There are many ways to import your data into AlignMix. Sometimes when you import data you may not see what you were expecting to see. For example, when you import a list of your sales accounts that includes the assigned sales territory and sales rep you may expect to see geographic sales territories appear on the map when the import is completed. But you will not see geographic sales territories. This is because you have only imported sales accounts and assigned those sales accounts to a sales territory. The zip codes have not been assigned. Even though you did import a zip code with the sales account data this does not mean you have assigned the zip code to a sales territory.
It is important to remember that in AlignMix you have two levels of assignment. Accounts and zip codes. The reason there are two levels is to allow for account overrides which are accounts that located in one territory but are actually assigned to a different sales territory. Therefore, when you import only sales accounts with territory assignments you will not see any geographic sales territories. The software does import everything correctly. Each account is imported, placed into a zip code, and assigned to a sales territory and sales rep. You can confirm this by using the lasso tool to lasso an area where you have sales accounts. When you let go of the lasso tool you will see the lasso summary appear showing you what territories you have selected.
How can there be any sales territories if I do not see any territories? This is because you can have a strictly account based alignment. This is what you will have if you only import account data. All of the accounts are assigned to a sales territory but there is no geographic portion. Therefore, you will not see any colored in areas representing sales territories. Another way to confirm that you have imported accounts correctly is to open up a new tab and view a territory table. This table will show you that there are sales territories created. Account based sales territories.
In order to create the geographic sales territories out of your account-based sales territory alignment you have three options. 1. You can import a zip code to territory file that will assign all the zip codes to the correct sales territory. 2. You can use the clean up tool to have the software automatically assign each zip code to the same territory that the accounts that are found in that zip code. 3. You can manually create geographic sales territories using the touch align tool or lasso tools.
The easiest way to create geographic sales territories is to perform a zip to territory import. Not every company has this type of excel file. All you need is a full list of zip codes and the assigned sales territory for each zip code. Just two data columns. Then you import these two columns of data and AlignMix will assign each zip code to the correct sales territory.
The clean up tool is another easy way to create the geographic sales territories. You can access this tool by opening up the software, click on tools at the top, and then select clean up. This process will look at every zip code that has an account found within that zip code. AlignMix will then assign each zip code to the same territory that the account is assigned to. If a zip code has multiple accounts that are assigned to different sales territories, then the software will assign this zip code to the territory that has the most accounts assigned to it in that zip code. For example. A zip code has ten accounts, 6 belong to territory 1, and 4 belong to territory 2. The clean up tool will assign this entire zip code to majority account holder. In this case it would be territory 1. Those remaining 4 accounts will still be assigned to territory 2 and they will be considered account overrides, or “special ownership” accounts.
The final way of creating your geographic sales territories is to create each shape manually. You can use the lasso tool to lasso an area and then assign each lassoed area to a territory. The nearest account-based territories will appear in order in the drop-down menu. You then select the territory that this lassoed area should belong to and then click on ok. This will create a geographic territory that contains the accounts found in that lassoed area.
If you import all of your data and you still do not see any geographic sales territories…. Do not worry. You are just a few steps away from seeing those colored in areas representing geographic sales territories.