Creating a NetSuite custom portlet to search proposals by customer name/email.

In this post we are going to show you how to customize your NetSuite dashboard to display a list of your quotes/proposals that you can search and sort using the customers email and/or customer name. The reason for this post is simple, we had a client that we will call Dilley Professional Services, that needed this functionality. Dilley dealt with thousands of quotes and hundreds of these would be for the same company but a different department or contact within the company. Dilley’s sales staff would regularly have their customers call and needed to access the latest quote information for the customer but couldn’t just search by company name. Most of the time Dilley’s sales staff had no idea what the quote number was and only knew the name or email of the customer that was on the phone. They needed a quick way to be able to access the most current information in order to service the customer.

The solution was to create a custom saved search that allowed filtering and then publish this to the dashboard.

The first step is to create the search.

Go to Lists/Search/Saved Searches/New

Select the Transaction Search.There are 8 tabs associated with a saved search. The first tab Criteria is used to specify the criteria to narrow down your search. For the Filter you want to select “Type” and set this to “Is Proposal” it might also be quote or estimate depending on how you have it set up, but they are all the same thing. We also want to check to make it “Public” (or you can lock this down how you see fit) and check the “Available as Dashboard View”.

The first tab Criteria is used to specify the criteria to narrow down your search.

On the next tab “Results” we want to add or remove fields until we get the most relevant data that we want displayed. The important part for us was to display the Contact’s Email and Contact’s Name. This is found by scrolling down the the Contact Fields… towards the bottom.

The important part for us was to display the Contact’s Email and Contact’s Name

The next step is to select the “Available Filters” tab and set the fields that you want to search/filter by. We selected the Contact’s Name and Email because of the requirements. We then save the search.

The next step is to select the “Available Filters” tab

Now to show this on the dashboard!

Navigate to you NetSuite Home tab and on the top right, under the search bar you will see the text “Personalize Dashboard” click on this. A content window pane will open on the left of the screen. You want to select Custom Search. You can then close the content window pane. The Custom Search portlet should now be visible on your home page. You only need to set it up. On the top right corner of the Custom Search portlet click on the triangle and select “set up”. Select your Custom Quote Search that you created and the number of records to show and you are done!
You now have a quick way to search for you quotes/proposals by customer name or email. Feel free to play around and customize the search more by adding features. For example you could choose to only show quotes that are open.

We are done!

NetSuite, Powering the Hyper Growth Small Business

The web enables a small business to go global instantly – reaching millions of customers and hundreds of millions in a year or two where it used to take a decade or more.

But if your accounting and sales systems aren’t aligned to get you where you need to do be, because your running software like QuickBooks or Sage, then it can slow any small business down – just as your about to hit the inflection point.

Great blog post and video from NetSuite’s blog.

Read more….

Working with NetSuite API and ASP.NET

My goal here is to provide some information on how to begin working with the NetSuite API and ASP.NET. First a little background NetSuite is a Full featured financials, CRM, accounting and ecommerce software all integrated into one cloud based solution.

NetSuite provides access to it’s system via web services. NetSuite referres to this as SuiteTalk. Essentally they expose a web service interface via a WSDL file that you can authenticate and access to work with a NetSuite account. With the SuiteTalk Platform, you can integrate existing business functions within your organization to NetSuite through the use of Web services. Web services can be invoked in real-time to perform operations such as retrieving, adding, updating, and deleting data.

You can use any programming language to work with these web services. I tend to use either ASP.NET or PHP but for the purposes of this demo I am going to show ASP.NET/C# code.

The first step in the process is to locate the WSDL file and add this as a reference in Visual Studio. In order to do this right click in the Solution Explorer and select “Add Web Reference”. Enter the most up to date WSDL URL which currently is

https://webservices.netsuite.com/wsdl/v2011_1_0/netsuite.wsdl

Visual Studio then inspects the wsdl, creates an entry in your web config file, and allows you to start working with NetSuite! Now the fun begins. Open your default.aspx.cs code behind file and add a using directive to keep your typing to a minimum.

using com.netsuite.webservices;

When working with NetSuite, you are always working with the NetSuiteService object. I am going to give some example code that will log you in. Remember you must have an account in NetSuite, and this user has to have web services access. I typically use an admin account because you get more freedom to work with more records.

