NextGen UI: Quick Expenses feature?

[alessin11]

Has anyone heard if a feature similar to Quick Expenses in the current UI will be made available in NextGen? The is a feature our travelers use often, especially for mileage.

[Jody]

Hi, @alessin11! Currently, there is no plan to recreate the Quick Expense experience in the new UI. Our research showed it was very rarely used and when it was used, it often created more errors for the end user (making the overall process more time-consuming). Now, your travelers will experience a change where instead of opening a window to enter several lines at a time, they will be clicking Add Expense for each trip (mileage expense). The single page that opens is designed for simplicity and accuracy ensuring less errors.

Rest assured that we continue to watch the overall time spent in the tool--including time spent resolving errors--in order to make the process quicker for you AND your travelers. To that end, I'd love to hear more about how your travelers are "used to doing it."

Especially as it pertains to mileage, I want to make sure they know some of the other methods available and I want to equip you with whatever materials might exist for supporting them.

[alessin11]

Hi @Jody,

Thanks for your quick reply. The main reason why our travelers use the Quick Expenses feature is so they can enter multiple company/perosnal car mileage trips quickly at once. For example if a Sales employee does an expense report once every 2 weeks, they may end up needing to enter separate lines for 20 different trips . Entering these one by one in the new UI will be much more cumbersome as opposed to using the Quick Expenses method.

Thanks,

Alex

[Jody]

Four things, @alessin11:

1. What an advocate you are for your employees! Clearly, you are on the traveler's side! (You and I have this in common...=-)
2. I'm not allowed to share actual numbers, but let's just say the number of users that used Quick Expense was really, really small. And of that really, really small number, a big amount of them were only submitting a single expense! I know these are not your people. I just want you to know.
3. In terms of the overall process, "Quick Expense" was a bit of a misnomer. I'm sure your employees did them accurately the first time with no errors. But...if even one or two of them didn't, getting the errors resolved added to the overall time that includes steps you or their manager has to invest in any one expense report. Some of the contributing factors to the design of the new page include ensuring that the employee is entering the right information according to your policy, time on task, accuracy the first time, and the feelz. <--Non-technical term for "do you FEEL complete now?"
4. We--and by "we," I mean you and I and your travelers--are in the early stage of the NextGen pilot. Your observations about the experience your travelers are having has not gone unnoticed. Without promising that Santa will arrive by the end of September (even though I believe he will), the best I can type right now is "stay tuned."

[alessin11]

Hi @Jody,

Thanks for your detailed feedback. If you hear anything else on this topic, please share 😉

Best Regards,

Alex

[Rachel]

I wish I'd taken this question to this community board first. I submitted a case to support with this exact same question ("will quick expenses become available in the new UI?") and it took 2 full weeks to get a response... Lesson learned.

[msmsmsmms]

no. this is unacceptable. a new interface and rewrite of the program is meant to improve things not make it worse. lack of users utilizing the feature is not an excuse. the coding for that feature was already done, why can't it be retained?

[adamrayburn]

Just went to do my monthly expense, looks like NextUI is now on.   My mileage used to take 15 minutes to enter my daily trips, now takes 3-4 times longer without QuickExpense.   Any way to revert to the old UI for 1 user, or is this feature coming back?

[AshleyB]

Hi @adamrayburn

Sorry to hear that. Thanks for posting! @Jody , any thoughts on the topic? 

[Jody]

Hi, @adamrayburn~

The ability to add mileage the way you're familiar with currently is not a priority for when the new UI is officially released for general availability (GA). That's not to say it's not important or that we don't understand how important it is to many of our users - just that other features have been prioritized on the Not Yet Available in Next Gen document.

If your company uses the Professional Edition of Concur Expense, your administrator can revert groups of users back to the current UI if they're members of a group. (I'm guessing unless these groups already exist or there is a plan to use groups in the future, this is not a viable option.)

As well, you’re (the administrator) welcome to submit a Solution Suggestion through the Customer Support Portal. In your suggestion, please include the phrase ‘Next Gen UI’.

This is the best way for the Concur Expense team -which includes developers and designers- to hear what matters most to customers and end users.

[snemeth]

I hope you reconsider this position. While usage may be low, for those of us that do use it for multiple entries, there is no substitute. Entering each tip as a separate expense quadruples the time spent doing weekly expense reports. This is unacceptable.

[KevinD]

@snemeth couldn't you use the copy feature for mileage then just adjust any fields that need changing?

While the mileage grid option would allow for multiple entries, if I remember correctly, it didn't allow for all fields that might need to be filled out and would still require some data input from users.

It is just a suggestion.

As for the mileage grid, when we looked at the data, it showed a very low usage across all our customers.

[lp1]

Hi Kevin, 

Thanks for the suggestion but really this is a tedious work around for what was a perfectly adequate feature.

1. You cannot see which claim you are copying without entering into it. 

2. Once copied, you have to enter each individual line to adjust the fields. Each has to load and then save before moving between them. 

In short, the time to complete my mileage claim (or similar multiple type expenses) has easily doubled. 

I hope Concur re-think this and bring back this valuable feature. Sorry but the work around suggested is just that, a work around, not an improvement. 

[Eric4x4]

So, I logged in today with the new UI and to avoid the standard curmodgeonly "All new things are bad" response, I will note that a lot of the features that I would use are now gone. the "Quick Expense" was one of those.

I have a lot of cash type expenses that do not get added automatically, so that quick expense feature was invaluable as I could enter one meal, then copy it using the convenient "+" symbol. I could get 12 expenses added and then edit for values significantly faster than having to add all 12 expenses individually. This would save me several minutes every week of individually adding expenses.

I guess being part of that "Very, and I mean very small" number of people means it's not worth keeping such a feature.

[msmsmsmms]

honestly, the nextgen UI is increasing the amount of time rquired to submit a report. this is ridiculous. this is not even an improvement to make lives better. i am so angry at the inefficiency of the new interface that im actually taking time to create and account to post on the forum!!

[lp1]

Seems I am another one of the "Very, and I mean very small" number of people! How frustrating this feature has been removed, please, please reconsider. 

[PaulMiller]

As a member of the "very, and I mean very small number" group who's main use of Concur was the Quick Expense feature I find the constant response "very small" incredibly insulting, this was the main element me and my team used in Concur (in fact it's the main element everyone I know in my industry uses!), the new interface, as so many on here have already said, is awful, change for change sake. To SAP just because you say it's quicker, cleaner etc does not make it so, try listening to the feedback, the new interface is awful...period, the removal of the Quick Expense option is causing issues for this "very small" group. Quite frankly your attitude toward this problem is very poor, at this stage, given the choice I would move to an alternative provider, your current offering is not fit for purpose and your customer service is condescending.