Plan Ahead and Make Use of Existing Standard Features

Before you start, understand the scope of your customization to choose the right technology for your business goal. Before building your customization:

• Choose the customization type that best fits your business requirement. If a standard feature doesn't meet your needs, determine whether the solution is best implemented as a custom field, custom list, custom segment, custom record, workflow, or SuiteScript customization. Choosing the simplest solution that satisfies the requirement can reduce maintenance and support future updates.

• Consider whether the new customization solution is required, nice to have, or can be implemented in a future release.

• Write a roll-out plan and conduct an impact analysis before implementing your solution. Make sure you understand what existing business processes, scripts, workflows and other customizations will be affected.

• Consider who will create, maintain, and use the customization. Understanding user responsibilities early helps you choose the appropriate customization approach and permission model.

• Write flexible solutions that consider performance and scalability.

• Consider how the customization will be maintained over time. Document its business purpose, identify an owner, and review existing customizations before creating new ones to avoid unnecessary duplication.

• Prototype and test your solution in a sandbox account before deploying it to production. Validate business processes, permissions, integrations, workflows, and reporting before implementation.

• If the solution uses a custom record, decide on permissions, search exposure, UI access, numbering, and translations before users start entering production data.

• Consider using existing standard features instead of building a customization. Ask yourself:

  • Does NetSuite already provide this capability?

  • Can configuration solve the problem without additional customization?

  • Will a simpler customization satisfy the business need?

  For example, you can use Mail Merge to send and attach an email message in a custom record rather than building a new customization. Or you can set the default tax code for line items using existing standard features instead of scripting a solution. To set the default tax code, use the Default Tax Code field in Setup > Accounting > Set Up Taxes. For more information, see Working with Mail Merge and Set Up Taxes.

Consider using SuiteScript for more complex customizations. For more information, see What You Can Do with the SuiteScript API.

General Notices