Both standard NetSuite searches and reports can be scheduled for future processing, and the results of both saved searches and reports can be emailed to other users. SuiteAnalytics Workbook does not currently support either capability. However, workbooks can be shared and charts can be displayed in special analytics portlets on user dashboards.
Saved searches support advanced highlighting options, allowing you to highlight specific rows and columns of data using formulas and complex filter criteria, while reports provide limited support for row and column highlighting within financial reports only. SuiteAnalytics Workbook only supports basic row and column highlighting in pivot tables only.
SuiteAnalytics Workbook supports the ability to join records in fields from more than two levels deep in the record hierarchy. SuiteAnalytics Workbook also supports data pivoting and charting capabilities not supported in saved searches and reports. Finally, the Analytics data source used by SuiteAnalytics Workbook ensures consistency of all record and field metadata across all components of the workbook.
There are several types of data analysis, from simple data retrieval to complex analysis based on historical patterns and trends. To better understand how NetSuite’s data analytics tools support each type of analysis, consider the following. NetSuite’s standard search and reporting tools are designed to provide descriptive analytics, which provides insight from historical data via saved searches, reports, and KPI scorecards.
SuiteAnalytics Workbook, however, provides diagnostic analysis, which allows historical data to be measured against other data to identify why something happened. Diagnostic analysis is often combined with descriptive analysis in order to detect dependencies and patterns. Predictive analytics is the practice of extracting information from diagnostic analytics to identify patterns, which can be used to predict future outcomes and trends.
Prescriptive analytics anticipates what will happen next and when it will happen as well as why it will happen, providing valuable insight that allows you to take advantage of future opportunities or mitigate future risks. This level of data analytics often requires access to large, combined data sets that are updated continuously to ensure the latest data is being used to accurately predict future events.
This is where SuiteAnalytics Connect, the query API, and data warehousing solutions, such as NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, come into play. Using SuiteAnalytics Connect and the Query API, developers can extend NetSuite’s data analytics capabilities by creating custom solutions to retrieve data from any data source for more in-depth reporting and analysis.
Here are some key things to remember about SuiteAnalytics Workbook. SuiteAnalytics Workbook combines many of the capabilities of NetSuite’s saved search and reporting tools, but it does not replace these tools. SuiteAnalytics Workbook provides a prebuilt data set and workbook templates that can be customized without writing code or creating complex queries.
When should you use the Suiteanalytics workbook?
- When you want to quickly identify why a particular business event happened.
- When you want to view a single set of source data from different perspectives
- When you want to visualize your data in charts and graphs.