HI-TECH has announced that it has been accepted into the Microsoft MapPoint Solution Provider program. MapPoint technology is the technology used on many popular web sites (MSN MapPoint, Expedia) and applications such as Streets and Trips and Pocket Streets.

Microsoft MapPoint® version 2002 combines powerful mapping and analysis tools with the familiarity of Office to help you make better business decisions. 

HI-TECH now offers its Data Mapping module for RentPlus. This provides a link between your RentPlus data and Microsoft MapPoint, allowing you to better visualize information about your customers and your market. See a sample below.

Possibilities include "Pushpin" maps showing your customers' addresses, density maps showing your penetration into various zip codes or area codes, displaying demographic data such as population or household income, and much more - even drive-time data. MapPoint data is available for all of North America and Europe.

RentPlus Data Mapping consists of two elements:

1. Inside RentPlus, you can choose the MapPoint Export option to export your data into Excel spreadsheets in a format that is easily linked into MapPoint. This option is ideal for collecting information for multiple sites to be mapped.
    
2. Inside MapPoint, select the RentPlus Data Mapping Wizard from the Tools menu to link directly to your RentPlus data or to link to the Excel spreadsheets created from RentPlus.

The sample map below combines several features:

• A red pushpin is displayed for the address of each customer in the database
• The shades of green represent the density of customers within each zip code (when using the program, moving the mouse over a zip code tells you how many customers you have in that zip code.
• The distance from the site is shown as circles in 1,2,5, and 10 mile circles

Pushpins    My Self Storage

Count of Customer by ZIP Code    100  10  1