Book for Guest - Manager Emails being sent

[tstagliano]

Wanted to see if anyone has experience with the Book for Guest functionality where for the very 1st booking for that non-profiled guest, the manager of the employee making the booking for the guest will receive the email notification for that booking?  This could causes alot of confusion where we could have 10 coordinators with the same manager who all will be using this functionality so the manager could receive 10 emails that they have no need to receive.

[leedau]

@tstagliano Thanks for posting in the SAP Concur Community. This feature was released in July 2023 to ensure added protection for user accounts and to travel programs to ensure correct usage of the guest booking feature. For updates or changes to this feature, it is recommended that you 

submit as an improvement request. To submit a new improvement request or vote on an existing improvement request, please visit the Customer Influence Website.

[KevinD]

@tstagliano

As @leedau mentioned, we put in security measures to ensure the feature was being used correctly. I'll give an example...if someone wanted to defraud their company, they could book a trip for their family or friends using the Guest Booking option. If Managers are not notified and no one is monitoring the bookings, the company could end up paying for flights and losing money.

[Kaluckb]

@KevinD Is there a way to turn this feature off? 

We allow the use of Concur for personal bookings utilizing our negotiated rates.  Often times, this is a Guest Booking.  We've added security measure to ensure that trips are marked personal and a person FOP is included, so there is no need to CC a manager.  I understand copying the user whose profile was accessed to create the guest booking, but sending to a manger seems unnecessary and inconvenient.

Turning this feature off would be preferred.

Becky

[KevinD]

@Kaluckb I asked internally about this and was told that the Guest Booking feature should only send an email to the manager if it is the first guest booking made by that user. After that, the emails should only go to the user doing the booking. Do you know if this was the first guest booking made by the user?

Also, I'm trying to understand why someone at your company would do a guest booking as a personal trip? Is this used for your employees who do not have Concur profiles, but want to get the negotiated rates?

[Kaluckb]

@KevinD   This was not the first time the profiled user booked for a guest.  Is there a timeline attached?  For instance, if the last guest booking was in 2023, is the First email only applicable the first time the Guest Booking option is used following the roll-out of this new rule?

In short, we use Guest Booking in different case.  (i.e.  For contractors, for non-profiled team members, for spouses or SO's accompanying an employee on an approved business trip, etc.)

[KevinD]

@Kaluckb I forgot to mention that if the guest booker does change their password, that does reset the one-time email.

[Kaluckb]

@KevinD How is this impacted then by SSO or @2FA? 

Our company requires frequent password updates, so if SSO "resets" the notification, essentially, if someone books regularly for a guest, their manager could be receiving emails every 6-8weeks.

The manager should not be bombarded with emails that are irrelevant.  Guest Bookings are allowed per our policy, so while emailing the profiled user makes sense, emailing their manager, does not.

[KevinD]

@Kaluckb Let me clarify, I was referring to an SAP Concur password reset, not an SSO password reset and not someone having their 2FA reset. Those are not all the same.

While I agree that managers shouldn't be bombarded with irrelevant emails, the guest booking option wasn't intended to be used frequently. The initial intent was for situations such as flying in a candidate for an interview or flying in a guest speaker. Also, Concur Travel was created so travelers could book business travel for themselves. Guest Bookings was something added on later to allow for certain situations. If managers are getting emails every time someone does a guest booking, that is not expected behavior and a help ticket should be submitted.

The intent of the email is to ensure users are using the Guest Booking feature correctly and not fraudulently. We are not able to customize this feature to account for every possible travel policy our customers might have. What if an employee used the guest booking feature to book a trip for their best friend to come visit because the friend couldn't afford the airfare. What good would emailing the person who created the booking do? They already know what they have done, so where would the audit for fraudulent use come in?

We are erring on the side of caution here. If we didn't put in the email option, there likely would have been a customer asking why we didn't put in any security measure to notify a manager about a guest booking taking place.

[Kaluckb]

@KevinD thank you for the clarification.    I've contacted support as well who was able to offer additional insight.

The Guest Booking option is restricted unless specifically granted by our administrative team and allows us to maintain visibility when travelers combine business with leisure, as many do these days.

Thank you for your responsiveness.

[KevinD]

@tstagliano the email to the manager should only send once upon the first guest booking done by the user.