Concur is piloting a chatbot within messaging tool Slack with
a group of mutual clients, including Slack and Concur employees. While on the
Concur channel on Slack, users can request their travel itineraries, view expense
report summaries, upload receipts and submit quick expenses by typing "@concur"
before each command.
"Concur will use this early feedback [from the pilot]
to validate feature selections and usability findings and help optimize the
bot," according to a Concur spokesperson.
SAP, Concur's parent company, has a plan to integrate bots
into its products and also has launched a similar Slack chatbot for SuccessFactors,
its human capital management software. Slack has four million users, according
to Concur VP of platform marketing John Dietz. "Moving forward, we believe
conversational interfaces have the potential to simplify otherwise complex
tasks," he wrote in a blog post.
The Slack/Concur pilot does not yet support optimal
character recognition technology.
In June, Expense management competitor Abacus
enabled travelers to upload receipts through Slack. Abacus notifies
administrators through the messaging rool when expenses are ready to approve,
and administrators can approve expenses within Slack, as well.