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{

NetSuiteService service;
private bool _isAuthenticated;

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

try
{

LogintoNetsuite();
if (_isAuthenticated)
{
//do something once authenticated.

}

}
}
private void LogintoNetsuite()
{

if (!_isAuthenticated)
{
service = new NetSuiteService();
service.CookieContainer = new System.Net.CookieContainer();

// Populate Passport object with all login information
Passport passport = new Passport();
RecordRef role = new RecordRef();

// Get login info to NetSuite, I store everything
// in my web config so I use the ConfigurationManager
// class to access the info.

passport.email = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["NetSuiteUserName"]; //NetSuite username
passport.password = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["NetSuitePassword"]; //NetSuite password
role.internalId = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["NetSuiteRole"]; //NetSuite role for admin use number 3
passport.role = role;
passport.account = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["NetSuiteAccount"]; //NetSuite account number

Status status = (service.login(passport)).status;

// Process response
if (status.isSuccess == true)
{
//Yeah we are logged in!
_isAuthenticated = true;

}
else
{
// Should never get here since any problems with the
// login should have resulted in a SOAP fault
}

}

}

catch (Exception ex)
{

// Make some adjustments.
// ...
// Try again.

}

}

In my next post we will actually work with a record and manipulate some data.

Veridian Ventures to Provide NetSuite Web Design to Small and Medium Sized Businesses

We are working with dpi to help them maximize their business potential through NetSuite web design and e-commerce customization and consulting services.
Read More.

NetSuite is recognized as the world’s #1 cloud ERP by every measure

It’s official! NetSuite is now recognized as the world’s #1 cloud ERP by every measure – market share, growth, and now technology leadership. Just last month Gartner named NetSuite as the world’s most deployed cloud ERP by market share, and the fastest growing top 10 financial system in North America, UK, and Australia.

Now the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), a 26-year old industry body devoted to software innovation and technology, recognizes NetSuite’s technology leadership at its annual CODiE awards by naming NetSuite OneWorld as the Best Financial Management Solution.

THE FACTS

• NetSuite OneWorld Wins Best Financial Management CODiE award: NetSuite beat out SAP Business ByDesign, FinancialForce and Intacct to win the industry’s most prestigious technology leadership award for financial management applications.
• Rigorous process: Winning an SIIA CODiE (one of the industry’s most prestigious awards) requires detailed scrutiny by experienced judges and peers. It includes passing 48 review criteria across a series of 10 primary attributes including delivery/implementation, user interface and usability, technology, support, ease of management and much more. SIIA’s full review criteria can be found here. Their review process requires the evaluation of detailed product information and customer success, a comprehensive product demonstration, a detailed Q&A by seasoned judges, and an extensive peer voting process.
• Comprehensive recognition: Additionally, NetSuite was also recognized as one of just 5 finalists for Best PSA Solution, Best SCM Solution, Best Cloud Infrastructure and Best Cloud Platform – even more recognition across its suite of products.
• A track record of technology leadership: This recognition by the SIIA comes after being broadly recognized in 2010 with SIIA CODiE awards for Best Business Software, Best Relationship Management, and Best Cloud Infrastructure.

If you would like to learn more about our NetSuite services and how this software can benfit your business, click here to contact us.

Just launched new Chi Living eCommerce web store.

We just finished the development of the Chi Living eCommerce webstore. Chi Living is the parent company to Chi Running & Chi Walking. Their goal is to support people in living and moving from their center. The techniques draw upon movement principles from the ancient martial art, T’ai Chi: Through alignment and relaxation all people can meet less resistance and experience more joy in fitness and in life.

The eCommerce site runs on NetSuite and shows what you can do when you hire a company that understands the NetSuite software. This site had many customizations, including web service integrations as well as multiple suitescripts. One of my favorite customizations is the workshops listing that shows available registration for each workshop (service items), and only allows a customer to sign up if there are seats open. The integration piece allows Instructors (NetSuite partners) to fill out their workshop information on an external website and post their workshop so that students can purchase a seat in the class.

