Tip: Increase NetSuite SuiteScript Development Productivity

This article is relevant if you perform SuiteScript development in NetSuite.

Background

Developing SuiteScript in NetSuite is relatively straightforward once you get oriented.  However, there are a number of things that I have found make the process of iterative software development easier and a pleasure.

As a brave soul who has walked this journey, you come to realize the ability to get to your scripts and custom objects is buried deep under the Setup –> Customization menu structure.  You may have learned during SuiteWorld 2013 that NetSuite will be modifying the customization menu to be on its own tab. Yes!  But until that is available, I recommend the following practice for any lengthy software development effort.

Leverage Custom Tabs

I like to produce a Custom Tab in my environment for the work I am producing.  I then break up the  menu into two primary categories:

1. Records: Links to list of custom records.  This will quickly get you to the data in your custom application.
2. Development: Links to custom record and script definitions.  This will quickly get you to the common objects you need when you are producing your software.

Server Side Development Debugging

Yes, NetSuite offers a debugger.  But I find that I don’t like to work in that fashion when I am using the new Eclipse IDE.  Instead, If find it easier to create a “Scheduled” script that has a hook point to a test function littered with nlapiLogExecution calls to get visibility into the process.  That test function call is a bit of code that lives next to my real business function calls and is designed to exercise the real code that would normally be connected to other NetSuite objects.  I remove this test function once the code is stable. 

Summary