This article is relevant if you are working with NetSuite and you want a professionally branded ship notification message.

Background

For yet another recent client NetSuite implementation, the customer had specific requirements for the ship notification message.  Since the release of NetSuite Advanced PDF templates, our inclination is to solve the  problem with this technology.  Strange enough, NetSuite does not offer the Item Fulfillment record type as a trigger mechanism.  They still make the “legacy” simple HTML approach or, if you have NetSuite Web Store, another simple HTML approach.  Yes, via Workflows, you can use a “Send Email” action and the reference a custom template.  The challenge with the Workflows approach is that you may not get all the data you need.  Typically, you are left with going to SuiteScript for a custom solution.

For our client, they need some information that was not available via this Workflow method.  From the item fulfillment, they needed the Bill To Address, the Item Rate (price), Packages and images of the items that were being fulfilled.  In this case, we need to get data from 4 sources:

1. Item Fulfillment: basics of the actual item fulfillment
2. Shipment Packages: the specifics of the packages including shipment tracking information
3. Sales Order: provides the Billing address.
4. Item Definition: provides references to the URLs of the images.  In our case, we will connect it to the sales order lines and use a join to the item table.

Solving the Ship Notification Challenge with the Content Rendering Engine

Fortunately, our practice has built a tool that makes these kinds of concerns trivial.  As discussed in a recent article, Supercharge NetSuite Advanced PDF/HTML Templates, we developed a tool that we call the “Content Rendering Engine” or CRE.  The tool basically allows our clients to describe as many searches needed to get data to the Advanced PDF Templates.  The basic technology allows a record (in this case, an item fulfillment transaction) to be used as the input into any number of saved searches.  Each saved search can also be used as the input for yet another saved search.  You can nest or go as deep as needed.  Once you have the data you need, you can then use the Template tools to produce HTML or PDF outputs.  It too can generate dynamic email and documents with attachments.

Triggering the Content Rendering Engine

Get the Content Rendering Engine

Marty Zigman

Holding all three official certifications, Marty is regarded as the top NetSuite expert and leads a team of senior professionals at Prolecto Resources, Inc. He is a former Deloitte & Touche CPA and has held CTO roles. For over 30 years, Marty has produced leadership in ERP, CRM and eCommerce business systems. Contact Marty to set up a conversation.

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