Audaxium Blog

Today my RSS reader got hit by a bunch of websites covering the launch of SuiteApp.com NetSuite’s newly modeled, and now re-branded, spot to find third party applications to plug into your NetSuite instance.

There you’ll find a number of useful applications that you can purchase from various 3rd parties to enhance your NetSuite instance.  From Address Verification, to a Google Calendar Widget, to advanced Asset Management, you’ll be able to quickly find them there.

Most, if not all of the applications were available previously, but it was more difficult to find them either on the NetSuite site or on the Web.  Now suiteapp.com puts them all in one place and makes it easy to search.

This is a great development by NetSuite and it’ll be interesting to see the number of applications grow as more and more companies realise that it’s very convenient to build upon the NetSuite platform, as opposed to an online “Platform as a Service” without any core functionality.  You may just see some Audaxium apps up there at some point in the future.

If you want to read the rather text heavy press release from NetSuite… It’s called NETSUITE UNVEILS SUITECLOUD, ENABLING BUSINESSES TO RUN THEIR CORE BUSINESS OPERATIONS IN THE CLOUD

Every company I talk to wants to maximize the value they get out of NetSuite and once you start putting data in, you begin to realize that there is value in tracking as much as possible within the system.

Over the past while I’ve discovered a number of companies who weren’t using or effectively using NetSuite Jobs, or Projects.  (They used to be called Jobs by default, now they’re called Projects but you can call them whatever you want.)

My advice is, if your company needs to manage jobs for customers, or if you need to track internal projects, consider your options in NetSuite.  Here’s some tips.

What’s a Job?

A job or project is actually very similar to a customer record.  It can appear as a sub-record of a customer and has all the same information attached to it such as contacts, notes, transactions cases etc.  It also has some other extra information such as, resources assigned, estimated work, actual work.  You can view a basic Gantt Chart based on the tasks assigned as well.

Basic or Advanced?

Advanced Projects is an additional module available from NetSuite.  It allows you to do a whole lot more with projects than normally.  Check out the advanced project spec sheet here. I would suggest, that if you bill for projects, or use them regularly to track non-billable customer projects that you take a close look.

Automatically Create Items

One of the nice things you can do once you have advanced projects is “automatically” create projects based on the items that show up in Sales Orders.  And by automatically I mean push a few buttons.

All you have to do is go to the item, then the project tab, and select Create Project.

Then go ahead and put in the standard tasks that need to get completed to get that project done.

Now, if that item appears on an approved Sales Order, you can go to Transactions, Customers, Create Projects from Sales Orders. You’ll be presented with a screen where you can select the projects and assign a project manager to each one.

Track Your Time

No matter if you bill your customer directly for your time, or the projects are fixed price, I highly suggest that you get everyone into the habit of putting their time against the project when appropriate.

Becoming disciplined about this is a great way to figure out if your projects are in fact profitable.

In NetSuite you can define the tasks, and then establish a baseline for the effort required to complete a project.  If you do this consistently, you’ll then be able to compare your baseline to the actual time attached to the project if it’s billable or not. If you’re always underestimating the time you’ll have reports that tell you this.

Tracking Pre-Paid Hours

There’s a useful field on a project.  “Remaining Time” equal to the estimated time – the actual time logged.  If you sell your customer blocks of time it’s clearly a good way to keep track of what you’ve delivered and what you owe.

Assign Cases

Remember that you can track cases and attach them to projects just like you can with customers.  There’s no better way to stay on top of things than to track outstanding issues this way.

What it’s not

NetSuite Projects are a good way to track projects, bill for projects and do some collaboration to a degree.  There are some decent reports that get produced once you start keeping them up to date.  But the functionality in NS isn’t designed to track the minutia of a project like MS Project would.  Not that anyone likes MS Project.  If you need to create super detailed project plans that track 100′s of tasks there are other solutions out there for that.

This functionality is also not designed, out of the box, to facilitate collaboration amongst many many employees.  Perhaps you can get creative and add some files, custom fields, and custom records for a project but for team wide communications and file sharing there are other tools out there.

If you need more

If you need more advanced project management functionality you can find it within the NetSuite family.  Simply check out OpenAir.  The main website is here.

If you’re interested in learning more, send us a message and we’ll hook you up with whatever info you need.

Today I’d like to introduce Kasey Bayne of Javelin Technologies. She is the Marketing Manager at Javelin and is a very enthusiastic NetSuite user. She’s at the controls day to day, rolling up reports and planning campaigns. She’s also helped other NetSuite customers with tips and advice on how to get things done in NetSuite.

—–

Kasey, before we talk about NetSuite, could you describe how the marketing team did their work before NetSuite? What systems did you use and how did everything come together?

Hi Rob, and thanks for meeting with me today.

