NetSuite ERP for Administrators E-Book

Anthony Bickof

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 267

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

NetSuite ERP is a complete, scalable cloud ERP solution targeted at fast-growing, mid-sized businesses and large enterprises. It's the smartly executed combination of financial management operations and built-in business intelligence, which enables companies to make data-driven and well-informed decisions. This book will help administrators become expert enough to be seen as the NetSuite leader at their company and to be able to advise department heads on specific processes, and strategic decisions. We start with an overview of ERP and NetSuite ERP, before going on to explain the built-in features to show the breadth of NetSuite ERP's product and its ease of use. We then discuss business aspects, focusing on the most important processes in NetSuite. Then you'll understand the implementation aspects that are generic enough to cover all the features. The focus then shifts to specific skills that you will need to administer for any system, such as roles, permissions, customization, and data imports. Moving on, you'll learn how to centralize the creation of search templates and give users the tools to pivot the data and expose it to the user in useful ways, such as on the dashboard. The book ends with checklists providing actionable steps that you as an administrator can take to do your job and support the application through new releases and troubleshooting problems.

Leseprobe

NetSuite ERP for Administrators

Learn how to install, maintain, and secure a NetSuite implementation, using the best tools and techniques

Anthony Bickof

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI

NetSuite ERP for Administrators

Copyright © 2018 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Commissioning Editor: Aaron LazarAcquisition Editor: Aiswarya Narayanan, Chaitanya NairContent Development Editor: Anugraha ArunagiriTechnical Editor: Jijo MaliyekalCopy Editor: Safis EditingProject Coordinator: Ulhas KambaliProofreader: Safis EditingIndexer: Pratik ShirodkarGraphics: Tania DuttaProduction Coordinator: Nilesh Mohite

First published: June 2018

Production reference: 1280618

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78862-887-7

www.packtpub.com

To my wife Leanne, for her love, support, and inspiration

Contributors

About the author

Anthony Bickof is an independent NetSuite consultant specializing in NetSuite consulting and training. He spent 10 years in the training department at NetSuite-Oracle, designing NetSuite Administrator and End User training courses while authoring and delivering some of the training videos used in the NetSuite Help center. He's a NetSuite Certified Administrator and Certified ERP Consultant with 13 years of experience in training and implementing NetSuite. He lives in Toronto with his wife and three children and can be reached at [e-mail].

About the reviewer

Gaurav Aroraa has an MPhil in computer science. He is a Microsoft MVP, lifetime member of Computer Society of India (CSI), advisory member of IndiaMentor, certified as a scrum trainer/coach, XEN for ITIL-F, and APMG for PRINCE-F and PRINCE-P. Gaurav is an open source developer, a contributor to TechNet Wiki, and the founder of Ovatic Systems Private Limited. In over 20 years of his career, he has mentored thousands of students and industry professionals. You can tweet to Gaurav on his twitter handle @g_arora.

I would like to thank my wife Shuby Arora and my angel (daughter) Aarchi Arora who permitted me to steal some time for this book that I supposed to spend with them. Also, I thank the entire PACKT Team, especially Anugraha Arunagiri and Ulhas, whose coordination and communication during the period was tremendous, and Denim, who introduced me for this book.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright and Credits

NetSuite ERP for Administrators

Dedication

Contributors

About the author

About the reviewer

Packt is searching for authors like you

Packt Upsell

Why subscribe?

PacktPub.com

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Download the color images

Conventions used

Get in touch

Reviews

The Value Proposition – Doing More with Less

Value of ERP 

The NetSuite value proposition – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Summary

