I have been using concur for the first time during the past 3 weeks (!) and already need to join the choir. The UX is a thing I would probably fire the developers, team leads and UX designers for. But it seems to be a general SAP way of not-thinking as this page is a nasty UI-crime as well. Annoying Captcha for every(!) single post... moving web page artefacts (two different browsers and machines)... beginner's mistakes. This community UI is not developed by SAP or SAP Concur, so we have to work within the confines of how this platform was developed. We'd love to hear your suggestions on possible improvements, but keep in mind they may not be possible on this platform. There is a reason for the reCaptcha. This is a public community site, which means it is accessible by anyone and therefore not impervious to inappropriate posts or posts unrelated to SAP Concur. So, our team had to make a decision on what was more important: requiring reCaptcha to deter these types of posts or not. We felt it more appropriate to try and keep the community as free as possible from unwanted posts. Also, reCaptcha isn't an uncommon practice on many sites. As for the moving webpage artifacts and and the two different browsers and machines, I am not sure what you referring to. Could you clarify please?
SAP is a complex set of products and I actually like its potential bottom line. But Concur again adds doubts. The thing is, that during the implementations of SAP modules end users (in this case employees) are rarely asked about, rather the clerks are considered to be "the user". I see this as an issue for the company implementing SAP Concur. Do I feel employees (end users) should be consulted during the implementation phase? 100%. However, as you stated, companies do not do this. I am not sure if our sales or implementation teams specifically mention consulting end users, but I am sure they recommend having people test the system and I've even seen many companies use a Pilot group. We leave it up to the customer on how they prefer to carry out the testing of their system.
Just like in public sector, these people design their processes by unloading as much of their work as possible to the actual users. Their mentality can also be quite stubborn (close to autism) when it comes to following processes - no matter if they make sense or not. Most companies set up SAP Concur to ensure that company policies are being followed and that employees are submitting expenses according to local and federal guidelines. Companies from time to time get audited, so if they have a very lax system that doesn't require users to follow spend policies or provide proper receipts, it opens the company up to a great deal of liability. The SAP Concur system works based on how our customers tell it to work. It can be as lenient or stringent as a company makes it. As for processes and policies, SAP Concur has no say in those. They are all determined by each company.
That way, you will get a solution like Concur, that requires the users to fill out forms (again and again), wait for confirmations, follow hard-coded rules without possibility to circumvent and - worst thing - blocks the processes immediately if they do not comply. I am not understanding why a system should allow for circumventing and not blocking people who aren't in compliance. Any required fields/forms and confirmations are not from SAP Concur, they are what your company has selected and implemented.
My particular problem has become, that there is confusion about ONE of my projects and it blocks me from filing ANY report to get my reimbursements. It has now been weeks already and I am waiting for several thousands of Euros to be reimbursed. In addition, after a given period of time, the system would automatically submit it to payroll deducting payments with company CC from my personal salary. Auto-approvals of reports can happen, which in turn can make the report end up in payroll, but only if you have submitted the expense report. The system cannot take an unsubmitted report and submit it for you. Submissions require human touch. Auto-approvals can happen in the system, but again this is something your company would have decided on and implemented. As for the payroll deductions, SAP Concur does not have that capability.
So - again just like with public sector officials - the problem is puked onto the end users and they need to put a lot of effort to get things straight.
So far, I was not, even after putting more than one entire working day (!) into this stupid nightmare, bothering 6 different people and being pushed back by several (non-Concur-SAP) processes, that remove me from the project, which has meanwhile been closed. I cannot speak to your internal project closing, but if you send me a private message here on Community with your company name, I can certainly provide you with the name of someone at your company you can speak to about making possible site changes to better streamline the system and how to reconcile the issue you have with the closed project.
Frankly, don't you guys have any skilled UX designers at SAP? If so, why don't you listen to them? Don't you do UAT (with actual users)? Who is responsible for this? We do pilot new features with our customers and get their feedback before they are released. We also have a Customer Engagement Initiative where we have customers sign up to be involved with the development of new features we plan to release. Something else to consider is that SAP Concur is used globally and with that requires developing a system that meets all of the different countries' requirements, policies and regulations.
