Highlight and resolve sales territories overlap

This article explains how to resolve sales territories overlap.
Related article: Design sales territories by ZIP code.
Related article: Design sales territories by county or state.

In MapBusinessOnline you can choose to keep territories disjoint, e.g. disallow territory overlap. Please check referenced above articles for more information on how to prohibit territory intersections.

In certain situations you may want to allow territories to overlap. For example if you have high potential area that requires more than one sales rep to handle it. In this article we will look at how to highlight territory intersections and how to resolve or change territories overlap.

1. Highlighting territories overlap is as simple as few mouse clicks.
   1. Open Map & Data window if it is not already open.
   2. Move mouse pointer over territory layer name in Map & Data window and click the gear icon that will appear.
   3. ‘Manage map and data’ dialog will popup with territory layer options selected. Choose Intersections tab, check the ‘Highlight territories intersection on map’ box and select the color you wish to show territories overlap.
   4. You will get a map similar to one below. See how green color highlights two territories intersection.

2. You can resolve territories overlap simply by selecting highlighted areas on map and assigning them to appropriate territories.
   1. In the example above just click first ZIP code to select it on map. Then hold shift key and click other ZIP codes to make multiple selection.
   2. You will see the small toolbar with blue puzzle icon. Click the icon to show ‘Create or edit territory’ dialog.
   3. In the dialog select ‘Remove from all except’ option that will remove selected areas (ZIP codes in the example) from all territories except the one where you want to keep the areas.
   4. Select a territory where you want to keep selected areas. Territory B is selected in our example.
   5. Click ‘Edit’ button in the dialog above and map will be updated as following.
   6. Select other areas of overlap and repeat steps above to complete resolution of all territory intersections.

3. You can also resolve territories from Data window. Data window filtering capabilities help finding all areas of sales territories overlap.
   1. Open Data window if it is not visible. In the window select map layer that is used for territory alignment - ZIP codes in our example.
   2. For each geography segment in territory alignment layer MapBusinessOnline keeps information on primary territory and territory count. Let’s select that data to show in Data window.
   3. There is ‘More data’ button in Data window’s bottom line. Click it to pull ‘Select data columns’ dialog.
   4. In the dialog choose General data group. Select Territory count and Territory data columns and click arrow icon to add the data to Data window. Finally click ‘Set data column’ button.
   5. Now you can see ‘Territory count’ and Territory data columns in Data window.
   6. Let’s filter Data window to show only areas where territories overlap. Click filter icon to open ‘Filter data’ dialog.
   7. Enter criteria to look up areas that belong to more than 1 territory. See picture below. Click ‘Filter’ button in the ‘Filter data’ dialog.
   8. Now in Data window you can see only areas where sales territories overlap.
   9. Select a row (area) in Data window and map will center to its area. Double click a row to zoom closer to the area. You can select multiple rows by holding Shift or Control buttons when clicking a row.
   10. Once you selected all areas you want, click following icon on Data window’s toolbar to start resolving territory.
   11. In the dialog that will appear, keep ‘Only selected geographies’ option if you want to resolve only selected areas. Otherwise you can choose to resolve all overlaps. Click ‘Next’ button.
   12. In the next dialog choose ‘Remove from’ or ‘Remove from all except’ option and desired territory. Click Edit to update territories.
   13. Repeat the steps above as necessary to resolve all territory overlaps.