NetSuite saved searches enable users to analyze their NetSuite data and the results are used for providing deeper insights into strategic business decisions.

What is a NetSuite Saved Search?

A saved search is a query definition from within the NetSuite database. Saved searches can be used to analyze any type of information in NetSuite. Once the criteria for a saved search is chosen, the search can be saved and run on demand in NetSuite to extract the latest information. Or, the user can modify the search and then start over with a different set of criteria. Natively in NetSuite, one saved search can be run at a time, but there are multiple components of a saved search.

Parts of a NetSuite Saved Search

• Saved Search Record Type: This is an important first step because it defines the records the search will run against. It could be anything from customers to invoices. For each record type, NetSuite allows the data from associated records to be retrieved. 
• Saved Search Criteria: Saved searches enable users to filter their data by adding criteria to their fields. Think of criteria as a filter. A common criteria field is a date field where a user could add a dynamic filter such as “Transaction date within the last 30 days“. In this scenario, every time the search is executed the results will dynamically display only the data from the last 30 days.
• Saved Search Results: In addition to criteria, saved searches enable users to add results fields. Results can even come from related tables. For example, a user may want to analyze sales by country.
• Audience: This defines the level of access allowed to the search as well as who can access it.

Saved searches also provide advanced functionality with support for formulas including SQL. Formulas can be used in both criteria and results fields.

Benefits of NetSuite Saved Searches

• Flexibility: With saved searches, a NetSuite user is empowered to select what information they want to see in a search as well as who can see it. 
• Metrics: Saved searches can be set up to populate dashboards or send results via email on the progress of sales, procurement, or any other key metric that is important to receive timely updates about.
• Accessibility:  If a person is authorized to use NetSuite, typically they can create saved searches.
• Easy-to-Understand: Saved searches are not difficult for the average user to create, edit, and understand.
• Analysis Capability:  Saved searches make the analysis of NetSuite data much easier and more sophisticated.

NetSuite Saved Searches or Reports

NetSuite has two options for analyzing your data, reports, and saved searches. Reports are defined as a saved set of data results for a particular time. NetSuite’s report designer enables non-technical users to modify some canned reports such as income statements, balance sheets, and trial balances. Reports can be rigid and have limited support for formulas, but they include totals, subtotals, and provide summaries of the data. Reports may allow for more “slicing and dicing” of data, but the moment the report is saved is a snapshot in time, so a user would need to re-run a report every time the data needed to be analyzed again. 

When a search is saved, the criteria is also saved. The criteria can be dynamic, static, or even exposed via a filter making it easy for a user to change (or not). While saved searches provide the ability to add totals, they do not allow for subtotals. For subtotals, the search would need to be exported or integrated with an application like Microsoft Excel.

Examples of Saved Searches by Department

SALES

• Sales data comes from the sales order table while country data comes from the customer table. When building a saved search users can add the country from the customer table as well as the sales detail from the sales table and very quickly be able to see the sales by country.
• Sales needs to have a clear picture of shipping time. Using a saved search a user could compare how many days until the arrival of an item to how many items there are to sell. 
• The sales team can also use saved searches to monitor anything from leads they own, progress toward their sales quota, and opportunities on or after a certain date.
• Sales can also use saved searches to view various customer data, such as customers by rep, over time, and by geography by starting with a search on sales orders with certain criteria. 

WAREHOUSE

• The warehouse team could use saved searches to understand how they are doing on on-time delivery or how quickly shipping and receiving are completed.
• NetSuite saved searches can help the warehouse team gain a better understanding of how long it takes items to leave the warehouse. 

FINANCE

• The finance team can use saved searches to analyze company revenue by a multitude of different criteria. 
• Finance can examine vendor bills in NetSuite based on a certain time period or a particular vendor and more.

IT

• The IT team can analyze NetSuite logins by employees or IP address and can even monitor for failures.
• The IT team can monitor NetSuite data for exceptions and be alerted via saved searches.

CUSTOMER SUCCESS

• Customer success can use saved searches to examine churn in different ways, such as cancellations by product, and more.
• Customer success can also use a saved search to check when the last activity associated with a customer was or how much activity an individual customer has. 

MARKETING

• Marketing can use saved searches to understand Ideal Customer Profile characteristics or data. 
• Marketing can also use saved searches to group customers or prospects with certain sets of criteria. 

Benefits of Integrating with Excel

On their own, saved searches provide a wealth of information. When combined with Excel and its native functionality, such as macros, pivot tables, and formulas, the amount of information is increased even more. The only drawback is that if a user takes the time to download multiple saved searches into Excel, the data is static, so it’s only a snapshot in time and would have to be completed all over again if the user wanted to conduct the same analysis. 

Implementing a solution such as CloudExtend Excel for NetSuite along with Excel overcomes this challenge by providing a dynamic integration between Excel and NetSuite. This allows users to set up a template once and then never have to do that again, reducing manual effort and saving significant time/resources. With CloudExtend, multiple saved searches can also be brought into Excel simultaneously, a major benefit over working solely in the UI.