The primary benefit of using the FarApp bundle is for real-time price and quantity updates on your items in your marketplace/cart(s). 

How to Check Your NetSuite Bundles

NetSuite allows its users to install a number of third party applications. These are often called "bundles." FarApp offers a number of bundles that you can use. This article tells you how to install and upgrade the "FarApp NetSuite Bundle" which improves sync times for items from NetSuite to your marketplace/cart(s).

 Note: The FarApp NetSuite Bundle is compatible with all versions of NetSuite.

 

To check what bundles you have installed:

1. Make sure you are logged in to NetSuite as an admin user.
2. Go to Customization > SuiteBundler >Search & Install Bundles > List.
3. When viewing the list, make note of the Status and Installed From columns. The Status indicates whether the bundle is active, and Installed From tells you whether the bundle is installed on your Production or Sandbox account. This will become important below.

 

Installing the Bundle

FarApp's NetSuite bundle (named "FarApp" for simplicity) is used to push item updates to FarApp from NetSuite in real-time to improve update speeds. If FarApp is doing product and/or inventory updates, you should install the bundle.

*NOTE: if you don't enter your FarApp credentials (the credentials you use to log into FarApp) in the two separate locations mentioned in the section below, you will get invalid credentials errors in NetSuite after installing the bundle. This will prevent you from creating transactions in NetSuite until the credentials are entered.

*Please be sure to only install the FarApp bundle on the account you currently have connected to FarApp here: https://app.farapp.com/settings#/netsuite_settings (e.g. if you have both a NetSuite sandbox and live NetSuite, please ensure you only install it on one of these at a time). If you have the FarApp bundle already installed in your Sandbox and Production NetSuite accounts, please uninstall the bundle from the NetSuite instance that is not connected to FarApp. This should resolve potential errors or issues you may be seeing relating to the bundle.

Creating a dedicated FarApp User for the Bundle

When installing the bundle you will be asked to add the login credentials of a user on your FarApp account. You could use a current user on your account, but we recommend creating one specifically to be used with the bundle. To create a dedicated user, just follow these steps:

• Log in to FarApp at app.farapp.com and click Account Settings under your name in the upper right corner.
• Click Manage Users (at the top).
• Click Add New User.
• Enter the information for the dedicated FarApp user. The Login could be your company name and the Full Name could just be "FarApp Bundle". Also, give the user an email address and FarApp password.
• Click Save User.

This will be the user and login credentials that you will enter in steps 9 and 13 when installing the FarApp Bundle.

To install the bundle, follow these steps in NetSuite.
Once started you must complete these steps:

1. Make sure you are logged in to NetSuite as an admin user.
2. Go to Customization > SuiteBundler > Search & Install Bundles.
3. Enter FarApp in the KEYWORDS box and click Search.
4. Find the result named just FarApp and click on the name.
5. Click Install. It may take a little time but this will install the bundle.
6. Go to Setup > Company > General Preferences.
7. Go to the Custom Preferences tab.
8. In the FarApp section, enter FarApp credentials for your dedicated FarApp user again (i.e. the ones you created for your dedicated FarApp user in the instructions above) in the text fields.
9. If you have user-event scripts in NetSuite that modify an item record as you save the item record (for example, upon save, it auto-computes the prices and updates them), then check the HAVE ITEM-MODIFYING USER-EVENT SCRIPTS box. Otherwise, leave it unchecked for improved performance. Note: This is not common and you should leave it unchecked unless you fully understand what it does, because it does require more processing. The "item" in setting "item-modifying user-event scripts" doesn't refer to orders or items on an order, but it is referring to items in NetSuite. Checking this box means if you editing and item in NetSuite, after you save it, a user-event script runs and modifies some of the fields on the item so the data changes from what you just saved.
10. Click Save.

Once the above is done, any item and/or inventory changes will be pushed to FarApp in real-time.

 

Upgrading the Bundle

FarApp releases updates to its NetSuite bundle periodically. It is beneficial to upgrade your bundle when you can in order to stay up-to-date with the latest improvements from FarApp.

Update notifications: Whenever we release an update to the bundle, the notification messages come from NetSuite directly and anyone that has SuiteBundler permissions in your NetSuite should receive the message. You can also subscribe additional emails using NetSuite's instructions at https://system.netsuite.com/app/help/helpcenter.nl?fid=section_N3397668.html.

To upgrade:

1. In NetSuite, go to Customization >SuiteBundler >Search & Install Bundles >List.
2. Find the FarApp bundle in the list and in the leftmost column, there's a drop down. Click Update.
3. In the screen that comes up, click Update Bundle and in the pop-up, click OK to proceed.

If, while attempting to upgrade the bundle, you see the following message, "That bundle no longer exists in the source account", please uninstall and then reinstall the bundle. This will correct the issue.

Performance Impact

Please be aware that there is a performance impact to your NetSuite when using real-time updates. If you tend to have orders with a large number of line items, it will take more time to save the order because FarApp needs to check the inventory for all of those items. This is a known performance hit and is expected. The time it takes to save an order goes up as the number of line items goes up and the only way to avoid this is to disable the real-time sync. If your orders tend to have a small number of line items, the performance impact is negligible. 

There are three scenarios when the bundle will post price and/or quantity updates for an item:

1. When there is an update to the item data in NetSuite, such as adding a new image or changing the description.
2. There is a transaction that involves this item, such as an order that posts to NetSuite involving this item. Because a transaction could change the item's quantity, we sync a quantity update in real-time to your marketplace/cart(s).
3. If a NetSuite workflow runs on the item, such as a script that updates item data automatically. Please note that in this situation the change will not show up in the change log in NetSuite. It will show up in the Workflow sub-tab.

If you would like to disable the real-time sync, you can do so in your NetSuite account. To do that:

1. Navigate to Customization >Scripting > Script Deployments.
2. Expand the Filters menu and use the Script filter to search for the FarApp Push Item Updates script.
3. Click the Edit link next to the script ID in the results.
4. Select the Parameters tab.
5. Select the box Disable Real-Time Sync.
6. Select the Save button.

If the real-time sync is disabled, FarApp will still sync updates for that item based on the last modified timestamp on the item fields, and the sync would occur every 15 minutes.

 

Disabling Scripts from the FarApp Bundle

If you want to stop using one or more of FarApp's scripts from the bundle please follow the procedure here https://farapp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040845234

 

Troubleshooting Issues with the Bundle

If you have workflows in NetSuite and you are noticing timeouts (especially if you are connected to a 3PL and are experiencing very long sync times or process timeouts when pulling in orders via FarApp), please note that all workflows should have checks to make sure they are not already completed (ie: if a workflow flags a checkbox, it should have a check that confirms the checkbox is not already flagged). Otherwise these workflows may trigger unnecessarily frequent updates from FarApp's bundle, which will consume processing power and degrade the performance of other tasks.

If you are experiencing issues where you cannot invoice orders, or any other order sync errors after installing the bundle, please double check that you completed the installation steps above, as leaving the installation incomplete can cause these issues.