This article is relevant if you are seeking to understand how NetSuite can be used to drive order entry using tablets and mobile computers.

Background

A client in business-to-business grocery sales distribution sought a mechanism to empower its mobile salesforce by bringing order entry capacities to its salespeople via iPad tablet-based computers. In this selling model, the customer’s salespeople physically visit with customers to assist in the process of taking orders.

While it is feasible to log in to NetSuite and perform order entry, the order entry experience out-of-the-box is not optimized for shared customer visibility and elements of speed.

Given our ability to prove we can drive NetSuite in a high-performance technical manner, our client asked us to develop an order entry application.

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Technology Approach

Leveraging NetSuite platform-based Restlet technology, we developed a secure yet high-performance conduit to access the business rules and NetSuite database. The iPad presentation layer was developed using the open-source Bootstrap library making it easier to create custom responsive based mobile applications.  No other third-party infrastructure or licensing is required to drive this application.

Key NetSuite Driven Tablet-Based Order Entry Capacities

Because the application is driven from the NetSuite platform with no additional infrastructure, we can leverage all the business rules that are embedded in the backend logic. Here are some of the key capacities:

1. Customer Lookup: all customers that are within the salesperson’s permission scope can be looked up.
2. Product Lookup: all the products that are available to be sold are presented. If a specific customer is not allowed to see a product, it is removed from view — just like it would be if configured on NetSuite’s sales order.
3. Customer Pricing: customer-specific price lists are presented through a technique of using an in-memory server-side dynamic sales order. For those that think NetSuite sales order logic is slow, think again. Memory operations are very fast!
4. Unit of Measure: by loading all the unit of measure factors, the selling stock-keeping unit (SKU) can be reduced to the unit “each” price no matter how the item is sold and packaged.
5. Product Images: products can be dynamically drawn to fit the user experience to present an optimized user experience.
6. Out of Stock: items quantities available and “out of stock” are presented based on real-time inventory status.
7. Order Entry: order entry uses the familiar “cart” analogy and operates very fast. The salespeople can decide when to send the order to NetSuite for commitment.
8. Order Validation Rules: the server-side business rules are preserved. Leveraging our scalable Record State Manager (RSM) framework, the salespeople can see the rules and override where applicable.
9. Order Inquiry: status on existing orders is easily presented.

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Watch Video of NetSuite Tablet Order Entry (12:38)

The following video (12:38) is an interview I conducted of work done by Sylvain M., a Technical Analyst on our team. The nature of the discussion is software developer oriented which reveals the authentic nature of the application structures.

Click here to watch the video:

Get the NetSuite Mobile Order Entry Application

Like all the work we do in our firm, our software algorithms are available license-free. By using our libraries, we compound our expertise to build upon our prior success to bring greater value to our client relationships. We hold that what is more valuable is individuals that have superior capacity to listen, innovate and solve client situations to prove we can assist them to drive greater revenue and lower cost. Our software represents artifacts that illustrate these capacities.

If you found this article relevant, feel free to sign up for notifications to new articles as I post them. If you can envision a web-based NetSuite-driven application that should leverage your existing NetSuite investment, yet you thought it may not be feasible, let’s have a conversation.

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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