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Unlock the Power of NetSuite Dashboards: Insider Tips and Tricks

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NetSuite Dashboards can help you maximize the value of your business data. Use our expert advise to transform raw data into powerful visual representations that aid decision-making and drive strategic growth. Tailored dashboards provide real-time data and important statistics, which improve knowledge, streamline processes, and drive success. Role-specific tools enable teams to achieve objectives with greater precision and effectiveness. In this post, we’ll share recommendations and expert insights to help you build up customized NetSuite dashboards that match your organization’s specific requirements.

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1. Understanding Your Audience in NetSuite

Understanding your audience is the first step to creating NetSuite dashboards that drive business success. It allows for customization by user so that you can cater to the specific needs of people in an organization, such as the examples below. It allows for customization by each user, so that you can cater to specific teams in an organization, such as the examples below.
users
By determining who will use the information, you can design a dashboard with the most relevant data, enabling you to promote informed decision-making processes at all levels of the organization.

2. Define Clear Objectives

Without set objectives, dashboards may become cluttered, making it difficult for business users to locate the information they need. Clear goals ensure that each portlet will have a purpose, providing the specific information a business user needs. Examples include:
objective
Whether you focus on monitoring KPIs, tracking financial performance, or managing sales, having specific, measurable goals will help ensure that the dashboard remains a powerful asset for driving business success.

3. Use The Preset Dashboards

The preconfigured user roles in NetSuite can be used to help various teams set up their dashboards. These preconfigured roles provide a framework that aligns with best industry practices for individual departments, making it easy to design dashboards that deliver important information to help departments achieve their objectives. Using these roles saves time and effort while ensuring that all team members have access to the most relevant information.

Customizing these predefined roles allows you further to personalize them to your organization’s specific needs. This is especially helpful for small and medium-sized companies, as employees frequently wear numerous hats and require access to a variety of data. Role-based customization guarantees that dashboards provide a holistic perspective of the business while also providing detailed insights into certain areas.

4. Customize Your NetSuite Dashboard

Personalizing Your Dashboard

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Personalizing your NetSuite dashboards is a key step in making sure they meets your unique business requirements. Start by accessing the “Personalize” button to open the personalization panel, where you can add various portlets that display specific types of data, such as KPIs, reports, and reminders. Configure each portlet’s settings to display the most relevant data, utilizing saved searches and custom reports to enhance your dashboard with specific, in-depth insights.
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5. Use Dashboard Tiles and SuiteApps

Dashboard Tiles

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NetSuite offers a variety of dashboard tiles, including static, reminder, and scorecard tiles, each designed to enhance your dashboard’s functionality.
  • Static Tiles: Display fixed information, such as company announcements or mission statements
  • Reminder Tiles: Alert users to upcoming tasks and deadlines, helping maintain productivity.
  • Scorecard Tiles: Show KPIs and metrics in a visually appealing format, providing a quick snapshot of business performance.
To use these tiles, you must install the Dashboard Tiles SuiteBundle from the NetSuite Bundle Repository. After installation, you can add and customize tiles on your dashboard to display relevant information. This customization can include linking tiles to saved searches for real-time data, adding links for quick access to frequently used features, and enhancing displayed data with prefixes or suffixes.

SuiteApps

SuiteApps are NetSuite third-party developed applications that provide added functionality. For instance, Subsidiary Navigator SuiteApp provides a visual representation of a company’s subsidiary structure on the dashboard.

6. Monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Key Performance Indicators Portlet

The Key Performance Indicators portlet permits proper monitoring of basic business metrics. You can choose preset and custom KPIs, date ranges, compare ranges, and pinpoint metrics for proper monitoring and interpretation. This makes them flexible enough to display critical aspects of business performance and enables tracking performance over time, further helping in trend analysis and performance comparison. Highlighted metrics ensure essential information is readily visible at a glance.
  • KPI (key performance indicators) Meter: Provides a visual display that reveals performance compared to preset thresholds using a speedometer-like indicator, with green, yellow, and red indicators, for an at-a-glance snapshot of goal achievement.
  • KPI Scorecards: KPI Scorecards are effective tools for tracking performance by comparing metrics over different time ranges, such as gross profit percentage or inventory turnover. They give a concise overview of several KPIs and a detailed view of how the different aspects of your business are doing compared to each other.

7. Visualizing Data with Graphs and Charts

NetSuite offers various types of graphs or charts, from area, bar, line, to column, for KPI representation and visual comparison among metrics, such as income versus expenses. Trend graphs and report snapshots help visualize data over time:
  • Trend Graphs: Find patterns and trends with various graph types (area, bar, line, column).
  • Report Snapshots: Add report visualizations directly to your dashboard. Select the chart type, date range, and color scheme of the visualization that best represents data in a form easy to consume at one glance.
These visual tools help better understanding and decision-making.

8. Improve Operations with Layout and Navigation

Adjusting Layout

You have the option to customize the arrangement of portlets on your dashboard by repositioning, minimizing, and maximizing them. To reposition a portlet on the dashboard:
  • 1. Hover your cursor over the title of the portlet.
  • 2. Once the cursor changes to crossed arrows, drag the portlet to the desired location.

Navigation Shortcuts

Configure navigation portlets to provide fast links to areas of NetSuite that you will access frequently and establish a default date range for all your information to display on your dashboard.

navshortcuts

9. Admin Control and Dashboard Publishing

Admins can create and publish dashboards for different roles. To publish a dashboard for a custom role:
  • 1. Using your Administrator role, go to the custom role and edit Permissions > Setup > add Publish Dashboards then Save.
  • 2. Login to the custom role and arrange the dashboard/s on your Homepage in accordance with the output that you want
  • 3. After arranging the dashboard homepage, go to the Settings portlet then Publish Dashboard.
  • 4. Fill out the required fields. Then under the Apply to Roles subtab, choose the roles that will use the said dashboard.
  • 5. In the Apply to Tabs subtab, make sure to check/mark Home, different Dashboards, and/or any tabs that you want to be enabled on your dashboard.
  • 6. Click save
Mastering NetSuite dashboards takes a business to enhance business intelligence, smooth operations, and strategic growth. You will hit the ground running by developing practical data visualization tools that answer your organization’s unique needs if you practice the tips and best practices on this blog post. Keep playing with configurations, learn from user feedback, and keep yourself current with all that is new in NetSuite. Share your experiences and insights with the NetSuite community to get extra mileage and foster a collaborative attitude toward harnessing this powerhouse of a platform.
How TAC Can Help

At TAC Solutions Group, we specialize in helping businesses maximize their use of NetSuite dashboards, transforming raw data into actionable insights that drive success. Whether you’re looking to optimize performance or make data-driven decisions, our expert team provides tailored solutions to match your organization’s unique needs.

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