Introduction

If user roles and permissions govern what NetSuite end users can interact with in the system, Centers are how those end users interact with the system.

NetSuite offers a number of out of the box (OOTB) Centers that align closely with specific business functions e.g. Accounting Center and Sales Center. The Classic Center is generally used by more administrative functions (such as the NetSuite Administrator role).

These OOTB Centers do a good job at grouping system functionality in a logical way for ease of end user navigation in the system, however each NetSuite customer is different and end user requirements will likely differ from one customer to the next. To accommodate, NetSuite allows for the creation of Custom Centers - a way in which to create a custom end user experience for interacting with the system.

Salto Tip: Creating a Custom Center is as simple as navigating to: Customization > Centers and Tabs > Centers > New

Screenshot of the Custom Center page

Importance of getting your custom centers right

Creating a Custom Center is a commitment from an initial setup and configuration perspective. It is important to understand your end user requirements before jumping in. A great time to consider the creation of a Custom Center is during the NetSuite implementation i.e. before end users have become accustomed to a certain way of navigating the system.

Weighing the pros and cons

Customizing the system to meet your specific business needs is arguably the key feature that sets NetSuite apart from the rest. When done correctly, this can lead to seamless end to end business processes and high end user adoption. When overdone or over customized, business processes can become convoluted and the benefit of customizing the system gets outweighed by ongoing maintenance and end user adoption challenges.

Custom Centers take time to set up, both from a system configuration perspective, but also from taking the time to deeply understand your end user requirements (which can change over time). First make sure this is something that your end users are looking for - simplified system navigation tailored to their specific needs.

There is something to be said for forcing all end users to engage with the Classic Center. While the menu paths may not be as logical to all end users, it provides a consistent view of the NetSuite application across all users (to the extent their user role permissions allow). This has the immediate benefit of allowing NetSuite Administrators to resolve issues more expeditiously, as they won’t need to navigate a Custom Center they are less familiar with.

Salto Tip: One way to achieve this is by updating user roles to use the Classic Center by default by navigating to the “Preferences” tab on the user role.

Screenshot showing how to force users with a specific user role to use the Classic Center

There are other ways

Creating Custom Centers allows for a much more customized end user experience, but there are other ways NetSuite Administrators can provide this service to their end users.

Using point and click functionality, you are able to create Custom Tabs, Custom Categories and Custom Links, that interact with the existing Centers in NetSuite. For example, you can create a new Center Tab that appears on the menu for all users working in the Accounting Center.

Screenshot showing that you can create a Custom Center Tab and have it displayed in the main menu

There are other ways to create a more bespoke experience for your end users with SuiteScript. For example creating a custom Suitelet allows NetSuite Developers to create an interface that is tailored to their specific end user needs without being confined to the structure of Custom Tabs, Custom Categories and Custom Links.

Use cases

So why should you create Custom Centers and Center Tabs? One common use case is to better navigate custom reports and saved searches. Over time, NetSuite environments can be riddled with hundreds, if not thousands of custom reports and saved searches making it challenging to find the right one (especially when in a time crunch!) Imagine having a Custom Tab in your NetSuite menu that displayed all key custom reports and saved searches, organized into different Custom Categories for ease of navigation. This can lead to significant time savings across an organization, especially when there are many NetSuite users engaging with the system on a daily basis.

Screenshot of an example Custom Tab with related Custom Categories to simplify report navigation

Another use case to consider is to reduce the number of Center Categories on a navigation menu, so that end users only see record types they will actually use. You will have noticed that transaction menus in NetSuite include many transaction types a company might never use e.g. Cash Sale for a company that does not accept cash as a form of payment. Leverage Custom Center Tabs, Custom Categories and Custom Links to ensure your end users can only access what they need to.

Screenshot showing a simplified navigation menu for users in the procure to pay team

One last use case to consider is a simple menu navigation for CSV Import Templates. Over time, the list of CSV Import Templates can become unmanageable, with different users creating their own templates and saving their own shortcuts to access them. Why not create a master list of all key CSV Import Templates that everyone within a given Center can access with just one or two clicks? The possibilities are endless.

NetSuite continues to innovate across all key areas of the platform. Let’s explore some of the latest enhancements to these features in 2024.

New NetSuite Features

Custom Centers (and related configuration) are long established point and click customizations in NetSuite, so there is not much in the way of enhancements to note in the 2024 releases. In the 2024.2 release, there were some minor changes to how users can search and navigate changes for benefits tracking.

Prior to 2024.2, the Benefits center link was available by going to Reports > Benefits. After the 2024.2 release, the Benefits center link is now accessible via Reports > Saved Searches.

