales team’s understanding of the account’s needs and increases the likelihood of successful sales conversion.

Learn more on SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud product pages.
Get started with SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 and SAP Service Cloud Version 2 product documentation pages.

Watch the video below to see how SAP Business AI provides the backbone for understanding and responding to customer needs - helping you get from issue to resolution faster.

Provide Customer Service That’s Personalized and Fast with SAP Business AI

SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement

Make the creation of subject lines intuitive for your email campaigns based on your natural language prompts! As part of SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement, Emarsys’ AI Subject Line Generator – currently in its pilot phase – uses AI to analyze your campaign content and generate multiple engaging and contextually relevant subject line options.

It saves time and effort by enabling marketers to create subject lines more efficiently, enhances creativity with a range of new subject-line ideas and enable data-driven decisions with the ability to A/B test AI-generated and traditional subject lines.

AI Subject Line Generator in SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement

Explore additional capabilities on Emarsys’ website that empower marketers to build, launch, and scale personalized cross-channel campaigns that drive business outcomes.

Intelligent Spend and Business Network

SAP Ariba Category Management

Gone are the days of painstakingly updating category management tools manually. Category managers can now expedite the development of their category strategy with contextual insights and recommendations using generative AI and large language model (LLM) integration in SAP Ariba Category Management tools, such as Category Segmentation, Market Dynamics, and Cost Structure.

It normally takes 12 weeks to manually create a strategy for a new purchasing category, but with SAP Ariba Category Management, research on category specific information is available with a single click. This new generative AI-powered feature accelerates strategy and planning processes across multiple categories, reduces onboarding time and reliance on more senior category managers and helps adapt to market change with insight and agility.

Powering Strategy Planning with Generative AI in SAP Ariba Category Management

Learn more on the product page.
Get started with the product documentation.

SAP Business Network

For suppliers, invoice creation can be one of your most inefficient and redundant processes. Every day, employees are manually keying data to submit invoices to customers.
The introduction of the intelligent invoice conversion feature of SAP Business Network reduces the need for this error-prone manual approach to invoice data entry.

The feature automatically converts your invoices from PDF and other scanned image files into an electronic format in SAP Business Network. It extracts your invoice data and automatically maps it to relevant fields in the electronic invoice and simplifies onboarding by providing a self-service setup process that guides supplier administrators through a streamlined workflow.

With intelligent invoice conversion, improve operational efficiency, reduce errors and rejected invoices, and receive payments faster.

Intelligent Invoice Conversion in SAP Business Network

Learn more on the product page.
Get started with the product documentation.

SAP Concur

AI is only as good as the quality and breadth of the data it draws upon, and SAP Concur is the global market leader in travel and expense solutions, with more than 92 million end users booking travel and/or processing expenses. For a decade, we have been infusing AI into SAP Concur solutions including ExpenseIt, Verify, Intelligent Audit, and Concur Invoice.

This quarter, we are excited to debut new Business AI capabilities in SAP Concur solutions:

Concur Request: Now uses generative AI to provide intelligent cost estimates for trip planning, saving employees time and effort. When the user creates the request, they enter their trip details such as the length of the trip and the destination. They will have the option to select from the following services that they want cost estimates for: flight or train; hotel; taxi. Request Assistant uses generative AI and the trip details provided by the user to provide estimated costs with explanations for the pricing.

The user can adjust, based on their needs for the trip, such as flight class, number of connections, hotel ratings, and then regenerate the estimated cost. The estimated costs are automatically added to the request as expected expenses. Subsequently, the user can choose to add additional expected expenses if needed or submit the request for approval.

Intelligent Cost Estimates for Trip Planning in Concur Request

ExpenseIt: We’ve also brought capabilities from ExpenseIt on mobile to the web interface so customers can upload receipt images to ExpenseIt web, where it taps AI to automatically create a new expense with several key fields prepopulated.

Expense itemizations for hotel folios are cumbersome for end users to manually enter, and inaccurate itemizations can cause returned expense reports and rework. In fact, the median time to complete a report with manual hotel itemizations entries is about 17 minutes longer than an expense report with no manual hotel itemizations.

Using ExpenseIt, hotel itemizations can be processed for the end user in under 30 seconds, saving employee time while increasing accuracy. The recent generative AI update to the traditional AI ExpenseIt models increases the accuracy of hotel itemizations by 30% (as measured by 100% accurate itemizations) in pre-production testing.

Hotel Itemization in Concur ExpenseIt

Learn more about travel and expense with SAP Business AI.
Get started with the Concur Expense and Concur Request product documentation pages.

SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP)

Document Information Extraction, premium edition

The existing Document Information Extraction service on SAP BTP has been supercharged with generative AI capabilities, introducing Document Information Extraction, premium edition.
Businesses can now process documents intelligently across their entire business, with:

The automatic extraction of unstructured data by simply describing the required fields that you need, and watching the solution do the heavy lifting for nearly every document type.
The multilingual support for over 40 languages, catering to global businesses with diverse document types.

