NetSuite Portlets

1. Click Personalize to bring up the list of available portlets.

2. Select any of the tiles on the Personalize Dashboard menu to add that portlet to your dashboard; grayed-out portlets are already represented on your dashboard and cannot be added again.

(Note: Numbers 3, 4, and 5 refer to portlet controls; you need to hover over the upper righthand corner of the portlet in order to see them, and not all of them are available for every portlet.)

3. Click the two arrows to maximize the content of a portlet.

4. Click the circled arrow to refresh the content of the portlet. This feature is available only for portlets that would have regularly-changing information, like saved searches.

5. Hover over the three dots to bring up further options for that portlet. The most common two options are Set Up and Remove.

6. If you want to minimize a portlet, simply click the top part of the portlet. Minimizing portlets is a good idea because it can speed up the loading time of your dashboard. You can also use the top part of portlets to rearrange their positions on your dashboard. Simply grab the top of any portlet and drag the portlet to a new location.

Types of NetSuite Portlets

The Help Center lists 30 different types of portlets. These portlets are not available for every dashboard, but it’s still a good idea to know how each one works. We’ll break them down into categories of related portlets.

Analytics

These portlets are arguably the most important ones on your dashboard. They’re the ones that give you direct insight into how things are going in your business.

The official Analytics portlet allows you to display a workbook chart, pivot table, or table view. Many types of portlets can be used only once on a dashboard, but you can use the Analytics portlet up to 10 times.

Other analytics-related portlets are the four KPI portlets: KPI Meter, KPI Scorecard, Key Performance Indicators, and Trend Graphs. Each of these serves a slightly different purpose. The KPI Meter shows a graph of specific KPI data, and you can have up to 3 of these on your dashboard. KPI Scorecards show comparisons of KPI data, while the Key Performance Indicators portlet contains certain business metrics. The KPIs you include in the Key Performance Indicators portlet can be based off of standard NetSuite KPIs or custom KPIs that you define based on custom saved searches. The final KPI-related portlet is Trend Graph. You can have up to 5 of these portlets on your dashboard, and each Trend Graph portlet presents up to 3 KPIs in a graph format, allowing you to compare and contrast certain KPIs.

And finally, portlets like Report Snapshots and Saved Searches also provide ways for you to see analytics on your business. As with the Analytics portlet, you can have up to 10 Report Snapshots portlets. When you set up each of these portlets, you would choose a specific report to base it on. The Saved Searches portlet gives you analytics on the top ten saved searches for your NetSuite account. Some of the information you can see in this portlet include things like the most-requested and the most-executed saved searches.

General Organization

In addition to the analytics portlets, there are seven portlets that help you stay organized and on task. Each one can be represented on your dashboard only once.

The Calendar portlet allows you to see either your personal calendar or a public calendar in a daily, weekly, or monthly view. The Scheduler portlet, on the other hand, allows you to see the schedules of others in the company. The Phone Calls portlet provides a list of upcoming phone calls that you need to make, as well as links to records where you could see more information on the phone calls. The Reminders portlet provides a list of either overdue or nearly due tasks. When you set up that portlet, you can determine which tasks appear and how close to their due dates they should appear.

The Goals portlet gives you information on your current goals, helping you know if you’re on track with your goals or if you’re falling behind. The Project Tasks portlet, which can be accessed under the Projects tab, shows upcoming projects, along with links to quickly access those projects. Finally, the Tasks portlet allows you to see CRM tasks that have been assigned to you. When you set this portlet up, you can determine how many of these tasks the portlet will show.

Shortcuts

Next, there are eight portlets that provide you with shortcuts. The most obvious of these is the Shortcuts portlet, where you can display links to your frequently-accessed NetSuite pages. The shortcuts in this portlet are the same as your shortcuts under the star icon to the left of your center tabs. Other portlets that provide shortcuts to information are Links and List. The Links portlet, which you can only access from certain pages like Customers or Transactions, gives you quick access to links that are related to those select pages. Similarly, the List portlet shows lists of a specific type of record, along with links to access those records.

Quick Add, Quick Search, and Search Form are all portlets that deal with specific types of records. Quick Add allows you to easily create new records in a specific record type, while Quick Search allows you to easily search for a specific record within a record type. The Search Form portlet is similar to Quick Search, but it has more advanced search capabilities. The last two shortcuts portlets are Recent Records and Recent Reports, which provide links to the records and reports, respectively, that you have recently accessed to create, view, or edit.

Account Information

Three portlets provide general system information. My Login Audit, as the name suggests, shows login information, including recent previous logins, the IP address connected to previous logins, and even your upcoming password expiration. The Settings portlet shows you any setup tasks that you may need to address. NetSuite places this portlet on your dashboard automatically, and it cannot be removed. Finally, the New Release portlet highlights the upcoming NetSuite release and provides links so you learn more about it. Like the Settings portlet, the New Release portlet is added to your dashboard automatically, although you can remove the New Release portlet if you wish to.

Custom

Although most portlets give you some control over their content and the appearance of that content, two portlets give you even greater freedom for customization. The Custom Portlet is created using SuiteScript, and up to 6 of these portlets can appear on your dashboard. Because it uses SuiteScript, the Custom Portlet has incredible flexibility in what it can display. And the Custom Search portlet, which can also appear up to 6 times, provides saved search results. When you set up this portlet, you determine which saved search to base it on, how much data you want to see from the search, and how detailed that data should be.

Miscellaneous

Finally, there are three portlets that don’t fall into any clear-cut category. Account Reconciliation Summary, as the names suggests, is a portlet that shows information on your bank accounts, including things like the GL account balance, the last reconciled balance, and the last reconciled date. The RSS/Atom Feed portlet allows you to view certain news or sports information. When you set up this portlet, you can choose from a selection of pre-configured options, including things like CNN Top Stories or ESPN Headlines. On any given dashboard, you can have up to two of these portlets. The last miscellaneous portlet is SMT (Site Management Tools) Links, and it provides administrators access to their available websites and domains.

Conclusion

NetSuite portlets are what make dashboards so useful, and having an accurate understanding of the portlets that are available will ensure that your NetSuite dashboard reaches maximum effectiveness.

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