A Linchpin's Journey

Have you ever had times when you were so passionate about something so you share it to the world, only to get rejected? You probably have. I know I have. Heck, this whole journey is about my response to a rejection. I know it's difficult to separate the emotions and self-doubt that comes with rejection. But doing so is essential to progress. In one of the podcasts I've seen, Seth Godin tells about how he was rejected over 800 times to publish one book. People literally took the effort to write a stamped letter and mail it, just to notify him of the rejection. His writing is his passion, and perhaps his book, his baby. So how does he separate himself from the rejection, and get things done? He gave an illustration on eighteen locks. Each lock has it's own key and if the locksmith is unable to open one with the first key, then he tries again with the next key. It doesn't make the locksmith feel bad whenever a key fails to open a lock. This is something I guess we can keep...

Using a Saved Search to get a week number of a date can be tricky. A day like January 5, 2022 could return week 1, but you expect it to be in week 2. So why could that be? There are a few TO_CHAR date formats to remember when getting the week number. Week of Year (WW) - Defines the first week as the first 7 days of the year. ISO Week of Year (IW) - Defines the first week as the first Monday, plus the next 6 days. Everything before the first Monday is considered either week 52 or 53 of the previous year. ISO Week of Year (IY) - Used in relation to 'IW', for better identification of what year the ISO week refers to. For most purposes, you would want to use the ISO week, plus the ISO year. If that is the case, you can use the following formula: to_char({custrecord12},'IW - IYYY') Be sure to replace '{custrecord12}' with the appropriate date value. Below are examples of how results of each date format differ. Results tab: Search Results: An Interesting Case I once ...

Below is a list of macros that I've created to help automate and/or manage tasks in the actual workplace. Looking back, I'm proud of the work I've done, as these projects have spared so many people, myself included, from unnecessary hours of labor. I will not make these macros available for download. Knowledge Management Tool (NetSuite) Consolidated drill down results from a NetSuite Solution Search across different teams. Made assigning and tracking solution reviews a lot easier. Had a feature that isolated solutions for each assignee into individual worksheets. This was especially useful since each team would have around 400-800 solutions to manage and distribute among so many knowledge management contributors. Also updated this tool so it could be compatible to reporting from a web tool. PL/SQL Query Generator (DXC) Allowed for generating long PL/SQL queries that could be used for manipulating data from SQL tables, then gathering summarized stats to compare old and ne...

Date Today in Freemarker If you want to add today's date in your NetSuite email templates, you can use the following freemarker tags: ${.now} - returns today's date in long format ${.now?date} - returns today's date in short format See more built-ins for date formats here . Arithmetic Functions If you want to perform arithmetic functions with dates, you will have to first use the long built-in to convert dates to milliseconds. Once converted you can add and multiply milliseconds, then convert the value back using any of the following built-ins: number_to_date number_to_datetime Example: Goal: To add 10 days to current date. Formula: ${((.now?date)?long + 10 * 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24)?number_to_datetime} Entering the following in the text editor will allow you to compare today's date and the formula's result. Result:

After reading some pages from Linchpin , I have opened my eyes to getting more engaged in looking for a job that will allow me to create and invent new ways to do things. Along with that inevitably came an update to my resume. Here is the updated version. Thank you  Canva . Resume (PDF) To the employers I am applying for: I've gone through a lot of interviews by now. Here's a quick FAQ on my resume. Why did you stop attending college? I was a Mormon missionary from 2009-2011. There I was given special assignments wherein I learned life skills at the early age of 19. Such skills included negotiation with property owners, event organization (logistics and preparation), and developing macros for automating office tasks. Why did you pursue a career in IT? I started programming HTML when I was 10 years old. I fell in love with coding. I had some different interests as I grew older, so perhaps my course would deviate from IT, but deep down I still really loved to make code. I eve...

The goal of "A Day in the Life" posts is for me to help you understand what's going on in my mind when tasks are assigned to me. They're not all meant to be inspirational; some posts, such as this can be technical. But either way, I hope you can pick up some ideas, and possibly even create something new from this experience. Part of my role is to receive cases that are considered "defects" in NetSuite. I would file the defect records so that engineers could investigate them. As I have learned more about emotional work , I have become more empathetic to customers facing defects. The normal way to go about defect filing is to get more info on the customer's scenario -- how they are getting by amid the defect, whether the workaround they do is something they can keep doing for a long time, and other implications on how the issue is affecting the business. We would then draft an issue and have it approved. Finally, we'd create the actual defect record. F...