With neither manual annotation nor resource-intensive machine learning training required, business document processing use cases can now be onboarded in days instead of weeks or months, reducing the time-to-value drastically.

Learn more on the SAP Discovery Center.
Get started with this tutorial.

Generative AI Hub in SAP AI Core and SAP AI Launchpad

SAP developers can expedite their generative AI development of SAP BTP applications in a secure and trusted way with the new Generative AI hub. This new capability gives streamlined access to a broad range of large language models (LLMs) from different providers (such as GPT-4 by Azure OpenAI or OpenSource Falcon-40b), facilitated in a more secure, harmonized, and orchestrated manner; thereby boosting efficiency and productivity.

Developers can orchestrate multiple models, whether programmatically via SAP AI Core or via the playground within SAP AI Launchpad, and ensure high-quality output by choosing the large language model that best aligns with their unique use case. They can leverage all features while relying on a data privacy policy and robust measures, ensuring secure and trusted operations.

Each generative AI model yields unique qualities and strengths. To meet customers’ needs for their business, SAP has made a strategic move to provide enterprise-grade access to the most common models through its generative AI hub as part of SAP AI Core. This includes leading cloud vendors as well as SAP-managed third-party models deployed on SAP’s own infrastructure for highest compliance standards.
All available and upcoming generative AI-powered capabilities from SAP are running on the generative AI hub.

Generative AI Hub via SAP AI Launchpad

Learn more on the SAP Discovery Center.
Get started with this tutorial.
See why the generative AI hub plays a core role in how SAP's generative AI architecture redefines business applications.

Just ask feature in SAP Analytics Cloud

Just ask is a natural language query interface available in SAP Analytics Cloud used to retrieve data that applies generative AI to search-driven analytics. Users can quickly access trusted insights in their preferred language regardless of expertise, helping to increase data literacy and analytics adoption for more fact-based decision-making.

By providing knowledge workers with self-service access to timely analytics, companies can improve their productivity by up to 5%. Instead of spending hours searching for data, they can focus on more strategic tasks that move their business forward.

Jusk ask users can search data easily and efficiently using business terms they are familiar with, by simply asking questions using natural language. Just ask will instantly provide answers as simple charts and tables. Working with data from acquired models or SAP Datasphere, users can query just ask to get quick answers to questions and incorporate the results into a story, export to CSV or Excel files, or for further exploration using the Data Analyzer tool.

Just ask in SAP Analytics Cloud

Learn more on the product page.
Get started with the product documentation.

SAP Build Code

SAP Build Code, our generative AI-based code development solution, is now generally available.
With its integration of Joule, optimized for Java and JavaScript application development, it provides a turn-key environment for coding, testing, integrations, and application lifecycle management.

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SAP HANA Cloud vector engine

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Key benefits of the SAP HANA Cloud vector engine include:

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Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and GenAI with SAP HANA Cloud Vector Engine

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Explore the SAP Roadmap Explorer for a detailed view of upcoming product innovations.

Web Services for Concur Expense - Updating Expense Reports and Entries

2024-04-05T23:21:25.612000+02:00

Introduction

Concur offers a wide variety of Expense APIs, this blog post is to help guide anyone interested in using Web Services to retrieve and/or update expense report and expense report entry data

The APIs mentioned in this blog work with SAP Concur Expense Standard and Professional Editions. The following scenarios will be explained along with examples in this post:

Retrieving header data for all expense reports
Retrieving expense report header data for a specific ReportIDRetrieve Unique User ID
Retrieving expense entries for a specific ReportID
Retrieving expense entry data for a specific Expense ID
Updating expense report header data
1. Update Header Text Field
2. Update Header Connect List Fields
How to update expense report entry fields

Prior to making any of the requests below, you will need to have authenticated and have a current Access Token. If you are unfamiliar with this process, I highly suggest reviewing my colleague Tim's blog post on Authentication. I have also saved the steps in this walkthrough in a Postman Collection which you can download here .

Detailed Walkthrough

First let's get familiar with some of the key variables needed to make these requests. This blog post will walk you through how to get all of these values and I have them built into my Postman collection linked in the section above.

1. Retrieving header data for all expense reports

Before we get into updating expense reports, it might be useful to know what reports are currently in Concur and some high-level attributes like their report ID, approval or payment status, and when they were submitted. To get a response that includes report header data for all reports in Concur, you can use the following:

GET https://{{dataCenterURI}}/api/v3.0/expense/reports?user=ALL

There are a wide variety of parameters you can use to filter this request, but you should always include the "user" parameter. This page lists all available params and how they should be formatted - Expense Report V3 Parameters.

2. Retrieving expense report header data for a specific ReportID

Prior to updating expense report header data, it's helpful to see what data and fields already exist. To retrieve the expense report header data you will need the unique user ID and the report ID. Instructions for how to retrieve the unique user ID are in section 2a.

