I'm new to MapPoint and am trying to create a territory map for my team of 4 managers.

I have a spreadsheet with the following columns: # of customers, state, manager. My end goal is to have a color coded map of the USA, each manager has a color and the # of customers is displayed in each state. I know this is simple and I am just missing a step somewhere. I currently have a small text box inserted manually for each state with the # of customers displayed, but the colors for text box fill are not the same as territory colors, so they look pretty shoddy.

I've tried a few different methods, and have looked through the forum, but didn't find an answer. I apologize if I overlooked something.

Thanks for any suggestions.

AKT

AKT --

Welcome to the forums and I'm sure we can help!

Do you mind to post some sample data? Then we can play with it and determine the exact steps you need to follow and play with some visualization options to achieve the best map for your purposes.

To post same data, zip your Excel file and post as an attachment to your reply. Let me know if you need help with this.

Thanks!
Eric
m: 312-399-1586

Thanks for the quick response, Eric!

I know there has to be a super simple way to do this and I'm just not getting it - love the program and this forum has given me so many tips already as a new user with zero training on it.

I've attached the zipped excel file. The color coding in excel is for my reference. When I do the territory wizard under data, the map/territories are correct, I just can't figure out how to get that first column to display on the map in each state.

Thanks!

AKT

Also, attached is my zipped territory map with the unattractive text boxes I manually added.

What version of MapPoint are you using? It makes a difference as one of the cool things they added with MapPoint 2013 was the ability to show the Pushpin Names only and not the full balloon. Actually, you could always show just the name in the past by toggling the setting on individual pushpins, but with MapPoint 2013 there was added an option on the right-click menu to apply it to an entire dataset.

In any case, the sample data looks great. Here's the trick I think you are looking for --



By setting the Pushpin name to be the data, you can now use it to name the pushpin and put the count in the middle of the state --



Now, there's several little things you can improve. Another trick is to create a transparent 1x1 pixel custom symbol.

(Note: the upper left corner custom symbols is used to determine what color is transparent, so if you just create a 1x1 pixel custom symbol, it will always be transparent!)

Let me know if you want help creating this and I can post one.

Also, before importing from Excel into MapPoint, you can format the number as text so it has a comma in it, i.e. "1779" becomes "1,779".

hope this helps! and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and what else we can possibly suggest to improve the map!

Eric

Hi, I started with the data mapping wizard, shades areas and after this I used the territory wizard to show the number of customers in each state

Thank you both, Lucassen and Eric! Unfortunately, I couldn't open your file, lucassen, because I don't have the most up to date version (I'm working on MapPoint 2011).
Eric, I really appreciate this information. Instructions look really clear and I KNEW there had to be a simple way to achieve it but I just kept hitting a wall. Can't wait to play around with these instructions and present it to my team in the morning!
Have a great evening!

I spoke too soon, one more question - is there a way to format the name/display balloon to remove borders, etc? I have the transparent pushpins in place, but I'd love to have the display balloon be invisible so only the number shows.

I don't think so... not a way I can think of off the top of my head anyway. You're stuck with that outline and X if you use the Name only balloon.

Lucassen do you want to post a screenshot of what you came up with?

Eric

Thanks. If this is the worst of my worries, I'm pretty lucky. Have a great weekend, everyone!