If you want to create a Saved Search containing a list of customers, and a quick link to create a phone call, next to each name, you can do the following: Navigate to Lists > Search > Saved Searches > New Search Title : Enter a title Click Results Field : Select Formula (Text) Formula : Enter '<a href="https://tstdrv2113864.app.netsuite.com/app/crm/calendar/call.nl?l=T&invitee='||{internalid}||'&company='||{internalid}||'">New Phone Call</a>' Click Save & Run Note : Replace tstdrv2113864 with your account ID. Results tab: Sample results:

A few of these can have real life applications. But most of these are just for fun. Some of these I'll make available for download as well. Title What does it do? Comments Character Sorter A simple bubble sorter that sorts characters of a string. The sorter identifies the ASCII values of each character, then sorts the letters In my first technical interview for Oracle, I was to write some code for a bubble sorter that could sort the characters of a string. Years after the interview, I thought, why not actually make one? FBStoryDownloader Two macros that allow for downloading videos from Facebook stories. The other available downloaders only download the oldest available video. Sure using my process is a lot more technical, but it allows you to download any of the available video stories, and not just the oldest available one. MTG Simulator A very basic playtest macro for Magic: The Gathering I wanted a way to play...

 "He who stands the long night will see the dawn." Said a random man from Devil in Ohio. I work the night shift so I literally stand (endure) the long night every day. Moreover, I know my journey as a linchpin is young, and I am yet to reap the rewards. But I know they will come. And I'm not just waiting for the opportunity, no. I've actually been busy, looking out there, and applying for jobs and getting interviewed. One of the common questions I get asked is, "Why are you looking for a new job?" It's a really good question to ponder, and I'm not sure I'm able to paint the entire picture every time. So if there is anyone out there that will be hiring me, or anyone that I still have a pending application for, here's my answer to that question. I love my job at Oracle. I love the people, I love the environment, I love the culture. Simon Sinek says it's something about that. A lot of people like  their job but loving a job means so much mo...

All recognitions are official recognitions from management, and from the companies I've worked in. They are officially attached to my profiles in the employee portals, and are aside from the recognitions I have received regarding my productivity (those recognitions are found in newsletters). HP / HPE / DXC Innovator at Heart: Built solutions and tools in several languages Oracle NetSuite Values in Action FY2023 SuiteExcellence FY22, FY23, FY24 CRM, SuiteBuilder, SuiteAnalytics SME SuiteFoundation, Admin, SuiteAnalytics Certifications Social Impact SuiteAnswers/SuiteKnowledge Contributor and Publisher Global Compliance SuiteFoundation Certification NetSuite Administrator Certification SuiteAnalytics User Certification Greatest of All Time Values In Action - Delight Our Customers: I was recognized by top management, specifically by Evan Goldberg (EVP and Founder of NetSuite), our Customer Success SVP, and our GVP of Global Customer Success, SRT & Operations. A year later, ...

Most feedback is found in our internal employee portal, and is visible to managers. "Saying that Lester is a big help to the whole CRM team is an understatement. As a manager that have to monitor my team's cases bucket and aging cases, I can honestly admit that he takes a big chunk off my load. He is also one of the biggest factors of the CRM team's overall performance in case SLTs. He is proactive in helping out others even not within his team and is very accommodating. Anyone can have a highly technical skills, but sometimes being excellent in a technical aspect does not have a welcoming response. Lester's strength is he is too “techy”, but his more admirable strength is his ability to share that “techy” knowledge and share it to others that they will easily absorb. If a rep is given a "Lester Buff" we are sure that at least 5 cases will be resolved in the next 2 days. Lester does not just tell us what to do in order to resolve our cases, but he also explai...