GET https://{{dataCenterURI}}/expensereports/v4/users/{{userID}}/context/{{contextType}}/reports/{{reportID}}

2a - Retrieve Unique User ID -

Before we make any updates to expense report data or retrieve specific report data, we will need to retrieve the unique identifier of the SAP Concur user. The unique identifier will be used for the "userId" parameter and can be found using the Identity v4 API like this:

GET https://{{dataCenterURI}}/profile/identity/v4/Users?filter=userName eq "tricia.connolly@tconnolly.com"

*This userID will be used in future requests to make updates to reports!*

3. Retrieving expense entries for a specific ReportID

It will also be helpful to know what entries exist on the report that you are trying to update if plan on updating entry data as well. You will notice that each expense entry has its own unique "expenseId" that will be used in the next few scenarios.

To see expense entries for a report you will need to use the following:

GET https://{{dataCenterURI}}/expensereports/v4/users/{{userID}}/context/{{contextType}}/reports/{{reportID}}/expenses

*Note that each expense has its own expenseID, we will use this going forward*

4. Retrieving expense entry data for a specific Expense ID

You might notice that there is some entry data missing from the request above, specifically, entry custom field data. In order to see the custom field data for an expense entry, you will need to add the expenseID from the last request like this:

GET https://{{dataCenterURI}}/expensereports/v4/users/{{userID}}/context/{{contextType}}/reports/{{reportID}}/expenses/{{expenseID}}

5. Updating expense report header data

Each report header contains a variety of different fields depending on how your Concur site is setup. For the purposes of this blog post, I will be updating a few different fields in my test report header seen in the screenshot below.

5a - Update Header Text Field -

First, I want to update the free text "Business Purpose" field. To do this I will send the new business purpose value in the body along with the reportId and the userId that we retrieved in the previous steps like this:

PATCH https://{{dataCenterURI}}/expensereports/v4/users/{{userID}}/context/TRAVELER/reports/{{reportID}}

You can expect to receive a "204 No Content" response if the patch is successful.

5b - Update Header Connected List Field-

Next, I want to make updates to the "Region" and "Department" custom list fields in my report header. To do this, I will follow the 3 steps below:

Step 1 - Get all list data to find the list ID of the list you want to update

GET https://{{dataCenterURI}}/list/v4/lists/

Step 2 - Find the list item ids for the items you want to update using the list ID from step 1

GET https://{{dataCenterURI}}/list/v4/lists/{{listID}}/items

Note - If you are updating a connected or multi-level list, you will also need to find the child list item IDs

GET https://{{dataCenterURI}}/list/v4/lists/{{listID}}/items/{{itemID}}/children

Step 3- Use the list item ID to update the custom list fields

PATCH https://{{dataCenterURI}}/expensereports/v4/users/{{userID}}/context/TRAVELER/reports/{{reportID}}

You can expect to receive a "204 No Content" response if the patch is successful.

6. Updating Expense Report Entry Fields

Updating field values for expense items is just like header level fields, but you will need to include the expenseID that we retrieved in example 3 above. In this example I'm going to update the expense entry expense type and the transaction amount. You can find a list of expense types and their ids using Expense Group Configurations v3.0.

PATCH https://{{dataCenterURI}}/expensereports/v4/users/{{userID}}/context/{{contextType}}/reports/{{reportID}}/expenses/{{expenseID}}

You can expect to receive a "204 No Content" response if the patch is successful.

Conclusion

Using the examples in this post you should be able to view and update existing expense report and expense entry data. I recommend using this post to complement Concurs existing API documentation. The following were referenced while making this post -

Feel free to comment if you have any questions. Thanks!

Working with SAFe Epics in the SAP Activate Discover phase

2024-04-23T14:37:46.773000+02:00

The second article in this series “Innovate Faster: The Power Duo of SAP Activate and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) ” is explaining how the SAP solution implementation activities specific to SAP Activate Discover project phase should be executed in an organization using SAFe.

This is where you can find the first article in the series : Innovate Faster: The Power Duo of SAP Activate and SAFe.

Simply put, both the SAP Activate Discover phase and the creation of Epics in SAFe share a common goal: to thoroughly outline and endorse the business case driving the implementation of the SAP solution. Further elaboration on this point will be provided in the following lines.

The key activities in the Discover phase help to crystallize the organization’s vision about the SAP solution implementation. They cover the creation of the SAP solution adoption strategy and the documentation of the Solution Implementation Value and Business Case as part of the customer organization's digital transformation roadmap.

During the Discover activities, SAP Solution adoption paths are identified. In an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition solution context, for example, a company should decide which of the three possible paths is bringing the most value: system conversion, selective data transition or new implementation scenario.

Refinement for the chosen implementation scenarios is conducted to answer SAP solution specific questions like, for example:

How many systems are ideal for the to-be business scenarios?
Is Co-Deployment preferred, or should we deploy standalone?
What about IT-Security Requirements?
What will be the sequence of co-deployment?
What business processes should be covered by the solutions?
What benefits will the business realize by deploying the new solution with standard processes?
What do we need to do to keep the system ready for innovation? etc.

