Set Field Value Action - Part 2

08/06/2023 06:02 PM - By MavenCloud

Sublist Action Group

The sublist action group was a awesome enhancement to SuiteFlow as it opened up the world of sublist fields to workflows.  With a sublist action group you can now perform actions on fields within the sublist of a transaction.  Right now the sublist action group has some pretty heavy limitations, however, the few actions it does support are a huge leap forward for workflow functionality.  Currently, the sublist action group can only be created for the "items" sublist.  So if a transaction does not include an "items" sublist a sublist action group cannot be used.  The most common transactions in this category are:

  • Estimate
  • Sales Order
  • Item Fulfillment
  • Invoice
  • Return Authorization
  • Purchase Order
  • Item Receipt
  • Vendor Bill
The next limitation with sublist action groups is that they only support 4 actions currently:
  • Create Record
  • Return User Error
  • Send Email
  • Set Field Value
The most commonly used action here is the Set Field Value action.  To begin first we need to add a Sublist Action Group to our workflow.  This is very similar to a regular Workflow Action Group but instead of just grouping actions with common conditions together for easier maintenance, this sublist action group performs actions on the Items sublist according to the conditions and trigger defined.  I sublist action group will only be initiated when the condition of the group is met and the trigger is activated.  If you have no condition then the sublist action group will be initiated everytime.  Furthermore, every line within the Items sublist will be considered for any actions within the sublist action group however, each action can have it's own condition so they may only execute on certain lines.  Also a sublist action group can only have 1 trigger so all actions within the group will fire on the same trigger.  If you need different actions to be executed on different triggers then you would need to make multiple sublist action groups to accomplish this.
To add a sublist action group click on the New Sublist Group buttonThen define the trigger, context, event types and condition for this group.  Remember, the sublist group will only be activated if the trigger, context, event types and conditions are all met.  Then once met all actions in the sublist group will be considered based on each individual line and each actions individual condition(s)


Also remember to define what sublist to perform actions on in the parameters section.


Once you save your sublist action group we can begin to add actions to it.  Open the sublist action group then click New Action


Select Set Field Value from the list

In our example today we will set the department field on purchase order lines to "Operations" if the line item contains a Freight item.  This way when the vendor bill is entered the proper coding is already setup for Freight charges and the A/P team does not have to remember to do it.


Now any line set to the "Freight Charges" item will get the correct department and any line NOT set to that item will be skipped in the workflow so the user can set the correct department as necessary.

There is much more you can do with sublist action groups, but you can see that just setting field values dynamically within the items sublist can be VERY helpful to maintaining accurate data and cut down on the time spent entering data into forms.   Remember that when using sublist action groups all actions within the group are constrained by the configuration of the overall group so whatever trigger and even type you set on the overall group, be sure that it is applicable to all actions, or you will need to setup another action group for a different trigger.

If you would like to learn more about workflows, or how NetSuite in general can support your business feel free to reach out anytime.  We can support any customization, implementation or training for your environment.

Get Started Now

MavenCloud

Categories :
Tags :