Before NetSuite, it seems now like we were living in the dark ages! We ran our marketing team on a number of systems – one for sending out campaign emails, one for creating emails, one for our customer database, and one more for managing our budget.

We used GoldMine, Mach5, some accounting software I don’t even know the name of, and more Excel spreadsheets then I could count (or would ever want to). None of the systems talked to one another. This made it difficult to track results of our campaigns, in terms of campaign performance and tie them to the sales cycle. It also made visibility across departments very difficult. We were constantly emailing documents around.

In one word – it was a mess.

—–

When you were first introduced to NetSuite what was the thing that changed the most for the Javelin Marketing team?

The greatest (and most beneficial) change to the Javelin Marketing team once we started using NetSuite was the metrics. Marketing success can be tough to measure, and Netsuite has given us the tools we need to track the data to make good decisions. Things like click-through rates, ROI, close rates, and even down to what happened with each individual lead we dig up are easy to find and help us make better, more strategic, decisions.

Previously we only had vague ideas of what was working and what was a waste of time.

—–

Change doesn’t happen overnight. How long did it take to get using all the functionality and reporting in NetSuite? What phases did you go though while learning NetSuite?

It didn’t happen overnight, but nothing worth it happens that quickly. We had a great NetSuite consultant (that would be you!) who helped us get set-up. I was nervous at first, especially about the email campaign portion. You don’t want to mess up when you’re sending out 20 000 emails! But you helped us get set-up quickly, do some testing, and that made me 100% confident in how NetSuite could work for us. I’d say we started using it on day 1, and it was about 4 weeks to having everything up and running (we kept adding new features as we discovered them!).

There were a few phases in our NetSuite implementation – we first took some time to map out our current processes, from lead generation to close. It was important to see what happened to a lead, from the time it was created to the time it closed. We were able to see where we wanted to make changes, and mapped those out BEFORE we started implementing the system. Taking this time out before hand was a huge benefit to setting up our system to work the way we wanted our business to run.

We had a good week of training, and then worked with our NetSuite Consultant to set-up and customize things as we got the system into place. We did some more advanced things with our Consultant once we had the basics down and were ready to take full advantage of some of the more advanced features. Now, things are working great across the board, and we are able to make better decisions because of it.

—–

What’s your favorite NetSuite feature?

There are so many, its hard to pick one! My absolute favourite has got to be the Campaign ROI Report, and really the reporting features in general.

Why did I pick the Campaign ROI report? In the past, to get these numbers was a HUGE ordeal. I’d lock myself in my office for a week straight, with a pile of spreadsheet printouts, and a pencil and ruler for cross-referencing by hand. Since it was such an undertaking to pull this all together, we’d only do it once a year, to wrap up the year’s events.

Being able to see this information at the push of a button is amazing! I can see the data often, and make quicker decisions to better run our marketing team. The change from one week to immediate is unbelievable, both in terms of time saved and in increasing my ability to make timelier, more strategic decisions. I can’t imagine running a successful department without it, its become that valuable to how I run my department.

—–

You’ve helped a few other NetSuite customers. What are some typical questions you get?

The main questions I get were in regards to setting up campaigns. That is one of the fundamental parts of any marketing program, and it is important to have it set up from the start. Its the most common area of questions, because it can be difficult for a non-marketing person to understand how campaigns work, so its important to have someone who understands the process there to help you get set-up right.

—–

Looking back, are there any recommendations you would make to other marketing managers out there who are just starting up?

The best recommendation I have is to take the time to get set up RIGHT at the start. Make sure you fully understand your own processes. There’s nothing more frustrating then having to go back and re-do something because it wasn’t set-up for the way things actually work in your organization. Take the time you need, and get some help! There are SO many functions in Netsuite, to help not only marketing, but every department, so get someone to help you out and take the time to really dig into things and take advantage of all the system has to offer. Trust me – it’ll help your business.
—–
Thanks very much for your time Kasey.  It seems like you really are a fan of NetSuite Campaigns!  I appreciate you taking a moment out to chat about NetSuite.  Have a good 2009 and keep us posted on how you change the way you market over the year. I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about.

You can find Kasey on twitter as @JavelinTech

SAP ERP customer launches NetSuite SaaS CRM despite holding SAP CRM licenses

When I saw the the title of this article come across my screen I was intrigued and thought I’d share it here.  It is an excellent example of the value proposition of NetSuite, even if it’s not being deployed as an end to end implementation.

As you will see, when you read the article, NetSuite offered Fusion UV Systems the configurability they wanted at a fraction of the price required to deploy a similar solution from SAP.  In this case the cost was limited to just the costs of deployment, and not the licenses.

The implication of this is that it shows just how affordable NetSuite is to companies who want a very capable system, be it ERP or CRM, but don’t want to bankrupt themselves to do it.