Let’s see now how the SAP solution implementation vision, roadmap and adoption strategy generated by SAP Activate activities in the Discover phase are used by Lean Agile organizations that are implementing SAFe. In such organizations, technology efforts that were traditionally organized as projects are turned into a continuous flow of product-centric features in a value stream which timeline is exceeding the implementation project time and continues with improvements and product life cycle management activities until the product’s end of life.

SAFe provides practices for managing that flow using a construct called ‘Epics’.

An Epic, in SAFe, is corresponding to a solution implementation initiative that is supporting the organization’s vision and that will bring value to one of the organization’s operational value stream (OVS). You can see examples of such Epics in the European Medicines Agency published roadmap available in the references link.

In a project-oriented approach, the Epic from SAFe corresponds to a project although the two concepts are operating quite differently (see below figure). SAP Activate guidelines for the project implementation should therefore be mapped and converted to the corresponding Epic elements of a Lean Agile enterprise.

The obvious differences in the two approaches can be mitigated by adapting the scope, the sequence or the execution frequency of the activities recommended by SAP Activate Methodology. All the other differences illustrated in the below picture are not manifested in the SAP Activate project methodology as Agile practices are used to measure the progress and to implement the SAP solution that will be covered in the future articles in this series.

In SAP Activate Discover phase tailoring is needed for the Business Case activities covering committed scope identification and cost estimation.

Looking at typical the Business Case creation activities, if, for example, an organization implementing SAFe evaluates the opportunity to support the operational value stream that includes Procurement processes with the implementation of the SAP S4/HANA solution, an Epic that details this opportunity will be defined by the owner of the initiative, the Epic Owner, to cover:

the value statement,
the business outcomes,
the leading indicators, and
the most important nonfunctional requirements associated with this initiative.

Due to their considerable scope and impact, the Epic requires the definition of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and the approval by Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) which is the approval and funding entity in an organization implementing SAFe.

There are many similarities between the Epic Lean Business Case and the SAP Activate Value Case for solution implementation statement that is created during the Discover phase, as you can see in the figure below.

The SAP Activate Value Case documentation includes:

the expected business outcomes and business success measurements (both predictive and lagging) are nothing else but the business outcome hypothesis and the corresponding leading indicators in the Epic’s Lean Business Case.
the functionalities in scope and out of scope for the SAP solution as well as other solution level requirements like security, compliance, response time and data volumes etc. with a clear correspondence to the Epic’s Lean Business Case components.
business capabilities that will be implemented by the SAP solution, expressed as SAP L2/L3 business processes in the solution scope; in an organization using SAFe, these processes correspond to the Features that will implement the Epic MVP.

While SAFe is giving general recommendations for building the Lean Business Case, SAP Activate is detailing concrete, SAP solution-specific elements and activities for the business case creation. It also provides tools and usage guidelines to perform the analysis necessary to fundament the Lean Business Case and helps to create a high-level design, through the design principles identified in the Value Case for SAP solution implementation.

The activities in the SAP Activate Discover phase necessary to document the Value Case for solution implementation are showing how to decide and measure the benefits of adopting the SAP solution, like, for example, the organization of a Digital Value Discovery Workshop, in the scenario of an SAP S4/HANA solution adoption, that helps to document the expected Business Outcome of the Epic.

Solution Discovery Workshop is another example of Discover activity that serves to the Epic MVP identification. In this workshop, the Epic Owner, the Business Owners, the Product Management, and the System Architect from the SAFe organization work together with SAP solution experts to:

select the business capabilities available in the SAP solution that must be part of the MVP and of the MVP extension,
identify integrations, and extensibility needed in the customer’s landscape,

document any other requirements specific to the customer’s journey to SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

For the Epic leading indicators and business outcome proper specification, SAP Activate provides solution-specific tools and accelerators like, for example, the use of SAP Signavio Process Insights application that helps customer organization to discover the value of moving to SAP S/4HANA, better understand their current business process performance and provide continuous monitoring, assessment, and improvement of their business processes. For further information about this application please check the article in the references.

Based on the implementation scope elements included in the Epic Lean Business Case, a forecast estimation of the Epic duration is made by the organization in which is considered, if the case, the costs with Suppliers if they are participating in the Epic MVP implementation.

Lean Agile Enterprises that implement SAFe evolved from the project funding model to the Epic funding model. When an Epic is created, the focus is set on the identification of the MVP functionalities expressed as Features, and on the MVP cost estimation. The Features in the MVP typically correspond to the minimalistic list of business processes to be implemented in the SAP Solution to support the Operational Value Streams (OVS). For the estimation of the implementation costs, as the level of details for the initiative is quite high at the Epic approval moment, the cost estimation is given as monetary range, as for example, between 1M and 1.5M for the Epic MVP. The range varies depending on the Epic and can be within hundreds of thousands or within millions or even tens or hundreds of millions. The same type of cost estimation is made for the Epic full implementation.

