How to Choose the Right NetSuite Integration Option?

Ever came across the word closed box or imagined a system which is impossible to integrate with any external system? The situation becomes worse when you have a cloud based ERP/CRM system with no real way to modify the procedure or communicate with different applications, if this is the case, you should start considering different options.

Luckily, this is not the case with NetSuite, you have number of diverse options available for you to integrate it with other systems.

Lets go through each option one by one, and see what are the pros and cons of each.

Web Services

NetSuite offers SOAP based web service which you can use to communicate between your application(s) and NetSuite. It will allow you to export and import information from NetSuite.

PROS

1. High throughput. Combination assembled utilizing Web Services choice will allow you to push and draw large amount of data. NetSuite offers both Synchronous and Asynchronous methods, which can greatly improve performance of your application.
2. Your application will have full control over joining.
3. Log records are also accessible through web services, which really helps developers in debugging and identifying issues.

CON

1. One user license will be consumed.
2. You can NOT have multiple simultaneous connections.
3. You need to go through heavy documentation. If your development team has knowledge of NetSuite customization and is aware of different terminologies then the learning curve will be smaller.
4. Consuming NetSuite web service is sometimes considered as a heavy operation due to the length of WSDL (Web Service Description Language) file.

RESTLet

Restlet was presented at some point in 2013 form of NetSuite. This is the simplest alternative to Web Services. RESTLets are based on the philosophy of REST full web services, in which you can identify every resource by a unique URL.

PROS

1. Lightweight and quick in execution. RESTLets are intended to return information rapidly.
2. Great for containing business logic, so that client does not have any heavy weight information in it.
3. Simultaneous connections are allowed to RESTLets. Starting with 2014.2 release, single client can have up to 10 simultaneous connections to a Restlet.
4. RESTlet is basically a SuiteScript. So we can perform almost any operation using RESTLet that we can do within NetSuite UI.
5. RESTLets have 5000 Governance limit.

CON

1. Has a limit of 10 MB data exchange in one go.
2. RESTLets are written using Suite Scripts, this means people having NetSuite scripting expertise can only write RESTLets.

Public Suitelet

After RESTLets this option is no more recommended. However, since this is still an option for integration, so it’s worth mentioning it here. In this option we will need to create a public Suitelet and expose it to general public. Unless we implement our own security scheme, public Suitelets are not secure and any individual who knows its URL will be able to access it Suitelets allow 50 simultaneous connections.

Mix and Match Model

Most suitable integration option, that can fulfill most users need could be a hybrid approach of both Web Services and RESTLets. While this may lead to have a design in which your application’s logic might be divided in two places, but it can save your precious time. You can perform heavy data operations using Web Services, while leave the CRUD operations to RESTLets. Well, if you are not yet ready for integrating your external system with NetSuite, we are here to help you take through that difficult part. We are NetSuite Official Partner, specialized in Netsuite Implementation, Customization and Integrations. Feel free to write us at [email protected] for any query, to request a quotation or just to say hello.