SAP Concur Solutions: Celebrating 10 Years as an Open Platform

[jenny_lundberg]

SAP Concur was one of the first companies to offer a pure SaaS offering and was also one of the first to realize that providing ways to extend and integrate with SaaS software provided a competitive advantage.

Beginning ten years ago in 2011, SAP Concur gave customers access to open APIs via simple web protocols called Client Web Services. Customers could now seamlessly integrate with and extend SAP Concur products and services to meet their organization’s specific travel and expense management needs without extensive coding.

In 2013 we took this concept to the next level by introducing the SAP Concur App Center. This new program allowed partners to certify their pre-packaged integrations and extensions. We also established a hub to publish partner applications that improved total spending insights, simplified the travel and expenses process for our customers. 

The SAP Concur innovation journey.

Today we have more than 75 APIs available in the SAP Concur Development Center and over 250 partner applications in the App Center.

With the help of our APIs, it is possible to access data and functions within the SAP Concur product ecosystem and solve a vast array of business issues and reporting needs such as:

• Pull data from SAP Concur solutions for in-depth reporting services


• Reconciliation or validation of data against existing SAP Concur data


• Post new data into SAP Concur solutions


• Update existing information in SAP Concur products to match your system data

We continuously evolve our open platform to provide business agility while making it easy to integrate with, extend, and provide content on top of SAP Concur core solutions. Currently, we are focused on four key investment areas to evolve our current open platform concept.

 

1. Accelerate Integration across your value chain

Our open platform delivers capabilities that simplify integration with other software systems. As part of the larger SAP vision and portfolio, we have expanded our existing platform to support the new end-to-end SAP intelligent business processes, like the newly-introduced Travel to Reimburse scenario (T2R).

This scenario provides seamless integration between SAP Concur, SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and SAP S/4 HANA on-premise solutions. You can manage end-to-end travel booking and employee-initiated spend management processes and receive automated and integrated travel spend data regardless of where it happens.

SAP Intelligent Enterprises – SAP Travel to Reimburse integrated business process

Another way we have expanded our integration capabilities is our new Financial Integration Service (FIS). With FIS, you can more easily build connections between a downstream financial system and SAP Concur solutions, reduce the overall effort and cost of building integrations, and avoid using flat files and manual data transfers. By simplifying these connections, you can take advantage of improved accuracy, transparency, and real-time integration.

Listen to this expert session from our 2021 SAP Concur Partner summit: Financial Integration Service (35 min) for a deep dive into the Financial Integration Service.

2. Simplify the development of your application extensions

We provide tools and services that simplify the development of extensions to enhance SAP Concur solutions. Our new API called Launch External URL is one example. It provides the ability to extend the existing capabilities of the SAP Concur User Interface and enable the display of a punch-out window, providing a means to deliver custom user interactions or access functionality found in an external system.

3. Boost compliance and adhere to regular policies

To help you stay in compliance with constantly changing regulations, we provide APIs designed specifically for developing applications to support business, regional, or industry-specific compliance processes. Today, we have more than 40 partner-built applications that provide risk and compliance solutions right out of the box.

4. Expand business value with our global partner ecosystem

We collaborate and innovate with our partner community to expand overall SAP Concur business, increasing the number of partner-built applications, out-of-the-box integrations, and adding valuable travel content. We have more than 700 partners in two main categories:

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  • Platform partners: App Center, Financial Services Companies, and Travel Suppliers
  
  
  • Distribution partners: Travel Management Companies, Resell, and Service partners
  
  
  
  

Together with our partner community, we have released more than 250 applications for both enterprises and end-users. Currently, more than 7,000 of our customers use at least one App Center application. Watch this short video to learn more about the App Center.

We look for innovative companies with compelling integration ideas to solve real business problems for our 60 million business travelers and 48,000 enterprises worldwide. All our applications are certified for the highest standards of quality and security.

SAP Concur App Center

Join our platform innovation journey in four easy steps

Whether you are a customer or prospective partner, we have well-established processes and resources available to begin building solutions or integrating with our SAP Concur Core Solutions.

Step 1: SAP Concur App Center

Begin by exploring our App Center for relevant and useful content. Dramatically cut your time to value by leveraging a pre-existing application, integration, or connection that solves your business need(s) instead of building something from scratch.

Step 2: SAP Concur Development Center

Don't give up if you cannot find an existing app that solves your business challenge in the App Center. Search our APIs reference list for the integration and extension points you need for your solution. Visit developer.concur.com and browse through the Getting Started Guide or the API reference guide.

Step 3: SAP Concur Web Services

To use our SAP Concur APIs as a customer, you will need to license our Web Services. Discover more about our Web Services in this brochure and video.

Step 4: Certified App Center Partner Application

As a partner, you can “productize” your extensions and integrations on our App Center. To apply, you must meet the following criteria:

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  • You have a compelling business case for many SAP Concur clients and/or their users.
  
  
  • Your solution is technically feasible via the available APIs
  
  
  • You are committed to developing, market, and support your integration.
  
  
  
  

We will work closely with you throughout the certification process. Watch this session from our 2021 SAP Concur Partner Summit for an expert overview of some best practices to certify and onboard your application to the App Center.

Depending on the type of application you build, fees may apply. Interested? Please contact us at: concur_bizdev@sap.com.

What's next?

As part of our long-term strategy, we plan to open up our platform even more and invite the larger SAP community to explore our SAP Concur APIs. We are in close collaboration with our SAP Business Technology Platform teams, and you can find information about our APIs and events in the SAP API Business hub that are specifically relevant for our SAP community. 

To take a deeper dive into platform strategies for 2021 and emerging ideas, click here to ensure you are included in future activities and insights. We plan to announce a new series of blogs and podcasts you may find valuable on topics including SAP Concur Platform Roadmap API deep-dives, how-to sessions, and best-practices sessions from customers and partners that have used our platform. We will also keep you up to date on our progress in the SAP community.

Thank you for taking the time to read about how we at Concur are expanding our Open Platform concept to the next level. 

Additional Resources

• SAP Concur App Center


• SAP Concur Development Center


• SAP Concur Platform Roadmap Session