The Epic investment often includes the contribution and cost from Suppliers (e.g., the team with deep expertise on SAP solution implementation), whether internal or external. Ideally, enterprises engage external suppliers via Agile contracts, which supports estimating the costs of a supplier’s contribution to a specific Epic. As only high-level scope definition is available at the Epic definition moment, a cost range estimation is expected from the Supplier as well, that is a lot different from the traditional project budgeting approach with fixed cost and scope.

The implementation of an Epic follows an iterative approach and manages investment and risks in an incremental way. The Epic Owner will incrementally refine the total Epic implementation costs for the organization as the MVP is built and learning occurs. Once the Epic MVP implementation is finished, if the Epic benefit hypothesis is not proven, the investment into adding further features to the MVP and the corresponding investment (additional budget) is stopped. If the benefit hypothesis is proven, the Epic Owner works with the Agile teams to add functionalities to the solution using the WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) Feature prioritization technique until WSJF decides otherwise.

In a project-based approach, the SAP solution implementation scope and effort estimation and, as well, the high-level solution implementation plan are attached to the project's contract and make possible the start of the implementation project.

For an organization implementing SAFe, the SAP Activate Discover phase’s result corresponds to the Epic approval (Go/No-Go) decision.

In the next article in this series, we will cover the execution of the activities corresponding to SAP Activate Prepare and Explore phases in a SAFe organization context.

References:

Network Portfolio Roadmap 2023-205 (europa.eu)

SAP Signavio Process Insights - The fastest path to process improvements

Create an Innovation Strategy and a High-Level Road Map - Roadmap Viewer (sap.com)

Advanced Topic - Innovation Accounting in SAFe - Scaled Agile Framework

Executing a SAP Digital Discovery Assessment - Roadmap Viewer (sap.com)

Review and Request SAP Process Insights - Roadmap Viewer (sap.com)

Government - Transitioning from Projects to a Lean Flow of Epics - Scaled Agile Framework

Operational Value Streams - Scaled Agile Framework

Epic - Scaled Agile Framework

Advanced Topic - Agile Contracts - Scaled Agile Framework

WSJF - Scaled Agile Framework

Main Reviewer : @Seb_Ziegler

SAP Activate methodology Prepare and Explore phases in the context of SAFe.

2024-04-29T16:16:37.176000+02:00

In the third installment of the "Innovate Faster: The Power Duo of SAP Activate and SAFe" series, we delve into the Prepare and Explore phases, providing detailed insights into the activities commonly associated with the ART Launch, the PI Planning Preparation, and the PI Planning within the SAFe framework.

Prepare Phase considerations.

The SAP Activate Prepare phase provides the initial planning and preparation for the project.

As visible in the enclosed picture, as exemplification for SAP Activate Methodology for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, in this phase :

the project is officially started (project kick-off),
high level plans are finalized and go-live(s) milestones agreed,
project team is onboarded and assigned to roles and responsibilities,
preparatory work is under way to start the implementation work optimally e.g. infrastructure, team enablement, tools access, facilities etc.

Now, let us look how these activities are seen by an organization leveraging SAFe, and, more specifically, by the Agile Release Train that shifts from organizing technology efforts as projects to a continuous flow of product-centric Features in a value stream.

Just as a reminder, the Value Stream in SAFe is the collection of people (internal and contractors/Suppliers), systems, information, and material needed to provide a mission-enabling capability. A value stream can contain one or more software products(or systems) that work together to provide a capability. The SAP solution along with the team that delivers the work to deploy the SAP solution capabilities is always part of a Value Stream in a Lean Agile organization that is implementing SAFe.

In a SAFe organization, in most cases, the Value Stream already exists, and the Epic initiative(see previous article in the series - Working with Epics in Discovery Phase) is adding to the existing Value Stream :

- a new system - in our case, the SAP solution,

- the corresponding implementation team for the new system.

The SAP experts are onboarded into the ART(s) that is taking ownership on the Epic implementation either as individual SAP Solution experts taking a SAFe role (System Architect, Scrum Master/Agile Coach, Agile Team Member) or as an entire Agile Team or even as a new ART with all corresponding roles.

The attributions of the Project Management role from the SAP Activate methodology are allocated across various roles in SAFe, like in the example here :

Epic Owner – for budget management,
Product Manager – for scope and timeline/roadmap management,
Release Train Engineer – for coaching Agile and supporting the ART processes, relationship management with ART stakeholders, impediments escalations, risk management, and software implementation process improvement at the ART Level,
Scrum Master/Team Coach – for coaching Agile and supporting the Agile team in delivering Features by managing the risks and impediments at the team level.

It is important to note that the SAFe roles mentioned above have many more responsibilities than those listed. The enumeration provided is merely an indication of how traditional project manager responsibilities are distributed within a SAFe organization.

In both methodologies, the customer represents a focal point and takes roles and responsibilities at all levels of the organization no matter if it is project-oriented (SAP Activate) or product-oriented (SAFe), as for example:

Business Owners(SAFe) or Process Owners(SAP Activate) - provide insights for the solution Features and value definition.
Business Process Experts/Subject Matter Experts (SAP Activate) - participate in the Backlog refinement and design activities.
Business Users(SAP Activate) participate in solution testing and validation during the implementation cycle.
IT Experts (SAP Activate) - participate in the technical and design activities.
Operations(SAP Activate) - participate in cutover and go-live preparation activities .