For me the highlight quote from the article is:

For one, NetSuite is very user-friendly, Mitchell said, and it was very easy for sales representatives to get up to speed on the software.

It’s also easily customizable. It’s easy to create a new field and even change a business process without hiring a consultant to do the programming, she said. It takes a little less than an hour to do so.

“For me, the big point is I’m able to do my marketing campaigns. I’m able to make a lot of changes and reconfigure,” she said. “It’s very flexible that way.”

I like the article because it is balanced.  It does talk about some prior shortcomings with NetSuite.  Issues that I feel are primarily resolved.

There are many other stories out there like this, but this one is a great example of why NetSuite can make a lot of sense.

Along the same lines as NetSuite’s Salesforce.com and SAP promotions, NetSuite has just announced a similar promotion for Sage customers. Sage users are gauranteed to get 50% off of their NetSuite subscription pricing and can recieve 100 hours of consulting help to get going.

You can read more about the benefits of switching from Sage to NetSuite here.  On that page you’ll read a number of customer testimonials from people who have already made the switch.

My feeling is that this is more than a simple promotion. At time’s like this it’s an opportunity to save money and improve your business.  If you’re interested in learning more contact us and we’ll get you more info.

This post is two tips rolled up into one and it has to do with customizing that NetSuite screen you look at every day.  If you don’t use NetSuite yet perhaps you’ll get an idea as to how easy it is to configure NetSuite to present you with just the information you need.

Recently I’ve discovered that a lot of NetSuite users settle for seeing information using the “default” settings in NetSuite, without looking into the various options.  Here’s two tips that answer the following frequently asked questions.

• Can I get a default dashboard that loads only the basics?
• Can I change the menus on tabs to focus only on what I need?
• Can I get more specific search data all on one dashboard?
• How can I control dashboards but give some free reign?
• How can I present better information to managers and employees?

Custom Tabs

Custom Tabs in NetSuite can help answer most of the questions above. You can add another, or several tabs up along the top of your NetSuite dashboard that contain exactly what you want.  

If you want one that is available as a default, lightweight, fast loading, page that only has a quick search portlet on it, that’s how you do it. If you want a tab that contains all your very important reports for your management meetings on Fridays, that’s how you do it.

Simply go to Setup, Customization, Center Tabs, New

Then give the tab a name and choose which Center to apply it to.

Now go to the Portlets subtab. Pick all the portlets you want to be available.  NOTE, you can simply click the “Show” Checkbox if you want them not to show by default.  For most tabs I suggest that you add most of the portlets to let users customize the tab later.

Head back over to the Categories Subtab. Give names to all the sections you want to appear with links when you hover your mouse over the tab.  First name all the categories, after you save the centertab record you’ll see an edit link beside the category name.  That’s where you choose what links appear in the drop-down. 

There you have it.  It’s pretty simple.  Now you can create more dashboard options and real estate  for your users with ease.

Report Snapshots

If you’re looking to put information on dashboards you’ll find that Report Snapshots are your friend.  Most NetSuite users really love searches and tend to steer clear of the more difficult to use report interface.  However, you are limited in the number of KPI’s and custom searches you can have on a dashboard.  Report Snapshots are your answer as you can have 10 of them on each page.

Of course there are a number of standard report snapshots but their ability to spice up your dashboard should be enough incentive to figure out reports and create some custom ones.

When you create a report, for many types, you’ll have the option of creating a report snapshot just prior to saving your report.  Just hit the save and create snapshot button. And don’t forget to set the permissions on the report properly so the correct audience can see it.

Conclusion

Just with these two very simple reminders you should be able to customize your NetSuite instance to better suit your desires.  If you’d like help doing this ping me an email and we’ll see what we can do.  If you’re a bit confused let me know and I’ll do a video of it.  I plan on doing a few more videos soon.

One final reminder.  Remember that you can change your “Landing Page” under Home, Set Preferences, Appearance.  Just pick the tab you want to open when you first log into NetSuite.

Just in case you missed it, here are links to 4 brand new NetSuite Blogs that have just sprung up!  Check them out and subscribe.  You never know what goodies might come of them.

In the past there haven’t been that many NetSuite blogs out there. It’s nice to see some people stepping up and helping the community outside of the private usergroup.

blog.netsuitetipsguide.com
The latest Tip here is about NetSuite Online forms. But I really liked the tip on the Net Value of Relationships.  Nice.

blog.suiteknowledge.com

Steven has a good tip on using Item Groups to track free items given away by a sales rep.

suiteasia.blogspot.com

Chelsea’s latest tip is one of my old ones, Emailing Transactions.  There are some other good tips here as well.

blog.netsuitereporting.com

Reporting is one of the more important areas of NetSuite.  Here’s hoping for more tips from NetSuiteReportingGuy.