NetSuite releases two system upgrades per year to all accounts, often providing new functionality within existing features in addition to launching brand new capabilities. Prior to being upgraded to the new release, all accounts are given access to a release preview environment that allows users to preview the changes in a sandbox-like setting. Detailed documentation describing all changes that are included as part of the new release are also provided at this time and can be accessed from the New Release portlet and in SuiteAnswers. In this post, I’m going to share the five changes that are being made as part of 2019.2 that I am most excited about.
- Time Entry Modification
For organizations that use NetSuite’s time tracking functionality, making updates to employee time entries has historically been a somewhat tedious process. If an approver noticed that a user had made a consistent error across multiple time entries (say, selecting the wrong project or service item), the only way to make updates was to edit every single time entry individually.
As of 2019.2, a new user interface for making bulk edits to time entries has been introduced. Using this interface, an administrator can update the customer, project, task, service item, location, department, class, and whether the entry is billable – all in a single update. To access this new interface, navigate to Transactions > Employees > Update Time Entries. On this screen, you can filter the results and select multiple entries to be updated. - Advanced Order Management Features Now Free
Prior to 2019.2, NetSuite has offered the Advanced Order Management module as a paid add-on that provided Automatic Location Assignment, Fulfillment Request, and Store Pickup functionality. With the new release, these features are now available free of charge for all accounts (with the exception of CRM and CRM+ accounts). Each account now includes 5,000 automated sales orders per year (with additional capacity available for purchase). To support this new addition, a read-only hidden checkbox called AOM Automated has been added to sales order forms. When the Advanced Order Management features are used on an order to perform any of the listed functions, the checkbox is checked to indicate that it counts toward your 5,000-record limit. - Rate Card Enhancements (Project Billing)
As of 2019.2, when you create a new billing rate card on a project, you can associate a customer on the Billing Rate Card record. When creating projects for that customer, the billing rate cards that are associated with them will be available for selection along with all other generally-available rate cards. Other improvements to the billing rate card include the addition of a Related Records subtab that shows all projects that are associated with that specific rate card and the ability to automatically source the service item for a resource group using the “Source Service Item from Rate Card” checkbox. - Enhancement to Workflow Actions and Sublists
Of all of the functionality that is included on 2019.2, this is probably the change that I am most excited about. A few releases back, NetSuite rolled out the ability to make sublist-level changes (i.e. items on transactions) via workflow. Because this was a relatively new feature, the capabilities were somewhat limited compared to what was available at the header level. In the new release, supported sublists now allow the Return User Error, Set Field Value, and Set Field Display type actions to be used in workflows. Client-side triggers are now supported for the listed action types, meaning that users can get real-time feedback based on changes that they are making on the sublist level instead of requiring them to trigger on the server side (after a user submits the record). - Extended Item Name Fields
Prior to 2019.2, the Display Name/Code field had a limitation of 60 characters. This cap was significantly lower than other name fields (such as the Sales Description or Purchase Description fields), which often resulted in users needing to truncate or abbreviate their product names in order to be able to utilize the Display Name/Code field. As of 2019.2, the Display Name/Code field now accepts up to 120 characters, which makes it far more user friendly.
NetSuite release 2019.2 is quite robust and includes many more enhancements beyond the ones I’ve listed above. If you haven’t yet reviewed the release notes, you can download them here.
Want to learn more about NetSuite release 2019.2? Contact Concentrus today to discuss the new release and learn more about the changes that will impact your business.