Aligning the roles and responsibilities in SAP solution implementation with SAFe roles is crucial, and should be done in the Prepare phase.

SAP Activate methodology offers an accelerator called Agile Project Team Roles and Responsibilities, in the Project Management workstream, for the Prepare phase, that contains the template of roles and responsibilities required by the SAP solution implementation activities. This accelerator serves as a valuable starting point for creating a comprehensive collaboration handbook with Suppliers.

The resource planning activity that is happening in the Prepare phase is a shared forecast effort that depends on the Supplier involvement model mentioned in the previous article in this series - Innovate Faster: The Power Duo of SAP Activate and SAFe.

Possessing extensive knowledge of the activities and expertise required for the SAP solution implementation, and informed by the relevant SAP Activate methodology, the Supplier is leading the resource planning efforts. The Supplier is able to offer guidance on the necessary skills and the expected level of effort from team members within the SAFe organization to contribute effectively to the SAP solution's implementation.

As in every iterative approach, the first Planning Interval(PI) can start with a core team that is extended or adjusted in the subsequent PIs as per the identified needs. SAP Activate methodology recommends that coordination roles like Scrum Master/AgileCoach, Release Train Engineer, the System Architect and the Agile Teams are staffed from the beginning of the Explore phase and that Fit-to-Standard workshops be organized as reduced duration Sprints (1 week). In this way teams are built and working on cadence is rehearsed by the newly formed Agile teams – see an example of such an approach in the image below.

SAP Activate methodology is having the flexibility to be tailored to the organization’s specifics: methodology, resource planning and budgeting and it is stricter in term of solution specific activities and best practices that are speeding up the implementation and the adoption of the SAP solution.

The Epic Lean Agile Case in SAFe contains business functionalities that are translated into the ART Backlog as Features but can also contain Enablers – large activities that are preparing the team or the system for the implementation of the functional capabilities. The SAP Activate Prepare activities that are dealing with system provisioning, preparation of the initial system for Fit-to-Standard workshops, technical studies to identify the integrations and the interfaces are examples of such Enablers that are part of the Epic MVP Backlog.

It is quite common that these types of Enablers are scheduled for realization in multiple Iterations from the first PI as it is also common to occur in subsequent PIs.

Explore phase considerations about Agile Product Backlog.

The image showcasing the SAP Activate Methodology for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition's Explore phase clearly indicates that the activities during this phase are centered on the Application Design and Configuration workstream.

The Explore phase's outcome is the identification of the initial Product Backlog made of delta requirements and configuration values identified as result of a Fit-to-Standard analysis and design workshops. This analysis validates the SAP solution functionality included in the implementation scope and confirms that the business requirements can be satisfied. The backlog items identified during the Fit-to-Standard analysis are linked to business processes and to the SAP solution components.

Fit-to-Standard analysis and design sequence of activities are executed to:

validate the predefined business processes that customer can consume without any additional tailoring,
identify delta requirements for processes that require extensions, integration, or significant configuration effort and store them as Business Requirements and User Stories and deliver an approved design.

Fit-to-Standard activities are done based on the standard solution in the sandbox/solution demo environment that reflects the SAP solution implementation scope. Delta requirements are collected whenever the standard SAP solution does not meet the customer’s business requirements.

SAP Activate provide, along with the guidelines how to organize the Fit-to-Standard analysis and design workshops, the tools and the accelerators that are expediting the system preparation for analysis and the backlog identification process, with specifics to each SAP solution, like, for example:

SAP Signavio Process Navigator for SAP S/4HANA,
SAP SuccessFactors Leading Practices,
Business driven configuration questionnaires per functional area (e.g., Finance, Human Resources, Manufacturing etc.),
Checklists Template for the 5 Golden Rules,
Custom Code Migration Guide for SAP/4HANA,
UX Adoption: How to approach Design your Launchpad Layout Workshop,
Etc.

Let’s look at the SAFe ART Backlog, that is a hierarchical multi-level Backlog, that, in a simplified view, looks like the left side of the below figure.

The structure is straightforward: a SAFe Epic, managed at the Portfolio level, drives the initiative to implement the SAP Solution that impacts the organization. The Features and Enablers, executed by the Agile Release Trains, are used for deploying the chosen processes and the non-functional requirements of the SAP solution. The Agile teams strive to deliver User Stories and non-functional requirements, either Iteration by Iteration (SAFe) or Sprint by Sprint (SAP Activate).

Looking at the SAFe organization’s approach to Backlog management for continuous value delivery we must look at the Continuous Exploration component that implements the Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CDP).

The Continuous Exploration component is corresponding to the implementation Product Backlog management activities described by SAP Activate Explore phase.

