Just joined the board. Did a search, but couldn't find anything to match my query.

I am technology manager for a school district in Kentucky. We are starting to use MapPoint as a planning tool for our school bus route planning. We have had no problem taking all of our student data from a spreadsheet and importing into MapPoint.

In order to determine bus stop locations, we want to look at clusters of students. If we have multiple students at the same address (e.g. siblings or all in the same apartment building) MapPoint puts a single pushpin (which is logical). Is it possible to force MapPoint (or install an add-in) to display multiple pushpins at a single address if multiple records have the same address?

Thanks in advance.

Jeff Nelson
Paducah Public Schools
Paducah, KY

Hi,

With a little programming this is easy to d because you can create / show as many pushpins as you wnats. Without protramming I think No

Thanks for the response Wilfried. To be honest, I wasn't aware that you could do programming in MapPoint. I just looked at the Help feature and see there is a section on programming.

Unfortunately, I'm not much of a programmer

Are there folks out there, reading this board, who might be willing to do some programming for us (for a fee of course)? (I hope this isn't an inappropriate request).

Thanks
Jeff Nelson
Paducah Public Schools

I think people on here like to hear about leads for programming jobs.. and you'll find some excellent programmers who know MapPoint back and forth reading this board :P

Eric

Hi Jeff,

Originally Posted by Jeff Nelson

I wasn't aware that you could do programming in MapPoint. I just looked at the Help feature and see there is a section on programming

The programming involves the following: Inside mappoint.exe there is no programming possible (except some add-ins). But it is possible to create an application that uses mappoint and most of his functoinalities.

For example if a customar wants to track his fleet, need some zooming, printing etc, he just get the application with menu/toolbar options to poll positions of his fleet, zoom to it, follow it etc... If he does not wants to draw things on the map then he does not have it.

The programming can be in many programming languages, eg C#, Delphi, C++, VB, etc.. Also it is possible to program in Microsoft Excell and Access using VBA witch looks very lot like VB. I personnally have no knowledge of VB(A). I can read it of course, but there it stop

If you hire a programmer consider if you wants source code or not. Importand because maybe you start something and want to change it later, and because you run a school it is possible that some student have a project in future to change things.

This where my 2 dollar-euro's

As well as programming to insert multiple pushpins, you could use the "Multiple Pushpin" option. This could then color code the pins according to the number of records at the same point. This is no good if you want to view the field data (eg. kid's details), but it would work if you only wanted a visual representation.

John Meyer has a 'Pushpin Tool' which is useful for managing lots of pushpins. This works as an add-in for MapPoint. It is available from this website or mine. $75/license.

I don't know your immediate needs, but if you are looking for optimum routes for your buses I have a product idea that might be useful for you.
It is still bouncing around in my head so it will probably be a few months before I have anything resembling a product, but you may prove to be a useful beta tester when it is finally coded up and ready. Or a useful source of test data
If this sounds like the kind of thing you're trying - send me a message through these forums or an email, and we can discuss things further.


Richard

Thanks, guys, I appreciate the feedback. I will PM both of you to continue this discussion.

Jeff