Unable to book-special characters error

[Donna_Wolf]

We are experiencing a number of issues booking in Concur and Sabre, mostly hotels, for employees that have previously had no issues booking.  Most of the time the error states something about the credit card being invalid or has an incorrect amount of digits.  However, we have discovered that it is due to special characters in their profile.  Examples: accent marks or hyphenated names, address direction or abbreviations that include a period (N., S., E., W., Dr.), comma in an international address; the list goes on.  Once we fix it in their profile, it works fine.  We have an HR feed (Workday) and have made no changes to our process.  Did Concur change their configuration receiving the files, or previously allowed characters in address fields but no longer does?  

[PoojaKumatkar]

Hi @Donna_Wolf ,

This is totally depend on how you are handling your existing records. 

To validate the same, I did small test case in our sandbox and below are the two observations:

Test Case 1:

If we pass UPDATE in import settings, then it will not overwrite existing value. It will simply update the existing record with only those fields that are non blank in the import file.

Import File: 

100,0,SSO,UPDATE,EN,N,N
350,Admin01,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,abc-:…,pune,maharashtra,,IN,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Result - I uploaded this file for the first time which has special char in street name. Later I removed special char manually in employee profile and saved it. Again, I uploaded the same file, and it did not update my existing street name as it is already updated at the time of initial upload. Meaning, street address does not have special char in it as I have manually removed it.

Test Case 2:

If we pass REPLACE in import settings, then it will overwrite existing value.

Import File:

100,0,SSO,REPLACE,EN,N,N
350,Admin01,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,abc-:…,pune,maharashtra,,IN,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Result - I uploaded this file for the first time which has special char in street name. Later I removed special char manually in employee profile and saved it. Again, I uploaded the same file, and this time street name got replaced with new value which is sent through file that is with special char.

So, it is totally depend on what import settings you are using in your import file. If you are using UPDATE, then it will not replace existing changes which you have done it in profile manually.

If you are using REPLACE then it will replace/overwrite existing changes done it in profile. In this case, I would suggest you doing the same changes in source system as well and going forward, you should do these changes directly in source system so that next day it will get updated in Concur system. 

Also, attaching additional information for your further reference:

If this answers your query, then please mark solution as accepted.