Continuous Exploration drives innovation by constantly aligning the build with the ever-evolving needs of customers and markets, and by defining the vision, roadmap, and feature set required for a solution. It replaces traditional approaches of up-front requirements definition with a process that generates a consistent flow of Features ready for implementation in the ART Backlog. Decomposing Features into small batches of User Stories enables work to move quickly through the remaining aspects of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline to the Customer. Getting fast feedback is built into the process, allowing the teams to adjust to market needs.

Looking closer at the Explore phase activities from SAP Activate we can easily understand that the Fit-to-Standard activities are nothing else than the SAP proposed approach for continuous exploration of Features or, in SAP vocabulary, of Processes that can be delivered by SAP solutions to serve the operational value stream.

There are typically six steps that form the deliverables of the Fit-to-Standard Analysis/Design activity. These steps are defined as such to support the project approach, but they can be also adapted to the SAFe continuous flow of feature approach as per the proposal in the table below:

Steps	Project Approach	SAFe, continuous flow of features, approach
1.Fit-to-Standard Workshop Preparation	Fit-to-Standard workshops are planned and executed at the beginning of the project.	Fit-to-Standard workshops for a subset of in-scope business processes are prepared, serving as Enablers for the functional Features. These Enablers should be planned and executed in every PI, depending on the ART Backlog replenishment needs. These Enablers will cover process identification, briefings and enablement for Subject Matter Experts and Business Owners and other workshop preparatory activities described by SAP Activate methodology.
2.Fit-to-Standard System Preparation	Fit-to-Standard workshops are executed in a short-lived sandbox system. This system is serving just as basis for the SAP Solution show and tell, and it is decommissioned at the end of the Explore phase.	The system preparation for the Fit-to-Standard workshops is delivered as an Enablers for the functional Features, planned and executed the PI, depending on the ART Backlog replenishment needs. These Enablers will cover SAP solution capabilities activation, configuration of baseline processes, sample data preparation etc. A long-lived sandbox environment might be necessary to be used only for the Fit-to-Standard purposes (to not impact the implementation work).
3.Fit-to-Standard Workshops and Documentation	Fit-to-Standard workshops are planned and executed at the beginning of the project and has as objective to review and document the full solution scope.	The execution of these workshops is done in the ART Backlog refinement sessions as part pf the PI planning preparation or during the Iterations as Enablers to increase the knowledge about SAP solution capabilities and drive architectural and functional decisions.
4.Fit-to-Standard Workshop Validation	It has as objective to determine the completeness of the collected delta requirements and the global prioritization of requirements.	Requirement prioritization is done by assessing the requirements’ relation to the defined MVP. A certain level of uncertainty is accepted regarding the detailed specifications for the ART backlog (Features and Enablers). PI confidence voting is used to assess the level of trust of the ART team in the PI plans that were made (indirectly and collectively assessing the needful level of details for the planned Features).
5.Design Workshops and Documentation	Most important design decisions are taken before the implementation starts as design impacts estimations and costs.	Implementation strategy and architecture is evolving as preparation for each PI. Product Managers, Product Owners, System Architect and Solution Architect are evolving it collaboratively, in an iterative way. The major design decisions are taken in a just in time manner, in the PI preparation, with a Set-Based Design (SBD) or Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) approach as described by SAFe *Principle #3 – Assume variability; preserve options.* Solution design evolved during the Sprints using spikes or in the Backlog Refinement sessions.
6.Review and Customer Sign-Off	Sign-Off is needed on the collected list of requirements to baseline the solution functional scope and to support the change management process.	PI Planning results in a series of team-level and ART-level committed objectives representing the functional capabilities delivered at the end of each PI. The commitment is made with the joint participation of all ART members, from the organization and from the Supplier(s) participating in the value stream. The PI scope remains unchanged during the PI execution.

Once the Fit-to-Standard workshop series and connected activities are executed and the Product Backlog is collected, the Explore phase continues with the Release Planning activity that is drawing an initial timeline for the implementation of the selected business process – in a very similar way with the PI Planning in SAFe.

Multiple Planning Intervals(PIs) may be required before the SAP solution attains the capabilities needed for productive use, as outlined in the Epic MVP. Consequently, Release Planning activities will be carried out across all necessary PIs.

We can conclude that the PI planning preparation and the PI planning activities are covering some of the activities from SAP Activate Prepare phase and many of the activities from Explore phase. The difference between the two frameworks is that in SAFe, these activities are connected to a smaller set of functionalities and are split into smaller pieces so that they can be executed during the PI Iterations, as per the functional scope agreed in the PI planning – see the picture below.

The next article in the series will cover activities specific to SAP Activate Realize and Deploy phases in the context of an organization leveraging SAFe.

