Setting the Foundation for Your SuiteFlow Journey
Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
Welcome! You're about to embark on a comprehensive journey into NetSuite's powerful workflow automation tool, SuiteFlow. This course is designed to provide you with the foundational knowledge and practical skills needed to create and manage business process workflows that automate critical tasks across your organization.
Throughout this course, you'll build several workflows that perform real-world tasks such as field and form-level validations, executing actions on record load and save, creating new records, sending email notifications, troubleshooting workflow execution, and configuring sophisticated approval-based workflows.
This course is designed for:
Software developers and other technical users who already feel proficient with SuiteFlow basics should consider taking the SuiteFlow: Advanced Workflows course instead. That course covers scheduling, sub-workflows, formulas, SuiteScript integration, and performance optimization.
To get the most out of this course, you should have:
Navigating NetSuite: You should be comfortable navigating the NetSuite user interface and completing basic administrative tasks.
Saved Searches: Understanding of how to build saved search criteria using expressions is essential.
Business Process Mapping: Experience with flowcharting or business process mapping tools like Microsoft Visio will help you visualize workflows.
Logic Concepts: Understanding of basic if-then-else logic and programming concepts will make advanced topics easier to grasp.
If you need to brush up on NetSuite navigation or administrative tasks, view the Getting Started training videos available from SuiteAnswers before beginning this course.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
For this course, you'll be working in a dedicated NetSuite training account. This sandbox environment allows you to practice building workflows without affecting any production data.
If you registered for the training on demand version, you were not provided with your training account login information in the registration welcome email. You must request the provisioning of your course training account by contacting NetSuite Training when you're ready to start.
Your welcome email includes a link to download the Student Workbook, which contains all hands-on course exercises. Download this guide before starting—you'll refer to it frequently throughout the course!
Don't worry if you get stuck on an exercise! Pre-configured solution workflows are already loaded into your NetSuite training account. You can reference these if you need help or want to see how a completed workflow should look.
Navigate to: Customization > Workflow > Workflows
Filter by: "Furniture Request SOLUTION"
Note: Most solution workflows will need to be enabled before they'll initiate on records.
Let's walk through the essential setup steps you need to complete before starting your workflow development. These preferences are critical for effective workflow creation and troubleshooting.
Navigate to: www.netsuite.com in any supported web browser
Click: The "Log In" link in the upper right corner
Enter: The username and password provided in your registration email
Security Questions: On first login, you'll be prompted to answer security questions. Refer to your Student Workbook for the required responses.
Home Dashboard: Upon successful login, you'll land on the Home dashboard. You'll see a custom portlet welcoming you to the Workflow Fundamentals course.
You cannot be logged into NetSuite more than once within a single browser. If you want to access both your training account and your production account simultaneously, use different browsers (e.g., Chrome for training, Firefox for production).
Before we dive into building workflows, let's locate the official SuiteFlow documentation—you'll reference this throughout your learning journey.
Click: The "Help" link at the very top of the NetSuite page
Navigate to: SuiteCloud Platform > SuiteFlow Workflows
Explore: Online documentation, troubleshooting tips, references, and workflow examples
Click the SuiteAnswers link from the Help Center to access an invaluable resource with training videos, support articles, demo videos, and links to Help Center documentation. Simply type what you're looking for and you'll get comprehensive results!
Now for the most important setup step: configuring user preferences that directly affect how you'll work with workflows and troubleshoot issues.
Navigate to: Home > Set Preferences
General Subtab - Show Internal IDs: ✅ Check this box! This is critical for workflow development. It displays NetSuite field IDs when viewing field-level help (the "What's this?" link next to fields).
Why it matters: You'll need these field IDs when building workflow conditions and when troubleshooting using workflow execution logs. Without this enabled, debugging becomes significantly harder!
General Subtab - Time Zone: Set this to your local time zone (e.g., Mountain Time, Pacific Time). This is important when viewing date/time stamps in workflow execution logs.
General Subtab - Date Format: Choose your preferred date format (e.g., MM/DD/YYYY). This affects how dates are displayed in NetSuite and how they're evaluated in workflow conditions.
General Subtab - Time Format: Set your preferred time format. This affects the display of time-based values in workflow logs.
Click Save: Your preferences are now configured and you're ready to build workflows!
These settings don't just affect how data displays in NetSuite—they dictate how field values are displayed and evaluated in workflow conditions and workflow execution log events. Consistent settings prevent confusion when debugging workflows.
Throughout this course, you'll be building workflows for a fictional company's Furniture Request business process. This case study provides a realistic context for learning workflow automation.
The case study revolves around a custom NetSuite record type called Furniture Request. Employees use this record to request new furniture for their workspace. The business process includes:
A detailed case study document is available in your training account's File Cabinet. To access it:
This document provides an overview of the users, roles, business requirements, and workflows you'll be building.
The Furniture Request case study serves multiple purposes:
While you're building Furniture Request workflows, constantly think about how these same patterns apply to your business processes: expense reports, purchase requisitions, customer onboarding, contract approvals, etc. The skills are universally applicable!
It's time to put your knowledge into practice! The exercises for this module will guide you through enabling SuiteFlow, configuring your user preferences, and (optionally) reviewing the case study in detail.
Required Exercises:
Optional Exercise: