By Louis Balla, Chief Revenue Officer, Nuage. Updated October 2026.
SuiteAnalytics is NetSuite’s name for its analytics tools: saved searches, reports, dashboards, SuiteAnalytics Workbook, SuiteAnalytics Connect and NetSuite Analytics Warehouse. Use saved searches for filtered lists, Workbook for datasets with pivot tables and charts, and dashboards to keep the results in view. Connect and Analytics Warehouse serve outside tools and other data sources.
This guide covers the tools you build with every day, saved searches and workbooks, and how to choose between them. For the Connect drivers, see our SuiteAnalytics Connect guide. For choosing among every analytics option, see our guide to NetSuite analytics strategy.
What does SuiteAnalytics include?
Oracle’s SuiteAnalytics documentation lists six components. The descriptions below follow Oracle’s Business Intelligence overview.
| Component | What Oracle says it does |
|---|---|
| Saved searches | Support advanced search features such as formulas that contain SQL expressions and joins to other records, for a search you run often |
| Reports | Retrieve, present and analyze results, from standard reports that you can modify to custom reports built in Report Builder |
| Dashboards | A visual workspace with tabbed pages that display data in portlets: KPIs, performance scorecards, trend graphs, chart-based workbooks and report snapshots |
| SuiteAnalytics Workbook | Customized workbooks that combine datasets, tables, pivot tables and charts in one tool |
| SuiteAnalytics Connect | A read-only way for a third-party reporting tool to access NetSuite data |
| NetSuite Analytics Warehouse | Goes beyond what Workbook offers, so you can analyze your NetSuite data in new ways |
Is SuiteAnalytics included with NetSuite?
Part of it. Oracle says SuiteAnalytics Workbook is enabled by default in all NetSuite accounts. Users with standard roles have the SuiteAnalytics Workbook permission, and a custom role needs it added with Edit access under the Reports subtab of the role’s permissions.
The Analytics Administrator permission is a separate one. It lets users delete, share and edit workbooks and datasets in the account, and it does not by itself grant access to Workbook.
SuiteAnalytics Connect must be purchased and enabled, as our Connect guide explains. NetSuite Analytics Warehouse has its own subscription tiers in Oracle’s documentation. Ask your NetSuite account team which parts your contract covers.
Saved search or workbook: which should you use?
Both read NetSuite data. They differ in how they build a query and which data source they use.
| Saved search | SuiteAnalytics Workbook | |
|---|---|---|
| Built from | A record type, filters and result columns | A dataset: record fields, joins, criteria filters and formula fields |
| Output | A list of results, which you can add to a dashboard or schedule by email | Tables, pivot tables and charts, with datasets that you can link |
| Joins | Joins to other records, including formulas with SQL expressions | Multilevel joins, including custom records |
| Data source | The saved search data source | The analytics data source (NetSuite2.com) |
| Best for | A list someone runs repeatedly | Exploring and summarizing across record types |
Oracle’s data source guidance matters when you move a search into Workbook. The location, names and IDs of some fields and record types can differ in the analytics data source, and some record types and fields, including calculated-value fields on certain records, have not been ported. Oracle’s page describes recreating a saved search in Workbook, using different fields or new joins and custom formula fields. It does not describe an automatic conversion.
How do you build a workbook?
Oracle’s Workbook overview describes datasets as the basis of every workbook visualization. Follow these steps in order.
- Confirm access. Check that the role has the SuiteAnalytics Workbook permission, as above.
- Build the dataset. Choose the base record type, add the fields you need and the joins to related records, set the criteria filters and add formula fields where a value has to be calculated.
- Create the workbook from the dataset. Add a table view for the detail, then a pivot table or a chart for the summary.
- Link a second dataset when you need to compare. Oracle notes that you can link datasets to compare metrics in one visualization, but the Workbook interface cannot yet edit how they are linked.
- Share, export or pin the result. Export to CSV or Excel, share with other roles, or pin a chart to a dashboard.
- Check the totals. Compare the workbook with a report or saved search you trust before anyone relies on it.
A construction company needed material cost by project at line level, showing both invoice lines and the inventory adjustments that put materials on each job, and it had been exporting a saved search to an Excel pivot table to get it. Our consultant built the report as a SuiteAnalytics workbook with an entity filter and export to CSV or Excel, delivered it for review, and then reworked it after the client’s further requests.
