Personal Information (PI) Removal – Status Quo
Written by Nico DinkelaPersonal Information (PI) Removal – Status Quo
The subject of data protection is becoming more and more important. Within the EU, all companies must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
A side note: Before we talk about deleting data, we need to spend a moment to consider which data has to be kept in your ERP for how long. Fulfillment and invoicing require us to store shipping addresses for customer questions and billing addresses for the tax authorities. Most of this information for at least ten years.
So how to handle data deletion within NetSuite?
The Feature in NetSuite
Starting with NetSuite 2019.2 the functionality „Remove Personal Information“ was made available on entity records, transactions, and custom records. You can just enable this feature in your NetSuite company settings
(go to Setup => Company => Enable Features => SuiteCloud => SuiteBuilder).
You can find a good explanation of this functionality within NetSuite help. Basically what you do is create a „Personal Information Removal Request“, this replaces the information within the selected fields after approval, using a mass update.
Here you first define the record type which needs to be updated. In the next step you select all specific records from that type, and in the last step you choose which fields should be updated. The information on those records now gets overwritten. For example: the value in the email field of a specific customer record is being replaced with „This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.“. That also applies to the related entries in the system information. In addition you can replace information in the workflow history entries.
Daily Business
But how useful is this functionality in your daily business? Let us take the example of an email address. As you cannot search for the email address within the functionality of the Personal Information Removal Request, you have to identify all relevant records types by saved searches, before you can even start using the tool. As we talk about a lot of potential records that need to be updated (e.g. Sales Orders), another bottleneck is the fact that you have to select every single record within the Personal Information Removal Request on its own. This means a lot of checkboxes to mark.
The next point to note is the address. If you want to remove personal data from the address, for example on a Lead record, you have the problem that none of the fields on addresses (addressee, address1, city, zip, etc.) are overwritten by the PI Removal tool. There is a value for the address (defaultaddress) that can be selected in the PI Removal Request, but performing a request has no impact on any of the fields on the address records.
Also there is no native functionality within the NetSuite PI Removal tool, that allows you to take into account the retention periods.
So overall the idea of replacing defined values with non-personal information is good, but so far the NetSuite solution is only suitable to a limited extent for daily business.
Therefore Alta Via is working on a solution that really fits the needs of our customers.
Ask us if you have any questions and need support on this topic.
Amazon Tax Reporting Solved! for NetSuite
When selling your products on Amazon, European tax reporting rules can now be followed in NetSuite using AmaInvoice reporting services.
Amazon relocates products as they optimise their warehousing and delivery costs without notifying their customers. It can happen that your products are relocated from Germany to Poland. If you are now shipping from Poland to Poland instead of from Germany to Poland, you clearly have to report taxes differently.
After importing transactions e.g. through Celigo from Amazon to NetSuite, it is hard to find the right tax code if the ship from country is not known.
For all sales we are able to identify the ship-from and ship-to locations so that the correct tax codes can be set in NetSuite. An additional workflow runs on invoices and sets tax codes based on the locations found.
Do you use Salesforce and NetSuite in your company? You don't want to part with Salesforce as your leading CRM system? Then it makes sense to create an integration between the two systems.
Which data should be synchronized?
At the beginning: we must decide which data should be synchronized and which system should lead for various data tables. As the first step, you could consider products, customers and orders for synchronization. However, this will vary by use case. It should also be considered whether you need a two-way synchronization.
Using the two systems together in a meaningful way can involve a lot of manual efforts. For example, if you would like to have your orders entered in Salesforce and also in NetSuite, you can simply “re-type” them. However, even with a manageable number of orders, this is not an efficient solution and creates high chances for potential human errors.
It is of course also possible to import the data into NetSuite as a CSV file, which is certainly an acceptable solution for many scenarios. But it still means a lot of manual effort. Master data maintenance must also be considered if several systems are used. Even with the slightest discrepancy in the name, you may no longer find the right customer record, for instance. Efficient integration is therefore of great benefit.
Alternatives of automatic integration, which completely replaces manual effort when importing the data
Alta Via can help you connect your two leading cloud systems in an automated, seamless, efficient, stable and flexible way. We have many years of experience in various projects where we developed such integrations.
Generally speaking, there are two broad ways of connecting the two systems:
- Via third-party software (such as Celigo, or Dell Boomi)
This makes sense if you are already using a middleware and want to use it to manage all integrations. Otherwise such a system is an add-on, which generates more costs and administrative efforts. There is no “plug-and-play” solution, so implementation costs need to be considered on top of the rental costs for the third-party platform. - With the help of an interface tailored by Alta Via
Such a peer-to-peer interface can get as easy or as complex as needed, since it is precisely tailored to the customers’ requirements. The solution is stable and users can monitor it. The effort is limited and manageable in the range of a four-digit amount. There are no recurring license costs associated with it at all.
You should ask yourself the following questions:
What exactly should the integration achieve and cover?
