NetSuite Navigation Dropdown (Centers, Center Tabs, Center Categories, and Center Links)

by Caleb Schmitz in , July 15th, 2022

When you are working in NetSuite, it can be useful to stay organized with the most important information on your day-to-day usage of Oracle NetSuite ERP. One way you might try to build a custom navigation setup is to create navigation dropdown tabs in NetSuite using Center Tabs.

Custom Center and Categories
NetSuite Tabs and Navigation Dropdown Tab

You can create a custom tab layout specific to your login, role, or even for the entire company. To get a more detailed breakdown of Center Tabs, you can view the SuiteAnswers article ID 10063. SuiteAnswers requires access to a NetSuite environment to view the documentation.

NetSuite Use Case: Example 1

In the first example, we will cover the following topics:

  • Custom role
  • Custom center (customer center gets assigned to the custom role)
  • Center tabs
  • Center categories
  • Center links

The goal for this use case is to isolate a NetSuite customization to be managed by a custom role that is restricted to customization management for a tool called the Camino Route Planner.

NetSuite Use Case: Example 2

For our use case, Anchor Group has created a NetSuite Mailchimp integration and needs to manage their customer subscriptions in addition to their own Mailchimp integration data they use with their customers.

We will need to create a tab in the upper navigation menu with a dropdown menu that is organized to make daily tasks in NetSuite easy.

Let's get started!

Setting Up a NetSuite Dropdown Tab

The first step to creating your new navigation tab is to create a center tab. You can find it by going to Customization > Centers and Tabs > Center Tabs > New.

Center Tab NetSuite Navigation

In our example, we will be creating a NetSuite tab dropdown for our Mailchimp NetSuite integration information. The Center tab is what we will use to define the top-level category of information which shows in the primary navigation bar in NetSuite.

NetSuite Dropdown Menu

You can skip adding categories to this page for now and just insert the label and the center. For our use case, we will just use the Classic Center. Then click save and you will have a new tab in the navigation menu.

The next step will be to make the categories that show up in a dropdown below the top level center tab. Navigate to Customization > Centers and Tabs > Center Categories > New.

NetSuite Tab

This will be where you will add categories and additional subcategory links. In our case, when we search for Mailchimp, not all the links were available/searchable so our next step will be to create additional links to add.

NetSuite Center Links

We will define the label and the URL that each of these links will go to if clicked. In our case, we just copy the URL after navigating to the page we want to have available in this dropdown.

Search for Category in Center Link

When we go back to the Center Category we just created, we can now see that the new links we just created are available to be selected now.

After we save this record, we have now created a simple navigation dropdown in NetSuite to allow for a customized navigation experience.

NetSuite Menu Dropdown

This consists of the following setup to get this result:

  • One center tab labeled "Mailchimp"
  • By Default, the "Mailchimp Overview" will appear
  • Two Center Categories being "Mailchimp Subscription Management" and "Mailchimp Setup (internal)
  • Inside of the Center Categories, we created links
  • Custom Center Links are created for pages you are unable to find in the search initially

Center Tabs are a great way to utilize some basic organization techniques in NetSuite that will help you stay more efficient on a day-to-day basis.


Mailchimp Integration - Example

If you are interested in getting the Mailchimp integration to NetSuite mentioned in this article, check out the product detail page for the Mailchimp NetSuite integration.

Download and install the easy-to-use Mailchimp bundle within 30 minutes. A free trial is available!


Oracle NetSuite Alliance Partner & Commerce Partner

Hopefully, this post gives you something to work with while trying to understand NetSuite and what it can do for your business. If you have general questions about NetSuite, or more specific questions about setting up dropdown tabs in your NetSuite environment, feel free to contact the Anchor Group crew at any time. Anchor Group is a certified Oracle NetSuite Alliance Partner & Commerce Partner, and is equipped to handle all kinds of NetSuite and SuiteCommerce projects, large or small!

anchor group oracle netsuite alliance partner commerce partner
 
 

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