My company uses MapPoint and maintains a "Master Map" and various employees take "Field Maps" on laptops out into the field and add pushpins to them.

Is there a way (an add-on or by writing a VB program) to have a "pushbutton" on the Field Maps that will cause them to download to a predetermined database?

Furthermore, is there a way for the Master Map to automatically upload from said database upon being opened and without duplication of push pins?

Also, is there a way to automate the download from the Field Maps to the database either upon the connection of the laptop to the network or upon the Field Map being opened while connected to the network.

I know the Pushpin Tool will do something similar to this in a very manual fashion but I need it to be as automated as possible.

Actually I don't think the Pushpin Tool really comes close to what you need :-/ ?

Definitely all of what you are looking for it possible, I would recommend either a COM Add-in or possibly a separate VB6 program that launches MapPoint which would handle all of this.

I take that back, you shouldn't have to do any MapPoint programming at all -- probably just a simple batch file or script could do

1. check if a network connection is present e.g. ping
2. ftp and check file version / date stamp of local file vs. central file
3. if there is a more current version on the central server, ftp it to local computer.

Then launch MapPoint. This could add a few seconds or more to launching MapPoint, especially if you ptm file is large, but it shouldn't be too bad.

hope this helps.
Eric

I may be misunderstanding, but I don't think that quite gets me where I want to be.

I want the pushpins from the Field Maps to automatically export to a database that is resident on our network and is linked to the Master Map, so that, whenever it is opened, it will have the pushpins from all the Field Maps but with no duplicates, i.e., with out adding existing pushpin data every time it links. The pins should be exported as lat-long numbers with the name of the pin, just like in the Pushpin Tool.

I DO NOT want actual map files to be replaced or overwritten or merged, etc.

OK - so it goes both way. Yes, it's definitely possible.

I'd still think to keep things simple, sending the ptm down by FTP from the client could be the way to go - your server would periodically generate a new ptm file when MapPoint is opened --- unless the scripts detects that the local ptm file has been updated while offline or without a "commit" i.e. sending local changes to the server, then it would first send the central server the updates, trigger a request for the ptm to be rebuilt, and then FTP download..

In any case, something like this would require some custom MapPoint programming, I don't think there's a way around that. I've been tinkering with offering a private service like this for MapPoint users but I haven't thought the market was big enough, but I could leverage my earlier work as a custom solution for you or help your in-house developers.

Eric

Thanks for the offer. We don't have any in house developers so, if we were interested it would be in a full blown custom development. How do we move forward from this point? A phone call to discuss details would seem to be the next logical step. Let me know how you want to proceed.