A Complete Guide on NetSuite Saved Searches

Improved Efficiency

Saved searches in NetSuite enable you to promptly and effortlessly obtain precise information from your account, which can enhance your productivity and save you time by avoiding the need to manually browse through numerous screens or search for information. For instance, if you want to find all customers who made an order in the last month, you can create a saved search that will extract this data for you. You can then store this search and run it as many times as necessary without having to search for this information each time manually.

Better Decision-Making

You can use saved searches to access the precise data you require for business decision-making. For instance, you can build a saved search to display the sales information for each product if you need to know which ones are selling the most. This might assist you in making wise choices regarding marketing tactics, inventory management, and other issues.

Advanced Customization

With NetSuite saved searches, you can customize your dashboard to show only the data that is relevant to you. This spares you from having to sort through unnecessary material and lets you access the precise information you require.

Time-Saving Automation

Saved searches can be scheduled to run automatically at specified intervals, which can save you time and ensure that you always have up-to-date information. For example, you can schedule a saved search to run every morning that shows you all new orders from the previous day. This can help you stay on top of new orders and ensure that they are processed in a timely manner.

Cross-Team Collaboration

Users within your NetSuite account can collaborate and communicate more efficiently by sharing saved searches. If you have a sales team, for instance, you can make a saved search that displays all open sales orders. Your sales staff can then be given access to this search, giving them a simple way to stay informed about sales orders and easily retrieve this information.

Monitoring tool

You can receive email reports every day on key metrics. So the progress of the sales can be tracked in real-time. In other words, you don't have to wait until the following day to see an update. Every morning you open NetSuite, and you know right away what's going on.

Prioritization tool

Highlighting features and sorting rules can help define your next steps and actions. If you need and want to set up priorities, saved searches are your tool.

Flexible

Full control over what kind of information you pull and who can access the data. You'll see that it's super easy to change materials and add filters. You can even add the highlighting rules to the data and see the essential items.

User-friendly

Easy to pick up and create with just a few clicks, with plenty of guides to help.

Define the Search Criteria

The first step in setting up a saved search is to define the search criteria. This can be done by selecting the search type that you want to search, such as transactions, customers, or items, and then choosing the fields that you want to include in your search. You can also set specific search parameters, such as date ranges or custom fields.

Add Filters

Filters allow you to further refine your search results by adding additional criteria. For example, you can add filters to exclude certain data, such as transactions from a specific date range, or to only include data that meets specific criteria, such as transactions with a specific status.

Set Up Columns

Columns allow you to choose which data fields are displayed in the search results. You can add or remove columns based on your specific needs. For example, you may want to include columns for transaction date, customer name, and item description.

Add Sorting

Sorting allows you to organize the search results based on specific criteria, such as transaction date or customer name. You can choose to sort in ascending or descending order.

Save the Search

Once you have defined the search criteria, added filters, columns, and sorting, you can save the search. Give your search a name and description, and choose who can access the search.

Use Specific Naming Conventions

Give your saved searches meaningful names that reflect their purpose and scope. Use consistent naming conventions to make it easier to find and organize your saved searches.

Limit Results and Optimize Performance

To improve search performance, limit the number of search results returned by your saved search. Use filters, sorting, and grouping criteria to refine your search and return only the data you need.

Schedule and Share Searches

Schedule saved searches to run automatically at specified intervals and share them with other users or groups as needed. This can help streamline business processes and ensure that important data is easily accessible. We’ll expand on how to do so in the next section of this guide.

Use Summary Searches for Aggregated Data

Use Summary Searches to create a summarized view of your data based on specific fields and grouping criteria. This can help you quickly gain insights and perform calculations on your data.

Avoid Complex Calculations

Avoid complex calculations in your saved searches as they can slow down performance. Instead, use scripting or external reporting tools to perform more complex calculations and manipulations of data. If you’re looking for assistance creating custom scripting, fill out our NetSuite Support pricer and speak to a representative.

Use Joined Search to Find Related Data

Use a Joined Search to find related data in other record types, such as customers who have placed orders in the past month or inventory items sold in a specific region.

Regularly Review and Update Saved Searches

Review and update your saved searches regularly to ensure they are still relevant and provide useful data. Delete outdated searches or modify them to reflect changes in business processes or data needs.

Activity Search

A NetSuite activity saved search is a powerful tool within the NetSuite ERP system that allows users to create custom reports on activity records, such as tasks, events, and phone calls, to track important business events and customer interactions. By filtering and sorting data in a variety of ways, users can gain deeper insights into their business processes and make informed decisions based on up-to-date information.

