Microsoft MapPoint 2001 is a powerful mapping tool, complete with built-in demographic data, data import/linking wizards, and exquisitely rendered driving directions. MapPoint also includes a rich programmable object model that's useful to developers like us for building custom geographical information systems for clients.
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Here's how to get yourself up to speed with a common type of business map: a pushpin map of your customers. Select the File menu, choose New, select "Import Data Wizard" in the list, and click OK. Looking at the "Import Data Wizard" dialog's "Files of type" control, select your data source file type. (MapPoint currently supports Excel, Access, Outlook Contacts, text (various flavors), Microsoft Data Link, and Streets and Trips 2000 Pushpins.) Now browse to the source file and click Open. Accept the default field associations and click Finish. MapPoint displays a progress meter as it works. If MapPoint has a problem with a particular record, it gives you a chance to pick a matching location, or skip it and deal with it later. In the "Choose the type of map to display" panel choose "Pushpin Map" and click Next. In the "Name your Pushpin set and choose a symbol for it" panel, accept all the defaults and click Finish. MapPoint zooms to the best (most "close-up") view of your data. This view may be global, country, regional, state, etc. depending on how your customers are distributed.

What if you are storing contact information in Outlook and want to quickly import only a subset of your Outlook contacts? After all, not all of your contacts are likely to be customers. The answer involves copying the customer contacts to another file or folder altogether. Using a second .pst file avoids cluttering up your main .pst file with duplicate data, so that's what we strongly recommend and that's what our steps explain in this article. However, if you want to take the risk of having duplicate data in your main .pst, you could copy the 100 records into a new folder inside that file.

Assumptions: (1) your main Outlook personal folders file is named "Outlook.pst" and (2) it contains 1,000 contacts and of those, 100 are live customers. Here are the steps for plotting them.

In Outlook, select the File menu and choose "New Personal Folders File (.pst)". Supply any name you want (let's use HotClients.pst), click Create, enter "HotClients" again in the Name field, and click OK. If you don't have Outlook's folder list turned on, turn it on now: View, Folder List. Select HotClients in the folder list, select File, New, Folder, type Contacts, in the "Folder contains" field select "Contact Items", and click OK.

Select your primary personal folders file (it is usually named "Personal Folders"), then select its Contacts folder. Select the 100 customers, select Edit, choose "Copy to Folder", select the HotClients file's Contacts folder, and click OK. When you run MapPoint's Import Data Wizard, point it to the "Microsoft Outlook Contacts ()" file type. When MapPoint displays the tree view, select the HotClients file's Contacts folder.

Note: If you have a Microsoft Office consulting project, development idea, macro quandary, or are just plain stuck trying to get something--easy or hard--done with Microsoft Office, WE CAN HELP YOU! This is what we do for a living: handle Office projects of all shapes and sizes. You can reach our software consultants by email 24x7 at:
mailto:code@PRIMEConsulting.com
or you can call us in the U.S. at 310-318-5212 (someone's usually on hand Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific time, or leave us a voice mail anytime).

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