Breakthrough: Improve NetSuite Line Visibility Beyond the “More…” Limiter

This article is relevant if you are seeking to use NetSuite and you are troubled by the way it limits information access by it’s use of the “(more…)” link.

Background

One of the great things about working with many clients is to learn about all kinds of different concerns and then coming up with solutions.  I guess I like puzzles.  For a client where we are assisting them to get off QuickBooks, they have a memorized invoice practice that requires them to modify line items every month.    They need to quickly be able to see the information on an old invoice to refine it for this month’s invoice.  They do not want to click into the description area unless there is indeed an actual change.

When a line has a long text (string) description, NetSuite has created an arbitrary limit (250 characters) to the amount of text shown until the user click’s More…  They do not give users the ability to configure this limit option.  Our client felt it was important to solve this.  Note, they are moving to our custom NetSuite Recurring Billing Engine in a Phase II implementation where this concern will be less important.

Client Side SuiteScript Solution to More Challenge

The puzzle was solved by one of our senior consultants.  He first solved it when the form was in View mode and it was relatively straight forward.  But the client also wanted the “(more…)” link to also not be present when the form was in Edit mode.  This requirement proved to be much more challenging because the environment is dynamic.  And so we have the solution for you.   Note, the following code segment breaks NetSuite’s Built for NetSuite guidelines because we are effectively in the Browser Document Object Model (DOM) manipulating HTML.

function clientShowFullLineItemDescriptions() {
	// this is a client side function that needs to be delivered to the form via
	// a beforeload user event script (not shown here)

	//change NetSuite's string limit from 250 characters to 5,000 by overriding their functions

	try {
		if (typeof Machine != "undefined")
			eval("Machine.prototype.getDisplayCellContent="
			+ Machine.prototype.getDisplayCellContent.toString().replaceAll("250","5000"));
	} catch (e) {
		// do nothing
	}

	// this is the name of the table that NS uses in view mode on transaction line items
	var tbl = document.getElementById('item_splits');

	// get all table rows from the items table
	var rows = tbl.getElementsByTagName("tr");

	// find out in which column the Description appears
	// 		to do that, grab the header row and look for the column labeled "DESCRIPTION"
	//		if you can't find that, then we're out of luck, so exit

	var descColNbr = -1;

	var headerCells = rows[0].getElementsByTagName("td");
	for (var i = 0; i < headerCells.length; i++) {
		var str = headerCells[i].innerText;
		if (str.toUpperCase().substring(0,11) == "DESCRIPTION") {
			descColNbr = i;
			break;
		}
	}

	if (descColNbr < 0) {
		console.log("unable to find DESCRIPTION column in ITEMS table.");
		return;
	} 

	// loop through all the rows and replace to handle html escaping
	for (var row = 1; row < rows.length; row++) {
		var td = rows[row].getElementsByTagName("td");

		if (td.length >= descColNbr) {
			var desc = lineItemDescriptions[row];
			if (desc) {
				var desc = desc.replace(new RegExp("<br>", 'g'), "\n").replace(new RegExp("&#34;", 'g'), '"');
				td[descColNbr].innerText = desc;
			}
		}
	}
}

Make NetSuite Work the Way you Want

While NetSuite has  done a great job providing a platform that can be customized and extended, sometimes you have to go beyond the prescribed practices to get the job done.   You too can have it your way, if you are willing to try.  If you are working with NetSuite and you are ready to solve concerns to improve your overall experience, let’s have a discussion.

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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