Create territories by county or state from file

This article demonstrates how to build US county or state sales territories from a file with existing territory assignments.
Related article: Create territories by ZIP code from file.
Related article: Design sales territories by county or state.

In Map Business Online you can create sales territories by various alignment layers including ZIP5, ZIP3, counties, states, Census tracts and MSA. If you don’t have existing territories defined for your sales force then start from scratch as described in the following article: Design sales territories by county or state. In many cases though our users have existing set of territories they want to visualize and then improve and optimize. That’s what we will demonstrate in this article.

1. Write down existing territory assignments in an Excel or comma/tab delimited file. The file shall map counties or states to sales territories – the content similar to one you can see on the picture below. Counties States

2. Now you are ready to import territories. Run Map Business Online.

3. Let’s decide whether territories are allowed to intersect. If you want to keep your territories disjoint then do the following:
   1. Open ‘Manage map and data’ dialog. Click gear icon at the top of main toolbar to open the dialog.
   2. Select ‘Territory options’ tab in ‘Manage map and data’ dialog.
   3. Uncheck ‘Allow territories to intersect’ box.

4. To start building territories from the file you’ve prepared, click ‘Create territories’ icon on the main toolbar. That will start ‘Create territories’ wizard.

5. On the first page choose ‘Create territories from dataset’ option (just click it).

6. The next page provides territory assignment file examples, help and video references. Just skip it by clicking ‘Next to plotting data’ button.

7. On ‘Select data’ page select ‘From file’ tab and choose the file that you’ve created with territory assignments. Click Browse button to locate the file. Hit Next button when ready. You can instead hit Plot button that will do all the magic, but we want to show every step of ‘Create territories’ wizard in this article.
   
   Map Business Online will start uploading the file selected.

8. Select worksheet or range to plot data from. This page appears only if you have more than one data range or worksheet in selected Excel file. Click Next button.

9. On the next page choose the columns that contains county and state names. Make sure that other columns stay unselected: select <None> in all other boxes. Usually Map Business Online automatically makes correct choices for you, just double check them. The callout on the right shall state that locations will be plotted by state or county depending on what territories you plot.
   
   Click Next button. Selecting county and state for county territory Selecting just state for state territory

10. Map Business Online will start plotting counties or states on map. That may take some time depending on number of rows you have in Excel file. Once plotting is finished following page will popup with results. If not all counties or states are plotted you may want to check corresponding columns in your Excel file for errors.
    
    Click ‘Next to creating territories’ button.

11. On the following page select column containing territory names. Normally Map Business Online makes right selection for you automatically.
    
    Check that territories will be created by county or state. If correct alignment layer option is not selected automatically then you must have chosen wrong columns on step 7 above.
    
    Click ‘Create territories’ button. Counties States

12. Creating territories may take some time. When territories are created you will see following page with summary of results.
    
    Click Done button to finish ‘Create territories’ wizard to see territories on map.

13. You may want to zoom or pan map to see your territories. See this article on how to navigate around map: Zoom & pan map.
    
    You can also move territory callouts for better view. Counties States

14. Following help articles may be useful when designing territories:
    • Change territory color, transparency & outline
    • Hide geographies that are not part of any territory
    • Rename territory & edit notes
    • Delete territory

15. This article explains how to show total sales or demographic data value in territory label: Customize territory labels.