Exploring NetSuite Tools

Features that support businesses

Features that support administrators

Duplicate Detection

Security, from password policies to roles

Publishing dashboards

Building searches

Using Workflow Manager to automate tasks

Page loading times

Features that support users

Reminders

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPI meters

KPI scorecards

List

Saved Search

Trend graphs

Report snapshots

Pivoting data on the dashboard

Global search

Memorized transactions

Summary

OneWorld

Subsidiary hierarchy

List records

Customers

Vendors

Items

Employees

Chart of accounts

Transactions

Intercompany journal entries and advanced intercompany journals 

Summary

Implementing

Procure-to-pay process

Enabling the feature

Configuring the defaults and preferences

General tab – Accounts Payable

Items/Transactions tab

Order Management – Purchasing

Order Management – Receiving

Order Management – Vendor bills

Approval routing

Building blocks

Employees

Vendors

Item record

Transactions

Order-to-Cash

Enabling features

Configuring the defaults and preferences

Shipping and tax

Accounting Preferences – Order Management

Accounting Preferences – Items/ Transactions and Accounts

Sales & Pricing section in Accounting Preferences 

Accounts Receivable in Accounting Preferences 

Building blocks

Customer

Item record

Shipping Items

Transactions

Summary

Security and Permissions

Authentication

Username and password

Security questions

IP address rules

Login URL

Roles and permissions

Center

Permissions, restrictions, and forms

Permissions

Restrictions

View access to specific records

Restrictions by segment

Forms

User Roles

Identifying differences between roles

Global permissions

Audit Trail

View login Audit Trail

System notes

Audit Trail

Saved Search Execution Log

Custom reports

The Audience subtab

The Access subtab

File Cabinet

Summary

Customization

Customization options

Tips and tricks

Common characteristics

Custom entity field

Employee and transaction fields use case

Custom records

Online forms

Custom record example

Reporting on custom records

Custom Record online form example

Customizing forms

Main screen

Advanced PDF/HTML layouts

Summary

Imports

The CSV Import Assistant

Best practices

Internal IDs

Source data

Importing tips 

Customer import

Example 1 – Customer import use case

Item import

Inventory import

Kit import

Transaction import

Edge cases

Change a transaction form via import

Extending CSV imports

Troubleshooting

Summary

Analytics – Searches, Reports, and the Dashboard

Dashboard overview

Searches versus reports

Advantages

Advantages of Saved Searches

Advantages of Reports

Saved Searches

Criteria tab

Formulas

Standard versus summary criteria

Results tab

Summary column

Function column

Formula column

Custom label and summary label columns

Highlighting

Available filters

Audience tab

Email

Scheduled Emails

Email alerts

Roles

Search settings

The PUBLIC checkbox

Available as List view

Available as Dashboard view 

Available as Sublist 

Available for Reminders

Examples

Entity saved search example

Transaction search example

Reports

Standard reports

Report edit columns

Report filters

Report sorting

Report – More options

Financial Report Builder

Dashboard

Custom KPIs and KPI Scorecards 

KPI

Custom KPI example

KPI Scorecard

KPI scorecard example

Summary

Workflows

SuiteFlow

Which record will be affected?

When will the automation be activated?

Initiation

Order

Triggers

What will be automated?

How do we set up a workflow?

Creating a new workflow

Creating states

Creating Actions

Troubleshooting workflows

Use case

Creating the custom field

Saved search

Workflow

Summary

Integration

The suite versus best of breed

The suite

Best of breed

The framework

Lessons learned

Summary

New Releases

Major releases

What release am I on?

Notifications

Important dates

Release Preview

Preparing for the upgrade

Sneak peeks and release notes

Training videos

Test plan

Sandbox

Summary

Troubleshooting Tips

Database uptime

Documentation

Help center

SuiteAnswers

Training videos

NetSuite user group

A methodology for troubleshooting

Troubleshooting errors

New functionality

Enabling features

Accounting preferences

Setup manager

Help Center

A philosophical approach

Summary

An Ongoing Maintenance Checklist

Checklist

Backups

Review administrative confirmations

System alerts

Login audit trail

Billing information

Duplicate detection

Summary

Other Books You May Enjoy

Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Preface

Peruse the job boards and you'll find many listings for NetSuite Administrators. The job descriptions require skills such as building reports and dashboards to configuration, importing data, troubleshooting, supporting end users as well as leveraging NetSuite to improve and automate processes. In other words, be a system administrator, developer, business analyst, trainer, implementer, and strategic advisor, the point of contact for all things is NetSuite. That is a lot to expect from one person.

My objective is to teach the skills that will enable the reader to perform all those interdisciplinary tasks. This is not easy, because as you have likely seen already, NetSuite is a powerful application, rich with functionality. The administrator can be bombarded with so much information that it is impossible to retain it all. I take a different approach.

