- Cases for your support team,
- Opportunities and Pipelines for your sales team, and
- Operating Expenses and Cash Flow for your accounting team
However, to really make NetSuite sing for your organization, you will most likely need to develop custom KPIs to analyze trends and quickly identify issues.
Many NetSuite customers struggle with developing their KPIs, and often complain that they cannot get comparative columns to display. Without the comparative columns, their KPIs are only telling half the story.
Generating Data
Here are the three things you’ll need to include in your search to ensure you’re generating the data you need to make informed decisions about the direction of your company:
- Do not include any date fields on the ‘Criteria’ tab of your search.
- As you define the results of your search on the ‘Results’ tab, you can only have one ‘Summary Type’ such as ‘count’ to get a count of records, or ‘sum’ which will summarize the values for a given field. The ‘Summary’ results will appear on your KPI, and will allow you to drill down to see details.
- Include a date field on the ‘Filters’ tab. When you add the custom search to your KPI, you’ll be able to define the default comparative range by setting the ‘Range’ and ‘Compare Range’ columns. The date filter is also used when you choose to dynamically update the comparative range of your KPI. Updating the comparative range of your KPI is as easy as navigating to the ‘Portlet date settings’ located in the header of your home page, and selecting a new comparative range.
One last thought; make sure you outline the objectives of the KPI before you start creating your search. Are you looking for a count or the number generated from your search, or would you like to generate the sum of all transactions? If you need both counts and sums, you will have to develop two custom searches.
If you’re still struggling with creating your KPIs, give us a call. We’d love an opportunity to make your KPIs sing for your company! Feel free to contact us directly thoughtleader@keystonebusinessservices.net.
