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.

[KathyT]

My company is also impacted by the Attendee Import change in early April. I opened a support case on April 4th and May 6th was told 'enhancement applied to all Concur systems due to a system bug.  Since this bug was addressed at Priority 4, no communication was sent to Concur clients.  Additionally this was not a planned change which is why it was not included in the release notes.' 

We have multiple impacts as a result of this enhancement we were unable to prepare for:
1) We were using SYSEMP to load employees across the globe (120K) whether using Concur expense or not so our employees could search for an Employee Attendee across any of our companies.  I was advised in support case SYSEMP can no longer be loaded with non-Profile users.  Those attendees are in "frozen" in time at the point of last load and not updating which means Attendees at meetings can have the wrong company and title. 

2) The SYSEMP is now matching on First Name, Last Name, and Middle Initial and did not do this prior to April enhancement.  We use Concur Travel so an employee's profile matches the name on their drivers license or passport.  If someone is in the middle of name change we have don't know what name to use in the Attendee import so those updates are failing. We were also using Preferred Name so Bill as Preferred Name does not match Legal Name of William.  If someone updates their travel profile with a middle initial, we may not have that middle name to get the initial from our HR feed.  We also may not know what middle initial they use on the driver's license or passport if they have 2 middle names.  We also have employees that have not updated their travel profile with a middle initial so if we send a middle initial from HR those don't match either.    

3) Our Attendee Import is failing every day so new profiled employees since April 4 are missing company and title but probably won't update because of the matching on First Name, Last Name, and Middle Initial. 

We have just started assessing the impact of this enhancement and will need to align development resources for code changes so there may be more impacts we have not uncovered. 

I understand fixing a 'bug' but this significantly updated the functionality of the Attendee Import.   I'll enter a Solution Suggestion if one doesn't exist.