Attendee API: A step back for SYSEMP

[Kmilogon]

With great frustration we have recently found out that Concur had taken the decision to disable the creation of SYSEMP (Employee Attendee Type) attendees through API.

This was replaced by an automated mechanism that creates the attendee using the information extracted from the employee profile.

However, this mechanism is not considering the custom fields defined during implementation.

In our case, it is of vital importance to keep the name of the company the employee is working for, so we can elaborate reports related to employee benefits in kind.

The only solution that we have been left with (if we want to populate the custom fields), is using the "Attendee Import" file, which is a significant step back compared to our automated interface which created the attendee record as part of the user creation process.

For us, it is something completely impossible to explain or understand, and will generate a lot of work and documentation to ideate a parallel manual process to cover our needs. 

[KevinD]

@Kmilogon when you say "vital importance to keep the name of the company the employee is working for" do you mean employees that are working with their customers/clients? 

Also, you can always use our Continuous Influence portal to submit an enhancement request to return this feature.

[Kmilogon]

Hello @KevinD , thanks a lot for your answer.

I mean both employees that are working with their customers or that have been invited to an internal event.

We are a big conglomerate with many registered companies around the world.

In certain countries it is important to know if the employee who has been invited to an internal event or meeting is coming from the home company organizing the event, or any other local or foreign subsidiary.

"Company" is a system field and is used in every type of attendee including both employees and customers, which makes it impossible to map for the automated creation of SYSEMP attendees. 

Furthermore, at this stage we no longer know which sysemp were created with company (before the change) and which without it, since Cognos can only report on already assigned attendees to an expense.

The only workaround we have found by now is to download form our HR database a complete list of all active employees and upload it as a file on a daily basis.

This is far from optimal for both us and Concur, and is costing us resources we were not using in the past.  

Can you please ellaborate on what is the "Continuous Influence portal"  and how it works?

Thanks,

Camilo.

[KevinD · Accepted solution]

@Kmilogon the Continuous Influence program is where customers can submit enhancement requests for product changes. Here is the link: https://pages.community.sap.com/topics/influence-adopt. When you get to the main page, scroll down a bit and look for the Continuous Influence link. 

[dlamont]

Yes, agreed. We've been using the Attendee Import, however, the recent changes have also affected this, first name must be the first name in the employee Profile, we've always used preferred name, as that is how people know them. Now that no longer works. In order to keep using the file, we must convert to employee actual first name which will now duplicate existing attendees and cause an even bigger mess. I am awaiting a response from support regarding all of this.