You can view the store here.

You can learn more about our NetSuite Development Services here.

4 ways to build a NetSuite ecommerce store

The reason I am writing this post is to help NetSuite users and potential users understand the options that they have when building and running a NetSuite powered ecommerce store. Most clients simply only know about building the store using the site builder module. However there are actually 4 ways to build your NetSuite store.

1. Build the store inside of NetSuite using the site builder module – which allows for advanced site customization. This gives you control of the look and feel as well as the layout. It also allows the customer to edit the site content using NetSuite’s familiar interface. Designer/Developer must know NS themes, layouts and templates, as well as their relationships.

2. Host your HTML files in NetSuite website hosting folders – This gives your designer/developer the flexability to not have to use NetSuite themes and still be able to use NetSuite tags to pull the content from your items. The files are simply html/css files that have a little NetSuite markup in order to pull your items from the store. Items can still be updated by the user in NS interface but the designer/developer doesn’t have to work with NS themes, layouts and templates.

3. External Catalog Site or (WSDK) uses NetSuite checkout – This is where you host your website completely outside of the NetSuite system on a external hosting server of your choosing. You use javascript to pull item information, stock levels, price and so on. The power here is that you are no longer on the NetSuite system, so you can do whatever design you like, and you still use the NetSuite checkout. When a user checks out the data is posted to the NetSuite cart and all information is collected inside of NetSuite. Your item data is synced via this javascript code that you place in the pages.

4. External ecommerce site with custom cart. Interfaces with NS via Web Services – This option is just like option 3 for the most part. You still host your website on an external hosting server of your choosing. However you no longer use javascript to pull item information nor do you use NetSuite’s checkout or cart. The entire checkout process takes place on your custom ecommerce store and then the orders are synced to your NetSuite account via web services. Companies that choose this option usually go with Magento or AbleCommerce as the ecommerce platform and then sync the data with NetSuite.

I hope this little post helps provide NetSuite customers with the information and options they have when building a NS ecommerce store.

Amazon’s full featured eCommerce platform

Amazon has come out with a new eCommerce platform delivered via the cloud. What does this mean, well it means that you can now build your web store on Amazon’s powerful infrastructure and sell your items for a monthly charge. In my opinion this is the way business is going, to a subscription model. There is less risk involved and you don’t need a huge IT department to manage the infrastructure. It is no secret that I am a huge fan of NetSuite, and now I am going to be a huge fan of Amazon. In fact GJS Consultants will now offer Amazon web development and design services.

One of the real powerful features of Amazon eCommerce is that the system can be accessed using their web service api so you can integrate your web store seamlessly with your back office system. You can also choose to sell your items on the Amazon marketplace as well as have them fulfil your orders for you!

NetSuite CEO speaks on CNBC’s Power Lunch

This is a great discussion, and one I am particularly interested in since my business primary focus in on NetSuite and their offerings. The power of one integrated cloud solution may actually be starting to catch on. For companies that have out grown Quickbooks and don’t want to spend a fortune on SAP, NetSuite is a great choice. In my opinion NetSuite is only going to get larger because they truly have the market cornered. The offer accounting, enterprise resource planning, inventory, CRM and ecommerce all fully integrated. No more uploading orders at the end of the day.

Watch the video at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1593689870&play=1

Desktop tool for Adwords

If you manage any pay per click campaigns on Google Adwords then this tool is for you. The Google Adwords Editior is a program that you download to your computer to work on your PPC campaigns. It makes updating your keywords, bids and so on, a snap. You can do it is 1/10 of the time because you can select multiple keywords at a time and make changes it saves you the headache of having to edit via the web in the so called spreadsheet approach.

The way this tool works is that once you install it, you enter your Google Adwords credentials and download the campaigns you want. You then make changes easily and post them back to the server. There is also a keyword search tool included that makes locating more keywords a snap.

If you use Adwords then you need to check out the The Google Adwords Editior.