To use the analogy of a puzzle, what's the first thing we need to do when doing a puzzle? Look at the picture on the front of the box! Without that context, it's more likely that the reader will forget the details of each piece. I, therefore, start by showing them the picture on the front of the box and only then delve into the details of the individual pieces. This shows the reader how each piece contributes to the bigger picture and how and where it fits in.

We will start with an overview of ERP and NetSuite ERP, because we need to know the end goal that we are striving for and why we do it. We will then explain the built-in features to show the breadth of the product and its ease of use. This illustrates how you can easily solve complex problems and have an impact on work in the short term. In the long term, they can use this chapter to solve problems that will arise in the future.

The focus then shifts to specific skills that are required to administer any system, such as role, permissions, customization, and data imports. The administrators know the concepts as they have used them in administering other systems. I, therefore, provide tips and tricks to perform this effectively in NetSuite without having to learn all the theory that underpins it.

Now that we know where the data resides in the database and how to get it in there, we can look at mining it for business intelligence. We will look at the tools NetSuite includes to perform that data mining, namely, searches, reports, and the dashboard. I will explain when to use one tool as opposed to the others and compare the functionality to apps already used, such as Excel. I will explain how the administrator can centralize the creation of search templates and give the users the tools to pivot the data and expose it to the user in useful ways, such as on the dashboard.

The topic then shifts to the future, arming the administrator with the tools they will need to support the application through new releases and troubleshooting problems.

Finally, I will provide checklists that summarize the entire book, providing actionable steps administrators can take to do their jobs.

The value is not just in the content of each chapter but in how they impact topics in other chapters. Custom fields, for instance, are of limited use if you can't update the data easily using an import or search the field and place the results on a dashboard. It is only by cross-referencing the other chapters that the reader gains a holistic view of the NetSuite product, and I will highlight that relationship throughout the book.

Who this book is for

The book is targeted at administrators who have been employed to either maintain an existing NetSuite database or to liaise with external NetSuite consultants who are implementing the system at their employer (and then use that experience to administer NetSuite after it has been deployed). They know databases and coding but may have limited knowledge of ERP and business process.

The reader has likely some limited experience with NetSuite, has accessed it, and reviewed some of the help documentation. Administrators, however, tend to find the interface overwhelming with an unfriendly menu system and complex help knowledge base. They describe seeing all the options NetSuite offers as drinking through the proverbial fire hose and want help to make sense of all this information.

There may also be several experienced administrators reading this book. They may have been NetSuite customers for many years and want to learn about the new features that NetSuite has introduced since they were first implemented.

Administrators want to learn the tasks they need to perform on a daily basis (troubleshooting errors and setting up users) as well as monthly (such as imports and duplicate detection and merge). They also want to become expert enough to be seen as the NetSuite leader internally, being able to advise department heads on specific processes as well as on strategic decisions (such as whether to use NetSuite webstore or shopify.) They want to learn these skills quickly without having to spend weeks of time and thousands of dollars taking NetSuite corporate training.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, The Value Proposition – Doing More with Less, discusses the ERP Value Proposition and how NetSuite enhances the value from efficiency to automation to illustrate its strengths and how the administrator can maximize those strengths. NetSuite has solved a lot of the business challenges that companies have encountered and are yet to encounter, so there is no need to waste time and money to solve problems that have already been solved.

Chapter 2, Exploring NetSuite Tools, gives you because there is no need to reinvent the wheel. We shift to exploring the tools NetSuite gives you, breaking down the features that support the business, the administrator, and the user. This gives you a list of specific tools that you can use right away to make your job easier and effectively support your users.

Chapter 3, OneWorld, simplifies OneWorld by showing how it differs from the core NetSuite, thereby streamlining its implementation as some readers will be using NetSuite's flagship OneWorld product.

Chapter 4, Implementing, demonstrates NetSuite's core processes for an administrator to understand NetSuite core processes in order to support the users effectively. It will simultaneously demonstrate the tools that can be used to tweak a process.

