Exercise 5: Track your inventory

Your company has ten warehouses across the country for storing and distributing furniture to sales locations. You track your inventory in spreadsheets, but it's difficult to analyze large amounts of inventory information in that type of format.

In this exercise, you use MapPoint to import your information and display it as a Pie Chart Map. This map type allows you to display the inventory of each warehouse as a pie chart, the sections of which represent different inventory items, such as chairs and tables.

Import your data into MapPoint and create a map

1. Clear the current map by clicking New 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 Import Data Wizard .

3. Open the Excel sample data file by browsing to C:\Program Files\Microsoft MapPoint\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.

4. Click Inventory, and then click Next.

5. 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.

6. Click Finish.

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

7. On the Choose a map type page, click Pie Chart, and then click Next.

8. Click the boxes next to Desks, Tables, Lamps, and Chairs so that all inventory items are displayed on the map.

9. In the Show the data by box, make sure that City is selected so that your information is displayed according to the city where each warehouse is located, and then click Next.

10. In the Legend title box, replace the text SampleData by City with Inventory to save space in the legend and more accurately describe the data set.

11. Click the arrow next to the Pie size box, and select Large so that the pie charts will be easier to see on the map.

12. Click Finish.

Result

You now have a Pie Chart Map that shows the current inventory of each of your warehouses. You notice that most of your warehouse have an even distribution of tables, chairs, desks, and lamps, but some of them have a surplus of one item and a shortage of another.

For example, the Latta, South Carolina, warehouse is short on lamps but has a surplus of desks. Conversely, the Piscataway, New Jersey, warehouse is short on desks but has a surplus of lamps. To keep their inventories balanced, you decide that these two warehouses should exchange some of their surplus items.

After you complete this exercise, you should have a map that looks like this:

  Move on to Exercise 6: See how your business has performed over time.

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