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Getting Started: ExtendSync for Google NetSuite Best Practices Guide

ExtendSync Google | Admins can leverage this guide when implementing and planning user onboarding

Updated this week

ExtendSync for Google NetSuite is a powerful tool that enables your organization to have 360-degree visibility into important communications in the right place at the right time.

To help your organization succeed, we strongly recommend reviewing the best practices below.

⚠️ Note: ExtendSync for Google NetSuite is currently not supported on mobile. We are working to bring mobile support in a future release.

This guide outlines best practices to maximize efficiency! ✨


One Single Source of Truth

Your inbox is private, NetSuite is shared.
ExtendSync lets you make key communications visible so your entire organization benefits from:

  • Centralized communication

  • Better collaboration

  • Accurate reporting

  • Faster context-gathering

πŸ“˜ Recommended reading: Why visibility matters (eBook here)


βœ… Create an Internal Process

Create an internal process that is easy for users to follow and ensure they stick with it. Document this process and include it with their onboarding and reinforce it through subsequent trainings. Users should know what records to save emails too, along with what information should be in NetSuite (and how much). This will vary by Organization. It's easy for users to fall out of practice and miss getting important information into NetSuite. It's your responsibility to ensure this does not happen by monitoring and enforcing usage.


βœ… Understanding Autopilot vs. One-Time Save

ExtendSync offers two ways to sync emails with NetSuite:

  • One-Time Save: Manually attaches a single email to a NetSuite record. Best for occasional or one-off emails.

  • Autopilot (Enterprise): Automatically syncs entire email threads or emails from a specific sender. Ideal for ongoing conversations.

Email Address based Autopilot (To/From/CC) functionality is limited to the primary folder and the sent folder in your Gmail.

Method

Best For

How it Works

One-Time Save

Saving a single email to a specific record

Manually attach an email to a NetSuite record

Thread-Based Autopilot

Conversations related to a single transaction

Automatically syncs all replies in the same email thread

Email Address-Based Autopilot

Ongoing correspondence with a contact, customer or any entity records

Attaches all emails from a specific email address to a designated NetSuite record

✨ Email address-based Autopilot is by far the easiest and quickest method to get your emails into NetSuite! Dig deeper on the different save methods here.


βœ… Attach Emails to the right records

ExtendSync users can attach emails to almost any NetSuite record type. If your organization has a long sales cycle and works off NetSuite Opportunities you may want to attach emails to Opportunity records. If you're working on shorter sales cycles you may want to attach emails at the Contact level.

🚨 HOT TIP:

To maintain data integrity, attach emails to transaction-level records (e.g., Sales Orders, Invoices, Support Cases) instead of the general Customer/Company record.

βœ… Do: Attach emails to a Sales Order or Support Case to keep conversations contextual.
🚫 Don’t: Attach all emails to a Customer record, as it can clutter the timeline.

We typically advise against attaching emails at the Customer/Company level. Emails attached by ExtendSync will automatically roll up to their parent level (learn more about email rollup here).

Best practice - save to the child and it will roll up to the parent for you automatically.

This gives you the best of both worlds. You can see the email activity where it is most relatable yet you can also see it in one holistic view at the parent level.


βœ… Measure accountability and drive adoption

Spend a few minutes per week to monitor usage right down to the individual user. Leverage the power of NetSuite to see emails and events by sender/recipient, entity, and more. If it isn't in NetSuite, it didn't happen.

NetSuite saved searches can be used to determine the number of emails attached to NetSuite.

Set Up Usage Metrics & Track Adoption article will help you build your dashboard to track usage over time and even have these metrics emailed to you on a daily or weekly basis.

πŸ“ˆ If usage dips, forward the report to the user(s) and remind them of best practices.
​

Need help setting this up? Email cloudextend-support@celigo.com and we’ll help you configure it.


βœ… Using Gmail Analytics

ExtendSync Gmail Analytics helps users monitor:

  • Saved email count

  • Autopilot usage

  • Daily/weekly/monthly behavior

  • Which save methods they use most

πŸ’‘ Data is available for up to 2 months.

πŸ‘‰ Learn how to use Gmail Analytics here!


βœ… Avoid email clutter at all costs

Just because it's easy to attach an email to NetSuite does not mean every email belongs there. If we had to make one recommendation to our users it would be don't stuff NetSuite with emails that are not useful. If you or your colleagues will not benefit from seeing an email in NetSuite leave it out. This makes it much easier for others to see important emails when they visit NetSuite.


βœ… Find and view emails in NetSuite with ease

There are multiple ways to access important emails in NetSuite, including:

  1. View History (Record Level)

  2. Dashboard View > Timeline

  3. Customer 360

View History (Record Level)

  • Go to the Communication β†’ Messages tab. This provides a detailed history of interactions at an individual record level.

  • Customize your Message View to display message snippets directly in the list (no need to open each one).


Dashboard View > Timeline

  • Get a unified view of all interactions, including emails, activities, and transactions, for a given Customer, Lead, or Prospect.

  • To add go to any Customer, Lead, or Prospect then click View Dashboard then add Timeline.

Customer 360

  • 360-degree view of the customer, including their financial information, transaction history, and other related data.

  • Learn more about Customer 360.


βœ… Using Google Drive (Enterprise users only)

With ExtendSync Google Drive you can attach files and/or folders to NetSuite records without consuming any NetSuite storage space. Whenever you add a folder to a NetSuite record(s), anytime that someone adds files or folders to the record in Google Drive, they will also automatically be attached to the folder of the record(s) it is attached to in NetSuite.

As long as you have your folders attached to the proper records, you can manage everything through Google Drive.

Click here to learn more about Google Drive.


Additional Tips

βœ… Exclude Inactive Records from Search

In NetSuite, Navigate to Set preferences > Analytics > Make sure the Include in-actives in global and quick search is unchecked.


βœ… Use the β€œSearch by Prefix” Feature

The Enable Search by Prefix option refines global searches for large accounts.

Using prefixes in your search query can help the system identify the type of record you are searching for and return only relevant results


Example: Searching for β€œ3M” becomes cus:3M to filter only customer records.


βœ… Help Your Users Know Where to Get Support

ExtendSync offers several ways to get help.

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