Article References:

1st article in the series - Innovate Faster: The Power Duo of SAP Activate and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

2nd article in the series - Working with SAFe Epics in the SAP Activate Discover phase

Government - Transitioning from Projects to a Lean Flow of Epics - Scaled Agile Framework

Operational Value Streams - Scaled Agile Framework

Continuous Delivery Pipeline - Scaled Agile Framework

Principle #3 - Assume Variability; Preserve Options - Scaled Agile Framework

Enablers - Scaled Agile Framework

SAP Activate Methodology for Transition to SAP S/4HANA - Fit-to-Standard Workshop Preparation - Roadmap Viewer (sap.com)

SAP Activate Methodology for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition- Roadmap Viewer (sap.com)

SAP Activate Methodology for SAP SuccessFactors - Roadmap Viewer(sap.com)

Main Reviewer : @Seb_Ziegler

Sign in with an Email link - New upcoming feature for SAP Concur in Q2 2024

2024-04-30T20:00:50.719000+02:00

What is the ' Sign in with an Email link/ Passwordless Sign-In ' feature?

Overview

This feature allows a user to enter their username or verified email address in https://www.concursolutions.com/ and then at the next step, see an option that says ' Sign in with an email link'. The user then receives an email with a one-time link to sign in to Concur. We can also call the ' Sign in without a password' feature as 'Passwordless Sign In'.

Key Benefits

Improved User Experience: Passwordless login streamlines the authentication process, leading to a smoother and more efficient user experience. Users no longer need to type in passwords or go through the hassle of resetting forgotten passwords.
Elimination of Password Management Hassles: Users don't need to remember complex passwords or worry about password resets.
Does not compromise on security: Since the one-time link has an expiry time of 1 hour and is sent only to the user's email address, it does not compromise on security unless the user's email has been hacked
Reduces need to create Support cases when the account gets locked: If you are unsure of your password, use the passwordless sign-in option instead of attempting multiple password entries and locking your account
Alternative to 2FA: If you are stuck during the 2FA registration or login flow ( getting an incorrect 6 digit code error), login quickly using the passwordless login feature to sign into Concur

Overall, passwordless login features, particularly those leveraging one-time email links, offer secure, user-friendly, and efficient authentication solutions for both businesses and users alike.

How it works

Once the feature is released in Q2 2024 (The exact date will be updated)

Go to https://www.concursolutions.com/
Enter the username or verified email address
3. You will see an option to ' Sign in with an email link'
4. If you click Sign in with an Email Link, a sign-in link is sent to the Email 1 and/or
Email 2 email address ( Note: These email addresses need NOT be verified. ) configured in the Email Addresses section of the My Profile
– Personal Information page in SAP Concur Solutions. If neither Email1 nor Email2 exists, and the username is of email address format, we'll try to send the email to that address.
Configuration Settings - For Admins
- Works for both Standard and Professional edition
- The feature will be automatically turned on for companies that have SSO optional setting.
  - To check if you have SSO optional setting, the Company's SSO Admin should navigate to Authentication Admin → Manage SSO → Check the SSO Setting
    For SSO optional companies, any user who enters their username and navigates to the next page will see an option called ' Sign in with an Email link'
  - If you want to disable the 'Passwordless Login' feature for all users in your company
    - Go to Authentication Admin
    - Navigate to Sign In Settings
    - Navigate to Others- Miscellaneous Policies
    - Disable the checkbox for the policy "Allow users to sign in using an email link"
    - We cannot disable this feature per user/group of users

Pre- Requisites

SSO Required companies will have the feature disabled by default, but they can enable it manually if they choose
.Feature is automatically enabled for SSO Optional companies.
This feature is NOT available on Mobile device login or Concur Mobile App sign-in. Works only for web browser sign-in.
User should have a working email address configured in Email 1/ Email 2 under Profile settings. Users who do not have access to the Email Addresses section of the My Profile –
Personal Information page—for example, invoice-only users—must have a valid email address associated with their user account. The email address associated with their account can be confirmed by their company’s Concur user administrator.

Lodge Card - Credit Card Types for managing Employee Expenses

2024-05-14T10:35:36.701000+02:00

There are broadly Lodge Cards and Credit Cards in the industry

Lodge cards are also known as corporate ghost cards, direct billed cards or company paid cards

Lodge Cards are provided generally by travel service providers who work with the corporate businesses. Example hotel providers like HRS or Booking.com may offer a lodge card to a company so their employees may spend for hotel stay against that card, without the hassle of having a card issued to the individual employee. Company will get periodical bills from the card provider and settle the bill

Concur Solutions from SAP support Lodge Cards. The set-up guide for Lodge Cards in Concur can be accessed at https://www.concurtraining.com/customers/tech_pubs/Docs/_Current/SG_Exp/Exp_SG_Lodge_Card.pdf

Expense matching of card expense is done by four factors

1. Employee ID. This is dependent on capabilities of card provider to link the transaction to employee ID. Companies that use Concur Travel set up can help to have the ID included in transaction

2. Traveller Name. The travel management company can match the Level 3 name of the employee

3. Ticket Number. This works when name is missing in the booking transaction details provided by the Card Provider and company is in receipt of a travel booking reference with an employee

4. Manual matching. This is done by Card Administrator using the Concur tool

We shall discuss credit cards in another article