As a business leader, you know that no two companies are exactly alike. Each has its own unique processes, priorities and pain points. This is why taking a customized approach to your business software is so important – it allows you to shape your systems to fit your exact needs.
NetSuite offers extensive customization capabilities to help you get the most value out of the platform. With a flexible architecture and powerful built-in tools, you can tailor everything from your workflows to analytics to match your business requirements.
In this post, we’ll explore seven impactful ways to customize NetSuite for your organization. From role-based dashboards to tailored saved searches, these tweaks can transform how your team works day-to-day. We’ll also discuss best practices to upgrade your implementations while maintaining a streamlined system.
Ready to unlock more efficiency and visibility from NetSuite? Let’s get started.
1. Build Custom Dashboards
Out-of-the-box, NetSuite comes packed with an array of insightful real-time dashboards. However, you can take things to the next level by building fully customized views.
Start by identifying the most important metrics and reports for each team or role. What KPIs does the sales department care about most? How about fulfillment or finance users? Map out team personas and data needs.
You can then consolidate must-have information into role-based dashboards using NetSuite’s Dashboard Editor. Pull in saved searches, reminders of key tasks, and graphs highlighting performance over time. The result is a single-screen view that gives users everything they need.
Benefits include:
- Increased data visibility and access to metrics
- Time savings from consolidated information
- Contextual insights for smarter, faster decisions
- Focus user attention on what matters most
2. Automate Workflows
Manual processes significantly drag down team productivity while increasing risk of errors. In NetSuite, you can configure workflow automation to standardize best practices across departments.
Common examples include creating sales discounts over a certain threshold or triggering email notifications when service cases are opened or closed. Map out your teams’ repetitive tasks that are ripe for automation.
You can build workflows without IT help using the self-service Workflow Editor. Take advantage of features like:
- Approval routing with full audit trails
- Rule-based pattern matching
- Robust filtering options
- Integration with custom fields, reports and more
The result is more efficient operations, rapid scalability, and greater process consistency.
3. Build Custom Fields & Records
NetSuite delivers sturdy out-of-the-box record types like customers, vendors and items. But you can create completely customized records and fields tailored to your business using the Custom Records and Fields tool.
Common scenarios are adding custom geographies, project phases or product lines specific to your offering. You can also track data unique to your teams by adding custom fields to existing record types.
Benefits include:
- Capturing specialized data across the system
- Streamlining data entry with tailored options
- Robust reporting by slicing records using custom values
- Rapid prototyping during agile development
Pro tip: Take an inventory of use cases before building out custom features so you can take a strategic approach. Start with the highest pain points and scale up over time.
4. Create Tailored Saved Searches
NetSuite’s extensive native reporting provides end-to-end visibility. But transforming raw data into actionable insights often requires filtering, sorting and segmentation specific to your goals.
Saved searches allow you to create reusable filtering templates that serve up real-time views. Common scenarios are drilling into customer lifetime value, sales pipeline metrics or margins by region or SKU.
Benefits include:
- Consolidating the most useful reports for your team
- Accelerating time-to-insight across all levels
- Identifying trends using segmented views
- Informing discussions and decisions
Combine saved searches with custom key performance indicators (KPIs), reminders and shortcuts for easy access from role-based dashboards.
5. Build Custom Portals
Self-service options differentiate leading brands by providing 24/7 customer support. With NetSuite’s SuiteCommerce platform, you can quickly launch B2B commerce sites, online stores and self-service portals tailored to your brand and security protocols.
Common custom portal examples include partner/vendor collaboration portals, customer support sites with self-help articles, and RMA/returns dashboards for supply chain users.
Key benefits include:
- Lower service costs by deflecting phone inquiries
- Increased loyalty through superior end-to-end experiences
- Consolidated order/inventory visibility across teams
- Anytime, anywhere access to resources
You avoid extensive IT involvement by using out-of-the-box components from SuiteCommerce Design Center combined with point-and-click setup.
6. Integrate with Other Software
While NetSuite excels as an end-to-end platform, you may need to connect with other LOB or SaaS solutions at some point. Rather than moving data manually, you can build direct NetSuite integrations that automatically sync information between systems.
Common examples include integrating payroll or HCM software, ingesting IoT data from smart devices/equipment, and linking marketing or support tools like HubSpot or Zendesk.
Benefits include:
- A unified view by consolidating data lakes
- Eliminating duplicate data entry
- Accelerating processes with seamless handoffs
- More flexibility to leverage specialized tools
NetSuite offers 120+ built-in integrations and makes it easy to incorporate APIs/web services via SuiteTalk.
7. Report and Analyze with Analytics Built-In
There’s almost no limit to custom reporting possibilities with NetSuite Analytics. This robust tool allows business users to create rich visualizations like pivot tables, heat maps and trend graphs without IT help.
You can combine data from multiple sources, filter on custom fields, drill from high-level trends into granular transaction details…and much more.
Benefits include:
- Spotting trends using visualizations
- Slicing data every which way
- Identifying performance drivers
- Informing better decisions
Why Choose Anchor Group for NetSuite Implementation?
As you explore customizing NetSuite for your organization, partnering with the right implementer is crucial to maximize value and minimize disruption. Since 2002, Anchor Group has specialized exclusively in NetSuite implementations and boasts 250+ successful customer upgrades.
Our team brings deep experience across manufacturing, distribution, retail, professional services, nonprofits and more with 80+ 5-star client reviews. Anchor Group is also part of Oracle NetSuite’s exclusive SuiteSuccess partner program reserved for the top 10 implementation providers globally.
We take a phased, iterative approach focused on tangible business outcomes vs. just technical checklist items. Our proven methodology includes:
- Detailed evaluation of workflows, data and functionality needs
- Iterative prototyping to align features to pain points
- Ongoing user adoption and best practices knowledge transfer
- Testing, pilots and staged rollouts to mitigate risk
- Built-in KPIs and governance post-deployment
Interested to learn if NetSuite is right for your operations? Contact us today for a free consultation and demo. Let’s explore how customization and an optimized implementation can help you gain a competitive edge.