How do you put charts on a dashboard?
Workbook charts can appear on a dashboard. A coffee roaster’s leadership was building weekly sales charts in slides from data downloaded and cleaned outside NetSuite. Our consultant showed three dashboard options that chart NetSuite data directly, including a weekly sales trend for the last rolling quarter with a moving average. For a scientific instrument manufacturer, we built a workbook comparing purchase quantities with vendor return quantities, with a percentage column and a bar chart the buyer can pin to the home dashboard.
Our NetSuite dashboards guide covers portlet layout by role.
How do you keep saved searches under control?
Saved searches multiply, and scheduled ones are easy to lose track of. An accounting manager asked where to find the saved searches that email on a schedule, because the report schedules list came up blank. We built a saved search that lists every scheduled search and showed her how to include private searches in the saved search list, and in doing so found that the aging search she had in mind was not scheduled at all. Her reply a week after the request: “This works! Thank you so much!!”
Our NetSuite reporting guide compares saved searches, reports and add-ons.
What changes with each NetSuite release?
Analytics objects can change behavior between releases. Oracle’s 2026.2 notes say SuiteQL queries and analytics datasets based on generic transactions use Transaction.tranDate as the default sort field when no sort order is specified, and that exports of lists, saved searches and reports to Excel now default to the .xlsx format. Oracle’s Workbook limitations page lists points to know, such as that a dataset cannot be manually disconnected from a workbook after it has been connected. Oracle’s Workbook overview adds that SuiteBundler does not support Workbook objects, so leave them out of bundles.
Release testing includes analytics. For a professional services firm’s 2026.2 upgrade, our estimate set aside time to find affected workbooks and datasets alongside banking, projects and payments. For a utility services company, we flagged that transaction datasets with no explicit sort order would now sort by transaction date. Earlier, a 2025.1 notice changed how role restrictions on custom records apply to analytics data sources, ODBC and REST, and we reviewed it with a wire rope manufacturer.
How Nuage approaches SuiteAnalytics work
In recent client requests, our team has taken these steps. The order changes with each account.
- Ask what the user does with the output today. A saved search exported to Excel, or charts rebuilt in slides, shows which tool should replace it.
- Choose the tool for the question. A list goes to a saved search, a summary across records goes to a workbook, and a chart that someone checks daily goes to a dashboard.
- Build with filters the user can change. The construction workbook above carries an entity filter and export to CSV or Excel.
- Review before release. During an upgrade we look for affected workbooks and datasets and for datasets with no explicit sort order.
- Look for scheduled and private searches. A search that lists every scheduled search shows what is running and what is not.
Nuage’s NetSuite experts do this work as part of ongoing NetSuite optimization and managed services.
SuiteAnalytics FAQ
What is the NetSuite analytics suite?
It is SuiteAnalytics, the set of tools Oracle lists as saved searches, reports, dashboards, SuiteAnalytics Workbook, SuiteAnalytics Connect and NetSuite Analytics Warehouse. Workbook is enabled by default. Connect and Analytics Warehouse are provisioned separately, so ask your account team what your contract includes.
What is the difference between a saved search and a workbook?
A saved search builds a filtered list from a record type and can include joins and formulas. A workbook builds a dataset with joins across record types, then presents it as tables, pivot tables and charts. They use different data sources, so field names and IDs can differ between them.
Can I convert a saved search into a workbook?
Oracle’s documentation describes recreating a saved search in Workbook and does not describe an automatic conversion. Rebuild the logic in a dataset, which may mean using different record types and fields or adding joins and custom formula fields. Compare the totals with the original before you retire the search.
How do I give users access to SuiteAnalytics Workbook?
Users with standard roles already have the SuiteAnalytics Workbook permission. For a custom role, add the permission with Edit access under the Reports subtab of the role’s permissions. Give the Analytics Administrator permission only to the people who should delete, share or edit other users’ workbooks and datasets.
How do I use NetSuite analytics for the first time?
Pick one question a team asks every week. Build a saved search if the answer is a list, or a workbook if it needs a summary or a chart, and check it against a report you trust. Then pin the result to a dashboard so the team sees it without asking.
About the author
Louis Balla is Chief Revenue Officer at Nuage, a NetSuite optimization partner that has served 250+ clients since 2011 and holds a 4.9 out of 5 rating on Clutch. The client work in this article is our team’s.