This leads to further detailed questions:
- Should customer master data be mapped in another system?
- Should sales / pre-sales transactions (e.g. opportunities, orders, etc.) be mapped in both the systems?
- How complex are the respective data records?
- Should a data comparison take place between the systems (e.g. duplicate check)?
- Which system should be considered as the master reference for which data?
- From our point of view, these are the questions that will help you to get started with your integration. This will be followed by many very technical and detailed questions that differ depending on the objectives of the integration.
Alta Via will be happy to accompany you through this journey, no matter which type of integration you choose.: Feel free to give us a call.
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email newsletter tools on the market.
The usability is very much appreciated by many marketing managers around the world.
Naturally we are looking for ways to transfer data from NetSuite to MailChimp.
Common questions we have when we look for options to integrate:
Searching a solution that fits
- Do we really need a middleware to facilitate the integration?
- Is the price for the middleware justified for this purpose?
- We just want to sync an email address, do we really have to configure a middleware and maintain it?
- Our integration needs are very custom. All products on the market are either overkill or not what we need.
- Make or buy? Should we just start to develop the integration ourselves?
Here, Alta Via has developed a simple approach. No middleware is needed. Only the email address is pushed from NetSuite to Mailchimp and then synced going forward.
The solution is very basic but customizable to the needs of our customers.
How does it work?
In this process, NetSuite is considered to be the leading system for master data (customer’s email address), whereas the email newsletter subscription status is managed in mailchimp.
- The connector pushes new customers/email addresses to Mailchimp.
- Mailchimp manages the double opt-in and sends out newsletters.
- Subscription status changes are synced back from Mailchimp into NetSuite on demand.
In detail:
After installation and configuration of the bundle, and as a first step you need to define your relevant customers, which shall become part of campaigns in mailchimp, through a saved search. The definition is important, as your customer data is precious and you might not want to share all of them.
The name of that search has to be entered in the general settings of your NetSuite account.
Note: Not all customers that you defined to be relevant will be replicated, but only the ones that have the appropriate opt-in status.
NetSuite has four status for email newsletters:
- Confirmed Opt-In (if the customer agreed to receive campaigns)
- Soft Opt-In (if the customer can receive opt-in eMails)
- Soft Opt-Out (if the customer can receive opt-in eMails)
- Confirmed Opt-Out (the customer can neither receive campaign emails nor opt-in eMails)
Your relevant customers then can be synchronized to the mailchimp account. If the status is one of Soft Opt-In or Soft Opt-Out then the customer email is synced to mailchimp in the status of "pending", meaning that the customer will receive an email from mailchimp to subscribe to a campaign.
If the customer opted-in (Confirmed Opt-In), then the customer’s email is synced to mailchimp in the status of "subscribed", so no additional subscription email will be sent to the customer.
Note: Still in all mailchimp emails you should ensure that the customer can unsubscribe from a campaign.
Customers are added as members to the configured mailchimp member list.
When customer synchronization is started, then NetSuite also reads the subscription status of the customer in mailchimp. If the customer unsubscribed, this status is also stored in the NetSuite system for information.
Note: Subscription status in NetSuite might not be up to date with the status in mailchimp, only after re-syncing the data is up to date.
In price and discount management, many of our customers have requirements that go beyond the NetSuite standard.
Customers in the retail business in particular have complex rules to be able to automatically determine the right prices and discounts:
Price Management Requirements
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All prices have a valid-from and a valid-to date
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Prices for items or item groups depend on the subsidiary, the customer group or the customer
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Prices can be maintained in different currencies
Discount management requirements
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All discounts have a valid-from and a valid-to date
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Discounts are differentiated according to header and line discount
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Discounts are set for items, item groups or item-sub-groups
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Discounts are valid for customer, customer group or subsidiary
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Discounts can be set as total discounts (multiple discounts then add up to a total discount)
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Discounts are given in % or as an absolute value
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Each discount can be given in different currencies
In order to meet these requirements, Alta Via has developed an Advanced price and discount management.
- The prices and discounts are managed in custom records.
- In the sales order, the invoice or other price-relevant transactions, a script takes over the task of finding the right price and the right discounts and inserting them into the transaction line or into the transaction header. In this case, a search is always made from the special case (example: item and customer) to the general case (example: item group per subsidiary).
- The first condition record found is then used.
A new date field “Condition Date” in the transaction allows the customer to book business transactions with a different price date, where “old” or “future” prices / discounts apply.
One use case is: The customer is promised that he can still order at old conditions.
Fields have been added to the transaction line to represent the line discounts. This allows single line discounts but also multiple discounts per line to be mapped.
Text information on the discounts introduced is available for printing on the line or can be adopted in EDI messages.
With the header discounts there is also a ranking and a definition of the base value to which a percentage discount relates.
The solution has proven itself even with high order volumes and has been in use for a long time, for example at our customer Sodastream.
We are happy to bring our approach to other customer projects.
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