One of the main appeals of NetSuite is its customizability. While businesses tend to have many things in common (i.e., accounting and HR needs), the way those things work varies widely from business to business. NetSuite morphs to fit the needs of a broad scope of businesses through the customizable elements available through SuiteBuilder.
SuiteBuilder and the SuiteFoundation Exam
One part of the SuiteFoundation exam covers these SuiteBuilder elements. Understanding how to create these elements—as well as how to use them—will improve your performance on the exam in addition to improving your use of NetSuite. In this post, we will cover a high-level overview of these elements. In later posts, we will return to each element individually to delve deeper into the functionality provided by each one.
Custom Fields
Let’s start with the most basic SuiteBuilder element: custom fields. Fields come in a variety of types. Some of the most common types include Free-Form Text, List/Record, and Checkbox. For example, a Sales Order will include List/Record fields like Customer, which will allow you to choose from all your customers in a dropdown list; Free-Form fields like Date, which allows you to insert the date of the order; and Checkbox fields like Tax Override, in which selecting the box will designate that the field is true.
There are two ways to create a new custom field. First, you can go to Customization > Lists, Records, & Fields and choose one of the field tabs. There are seven field tabs here: Entity Field, Item Field, CRM Field, Transaction Body Field, Transaction Line Field, Item Number Field, and Other Record Field. To add one of these fields, select it in the list and then select New.
You can also create a custom field directly from a record or a form (more on both of those below). To do this, simply navigate to a record, like an Employee record, click Edit, and then click Customize, which will enable you to customize the form.
Subtabs
Subtabs enable you to organize where fields appear on a form. Most pages have groups of the most essential fields organized together at the top of the page. But a number of other fields may need to be available to input information as well. These fields are often organized into subtabs. For example, an Employee record might have subtabs like Communication, Address, Human Resources, Time Tracking, and Commission, to name a few. Unlike custom fields, you have only one way to create a new subtab. To do this, navigate to Customization > Forms > Subtabs > New.
Custom Forms
Because all of these custom elements are so intertwined, we’ve had to mention forms already. But what exactly is a form? A form is simply a predetermined layout of fields on a single page. It’s like the forms you might need to fill out when you go to the doctor, except on a screen instead of on paper. NetSuite comes with standard layouts of forms, and you can see the types of forms that are available to you if you go to Customization > Forms. The existence of these preconstructed forms is immensely helpful, but inevitably you will want to tweak the layout of fields on these forms or even add new fields and new subtabs to manipulate the information NetSuite users in your company should gather for different records.
In order to create a custom form, go to Customization > Forms and select the type of form that you wish to customize. You will see a list of all the standard NetSuite forms under that type of form as well as previously customized forms. Under the Edit column, notice that some of the forms have Customize while others have Edit. Any forms with Edit are custom forms. To create an entirely new Custom form, select Customize for the form you wish to alter.
You can also customize a form directly from a record that uses that form. Simply go to a record, like an Employee record, and select the option Customize Form under Customize. On the Custom Form page, you will have the option to change the organization of fields and subtabs on the form. You can also add new fields and determine whether or not preexisting subtabs and fields will appear on the form. Note, however, that you cannot add entirely new subtabs on this page.
Custom Record Types
Records and forms are closely connected and can be easily confused. To clarify the difference, let’s go back to our example of forms at a doctor’s office. The receptionist gives patients the same paperwork (think form) to fill out at the beginning of their visit. But even though each patient fills out the same form, the information on the form is unique to that patient. When the receptionist collects a completed form, it is a unique record of that patient’s visit.
So how does this apply to NetSuite? In NetSuite, forms are the basic structure that is used to gather information. And the types of information that need to be gathered are grouped into specific types of records. For example, each customer in a company would have a specific Customer record in NetSuite, each employee would have an Employee record, each vendor would have a Vendor record, and so on. When NetSuite users create new Customer, Employee, or Vendor records, they use predetermined forms to collect all the pertinent information.
NetSuite comes with the normal record types that a company would be likely to need (like Customer, Employee, and Vendor). However, suppose your company needs to create a whole new type of record? In order to do that, navigate to Customization > Lists, Records, & Fields > Record Types > New. On this page, you will be able to create an entirely new type of record for your company. You can also create a new record type if you go directly to the Record Type page and select the New Type button at the top of the page.
Conclusion
We hope this broad overview of what these SuiteBuilder elements are and how to create them has been helpful! In our next several SuiteFoundation posts, we will dig even deeper into these elements and discuss more of the specific uses of each one. If you would like to keep up with this series, be sure to subscribe to our mailing list below so that you never miss a post!