Common use cases include tracking sales activities by sales rep, monitoring customer interactions for trends and patterns, and generating reports on the frequency and volume of different types of activities.

Customer Search

NetSuite’s Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM) stores crucial customer information such as contact details, purchase history, and payment terms. Customer saved searches in NetSuite allow users to filter, sort, and group their customer’s data in various ways, such as by sales performance, customer location, and industry. 

Common applications of customer searches include identifying top-performing customers, analyzing customer trends and behaviors, and creating targeted marketing campaigns. By utilizing this feature, users can easily access and analyze customer data, thereby making informed business decisions based on real-time data.

Item Search

Item searches within NetSuite allow users to generate customized reports on item records from crucial information about products and services, such as pricing, stock levels, and other relevant details. Users can filter, sort, and group data in various ways, such as by sales performance, item type, and category. 

Applications of NetSuite’s item saved searches include identifying top-selling products, analyzing inventory trends and levels, and generating lists of items for purchase orders or sales quotes.

Task Search

A task saved search type enables users to create custom reports on task records in NetSuite. Users can filter, sort, and group data by task type, status, priority, and other relevant fields. Task records in NetSuite are used to manage and track work activities such as appointments, phone calls, meetings, and other tasks.

NetSuite task searches can be used to manage employee workload and productivity, analyze task performance by project or department, and track task completion rates. Perfect for NetSuite Administrators, Project Managers, and supervisors across all departments.

Transaction Search

Users can create customized reports on transaction records using NetSuite's transaction saved search, which is useful for financial tasks including creating sales orders, purchase orders, and invoicing. Users can filter, sort, and group data using this search type in a number of different ways, including by transaction type, date range, customer, and other pertinent parameters.

Tracking cash flow, assessing revenue and expenses, and producing reports for accounts receivable and accounts payable are some frequent use cases for transaction saved searches. This search type helps users manage their financial operations more efficiently.

Vendor Search

Unique reports on vendor records can be generated using a NetSuite vendor saved search type. The contact information, payment policies, and purchase history of suppliers and service providers are all included in vendor records in NetSuite and can be accessed through the search.

Tracking vendor performance and purchasing patterns, managing vendor relationships and contract renewals, and examining vendor costs and liabilities are some of the more popular use cases for NetSuite vendor saved searches.

Create, or open, the saved search you’d like to schedule by navigating to Reports > Saved Searches > All Saved Searches and selecting a search our clicking on NEW SAVED SEARCH

Select the “Email” tab, and check the box labeled SEND EMAILS ACCORDING TO SCHEDULE

• Toggle the SEND IF NO RESULTS off if not necessary

You should already be highlighting the “Specific Recipients” subtab. If not, select it now and enter the recipients to whom you’d like to send the search 

• Note: Only entities within NetSuite can be added

Navigate to the “Customize Message” subtab and enter all of the information you’d like to have in the email.

• You can enter the sender's email address as you’d like it to appear, the subject line, and any additional text in the introduction field
• You can also enter text into the body of the email here as well

Within the same subtab, you may also choose in what format the information is sent

• You can choose between CSV, Excel, or PDF
• Selecting INCLUDE VIEW RECORD LINK will add the URL link to the NetSuite saved search in the body of the email

Navigate to the “Schedule” subtab and set the parameters of the scheduling for the email

• You can choose between a single, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly email event
• You can set when the scheduling starts and ends, or if it does not end at all

Save and send a test email by hovering over the SAVE & RUN button at the top left side of the screen, and selecting SAVE & EMAIL

Enhanced Reporting

You can create thorough reports from exported NetSuite saved searches that will aid you in making wise business decisions. The exported data can be used to examine patterns, spot opportunities, and monitor development over time.

Data Analysis

Exported saved searches can be used to perform further analysis on the data outside of NetSuite, in other tools like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. This enables you to alter and visualize the data in various ways and produce unique reports that are tailored to your particular requirements.

Collaboration

Exporting saved searches can be useful when you need to share information with colleagues who do not have access to NetSuite. You can easily share the exported files via email, cloud storage, or other file-sharing services.

Backups

Preserving a backup of your saved searches is crucial if you ever need to restore data due to a system crash or data loss. You may make sure you always have a current copy of the data that can be quickly recovered if necessary by routinely exporting your saved searches.

Supplier Performance Management

Create a saved search to track supplier performance based on delivery and quality. Monitor purchase orders from a particular supplier in the past year, on-time delivery rates, and the percentage of defective items received.

