Trainline Custom Field Mapping in new Concur Travel

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to configure Trainline custom field mapping within SAP Concur to facilitate accurate traveler data transfer for booking processing.

Introducing Trainline Custom Field Mapping in new Concur Travel

Trainline Custom Field Mapping enables organizations to align traveler profile data in SAP Concur with the custom fields required by Trainline for booking processing and downstream communication. It's primary purpose is to ensure that the correct traveler and company-specific information is included in the handover file sent from Trainline to the Travel Management Company (TMC) for each booking.

The mapping process allows administrators to map data directly from standard Concur Travel profile fields, eliminating the need to create and maintain separate custom user fields. This not only reduces administrative effort but also improves data accuracy and consistency, making it easier to manage and maintain profile data across systems.

Standard Profile Fields Support for Trainline

SAP Concur provides a range of fields that can be mapped against Trainline Questions (Trainline custom fields). These fields are categorized to help administrators differentiate between available data sources:

Standard Profile Fields: These are predefined fields within Concur Travel that hold common traveler information:

Arranger Name (Arranger who created a trip)
Cost Center
Employee ID
Employee Position/Title
Manager Name
Org Unit/Division

User Fields: These are custom user fields that organizations may have created in Concur Travel to store additional traveler-specific information.

Trip Fields: These are custom trip fields, used to capture data specific to a particular travel booking or itinerary.

Additional headers help administrators differentiate the available Concur Travel fields. Example of all fields with their respective headers:

Note

Most customers or their TMC work directly with Trainline to establish custom field mapping (Trainline questions). Concur Travel allows matching of standard profile, custom profile and trip fields to these questions and pass the data back to Trainline for reporting. The setup must occur first with Trainline and then matched on the Concur Travel side. If the customer has any questions already setup with Trainline as required, then they must be matched on the Concur Travel side.

Understanding Trainline Custom Field Data

Trainline allows for the configuration of three distinct types of custom field data, each with specific recommendations for mapping to Concur Travel fields:

To map fields between SAP Concur and Trainline, follow the steps below:

Passenger: These custom fields are generally collected for the traveler in general. It is recommended that Passenger custom fields are mapped to Concur Travel user fields or standard profile fields.
Booker: These custom fields are collected per trip. The recommendation is to map Booker fields to Concur Travel trip fields or the Arranger standard field.
Itinerary: Similar to Booker fields, Itinerary custom fields are also collected per trip. These should also be mapped to Concur Travel trip fields or the Arranger standard field.

Mapping Fields for Trainline

From the Edit Rail Connector page, navigate to Trainline Global API and ensure it is enabled.
Select the chevron on the left of Trainline Global API section to expand it and reveal further configuration options.
Make sure all necessary Rail Suppliers are enabled and saved.
Select Configure Trainline.
This action will retrieve the Trainline questions (custom fields) that have been configured on the Trainline side based on your Corporate Reference and display them in a new pop-up window.
Map the appropriate Concur fields to their corresponding Trainline questions in the new window. You can choose from Standard Profile Fields, User Custom Fields, or Trip Custom Fields, provided they have been created previously.
Select Save to apply your changes.

Note

Anytime an administrator makes any changes to the Trainline custom fields, they must refresh the custom field mapping on Concur side by navigating to the Trainline Global API configuration setting. Administrators must select Configure Trainline which will refresh the questions from Trainline, review their mapping and click Save. This ensures that your Concur system always reflects the most current Trainline field configurations.

Trainline Custom Field Mapping Warning

The Configure Trainline page includes additional warning and information messages. These warnings are for informational purposes only and can be ignored without preventing you from saving the configuration. However, it is strongly advised to review and address them, as misconfiguration may result in Trainline bookings failing with a user error.

The screenshot shows the warning message in the Custom Field Mappings page, highlighting the error message shows in the Rail Team Locations (Booker) section with message The configured value lists do not match.

Here is an overview of common warning messages:

Warning Message	Description
Trainline field is mandatory, please select a Concur field.	This warning will be shown when there is no Concur Custom Field selected for a mandatory Trainline field.
Trainline field is mandatory, but the selected Concur field is not.	This warning will be shown when an optional Concur Custom Field is selected for a mandatory Trainline field.
The configured value lists do not match.	Custom fields can be set up with value lists in Concur and in Trainline. The values of the configured lists will get compared (case-sensitive) and a warning will be shown when they don’t match.
Trainline field has a validation expression set. Make sure it is compatible with the selected Concur field.	Custom fields can be set up with regular expressions for Trainline fields. As Concur fields don’t have a similar option, a warning will be shown whenever a validation regex is set for a Trainline field.
Trainline field length restrictions are not compatible with Concur field length restrictions.	Custom fields can be set up with minimum and maximum length restrictions for Concur and Trainline fields. The set length restrictions must be compatible, otherwise a warning will be shown.

Summary

Trainline Custom Field Mapping aligns SAP Concur traveler profile data with Trainline's specific custom field requirements for accurate booking processing.
SAP Concur allows mapping from Standard Profile Fields, User Fields, and Trip Fields to Trainline's custom fields.
The mapping process involves enabling the Trainline Global API, configuring Trainline to retrieve custom questions, and then selecting the appropriate Concur fields for mapping.
Administrators must refresh the custom field mapping in Concur whenever changes occur to Trainline custom fields to maintain data consistency.
Informational warning messages highlight potential misconfigurations that could lead to booking failures, such as mandatory field mismatches or incompatible validation rules.

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