A new year is upon us and with it we eagerly await the rollout of the next version of NetSuite, always mindful that we’ll need to get everyone trained up on any new functionality.
With this in mind NetSuite allows customers previews of the new functionality at beta.netsuite.com. When you log in there you’ll see the “sneak peek” and the release notes for the new version.
If you’re a customer just log into beta.netsuite.com once your beta account has been provisioned and you’ll be able to try out the new functionality in your own account without messing with your live account. There you’ll see the release notes. Give them a good read and prepare a plan to test, and rollout, the new features. In particular, test your scripts.
You’ll also want to do a some training for some of your users on the new functionality and how you want them to use it.
Here’s a few things that caught my eye along with my comments.
Bugs
This isn’t a feature but the word on the street is that the quality of this release is very good. If you can check out the posts on the usergroup forums on this. Of course there are always issues but those people who have done extensive testing of 2009 in their own instances have mainly good things to say. Your mileage may vary.
Price Lists
Nice! You could always make a price list of sorts, a custom estimate, but now you can create standard price lists for emailing to customers. You can even create an individual price list for a specific customer with their own pricing. Two thumbs up!
Spend some time figuring out exactly how this functionality works and how to use it as it’s not incredibly intuitive. It’s especially nice if you have different price levels for different types of customers and just quoting them isn’t really appropriate.
Multiple Units of Measure with Serial and Lot Items
Now you’ll be able to include batch/lot numbers along with items that need multiple units of measure. Chemicals by the gallon, pint and quart? With batch number attached. This will be perfect for a potential customer I was just talking to!
Direct List Editing on Transactions
If you love direct list editing, like I do, this will be nice. Now you won’t have to open and edit that estimate just to change expiry date or include it in your forecast when you’re viewing it in a list. This will be great for sales reps everywhere.
Subsidiary Budgeting in OneWorld
NetSuite has a very good budgeting tool. I like it at least. Very good for keeping things on track. Assuming you can get your team to agree on the numbers! Now OneWorld users in subsidiaries will be able to budget in their local currency and not in the currency of their parent company.
Project Tasks Portlet
Project Tasks are different than regular tasks in NetSuite. Now you can more easily keep track of your project tasks in their own portlet on your dashboard. Cool. This will be very helpful for services groups using NetSuite.
Sales Campaigns
I’m never turning this on! Who wants the sales team to send out their own mass emails to their customers! Spam City! Seriously though. You can restrict access so that reps can only send to their own customers. Especially nice if you require prospects to opt in to emails before receiving them. Now reps can stop bugging marketing to do it!
Seamless Integration with Microsoft Outlook and BlackBerry
This feature, the latest sync client for Outlook and BlackBerry is only being rolled out in a limited “Beta” fashion. But it’s still cool. You can schedule syncs which you couldn’t before. And, wait for it… You can sync with Microsoft Exchange Server. I know someone who is going to jump for joy reading this! This has been a long time coming and apparently works fairly well. I still have yet to test this out in an Exchange Server environment.
Multiple Dependent Dropdowns
How I have longed for this feature. This is fantastic. Now, you can filter the choices in a dropdown field based on the selections in one or more other fields. In the past you had to deal with some pretty long lists where most of the data wasn’t relevant based on other information on the form. It opens up lots of customization options.
Customizable Results for Global Search
Here’s a feature I didn’t know I missed. Now you can customize what fields are shown when you do a global search. Very Nice, and easy to configure as well it looks like.
Direct List Editing of Global Search Results
In combination with the above this will make the global search even more awesome that it was. Previously you had to open a record from the global search to edit it. Now you can edit the data as you see it. (for fields where direct list editing is available) I predict global search will get even more use than it does now, which is a lot.
All the records that appear in the global search need to be the same type of record for this to work.
User-Defined Reminders
Another very nice enhancement. It’s easy to set up custom searches and portlets in NetSuite. But now you can set up a custom search and have it appear in your reminders portlet. Your list of everything that needs doing. I know users who basically only use the reminders portlet to show them what needs to be done. Now anything can show up there.
Showing Totals in Search Results
In 2009 you’ll be able to show a total of a column in a search. Now you won’t have to revert to a report to get the grand total, or add the search as a KPI to see the sum. I never missed this feature however. It’s just so easy to push the data over to OpenOffice or Excel if needed. Still, I’ll have to do that less now.
Google Checkout Integration
“With Google Checkout integration, you can offer Google Checkout to your Web store customers as an option for checkout, along with NetSuite checkout and PayPal Express checkout.” This is not rolling to all customers. Like the Outlook/Blackberry sync it will be limited to a few customers for a while and then released to everyone.
Conclusion
At around 64 Pages Long there’s a lot in the 2009.1 release notes. And keep in mind that there will likely be a 2009.2 release. I know that 2008.2 was one that had a lot of nice things I liked.
There’s a lot in there. Be sure to dive in and give it a solid read. Be sure to have your note book at your side while reading. If you’re a NetSuite admin there will be a few things you’ll want to add to your task list as you browse.
NetSuite 2009.1 will be rolling out from February through till April.
Related posts tagged with: 2009.1, What's New
2 Comments (+add yours?)
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“You can sync with Microsoft Exchange Server. I know someone who is going to jump for joy reading this!”
It doesn’t actually say this in the release notes. NetSuite for Outlook will sync with Outlook (Exchange client) only and not the Server. What is says in the release notes is that the Server Platform is Exchange, not that it will sync with the server. I hope you didn’t get your pal’s hopes up too high.
Thanks for the comment. You’re correct. I misread the notes and haven’t come back to correct the post.