Netsuite: How to attach custom fields to sales orders

Question

The documentation for Netsuite is quite lacking, they cover the basics and then let you loose to explore. Anyone without a vast knowledge of PHP trying to use their php toolkit would be on their knees begging for mercy.

At any point throughout this whole project it's been trail and error and trying to make sense out of everything until stuff started to work.

I'm stumped on assigning custom fields to sales orders, I know it has to be an object of an object of an object in order for it to tier down the xml for the soap to take over but what with what with what?

I have some code I worked that is getting somewhere but it is complaining it's not the right RecordRef type. If anyone worked with Netsuite and feels my pain please lend me your knowledge before I pull out all my hair.

Thanks in advance.

Code:

$customFields = array('internalId' => 'custbody_new_die_yn','value' => array('name' => 'custbody_new_die_yn','internalId' => 'NO'));
$customObject = new nsComplexObject("SelectCustomFieldRef");
$customObject->setFields($customFields);

$salesOrderFields = array(

    'entity'        => new nsRecordRef(array('internalId' => $userId)),
    'paymentMethod' => array('internalId' => 8),
    'ccNumber'      => 4111111111111111,
    'ccExpireDate'  => date("c", mktime(0,0,0,11,1,2011)),
    'ccName'        => 'Test Testerson',
    'itemList'  => array(
        'item'  => array(
            'item'      => array('internalId' => 5963),
            'quantity'  => 5
        )
    ),
    'department' => new nsRecordRef(array('internalId' => 1)),
    'class' => new nsRecordRef(array('internalId' => 47)),
    'customFieldList' => $customObject
);

Answer 1

I am not familiar using PHP with Netsuite but I have done a good amount of c#/.net Netsuite work. As Craig mentioned I find it much easier using a language such c#/.net with a Visual Studio generated interface to figure out what is available in the Netsuite SuiteTalk web service API.

There is a fair amount of documentation around this stuff in the NetSuite Help Center - by no means everythign you will need but a good start. Netsuite Help Center

Check out the SuiteFlex/SuiteTalk (Web Services) section specifically this page on Ids & References. Using Internal Ids, External Ids, and References

With that said I will try to help with a .net example & explanation of adding a custom field to a Sales Order.

Here are a few examples of adding different CustomFieldRefs:

//A list object to store all the customFieldRefs
List<CustomFieldRef> oCustomFieldRefList = new List<CustomFieldRef>();

//List or Record Type reference
SelectCustomFieldRef custbody_XXX_freight_terms = new SelectCustomFieldRef();
custbody_XXX_freight_terms.internalId = "custbody_XXX_freight_terms";
ListOrRecordRef oFreightTermsRecordRef = new ListOrRecordRef();
oFreightTermsRecordRef.internalId = <internalId of specific record in Netsuite>;
//See the References link above for more info on this - trying to figure out typeId caused me a lot of pain.
oFreightTermsRecordRef.typeId = <internalId of the List Record Type in Netsuite>; 
custbody_XXX_freight_terms.value = oFreightTermsRecordRef;
oCustomFieldRefList.Add(custbody_XXX_freight_terms);

//Freeform text sorta field            
StringCustomFieldRef objStringCustomFieldRef = new StringCustomFieldRef();
objStringCustomFieldRef.internalId = "custbody_XXX_tracking_link";
objStringCustomFieldRef.value = "StringValue";
oCustomFieldRefList.Add(objStringCustomFieldRef);

//Checkbox field type
BooleanCustomFieldRef custbody_XXX_if_fulfilled = new BooleanCustomFieldRef();
custbody_XXX_if_fulfilled.internalId = "custbody_XXX_if_fulfilled";
custbody_XXX_if_fulfilled.value = true;
oCustomFieldRefList.Add(custbody_XXX_if_fulfilled);

//By far the most complicated example a multi-select list referencing other records in Netsuite
MultiSelectCustomFieldRef custrecord_XXX_transaction_link = new MultiSelectCustomFieldRef();
//internal id of field you are updating
custrecord_XXX_transaction_link.internalId = "custrecord_XXX_transaction_link";

List<ListOrRecordRef> oListOrRecordRefList = new List<ListOrRecordRef>();

ListOrRecordRef oListOrRecordRefItemFulfillment = new ListOrRecordRef();
oListOrRecordRefItemFulfillment.name = "Item Fulfillment";
oListOrRecordRefItemFulfillment.internalId = <ItemFulfillmentInternalId>;
//Item Fulfillment is record type (Transaction -30) - this is from the above Reference links
oListOrRecordRefItemFulfillment.typeId = "-30";
oListOrRecordRefList.Add(oListOrRecordRefItemFulfillment);

ListOrRecordRef oListOrRecordRefSalesOrder = new ListOrRecordRef();
oListOrRecordRefSalesOrder.name = "Sales Order";
oListOrRecordRefSalesOrder.internalId = <SalesOrderInternalId>;
//Sales Order is record type (Transaction -30) - this is from the above Reference links
oListOrRecordRefSalesOrder.typeId = "-30";
oListOrRecordRefList.Add(oListOrRecordRefSalesOrder);

//Add array of all the ListOrRecordRefs to the MultiSelectCustomFieldRef        
custrecord_XXX_transaction_link.value = oListOrRecordRefList.ToArray();
oCustomFieldRefList.Add(custrecord_XXX_transaction_link);

//And then add all these to the Custom Record List (Array) on the Sales Order Record
objSalesOrder.customFieldList = oCustomFieldRefList.ToArray();

From what I can tell in your above example I think your issue is with the ListOrRecordRef typeId. Its hard to tell from your example what typeId you are referencing but if you can figure that out and set the TypeId on your SelectCustomFieldRef I think that should fix your issue.