Role-Based Restrictions for Custom Records in NetSuite

TL;DR Opening

Role-based restrictions can be applied to custom records in NetSuite, allowing administrators to control user access based on defined criteria. This feature is crucial for ensuring data security and relevancy based on user roles, enhancing the overall governance of data access.

What Are Role-Based Restrictions?

Role-based restrictions in NetSuite allow for precise control over access to both standard and custom records. These restrictions can be based on several fields, including employee, department, class, location, and subsidiary. For example, a sales manager might be restricted to viewing only the transactions related to their own sales team.

How to Apply Role-Based Restrictions?

To apply role-based restrictions to a custom record, you need to follow these steps:

1. Identify the Custom Field: Ensure you have a list/record custom field that correlates with the desired restriction type (e.g., employee, department).
2. Enable Restrictions: Check the Apply Role Restrictions box for the custom field. This makes the role-based restrictions active for the specified field.

Example Scenario

Consider a situation where a custom record contains an employee field. By enabling role-based restrictions for this field, users with specific roles will only see custom records related to themselves or their direct subordinates. For instance, if User A has been assigned a role limited to viewing only records for their subsidiary, they will see only custom records having valid values for that subsidiary, effectively filtering out any records with empty fields.

Important Note

When role-based restrictions are enabled, empty fields are effectively ignored when applying these restrictions. For example, if an employee-based restriction is set, users will not see custom records that do not have a designated employee value, significantly narrowing the data visibility based on their roles.

Next Steps

• To apply role-based access restrictions to custom records where the necessary fields do not yet exist, follow the various guides on creating custom record types.
• If the fields already exist, you can directly proceed to apply the restrictions based on the current configuration of your records.

Who Does This Affect?

• Administrators: Those responsible for configuring roles and restrictions within the system.
• Developers: Users who create and maintain custom record types and need to implement access controls.
• Users: End-users who are impacted by the visibility of records based on role assignments.