Overview of SuiteTalk REST Web Services
The NetSuite REST web services provide an integration channel that extends the capabilities of SuiteTalk. REST web services provide a REST-based interface for interacting with NetSuite.
With REST web services, you can:
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Use CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations to manage NetSuite records and navigate between records. For details, see Working with Records.
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Get and process the API definition and record metadata. For details, see Working with Resource Metadata.
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Run NetSuite queries on records. For details, see Record Filtering and Query.
REST Web Services Features
The following table provides an overview of features in REST web services, and how they work with records.
For information about the different REST web services features, see Prerequisites and Setup for REST Web Services.
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SuiteTalk REST Web Services |
Generally Available Records |
|---|---|
|
REST Record Service |
Fully supported. |
|
REST Query Service |
Fully supported. To see which records you can use in queries, see the Records Catalog. For information, see Records Catalog Overview. |
REST Web Services Key Features
Here's an overview of the main REST web services features:
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Metadata – for more information, see Working with Resource Metadata.
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CRUD operations – for more information, see Working with Records.
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Record Collection Filtering – for more information, see Record Collection Filtering.
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Record Actions – for more information, see Executing Record Actions.
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Record Transformation – for more information, see Transforming Records.
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Asynchronous request execution – for more information, see REST Web Services Request Processing.
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Workbook Dataset execution – for more information, see Working with SuiteAnalytics Datasets in REST Web Services.
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Workbook Dataset List – for more information, see Getting a List of Datasets Through REST Web Services.
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SuiteQL Query execution – for more information, see Executing SuiteQL Queries Through REST Web Services.
Benefits of REST Web Services
The benefits of REST web services include:
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Simple access to records metadata. This includes user and company-specific metadata. For more information about working with records metadata, see Working with Resource Metadata.
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Easier handling of custom records and custom fields.
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Easy to navigate API.
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Unlike RESTlets, you don't need to write, deploy, and run custom scripts.
Limitations of REST Web Services
Keep the following in mind when working with REST web services.
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Queries only return record IDs and HATEOAS links. (See HATEOAS.) That is, query results have a form of non-expanded references. Also, you can only use body fields in query conditions.
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Translations in REST web services work the same way as in SuiteScript. For custom records, a user’s language preference (Home > Set Preferences > Language) is taken into account. For standard records, translations are returned and updated in the company’s primary language. Additionally, in the current version of REST web services, it is not possible to read and update translations on the translation sublist for both custom records and standard records. This behavior is different from the behavior of SuiteScript.
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REST web services don't support legacy tax features. To work with taxation through REST web services, you must have the SuiteTax feature enabled. For more information about using SuiteTax, see SuiteTax.
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Asynchronous request execution isn't supported in the REST query service.
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REST web services always load record instances in edit mode, even for GET requests. When a user without the Administrator role tries to run a GET request for an employee record of a user with the Administrator role, this error message will appear: “For security reasons, only an administrator is allowed to edit an administrator record”. This prevents users without the Administrator role from editing the employee record of a user with the Administrator role.
To save \n and \r strings through REST you need to escape the strings into \\n and \\r.
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Custom sublists are not available in REST web services.
For more information, see the following topics:
Concurrency Governance and Session Management
To optimize NetSuite application and database servers, the system employs certain mechanisms to control the consumption of web services.
Concurrency for REST web services is governed by an account limit, where each request counts toward the account limit. The account governance limit applies to the combined total of web services and RESTlet requests. For detailed information about concurrency governance, see Web Services and RESTlet Concurrency Governance.
Additionally, if a request takes more than 15 minutes to complete, it automatically times out.
These mechanisms ensure the following:
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Requests are monitored and controlled to ensure that the user experience is not excessively impacted.
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The burden of heavy web services users is not shared among all users.
You can use APM to monitor your REST web services integration's concurrency usage. For information, see Monitoring Web Services and RESTlet Concurrency.