NetSuite is a cloud-based platform that allows companies to configure their environment to meet specific business needs. This is done through customization, which enables businesses to incorporate essential features that improve their overall return on investment.
Cloud-based platforms like NetSuite leverage a unified data model, where the entire system and its elements are constructed on a single source code, simplifying and securing customizations and the development of system add-ons.
On this page, we will explore the different tools that enable customization in NetSuite, such as SuiteBuilder, SuiteFlow, SuiteTalk, and SuiteScript.
We will also discuss the difference between customization and personalization in NetSuite, as well as the benefits of customizing NetSuite to meet your precise business requirements and streamline operations.
What is NetSuite Customization?
NetSuite provides companies with the ability to tailor their software products and applications to meet their specific needs. When you customize NetSuite, you improve the overall performance of your business processes and systems. NetSuite’s configuration options enable companies to create new functions, integrate with third-party applications, personalize and configure software functions, and build custom dashboards, among other options.
The “one source of truth” strategy employed by the NetSuite platform, within a legitimate cloud environment, simplifies and secures customizations and the development of system add-ons.
Available Customizations in NetSuite
NetSuite is highly customizable — here’s just a few ways that you can customize your account:
- Forms: NetSuite allows you to customize the appearance and layout of forms, including sales orders, purchase orders, invoices, and quotes.
- Fields: You can add custom fields to NetSuite forms to capture specific information that is important to your business.
- Workflows: NetSuite’s workflow engine enables you to automate business processes and create custom workflows tailored to your organization’s specific needs.
- Dashboards: You can create custom dashboards to display key performance indicators (KPIs) and other important metrics that are relevant to your business.
- Reports: NetSuite’s reporting capabilities enable you to create custom reports that provide valuable insights into your business operations.
- Integrations: NetSuite allows you to integrate with other applications and services to extend its functionality and streamline your business processes.
- SuiteApps: NetSuite’s SuiteApp marketplace offers a wide range of third-party applications that you can use to extend NetSuite’s functionality and meet your specific business needs. Netwrix Strongpoint is a leading NetSuite-native solution for SOX compliance, segregation of duties, change management, cleanup and more.
Benefits of Customizing NetSuite
Tailored Business Solutions
- Tailor NetSuite to meet your precise business requirements and streamline operations.
- Customize end-to-end business processes to match your specific company and industry needs, enhancing efficiency.
- Build new functionality, workflows, and processes to fulfill your business demands and remain competitive.
- Connect NetSuite to legacy and third-party applications and content providers, expanding your reach and integration capabilities.
Which Tools Enable NetSuite Customization?
NetSuite offers several powerful tools for customization and automation:
- SuiteBuilder: SuiteBuilder is NetSuite’s web-based customization tool that allows you to create, modify, and manage your customizations. With SuiteBuilder, you can customize forms, fields, records, and workflows, among other things.
- SuiteFlow: SuiteFlow is NetSuite’s workflow management tool that enables you to automate your business processes and create custom workflows. With SuiteFlow, you can create, modify, and manage workflows using a drag-and-drop interface.
- SuiteTalk: By utilizing this feature, companies can expand their reach to multiple legacy systems and third-party vertical applications. These applications may incorporate supplementary features like NetSuite reporting.
- SuiteScript: SuiteScript is NetSuite’s server-side scripting language that enables you to customize and extend NetSuite’s functionality. With SuiteScript, you can create custom scripts to automate processes, validate data, and perform other tasks.
In NetSuite, customization and personalization are two distinct concepts that refer to different ways of tailoring the system to meet a business’s specific needs.
Customization vs. Personalization
In NetSuite, customization and personalization are two distinct concepts that refer to different ways of tailoring the system to meet a business’s specific needs.
Choose the Right Approach for Your Business
Customization refers to the process of modifying the NetSuite system’s underlying code and functionality to create entirely new features or workflows. This involves making changes to the system’s core functionality, which can be done by experienced developers or by using NetSuite’s SuiteBuilder and SuiteFlow tools. Customization can involve creating new forms, fields, and workflows, as well as modifying existing ones.
Personalization is the process of tailoring NetSuite’s existing functionality to better meet the needs of individual users or teams. This can be done using roles, dashboards, and saved searches. Personalization allows users to customize their own user interface and workspaces, so they can more easily access the data and functionality that they need to do their jobs.
To put it simply, customization involves modifying NetSuite’s underlying code and functionality to create entirely new features, while personalization involves tailoring existing features to better meet the needs of individual users or teams. Both customization and personalization can be powerful tools for businesses looking to optimize their NetSuite experience.
NetSuite Custom Fields
Custom fields enable businesses to tailor NetSuite to their unique requirements by allowing them to capture and store data that is essential to their operations, but not available in standard NetSuite fields.
Custom fields can also be used to store information about transactions, such as order number, customer type, or sales rep information. This information can then be used to generate custom reports or dashboards.
NetSuite offers several types of custom fields, including text fields, date fields, checkbox fields, and more. Custom fields can be added to a wide range of NetSuite forms, including customer records, sales orders, purchase orders, and invoices, among others.
NetSuite Custom Records
Custom Records are flexible and adaptable components that enable you to build personalized fields, lists, and unique connections with other records and transactions within NetSuite.
Custom records are widely used by bundles and integrations to facilitate their functions. As a result, custom records may already exist in your environment, even if they were not created by anyone on your team.
NetSuite Tips for Admins: Always Test Your NetSuite Customizations
The NetSuite sandbox feature provides a convenient platform for testing customizations prior to their launch. It is highly recommended to utilize this tool to ensure that any potential issues or defects in the customized process are detected and resolved prior to training employees to use the new tools.
Documenting Your NetSuite Customizations
The ways in which you can customize NetSuite can reach the tens of thousands — and customizations can be interconnected in many complex ways. And while managing this vast network of customizations can be overwhelming, manual approaches to tracking customizations, such as using Excel spreadsheets or handwritten notes, are time-consuming and error-prone, making it challenging to maintain up-to-date information.
Netwrix Strongpoint scans your account on a continuous basis to produce an accurate, up-to-date record of all customizations, critical settings, roles and permissions, and all associated metadata.
Netwrix Strongpoint provides immediate visibility into the relationships between customizations. This allows you to easily identify what is connected to what, what can be safely removed, and what might be causing errors that your users are reporting.
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