If you want to create a Saved Search containing a list of customers, and a quick link to send an email, next to each name, you can do the following: Navigate to Lists > Search > Saved Searches  > New Search Title: Enter a title Click Results Field : Select Formula (Text) Formula : Enter  '<a href="https://tstdrv2113864.app.netsuite.com/app/crm/common/crmmessage.nl?entity='||{internalid}||'" target="_blank">Email</a>' Click Save & Run Note : Replace tstdrv2113864 with your account ID. Results tab: Sample Results:

I have received a lot of positive feedback from customers over the years. I have received negative feedback as well, but the positive ones outweigh and definitely outnumber the negative ones. Here are a few of my favorite comments (names and companies withheld): After being handed off throughout multiple staff and presumably, multiple teams, I was able to get Lester as my main helper. I asked Lester for a real thorough, comprehensive discussion, including helping me get an intuitive sense of how accounts and roles functioned. He did this, but he did it with the precise amount of care and depth that I needed to get through this latest technical challenge. I need intuitive understanding in order to be effective, and Lester understood that. Lester, so far is the only truly useful tech I've dealt with from your organization, so far. This is due to his thoroughness, knowledge of the platform, and eagerness to actually help. Lester is a superior technologist with excellent cus...

In the workplace, cases are what we call "tickets", or concerns raised by our customers. I started today's shift and saw 4 cases which were all about one critical issue that customers were facing. This was surprising because we normally don't get that many cases. There are even days where we don't get any at all. There were only 3 of us in the team that get assigned to that kind of issue, and the 2 would only come in 2 hours from then. I grabbed all four. I started looking into one and asked around about the issue. It turned out, there had already been an ongoing discussion. I knew the next steps were clear: inform the rest, wait for a "defect record" to be filed, then attach the cases to the defect record. I did not wait for anyone to tell me what to do. It's time we stop asking what we should do; it's time we start asking the right questions. A few minutes later, the defect was filed. I informed the rest and checked the error logs of each of th...

In Cobra Kai season 5, sensei Terry Silver, in his office, interviews his student, Kenny Payne. Terry sees Kenny's potential as a leader and relays the idea to Kenny. Kenny then asks his sensei, "What do you want me to do?" Terry replies, "I want you to stop asking that question." "Linchpin" is the word Seth Godin uses to describe a type of person that's so indispensable and that brings so much value into an organization, that the organization can't afford to lose them. Doing so would kill the organization. Linchpins don't follow the rules; they make their own. They don't ask people what they should do; they simply do. In the book, organizations are compared to machines. Machines have linchpins and cogs. Linchpins are irreplaceable parts that will break the machine if removed. Cogs can easily be replaced. A linchpin provides a lot more value to an organization than a cog. Cogs produce commodities because they follow a system, manual or ...

If you want to get part of a string, you can use the SUBSTR() SQL function in a formula. The syntax is: SUBSTR(string, start, length)   This is an example of a Customer Saved Search that would return the part of a customer's entitystatus proceeding the hyphen. String: {entitystatus} Start:  instr({entitystatus},'-')+1 INSTR() is an SQL function that returns for the location of a specified character from a text. In this example, we are searching for the hyphen. INSTR() will return a number where are SUBSTR() will begin. Since INSTR() returns the location before the hyphen, we will need to add one after our INSTR() function. Length: length({entitystatus}) LENGTH() is an SQL function that returns the number of characters in a string. We can used this as the third parameter in our substring function to ensure we capture everything to the right of the hyphen. Putting it all together, the formula is as follows: substr({entitystatus},instr({entitystatus},'-')+1,length({ent...

My journey begins as a response to rejection. There was a mishmash of emotions right before the fuse was sparked, and I don't want to delve too much into them. Instead of talking about the pain and defeat, I hope I can focus on how my response to this instance rejection has changed my life forever. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."   -- Chinese Proverb I have been working for over 3 years in my company, and by this time, as you would expect, I have gotten used to the job. A few months ago, our team of 7 was suddenly tasked with reviewing over 800 online articles and keeping them up to date. The articles are all from a huge knowledge base for an online ERP system that we supported. Even though this was not my team's main role, we had to do this twice a year, on top of all our other responsibilities. I thought, "Are we the only ones tasked with this many articles?" I looked at the number of records assigned to other similar teams. A te...