Testing Custom Reports and Queries in NetSuite

TL;DR: Testing custom reports, queries, and forms is critical to ensure they function as expected in NetSuite's Release Preview account. This guide illustrates how to create effective checklists for thorough testing and highlights key considerations.

Why Testing Custom Reports and Queries Matters

Testing your custom reports, workbooks, and forms ensures that any tailored functionality works seamlessly as intended. It’s crucial to conduct thorough checks on all customizations to avoid discrepancies in your workflows or reporting.

Steps to Test Your Custom Reports, Queries, and Forms

1. Create Checklists for Customizations

Compile comprehensive checklists based on your customized reports, workbooks, datasets, forms, record types, and searches. This documentation will help you track what needs testing and ensures thorough coverage.

2. Test Formulas and Reports

Run a comparative analysis between reports in your production account and Release Preview account. This includes:

• Verifying that formulas yield the same results in both environments.
• Checking filtering and sorting functionality across various reports.
• Important: The Release Preview account may display differences in performance due to hardware variations.

3. Validate Custom Fields and Record Types

Ensure all custom fields and record types behave as intended:

• Check Add and Delete functionality against your production account to confirm consistency.
• Specifically verify that records link correctly to parent records, and that formulas function as expected.

4. Dashboard Functionality

Review the status of your dashboards, KPI scorecards, and report snapshots. This verification helps identify any issues that may affect decision-making processes.

5. Comprehensive Workflow Testing

Conduct end-to-end testing of your customized business workflows to ensure they operate correctly across all scenarios. Refer to the "Test Your Business Workflows" documentation for detailed guidance.

6. Testing Suitelets and Portlets

Verify all Suitelets and custom dashboard portlets. If custom HTML is used, ensure it performs properly in the Release Preview account.

Specific Checklist Creation Steps

Transaction Form Customizations

1. Navigate to Customization > Forms > Transaction Forms.
2. Export the list to CSV or XLS.
3. Filter out NetSuite default items (labeled Customize).
4. Save the cleaned list as your testing checklist.

Entry Form Customizations

1. Go to Customization > Forms > Entry Forms.
2. Repeat the export and filtering process as above and ensure any forms linked to SuiteScript are noted for testing.

Record Type Customizations

1. Access Customization > Lists, Records & Fields > Record Types.
2. Compile a manual list of record types for testing since these cannot be exported.

Report and Saved Search Customizations

1. Navigate to Reports > Saved Reports > All Saved Reports and make a manual list of customized reports.
2. Repeat with Reports > Saved Searches > All Saved Searches.

Workbook and Dataset Customizations

1. Within Analytics, check both the Workbooks and Datasets tabs.
2. Manually document all customizations to use as your checklist during testing.

Key Considerations

• Ensure that data in the Release Preview aligns with periods of reporting from your production environment for accurate comparisons.
• Remember that any issues found during testing need to be documented and reported to ensure they can be addressed before going live with new changes.

Key Takeaways

• Comprehensive testing of custom reports and forms ensures reliability in production.
• Create structured checklists to simplify the testing process.
• Always compare results from Production to Release Preview for validation.
• Testing custom fields and record types is critical to successful workflows.
• Dashboard and KPI functionality require validation to support decision-making processes.