Usage Scenarios

Welcome to Microsoft MapPoint�, the mapping product that helps everyday business people use geographic and demographic information to make better business decisions.

The following scenarios demonstrate just a few ways business professionals can use MapPoint version 2002 in their work.

Manager

Business Manager

�                        Examine trends in data. What is the average household income level in the communities where your best performing stores are located? How do your sales compare by population level? Such information can be extremely useful when you're planning for growth, but may seem too difficult or time-consuming to put together. With MapPoint, you can easily contrast demographic trends against data your organization already has. Use data stored in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Outlook� contacts, or any other Microsoft Data Link�compliant data source, and compare it to demographic information stored in MapPoint. With 70 different demographic variables to choose from, you can analyze your business on the basis of a variety of factors such as income, age, population, and gender�all on the same map.

�                        Impress your colleagues with meaningful reports. Do you distribute your revenue report in a spreadsheet but still get questions from peers about the data? Representing that same data on a map may give them the visual cues they need to understand and remember the information quickly. Shade sales regions and territories by revenue, then highlight pockets of underperforming areas so business trends are noticed and acted upon.

�                        Share your information. Communicate important data with the entire organization or customers by saving your map as a Web page. Include hyperlinks so coworkers can easily navigate to specific regions, locations, and related documents. Need to make a presentation? Simply cut and paste your map into a Microsoft Word document or Microsoft PowerPoint� presentation. Your audience will appreciate the clarity a map provides.

Sales Manager

�                        Mark your territory. Sales organizations are often structured by territory, but what if your territories don't follow a traditional geographic divide? Perhaps your top performer handles the West Coast plus the state of Florida. Such disparities can make the generation of sales reports a manual, time-consuming process. Reporting by territory is simplified when you create custom territories in MapPoint. An easy-to-follow wizard enables you to import existing territory definitions or create your own directly in the map.

�                        Know your competition. Collecting data about your business is very helpful, but mapping that data against your competition can be even more valuable. By plotting a competitor's information on a map, you can gain insight about your competitor's sales by region, income, or population. Compare the locations where your competitor is active with your sales regions or territories, and then map your sales volumes to see who's getting more revenue from particular locations.

Mobile Professional

Business Traveler

�                        Find your way around. Trying to find a hotel in an unfamiliar city can be frustrating. With MapPoint, you can get addresses and directions without having to be connected to the Internet. Need to stop by an ATM on the way? Find one using Nearby Places data in MapPoint. Never been to Wichita and need to take your client to a nice lunch? MapPoint includes detailed information, right down to the steak house on Douglas Street�with telephone number and address. Have a mobile device? You can export maps, Pushpins, and points of interest from MapPoint to Microsoft Pocket Streets, and then have the information close at hand when you're away from your PC or laptop.

�                        Optimize your time. Your plane departs in four hours, and you still need to visit three very important customers. Save time by optimizing your route. With the optimization tool, MapPoint reorders the intermediate stops so that travel time between start and end points is the most time-efficient. You can also create drive-time zones that account for traffic levels and construction work so you can make that flight.

Real Estate Agent

�                        Identify the right neighborhood for your clients. Your new clients have very specific requirements about the type of neighborhood they want. Their ideal home has to be 12 miles or 10 minutes from the office, within a specific ZIP Code for school district selection, and with access to public transportation. Using MapPoint, you can easily adapt your search to these criteria and present your clients with a visual representation of the homes that meet their requests. MapPoint allows you to import data from common applications such as Excel, Access, Outlook, or any Microsoft Data Link�compliant data source, eliminating the manual process of plotting addresses on a map.

�                        Customize maps for your clients. When you present a set of properties for your clients to view, you want it to look professional and, most of all, accurate. What if you could personalize your report for each client? With custom Pushpins you can highlight places of interest based on your client's preferences and specifications. Does your client frequent a particular coffeehouse or restaurant or want to be near a particular childcare? Create a map that visually represents the distances between your client's preferred places and the properties you've selected.

Developer

�                        Automate repetitive tasks. The MapPoint object model was extended to provide programmable access to more than 95 percent of the functionality of MapPoint. Now you can extend that functionality and build Component Object Model (COM) add-ins that trigger and automate tasks.