We have roughly 280 operational locations across the US. Locations are divided into both divisions and regions for management purposes (however, regions are not a subset of divisions). In addition, there are three types of locations: stores, branches, and warehouses.

Does MapPoint 1) allow this many data sets, and 2) allow you to toggle quickly between them? This will mostly be used to schedule site visits, so we may want to highlight all Store locations in Div: West, or all Whse locations in Region: Reg 04. Will MapPoint provide this functionality?

Here is a sample of what the data subsets will look like:

Num Type Div Region Address City State Zip
01 Store West Reg01
02 Branch West Reg01
03 Branch West Reg02
04 Whse West Reg04
05 Store North Reg01
06 Branch North Reg02
07 Whse North Reg04
08 Store North Reg04
09 Branch South Reg03
10 Branch South Reg03
11 Whse South Reg04
12 Store South Reg04
13 Store East Reg02
14 Store East Reg02
15 Whse East Reg04

Hello Mr. Crab,

Yes, this can all be done using MapPoint.
MapPoint won't let you 'toggle' between datasets without automation code.
It is easy enough to program this functionality using VB/VBA, though.
Personally, I would use Access or even Excel to handle it.

Mike Mattys

Thanks for the quick reply, Mike. When you say you would use Access or Excel, do you mean linking to MapPoint, or stand-alone? Pretty proficient at both, just looking for a breadcrumb as to how to get this done. Are there any tutorials or such that could be used to walk through the VBA scripting?

Found a co-worker has a license for the program, so got to sit down with it this afternoon. Surprised at how similar it is to Streets & Trips 2006. We used Streets & Trips at my prior employer, but never was able to make it do what I'm asking about above.

Any advice appreciated, if even a good book or website for tutorials.

Hi. The Magazine for MapPoint is where you want to look. Also search through the posts on this site. S&T and MapPoint are the same, except that MapPoint is programmable.

As for a breadcrumb (no, not talking about linking), you would
declare each of you datasets and then use the .ImportData method.

Mike Mattys

Thanks again, Mike. Will start doing some research and hopefully will be able to get something working.

One thing you can do without programming, is have all your datasets linked in and then delete the ones you don't want to see, or if you want to be able to switch back, you could temporily set the pushpin for a layer to be a 1x1 pixel custom symbol so it doesn't show on the map.

Eric