Here are links to the 2024 NetSuite Release Notes for quick reference.

• 2024.2 NetSuite Release Notes
• 2024.1 NetSuite Release Notes

Challenges with Managing Customization Manually

Custom Centers and related customizations are owned by the NetSuite Admin team. This goes hand in hand with the management of custom roles and permissions and even engagement with custom records to the extent end users need to work with them and access them quickly. The team manages these customizations on top of their day to day support activities.

Managing Custom Centers takes time and having to reproduce them manually in a Production environment takes even more time away from NetSuite Administrators who could be focused solving other business challenges. In fact, to the extent a solution extends beyond Custom Centers, Custom Tabs, Custom Categories and Custom Links, it can take a huge amount of time to migrate to a separate NetSuite environment and not without the risk of copying/pasting a Custom Link wrong or missing a Custom Category when there are 10 or more to migrate.

While getting a Custom Center migration wrong shouldn’t be the end of the world (ultimately it is the user role permissions that govern system access) it can still negatively impact your end users, especially when they could be operating in a completely new interface for the first time. You only get one first impression after all.

To reduce the risk of running into these issues, some NetSuite Administrators will execute redundant checks and balances to make sure that everything has been deployed correctly. For larger customizations involving Custom Centers and related features, this can lead to needing one member of the NetSuite Admin Team logged into the Sandbox environment, while the other user makes the system configuration changes in the Production environment. Cross-checking as they go. While this should minimize the risk of error in the deployment process, it is painfully slow and still not foolproof. As we discussed earlier, this is also a significant amount of wasted effort that could be spent elsewhere adding value across the business.

Not sure how costly getting deployments wrong can be to your business? Check out this blog post (with a calculator) to help you make that assessment.

Now, let’s explore solutions to these challenges.

Solutions for Managing NetSuite Customizations

What alternatives do NetSuite Administrators have then if not deploying custom solutions between NetSuite environments, while avoiding the inherent risk of error in the deployment process?

NetSuite offers a number of solutions for managing the deployment of your NetSuite customizations. These solutions include Suitebundler, Copy to Account and SuiteCloud Development Framework (SDF). Depending on the specific customization you are attempting to deploy to Production, you will need to determine the most appropriate option as there is not a one size fits all approach.

This is a challenge that all NetSuite Admin teams face as part of their job when managing multiple NetSuite environments. This challenge grows when they need to manage dependencies between multiple customizations that are in flight at the same time.

Given this uphill battle, NetSuite Administrators are exploring alternative solutions to manage their NetSuite deployments and related dependencies. One solution they are exploring is Salto. You can see more details about the Salto SuiteApp here. The Salto SuiteApp is helping NetSuite Administrators and Developers in numerous ways.

It allows them to perform environment comparisons across all of their NetSuite environments, which makes it much simpler to identify any system dependencies prior to migrating solutions to Production. This allows NetSuite Administrators to be more proactive in their approach to resolving dependencies vs resolving in Production after the fact.

In addition, Salto gives NetSuite Administrators the flexibility to manage any deployment rollbacks quickly and efficiently. Rollbacks are generally a top priority when they need to occur and having the tools available to manage this process within a matter of seconds is a game changer for any NetSuite Admin Team.

Salto Tip: Check out this FREE NetSuite Administrator training course on Salto Leap to see how you can become a Master NetSuite Administrator and NetSuite guru for your company.

Useful references

• NetSuite features you should be using - Custom Centers and Tabs
• Custom Centers
• Assigning a Custom Center to a Custom Role

For more Best Practices to manage your NetSuite customizations, check out Salto’s blog posts that explore some of the things that NetSuite Developers and NetSuite Administrators should be leveraging within the NetSuite ecosystem.

Final thoughts

By creating Custom Centers and related point and click customizations, NetSuite Administrators can tailor system navigation to meet their specific end user needs. This does come at the expense of the need to maintain those Custom Centers once established, as end user needs inevitably change over time. On the other hand, having a simple UI to navigate is not only going to increase end user adoption, but also make them more efficient when engaging with NetSuite.

As such, companies will need to weigh the trade off of having their NetSuite Admin team periodically update custom centers created with the time savings achieved by end users working in a simplified environment.

I would recommend companies attempt to get the best of both worlds. Not create Custom Centers for all user roles, but for a subset of roles that highly engage NetSuite (daily) and/or roles that have a large number of end users. This is where the biggest impact will be felt from an efficiency standpoint, while minimizing the need for ongoing maintenance (but not completely eliminating it!)