optimization criteria

These setting options refer to all variants of area optimization, except Proximity to next location, which is only possible with Territory generation to locations.

Number of bricks

Territories are generated that contain approximately the same number of basic building blocks.

Proximity to the nearest location

Each brick is assigned to the nearest location independently of available data.

Column

Select a column of data by which easymap should judge whether the territories are sufficiently balanced or not. Data columns with the format number are most useful. If the columns are in the format text, then it only makes sense to set the aggregation to number of data records in order to have the same number of data records, e.g. customers in the territories. Please note that data columns containing negative values can lead to unpredictable results. Such data columns should therefore not be used for evaluation during optimization.

Of course, you can calculate a Score(multi-criteria area optimization) in advance if several data columns are to be considered for the optimization of your territory.

Setting possibility for the selection of the table

Select layer	In the case of multi-level territory structures, the data need not necessarily be available at the brick level.
Table	external tables or queries can be selected
Level: Column with	The corresponding column in the table is selected here to match the level selected above.
Column	all data columns of the table can be selected here
Aggregation	For text columns we recommend the aggregation Number of Data Records and for number columns the aggregation Total.

Multi-criteria area optimization

multi-criteria territory optimization is an optimization that tries to balance areas according to different criteria at the same time. Several columns must then be taken into account for this.

A compensation, as it takes place in the optimization, can only take place for one variable in a comprehensible way. To still be able to consider different criteria, a substitute value is calculated from these criteria according to your specifications in a Score column.

Please proceed as follows:

Specify how you want to weight the different criteria against each other. Create a Score column to generate a single value from different criteria.
Use this calculated value for optimization.

Note: As a result, the calculated actuating value is as well balanced as possible. However, this does not mean that the individual criteria are also balanced. Depending on the data situation, this cannot be achieved mathematically at all. However, you receive areas that take at least some account of different objectives (e.g. area size and turnover).