Cost-Saving Opportunities

Identify cost-saving opportunities by creating a saved search that shows purchase orders for a particular item, prices paid, and vendor names. This could help you identify vendors that consistently offer lower prices for the same item.

Streamlining Purchase Order Processing

Automate tasks and alerts by creating a saved search that shows all purchase orders that have been approved but not yet received. Set up an email alert to the purchasing team to follow up with the supplier.

Managing Inventory Levels

Manage inventory levels by tracking reorder points and lead times. Create a saved search that shows items with inventory levels below their reorder point, along with their lead times and vendor names.

Sales Performance Tracking

Track sales performance by creating a saved search that shows key metrics such as revenue, quantity sold, margins, and discounts. Monitor sales orders for a particular product line, broken down by sales rep, and grouped by month or quarter.

Customer Segmentation

Segment your customers based on various criteria such as revenue, product line, location, or industry by creating a saved search. This could help you target your sales and marketing efforts more effectively and identify new cross-selling or upselling opportunities.

Pipeline Management

Manage your sales pipeline by creating a saved search that tracks the status of deals and identifies bottlenecks in the sales process. Display all possibilities at a specific point in the sales cycle, together with the dates of their closes and their chances of success.

Sales Forecasting

Forecast sales by creating a saved search that shows historical trends and projects future demand based on various factors such as seasonality, market trends, or customer behavior. Show all sales orders for the past year, broken down by product line and grouped by month or quarter.

Tip #1: Use “Main Line”, “Shipping Line”, and “Tax Line”

On a saved search view you can easily define what information you're looking at. So, if you wanted to see only the main section, you set the “Mainline” criteria to “True”.

If you were interested in looking only at your line items of the invoice, then you just set it to “False”. You also have the flexibility to display both at the same time.

You have a similar concept for tax lines and shipping lines. If you're working on a sales order, some results in your saved search might be related to taxes or shipping fees.

Tip #2: Using NetSuite Saved Search Formulas

It’s possible that you might not be able to find a field in your list. If you cannot find what you're looking for, you can always use NetSuite saved search formulas to call a field by its ID.

Those IDs can be found in the schema browser. We recommend you bookmark this URL, as it contains a list of all field IDs.

All you have to do in your list is select “Formula (text)” and put the field ID in your formula in brackets to return what you are looking for.

For more information on saved search formulas, refer to the guide’s previous section on saved search formulas under IV. Advanced NetSuite Saved Search Techniques.

Tip #3: SQL Formulas Are your Swiss Army Knife

Sometimes, due to the nature of a field when it's added as a filter, you might end up with a list where you want to select something. It's possible to convert that list into free-form text. If you want to do that, you must leverage SQL formulas. Similar to Tip #2: you have to define formula texts in your criteria and call the field by its ID. Under “Available Filters”, your filter will be your “Formula (text)”.

Tip #4: Optimize What You See with NS Concat

Below, you will see a print screen where all the columns, except for one, are repeating the same result. The only thing that’s changing is the items. So if you want to improve the layout, you can use the following formula: REPLACE(NS_CONCAT({item}), ’,’, ’
’). With NS_Concat and with the field ID, you can combine everything on the same line.

Tip #5: Highlighting What’s Critical

Highlighting rules is very useful as you can use them to see what's critical in a search. Simply go straight to the subtab that is called “Highlighting”. Once there, enter your condition and select the little icon that appears next to it, and a new window will pop up where you can define your filter and your criteria.

NetSuite Help Center

The NetSuite Help Center provides a wealth of resources on saved searches, including articles, videos, and user guides. You can access the Help Center by logging in to your NetSuite account and clicking on the Help link in the upper-right corner.

SuiteAnswers

SuiteAnswers is NetSuite's online knowledge base, which contains thousands of articles and answers to frequently asked questions about NetSuite. You can search for articles on saved searches by using the search bar on the SuiteAnswers homepage.

NetSuite User Groups

NetSuite User Groups are communities of NetSuite users who share knowledge and best practices. You can join a NetSuite User Group in your area or industry and attend meetings, webinars, and other events focused on NetSuite training.

NetSuite Consultants

NetSuite consultants, like GURUS, are experts in NetSuite who can provide customized training and support on saved searches and other NetSuite topics.

As a top NetSuite consulting and implementation partner, GURUS is always looking to help businesses like yours reach their maximum potential and scale up. Use the form on this page to contact us and find out how GURUS can help you with your next project.