Global Search and Quick Search

Global Search and Quick Search provide ways to find records you are interested in working with, let’s look at how they work. Global search is this box up here toward the top middle of the screen, and quick search is this portlet here, which in my case is on the upper left. In most roles, there is a global search, but some roles do not have it, such as those that use the Employee Center. So, if you don’t have it, this is probably why. If you didn’t want to search for records you could always use the list feature in NetSuite. So to list sales orders, as an example, you could go to Transactions, Sales, Sales Orders and click on list, and you get a list that looks like this. Here we can see each sales order line by line. Back at the home screen, let’s look at global search first. You can get to it by either clicking in the search window, or in most cases holding the Alt key and pressing G. If we start typing in this window we start to see results pop up almost immediately. So here we can see matches for a couple of customers, an employee, a contact, and a lead. If there were more than ten results we would also have a, Show more items, link at the bottom and we could click that to get a full list. Global search is a plain text search, meaning you just type in whatever you are looking for, but it has some added functionality as well. We can use the percent sign and underscore as wildcards to replace one or more characters. Maybe we are looking for a specific customer whose name ends in son, like Smithson, Jackson, or something like that, but can’t quite remember the full name. We can type in %son, and get results that might be what we’re looking for. For example, here is a result for Henderson, and a couple for Anderson. The percent sign replaces one or more characters, but there is also an option to use underscore to replace a single character. So, if we’re looking for Jenson, but can’t remember if it was spelled with an E or an O, we can substitute an underscore and type in Jens_n. Looking at the results there are listings for both spellings. When looking for a specific type of record, we can also use that records prefix with a colon after it to show only records of that type. For example if I was looking for customers with the word manufacturing in their name, I could type in cust:manufacturing. Looking at our results we see that these are all customers, there are no other record types in the list. This works for all the record types you have that are globally searchable, however if you changed your record prefix you will need to use the new prefix. For example, if Customers are now called Clients, you will want to use CLI and a colon. You are not limited to searching for just names though, you can search for things like phone numbers and email addresses. For example, let’s say we just got a call from a customer. Our caller ID showed the number as 919-519-0411, but did not tell us who it was, and before we were able to get the customer name the call dropped. We could look for the phone number by starting our search with a percent sign. Before I’m even done typing the number we can already see the results start to populate. Opening this Lafayette Metal we see the phone number that just called us, and we can call them back complete with their customer info ready to go. So far, as I have been opening records, I have been clicking on the name. If I do another search, I also have Edit and Dash as clickable options to the right. Edit will take you to the record but place you in editing mode, rather than the view mode we were in before. Dash will take you to the record’s dashboard if it has one. We are not limited to searching for records though, we can also search for pages. Pages are the forms you use in NetSuite to complete actions. Entering a new customer or a sales order is done on a page, as are edits. Maybe we need to create a Journal entry, but can’t remember where to do that. We can search for Page:Journal and we get Make Journal Entries at the bottom of the list. Clicking on it, we’re not only taken to that page, but looking closely at the menu bar shows us this is listed under transactions, which is why that menu is darker than the others surrounding it. All of what we’ve just looked at is based on how global search works by default, but Administrators can enable or disable some options and records. So if yours works a bit differently this is probably why. Going back to our home screen we also have the Quick Search portlet. If you don’t have this portlet you can add it with the Personalize link up here, the same as we did in the video covering dashboards. If we go to setup for Quick Search we have an option to set the search type to either General, or Transaction. If you want to change this later you have to revisit this setup screen. We can also set the default search which is what shows up under the, Search For, dropdown in the portlet. I’m going to click cancel for now though. The quick search works similarly to the global one. It is plain text and you can use the same wild cards. You can’t use prefixes though, since you are already selecting what you are looking for in the Search For dropdown. Right now I am searching for records based on the Name and ID, but I can select something different if I want. So maybe I only want to look for Customers, I can choose that here. One of the key differences is that with quick search the results are not shown immediately, and you have to go to the results screen to see them. There is also no right click available on the Search button; so you’ll be leaving whatever page you are on. I’ll type in Amy and we can see this search in action. Because I have customers selected, we only have one result, but there could be more if I typed in something different, or if I was looking for a different type of record. One last thing to know about both the quick and global search, is that they will only return records and record types that you are allowed to see. Now that you are familiar with what you can do with global and quick search you should be able to more easily find records when you need them. Questions this video will answer: • 0:00 – What are global search and quick search in NetSuite? • 0:10 – Where are global search and quick search located? • 0:15 – My global search is missing, where is it? • 0:30 – What is my alternate to using search in NetSuite? • 0:45 – Is there a global search shortcut in NetSuite? • 0:45 – What is the global search shortcut in NetSuite? • 1:00 – How does global search work in NetSuite? • 1:15 – How do I use wildcards in NetSuite global search? • 1:15 – How do I use percent (%) and Underscore (_) as wildcards in NetSuite search? • 1:40 – How can I find a lead, prospect, customer, vendor, or transaction in NetSuite when I can’t remember what it was called? • 1:55 – How can I use a record type prefix in NetSuite search? • 2:30 – How do I search for phone numbers and emails in NetSuite? • 3:10 – How do I get to a record dashboard in NetSuite? • 3:25 – How do I find a page or form in NetSuite using search? • 3:50 – How do I tell what menu something is listed under in NetSuite? • 4:00 – Why does my global search work differently from a co-workers? • 4:10 – How do I add quick search to NetSuite? • 4:15 – How do I change how Quick Search works? • 4:15 – How do I change the quick search record type? • 4:20 – How do I change the quick search defaults? • 5:15 – Do the global and quick search show records without regard for permissions?