This article is relevant if you need to edit NetSuite sublists and the standard approach does not allow modifications or enhancements.

Background

A major reason the NetSuite ERP system is so competitive is that it can be adapted to fit business requirements. Our NetSuite Systems Integration Firm, Prolecto Resources, thrives at carefully listening to business requirements and adapting NetSuite to drive enhanced practices.

Yet, there are parts of the application where the platform appears to be not extensible. Editing sublist records is often where we see challenges. There are times when the sublist can not be enhanced for more columns and/or we have trouble getting at the data elements we care about.

Here is an example of NetSuite records and their related sublists where the standard extensibility approach is locked up:

• Customer: Address Book List
• Customer: Contacts and Roles
• Customer: Credit Cards
• Customer: Subscriptions
• Customer and Sales Order: Sales Team
• Item Fulfillment: Packages
• Item: Location
• Item: Price (level)
• Item: Vendor List
• Project: Billing and Cost Budget
• Project: Percentage Complete Override
• Project: Resource Details
• Project Task: Assignees
• Sales Order: Billing Schedule

When NetSuite presents parts of the application as rigid, we need to be more creative in bringing back pliability so we can continue to shape the software according to our specific requirements.

Using a High-Performance Client Framework to Open Sublist Flexibility

I have written a number of articles to demonstrate that we can drive NetSuite to produce very high-performance and pleasurable user experiences.

• 2022: Take Control: Watch How NetSuite can be Amazingly High-Performance!
• 2022: Unleash NetSuite’s User Interface by Innovating via the Platform
• 2023: High Performance NetSuite Item Lookup
• 2023: High Performance NetSuite Consignment Sales Applications
• 2020: See How to Craft Fast and Flexible NetSuite Bulk Record Generators
• 2021: Watch NetSuite Drive Fast Tablet (iPad) Based Order Entry
• 2018: Simplifying NetSuite Transaction Entry Interfaces

Over time, as our clients asked us to push NetSuite beyond the standard adaptation approach, we developed an “Extensible Client Framework (ECF)” to help us more rapidly craft revved-up user experiences.

Understand Extended NetSuite Sublist Editing Capacities

To help illustrate the power of these tools, patterns and supporting creativity, we recently enhanced NetSuite’s Advanced Projects (SRP) records to produce powerful editing experiences.

In the standard NetSuite projects world, assigning people to projects and their related project tasks requires a multitude of clicks. In addition, the information about the project tasks and their resource assignments does not support extensibility. Project managers quickly grow tired of their day-to-day record management activities with NetSuite’s standard user-interface approaches.

However, with the license-free framework, we can do the following on sublists:

1. New Fields: Add new columns such as notes or calculated fields.
2. History: Create historical changes, very similar to systems notes, which we call versions.
3. Calculated Summaries: Create stationary header values that dynamically update as sublist information changes.
4. Filtering: Filter based on search and drop downs on a large list of records.
5. Multiple Record Operations: Act on multiple records simultaneously (bulk operations).
6. Immediate Update: Avoid requiring saving the main record to refresh to see the data changes.
7. Responsive: Responsively draw on the screen according to the browser window size.

Watch a Video (10:14) to Visually Witness High-Performance NetSuite Sublist Edits

In a recent review session with Sylvain M., Senior Technical Analyst, I interviewed him as he just finished up creating a client enhancement for NetSuite SRP applications. Before this most recent requested enhancement, we produced for the client NetSuite Advanced Projects task edit enhancements about a year prior. During that year of enhanced use, in practice, the client recognized they wanted even more and recently asked for meaningful changes to help their project managers.

The video (10:14) below (or click this link) can be suggestive of what is possible for any NetSuite area where sublists edits appear to be locked up.

Breakthrough NetSuite User Interface Challenges

While it always makes sense to use the out-of-the-box approach to enhance the NetSuite user interface and supporting database structure, sometimes we simply need more capacity. Accordingly, we created the Extensible Client Framework to give us a maximum capacity for producing NetSuite high-performance user experiences. Like all the software algorithms we have crafted since 2008, we give these to our clients without a license charge. Our ethics are to provide competent talent to help our clients unlock NetSuite’s potential to realize a greater return on their NetSuite investment.

If you found this article relevant, feel free to sign up for notifications to new articles as I post them. If you have a situation requiring you to unlock NetSuite sublist edits, 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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