Exercise 4: Creating territories

The steps below show you how to create territories for the landscape services firm.

Steps:

1. Click Create Territory Solution in the Territory Design menu.
2. In the Create New Territory Solution dialog box, click the Create territories from seed points radio button.

   Seed points are the physical office points where you want to build territories.
3. Click Next.
4. In the Create New Territory Solution dialog box, type Detroit Area Locations in the Name your Territory Solution text box.
5. In the Alignment Layer drop-down menu, select Census Tracts.
6. Click Next.
7. In the Create New Territory Solution dialog box, click the Seed point layer drop-down menu and select sales_locations.
8. Click Next.
9. In the Create New Territory Solution dialog box, click the Import territory names from layer or table radio button. The default sales_locations appears.

   This selects the way territories will be named. Using select_locations gives the territories generic names such as Territory 1, Territory 2, and so on. This will link the office manager to each of their territories.

10. In the Field for naming territories drop-down menu, select NAME.
11. Click Next.
12. In the Create New Territory Solution dialog box, click the Automatically set the number of territories radio button. The default Number of Seed Points appears.
The Define the number of territories to create section allows you to set the number of territories. For the purpose of this tutorial, you will automatically set the number of territories.
13. In the Measure Type drop-down menu, select Drive time.

    This sets the number of territories by the number of seed points so that each office is assigned a territory.
14. Click Next.
15. In the Create New Territory Solution dialog box, click the Distance units drop-down menu and select Minutes.
16. Click the Maximum distance from territory center check box and the default 50 appears in the text box.
17. Click the Maximum distance to center of another territory check box and the default 10 appears in the text box.
18. Click the Constrain by attribute capacity check box and click the corresponding Edit button .

    Constrain by attribute allows you to set a limit to a territory's growth such as stopping the growth.

    The Capacity Options dialog box appears.
19. Click the plus sign to open BA Fields and select 2010 Total Population.
20. Click the single right arrow to move it to Capacity variable(s) as shown in the image below.
21. Click Next.

    The Capacity Options dialog box appears with the 2010 Total Populations variable that you selected.

22. Double-click in the Capacity field that corresponds with 2010 Total Population and type 200000 in the text box.

    This sets the upper total population capacity for each territory at 200,000.

23. Click Next.
24. The Capacity Options screen appears. Click Finish.

    You return to the Create New Territory Solution dialog box.

25. Click the Constrain by overall extent check box and click the Edit button .
26. In the Territory Design Extent dialog box, the default Current map view radio button is checked. Click Next.
27. In the Territory Design Extent dialog box, the Polygon centroid contained within Extent radio button is checked by default.
28. Click Finish.

    A Working window appears and closes when complete.

29. In the Create New Territory Solution dialog box, click Next.
30. In the Create New Territory Solution dialog box, click the Balance territories check box and click Next.

    Properly balanced territories provide similar variables for your franchises.

31. The Create New Territories Solution dialog box below appears.
32. In the Create New Territories Solution dialog box, click the plus sign to open BA Fields and select BA Fields 2010 Diversity Index under Available Variable(s).
33. Click the right arrow button to move it to Balancing variable(s) as shown below.
34. Click Next.

    Next you will assign the preference for each variable.

35. In the Create New Territories Solution dialog box, type 60 under Preferences for the 2010 Total Population and 40 for the 2010 Total Diversity Index.
36. Click Next.
37. In the Create New Territory Solution dialog box, click the No holes inside territories check box so that each territory will be solid without geographic holes.
    Keep the default check box checked for Territories must be contiguous so that territories will not be geographically fragmented and Do not reassign polygons that contain territory centers so that geographies with territory centers remain with the assigned territory center.

38. Click Next.
39. The Create New Territory Solution dialog box below appears, click Next.
40. The Create New Territory Solution dialog box below appears, click Finish.

    A Working window appears and closes when complete.

The map shows the territories that fall within the geographic extent.

The extent triangle, territories and levels have been added to the table of contents.

The territory layers appear in the Territory Design Window. The name of each territory appears along with the number of geographic entities in parenthesis. In the image below, the Howe territory consists of 53 census tracts.

The Territory Design graph below shows the balance of the territories.
41. To show the balancing lines in the graph, right click on the graph and highlight Preferences.

    The Preferences dialog box appears with the Chart tab selected by default.

42. Click the Show balancing lines check box and click OK.
Using the check boxes in the yellow box, you can view the 2010 Total Population and 2010 Diversity Index as shown in the images below. The graphs show the the Howe and Hull territories have a lower density index.
2010 Total Population graph.
2010 Diversity Index graph.

Click Reassigning territories manually to go to the next exercise.