Exercise 7: Map your sales territories

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You manage a large sales force that is responsible for generating revenue and growth opportunities for your company. In order to manage your sales force's activities, you need to see their coverage areas on a map.

In this exercise, you use MapPoint to import your territory definition data and create a territory map. Your company's sales territories are organized by county, so your territory definition information consists of a Microsoft Excel worksheet that matches each county with the appropriate sales representative.

Step 1: Import your territory source file and create a territory map

  1. Clear the current map by clicking New Gg674767.ALLNewButton(en-us,MSDN.10).jpg on the Standard toolbar.

    Note   If you are prompted to save changes to your current map, you may do so, but it is not necessary for completing this exercise.

  2. On the Data menu, click Territories.

  3. On the Choose how you want to create your territories page, accept the default selection of Create from your own set of data, and then click Next.

    Why?

    You have already defined your territories in a spreadsheet. If you didn't have territories defined in source data, selecting Create manually would allow you to create your territories by selecting places on the map.

  4. On the Import or link to your source file of territory data page, accept the default selection of Import your source file by clicking Next.

    Why?

    You can choose either to import or link to your data. Linking to your source data allows you to make changes in your source file and then update the map when the source data changes, but importing source data maintains no connection to your source file and allows you to manage the territories directly in MapPoint.

  5. Open the Excel sample data file by browsing to C:\Program Files\Microsoft MapPoint 2013\Samples\, selecting SampData.xls, and clicking Open.

    Note   This is the default installation location. If you installed MapPoint in a different location, use Search or Find in Windows Explorer to locate the file.

  6. On the Choose the sheet or range you want to map page, select Territories, and then click Next.

  7. Look at the headings in the row labeled Data type to confirm that MapPoint has correctly determined the types of data contained in your columns. <Territory> should be one of the data types.

    Why?

    MapPoint assigns a data type for each column of your data based on the name of the column heading. Sometimes you may need to make adjustments. For example, if you have a column heading for counties named CTY, but it's assigned a data type of City, you need to change the Data type assignment to County.

  8. Click Finish.

    MapPoint places your territories data on the map.

  9. To remove roads from the map and make your territories more visible, on the Advanced toolbar, in the map style list, click Data map.

Result

You now have a map that shows your sales territories in the southwest region of the U.S. You can import information about clients to this territory map to help you make work assignments.

Step 2: Make work assignments based on territory

You want to get the word out about your new furniture line to all of your clients, so you decide to display your clients' addresses as pushpins on your territory map. Doing this allows you to match the appropriate sales representative with the clients who are in his or her territory.

  1. On the Data menu, click Import data wizard Gg674767.ALLIDWButton(en-us,MSDN.10).jpg .

  2. Open the Excel sample data file by browsing to C:\Program Files\Microsoft MapPoint 2013\Samples\, selecting SampData.xls, and clicking Open.

    Note   This is the default installation location. If you installed MapPoint in a different location, use Search or Find in Windows Explorer to locate the file.

  3. On the Choose the sheet or range you want to map page, click Clients, and then click Next.

    Why?

    The Clients worksheet contains the contact information (name, address, phone number, and so on) that you want to display on the map.

  4. Look at the headings in the row labeled Data type to confirm that MapPoint has correctly determined the types of data contained in your columns.

    Why?

    MapPoint assigns a data type for each column of your data based on the name of the column heading. Sometimes you may need to make adjustments. For example, if you have a column heading for countries named CTY, but it's assigned a data type of City, you need to change the Data type assignment to Country.

  5. Click Finish.

    MapPoint determines where your records will be placed on the map, based on the location information contained in your data.

  6. On the Choose a map type page, click pushpin, and then click Next.

  7. On the Select the properties for your pushpin set page, replace SampleData with Clients to more accurately describe the pushpin set, and then click Finish.

    MapPoint places your client data on the territory map.

  8. To get a better view of your sales territories and clients, right-click Custom Territories in the legend, and then click Zoom to Selection.

Result

You now have a map of your sales territories that also contains a pushpin set of your clients. You notice that Max Benson, Rob Young, Connie Waite, and Sue Jackson all have clients in their sales territories who need to be contacted.

After you complete this exercise, your map should look like this:

Gg674767.BIZNATerritories(en-us,MSDN.10).gif

This is the final exercise in the MapPoint Tutorial. If you did not complete all the exercises, you can return to the MapPoint Tutorial start page at any time and try them out.

Go back to the MapPoint Tutorial start page and try another exercise.