Skip to content

CLOUDEXTEND BLOG

Learn About Industry Trends, Best Practices, and Current Events

6 Tips to Elevate Your NetSuite Reporting

NetSuite users understand the power of data, but leveraging that data to make smarter decisions often hinges on your ability to access and analyze it effectively. Enter ExtendInsights, a game-changing NetSuite integration that allows users to pull saved searches directly into Excel, either in real-time or on a scheduled basis. This allows you to work in the familiar Excel environment while accessing live NetSuite data without relying on static reports.

Based on six key strategies, here’s how ExtendInsights can take your NetSuite analytics to the next level.

1. Customize Saved Searches in Excel for Greater Flexibility

NetSuite’s saved searches are invaluable for accessing the data you need, but often, their presentation isn’t ideal for complex analysis. ExtendInsights bridges this gap by enabling you to import your saved searches into Excel, where you can fully customize them using Excel’s robust tools. Whether you want to reorganize columns, create summary tables, or add additional calculations, Excel’s flexibility makes it easier to tailor your reports for any scenario.

Tip: Once the data is imported, use Excel’s features to create pivot tables, charts, and other visual aids to make your data more accessible and interpretable.

Power Query Pro Tip: Use Power Query to automate data cleaning and transformation before it lands in Excel. You can remove duplicates, change data types, and filter rows within Power Query before performing deeper analysis in Excel.

2. Edit Columns and Layouts in Real Time

One of the most significant benefits of ExtendInsights is that you can edit the layout of your Saved Search results directly in Excel without affecting the original NetSuite search. Reorder columns, rename headers or delete fields that aren’t relevant to your analysis. This functionality makes it easy to declutter your reports and focus only on the data that matters most.

Pro Tip: Use Excel’s “freeze panes” or “hide columns” options to enhance your view, especially when dealing with comprehensive datasets.

Power BI Pro Tip: If you need advanced visualizations, connect your Excel file to Power BI. With Power BI’s interactive dashboards, you can visualize NetSuite data in entirely new ways, sharing dynamic reports across your organization.

3. Group and Subgroup Data for More Actionable Insights

Organizing large datasets into logical groups is essential for uncovering insights. ExtendInsights enables you to group and subgroup data from your NetSuite saved searches, all within Excel. Whether you’re grouping by region, customer, or transaction type, Excel’s built-in tools allow you to visualize trends and outliers in ways that NetSuite’s interface may not.

This feature is perfect for businesses looking to segment their sales data, for instance, by grouping sales by customer and further sub-grouping by product categories. The ability to apply complex filters and groupings in Excel gives you more control over how you want to analyze your data.

Power Query Pro Tip: Automate your grouping in Power Query for complex datasets. You can define custom grouping criteria, ensuring that every time you refresh the data, it’s automatically organized to your specifications.

4. Enhance Your Saved Searches with Excel Formulas

One of the most powerful features of ExtendInsights is that it allows you to enhance your NetSuite saved search results with Excel formulas. Want to calculate gross margins, conversion rates, or customer retention? Simply pull the relevant data into Excel and apply any formula or calculation you need. The real-time sync ensures that your Excel formulas stay accurate as your NetSuite data updates.

Excel Tip: Combine multiple searches in Excel for even more powerful analysis by using VLOOKUPs (XLOOKUP if you have Microsoft 365) or INDEX-MATCH formulas to correlate different datasets, such as sales transactions with customer demographics.

Power Query Pro Tip: Use Power Query to merge or append multiple NetSuite saved searches into a single query. This is perfect for combining datasets like customer details and sales transactions, automating the process each time the query refreshes.

5. Filter Out Unwanted Data Effortlessly

NetSuite saved searches are great for retrieving data, but often the results include more than what’s needed. With ExtendInsights, you can easily filter out unnecessary data using Excel’s familiar filtering tools. Whether you’re filtering by date range, customer type, or sales region, ExtendInsights lets you remove unwanted rows quickly, keeping your focus sharp.

This ability to filter within Excel allows you to run large, comprehensive Saved Searches in NetSuite while ensuring that your final analysis only includes the specific data you care about.

Power Query Pro Tip: Use Power Query to apply custom filters during the data import process, saving time by pre-filtering out unnecessary rows or columns before they even enter your Excel workbook.

6. Automate Your Reporting with Scheduled Searches

Automation is key to staying on top of business metrics. ExtendInsights allows you to schedule saved searches to automatically download and refresh in Excel. Whether you need daily sales updates, weekly performance reports, or monthly financial summaries, ExtendInsights can pull live NetSuite data directly into your Excel spreadsheet at the intervals you choose.

Pro Tip: Set up multiple scheduled downloads for different departments (e.g., finance, sales, and operations), ensuring everyone gets the data they need, when they need it, without manual intervention.

Power BI Pro Tip: Integrate your ExtendInsights Excel files with Power BI to create live, dynamic dashboards. By setting scheduled refreshes in both ExtendInsights and Power BI, you ensure that stakeholders always have access to the most up-to-date insights without manual intervention.

Next-Level NetSuite Data with ExtendInsight

By integrating your NetSuite saved searches with Excel, ExtendInsights delivers unprecedented flexibility, customization, and real-time access to the data that drives your business decisions. Whether you’re looking to automate reporting, enhance your saved search results with powerful formulas, or create custom views, ExtendInsights makes it possible—all within the comfort of Excel.

Unlock the full potential of your NetSuite data and take your analytics to the next level with ExtendInsights today. Try now for free.