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About using your own data to create territories

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Territories can be in MapPoint by using the Create Territories Wizard. In the wizard, you are presented with two choices on how territories will be created: manually by using the Territory Manager or you can have MapPoint create territories from your own data.

If you have data that define territories in a file format compatible with MapPoint, the Create Territories Wizard guides you to the Import Territories Wizard or Link Territories Wizard where you can create a territory set based on your data.

Supported data sources

Microsoft Excel (*.xls, *.xlt)

Microsoft Access (*.mdb, *.mdw, *.mda)

Plain-text files (*.txt, *.csv, *.tab, *.asc)

Any database that supports Microsoft Data Link (*.udl)

Note  If you use a plain-text file as your data source, you must have values separated by a tab, semicolon, or comma.

Your data source must have at least the following two fields in order for MapPoint to create territories:

A field that contains the names of the territories

A field that contains the geographic areas assigned to each territory

For example, the following table illustrates how territories are defined in the MapPoint Tutorial.

ID County State Country Territory
1 Alameda CA US Max Benson
2 Alpine CA US Max Benson
3 Amador CA US Max Benson
4 Apache AZ US Garth Fort
5 Beaver UT US Joe Howard

The geographic unit of the areas assigned to each territory must be valid for the country/region that is specified for the territory set. For example, if you choose United States as your country/region, territories can be composed of any one of:

Census Tracts

ZIP Codes

Counties

3 Digit ZIP Codes

Metropolitan Areas

States

Country/Region

Recommendations when using source data for territory definitions

Use column headings in the first row. You can help MapPoint assign the data type for location data if you specify the type of data the column contains. Name a column Territory for the column that contains territory names, and the appropriate geographic unit name for columns containing location data, for example, ZIP Code or State.

Make sure your data is consistently organized. For instance, if you are creating territories based on counties, check that the county name for each record is always in the same column or field.

Clearly define location information. For example, if you are going to use County as the geographic unit for your territories, include a State column. The same county name can exist in numerous states, so by including the state information as well, you are minimizing the number of records that will need to be disambiguated (matched to the map).

If you plan on linking your territory data to the map, make sure you have a column that contains unique values that can be used as the primary key.

Create a territory set using your own data

Create a territory set manually

Choose a primary key

MapPoint Tutorial

Troubleshoot territories