A nameless customer whispers in Chuck's ear that they would like to have the capability to map student addresses. The idea was to see which neighborhoods were generating people and which were not. marketing campaign campaigns could then be adjusted.
Chuck was confident that this could not be done, so he bet me $100 that I couldn't do it. I get to start the new year a $100 richer!
So, how did I do it? You don't want to know that. But, I did learn enough about how to do it so that I could make it quick and easy for you. All you need to do is follow a few steps.
First, if you do not have virtualearth.htm and json.fll in your manager folder, you will need to obtain mapping.zip from the Tools section of our FTP site and unzip it to get those files. Please visit your tech if you need the username and password and instructions on getting to the FTP.
Second, you need to pick a report any report. The only requirement is that the report must have the address fields you wish to map. This is not limited to students. You can map firms, instructors, and course locations. If the report has more than one type of address, it will ask you which one to map.
Third, you must modify the report to add one field. That field is: justafter([do mapping])
Fourth, when you get to the map (after the report runs), you need to hit the Go button. It's one of those deals where I can load the data and load the map, but I couldn't load them both at the same time. So, the button merges the two pieces together.
That's it! Of course, repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 as needed. Might I suggest that you run this out of Mailing Labels to really take advantage of the query aspect of looking at your markets.
Now, I must disclose a few downsides to this. If you have hundreds of people to map, you will need to grab a Snickers bar during your wait. Also, if your IT has restrictions on your Internet Explorer, chances are this will not run properly.
Finally, if you have multiple people at the same address, a pushpin will only get created on that address once. So, if you are looking for numbers of people and you do have several people in a household that take your courses, you will be slightly off looking at the map. Oh, and there is just no way to map a P.O. Box, so those will be filtered out of your display as well.
Until next time,
Matthew Olson
ACEware Systems
Programmer/Technician
