Extract NetSuite Data for Backup and Reporting

Centralizing  your Business Data

NetSuite is no doubt a powerful platform as it is designed to be a single place to drive what we often say is “Lead to Cash”.  That’s another way of saying that NetSuite takes care of the information management and business processes starting with Marketing, through Sales, through Fulfillment, and ultimately Accounting.  Every business has this fundamental process flow. Of course, each business has its own unique requirements.  It is understood that NetSuite has a very strong offer for distributors, professional service firms, technology and software companies and light manufacturers.

My basically philosophy when confronted with new business situations is to ask, “Why can’t NetSuite be used to run the entire business?”. Why am I thinking in these terms? It’s because costs are much lower if we work within the tool versus outside the tool.  One implied background goal is to minimize IT costs. Everytime we go outside the NetSuite tool, we incur new costs that might be avoided: planning, setup, procurement, maintenance, integration, learning, troubleshooting. You get the point. It often seems expedient to slam some new software in the business to solve a problem — this ultimately ends up creating a number of new obligations that may be avoided if we modify a practice or perform an innovation within NetSuite – remember, NetSuite is designed to be adapted.

Exporting NetSuite Business Information

Still, there are concerns that come up to work outside of NetSuite. Consider the following two:

1. Getting data out for safekeeping
2. Enhanced reporting and analysis

NetSuite’s basic offer to address these two concerns is an ODBC connection.  See my article, “NetSuite Delivers on ODBC”.  An ODBC connection uses technology that has been with us since the early days of Microsoft Windows. It effectively allows you to connect your local computer to the Cloud in a manner that makes NetSuite look like a relational database.  This is a great start. But there are other possibilities.

I recently learned of an offer by a company called Sesame Software.  Sesame Software has traditionally specialized in Salesforce.com data extraction tools.  They are no stranger to extracting data from Cloud environments . Sesame Software offers a technology that will export and extract every addressable NetSuite element to Microsoft SQL Server.  The technology was conceived a few years ago to address a client’s specific demand for an integration between Salesforce.com and NetSuite.  One client goal was a two-way  data synchronization.  Sesame Software built the framework; over time, the tools evolved to help take care of a few clients that sought to extract data out of NetSuite because they were migrating to another platform.

Today, Sesame Software’s toolset that will extract all addressable data out of NetSuite into a relational database.  Interestingly, it does not use NetSuite’s ODBC technology (a separate NetSuite module not included in the base offering).  Instead, it uses NetSuite’s SuiteTalk technology, or generally known as Web Services, which is available to all NetSuite account holders. Once your NetSuite data is exported and imported into Microsoft SQL Server, you have a pseudo backup.  Scheduled services run every 15 minutes looking for changes within NetSuite to be synced with the external relational database.  Because Sesame Software elected to extract the data from the Web Services tier (which follows how they do it for Salesforce.com users), a number of interesting hierarchical data structures come forth that need to be “unpacked” and represented in a common relational database. The software takes care of the packed hierarchical data and is extracted into structures which are properly represented in traditional parent/child tables in Microsoft SQL Server.

Besides the base data typically found in a database, Sesame Software will extract all the documents held within the NetSuite file manager cabinet. It will save your files in a local directory structure that mimics how they are held in NetSuite.  Finally, the technology supports a mechanism to push data back into NetSuite if it is updated externally (bi-directional sync).

You NetSuite data in Microsoft SQL Server means that you can use traditional reporting tools such as Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Service (SSRS), Crystal Reports, Hyperion, Microsoft Access and well as many others to output and analyze.  For reference, here is an article about a way we have connected Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services to NetSuite via ODBC.

IT Footprint Grows to Address Working Considerations

If extracting data in this manner sounds attractive, it is important to be prepared to address these considerations:

1. Infrastructure: You will need to host Microsoft SQL Server. There are many offers available, including Amazon’s EC2 Cloud. Getting this software setup will typically increase the demands for your technical know-how. While mostly straightfoward, concerns for data layout, backup, network connectivity, and security will need to be addressed.
2. Setup and Use: You are going to need to coordinate getting the software installed, configured, tested and stabilized. Once you have worked through getting your data into the database, you will need to install reporting tools, develop specific reports, and distribute information.
3. Data Security: Once that data is out of NetSuite, it’s available for review to anyone that has access. Gone are all the role based restrictions that are so well defined within NetSuite. Be sure to protect that data from authorized access and use.
4. Care and Feeding:  The database will need to have an initial load. Thereafter, it will be updated every 15 minutes. What happens when something doesn’t work as expected? Who will take care of this? Indeed, your IT footprint and costs are growing.
5. Stability: The software is still relatively new. Anticipate issues that will need to be resolved.  Also, consider that NetSuite will deliver their semi-annual major updates which will need to be synchronized with your database system.
6. Disaster Recovery: It’s really improper to call the data extract a backup. There is no real way to easily restore the data back into NetSuite from this information repository. If you want extra data recovery services, it is still best to setup specialized database backup procedures with NetSuite direct.

What situations an concerns have you seen to extract data out of NetSuite for backup and reporting?