Chapter 5, Security and Permissions, explores NetSuite's security options from providing access to the system and enhancing security using roles and permissions. We will also cover how NetSuite provides access to data and forms using roles and how to customize the existing role templates with specific recommendations of permissions to add and remove (such as the ability to export data).

Chapter 6, Customization, focuses on building fields to classify customers and vendors or specific details on invoices and Purchase Orders, whether it applies to the whole transaction or specific products purchased in the transaction. It also covers differentiating between one-to-one fields and one-to-many fields and its application in building forms that can be filled out by outsiders, such as a customer satisfaction survey.

Chapter 7, Imports, includes topics such as importing new leads and updating data, such as price increases. We will look at how to cleanse the source data, build an import template, and test the import. We also look at refining an existing template and troubleshoot error messages encountered in the test.

Chapter 8, Analytics – Searches, Reports, and the Dashboard, is devoted to Searches, Reports, and Dashboards, because analytics may be the most important task that an Administrator does. We look at best practices when using the build in the features of the dashboard and show specific dashboard tools to be used and the positive impact they can have on efficiency. NetSuite has two different reporting tools, namely Reports and Saved Searches. This can be extremely confusing for Administrators and users alike. We tackle that question head on, showing the advantages and disadvantages of each.

We look at building commonly used searches and reports demonstrating the filtering and formatting options available. After a lengthy discussion on using the filtering and formatting tools available in Reports and Saved Searches, we show how you can leverage that information by placing it on the dashboard.

Chapter 9, Workflows, provides an introduction to the Workflow Manager. What do you do when the built-in functions are not sufficient to automate a particular process? NetSuite includes a tool that can be used to achieve automation without the need for any coding. The Workflow Manager is a point-and-click tool that can be used to enter data and communicate with users performing actions, such as sending emails.

Chapter 10, Integration, outlines a framework that can be used to help make the decision on whether to use the legacy system for a module or to migrate it to NetSuite. An Administrator is often called upon to provide strategic direction on how NetSuite can automate the entire business.

Chapter 11, New Releases, explains the NetSuite release process and how to prepare for new releases as well as ensures that you have access to all the features that you paid for.

Chapter 12, Troubleshooting Tips, lists the steps to use when troubleshooting and steps to take to maintain the accuracy of the data as well as what to do when things go wrong, where to go to find answers, and a philosophy to use to find answers to these questions.

Chapter 13, An Ongoing Maintenance Checklist, summarizes the steps needed to be taken monthly to administer a NetSuite database.

There are many demands placed on a NetSuite Administrator, who is expected to be a product expert who can advise the management on the strategic uses of NetSuite as well as support users by training them on the tips and tricks they can use to work more effectively. Furthermore, the administrator is expected to tweak processes, automate actions, import and manipulate data, and ensure that the system is secure so that unauthorized users do not get access to sensitive data. Also, if that's not enough, the Administrator is also expected to fix anything that goes wrong in the system. That is no mean feat; however, I've designed the content in an attempt to transform a new NetSuite Administrator into someone who can tackle those tasks after reading this book.

Most of all, I want you to be excited about the challenge of administering NetSuite by seeing how you can have a huge impact on your company by leveraging NetSuite to its fullest. Armed with the knowledge in this book, you can really make a difference.

To get the most out of this book

Ensure that you have administrator access to a NetSuite database, preferably a sandbox or demo database.

Review the navigation to get familiar with the menus.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it from https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/NetSuiteERPforAdministrators_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

 Menu paths appear in this format: Setup | Company | Enable Features

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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The Value Proposition – Doing More with Less

Modern business is complex. There are many suppliers and even more customers transacting with our employees every day. It's difficult to collate all that information because it involves sales, fulfillment, billing, and collections, as well as ordering products to sell in quantities that keep stock at their optimal levels. In addition, an accountant requires that copies of all transactions be kept to create income statement and balance sheet.

You may ask how ERP and NetSuite, in particular, can help in running a business. In this chapter, we will focus on the value of ERP as well as the NetSuite value proposition, namely that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The NetSuite value proposition – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

NetSuite takes ERP a step further. It is an ERP with a built-in CRM, all available in the cloud.

Most of the products out there are specialist products for specific areas of the business; for instance, salesforce.com, ConstantContact, or ShipStation