A rep's departure or a growing account book can prompt a review of an existing territory plan. Workload can shift as accounts grow, and a territory with strong past sales may have few prospects left.
Sales ops then has to decide how much should change while customers continue working with their reps. The review affects how much work each rep has and which customer relationships they keep. You need to understand where the current plan falls short before judging what a new plan would improve.
| Builder option | What it respects | Review needed |
|---|---|---|
| Respect Previous Territories | The existing territory set as a starting point | Account moves and remaining workload differences |
| Respect Sales Rep Locations | Rep locations while balancing selected measures | Practical coverage and whether the rep sits near the center |
| Optimize with Constraints | Thresholds on selected creation variables | Whether the result meets the business priorities and workable coverage |
Save the existing territory baseline
Export the current records before making changes. Use the Export Data icon on the right of the map, select Export Entire Dataset, choose the file format and click Export Now. The available outputs include .xlsx, .tsv, .csv and Clipboard. Keep the baseline file unchanged so you have a reliable starting point for comparison.
Include each account's ID, who owns it now, its location and the measures you plan to balance. Keep an existing-territory field if it is part of your source data. Account IDs let you match the same account across files even when its name changes or several locations share a similar name.
Define the change you're trying to make. A departed rep leaves a coverage problem. A growing account book can create a workload problem. A territory with strong sales and few remaining prospects can have a problem with new business opportunities. The trigger helps you choose which measures need attention.
Two reps with the same account count may still have different amounts of work. Visit frequency, service time and travel can differ across books of the same size. Two books with the same past sales may have different chances to bring in new business. Keep past sales, the estimate of new business and the work needed for visits separate. Decide how much each should affect the plan.
Use the same reporting period across the baseline and the new plan. If workload includes recurring visits, state the period those visits cover. If opportunity is an estimate, keep its definition with the file. If one measure covers a quarter and another covers a year, the data itself can create a gap. You could end up trying to fix that gap in the map.
Choose how often to review the plan and what changes should prompt a new one. You can review the data regularly without moving accounts every time you review it. Record the reason for this rebalance with the baseline.
Open Maptive's automated territory builder
In Maptive, open Map Tools, choose Territories, and select Create Territories. Choose Auto Territory Builder, then click Continue. Select the boundary set you want to use, such as US Zip Codes, and click Continue again. Use a separately named proposal when you generate the result so you can distinguish it from the existing plan during review.
Choose what the territories should balance
Select and weight business variables
Choose Data Metrics or the available Demographic Census Data. Select at least one territory creation variable. When you select several, set their relative importance, then click Continue.
Pick fields that answer the problem you identified. A workload field can show how much effort the accounts need. An opportunity field can show how much new business they could bring in. Population may help explain a market, but it won't stand in for account opportunity unless you have a reason to use it that way.
Make sure you can compare the numbers before asking the builder to use them. Confirm that every row uses the same units and period. Check missing values separately from real zeros. If an account has no workload estimate, don't treat the blank as zero. You don't yet know how much work it needs.
Decide how much weight to give each measure. If you want customers to keep their reps but one rep has far more work, decide which goal should come first. Adding more variables won't remove the tradeoff. Two territories can offer the same chance for new business while one needs more travel because its accounts are farther apart.
Add only eligible constraints
Use Optimize with Constraints when the proposal needs thresholds on the variables selected for territory creation. Constraints can apply only to those selected variables. If the column you need is missing, return to Select Territory Creation Variables and add it first.
Treat a threshold as a business choice you can defend. There isn't one balance percentage that suits every team. Base the limit on how much work a rep can take on, the coverage you need or another clear requirement. Keep the reason with the plan.
Check whether the priorities work together. You may want every rep to have much the same chance for new business and much the same workload. If you also want few territories, check how those goals affect the plan. Review the resulting geography and measures rather than assuming the settings guarantee a usable book for every rep. Change a priority only when the business is prepared to accept that change.
Preserve the parts of the old plan that matter
Start from previous territories
Choose Respect Previous Territories when existing geography should be the starting point. This is useful when you want to correct an uneven plan while keeping customers with their reps where possible. Starting from previous territories still means you need to review which accounts moved; it doesn't guarantee that every account keeps its owner.
Before checking the proposed moves, decide which accounts need a plan for changing reps. An active negotiation, a specialist account or a long-running service arrangement may need different handling from an unworked prospect. Keep those exceptions in the assignment review so a reasonable geographic change doesn't become an unexpected customer handoff.
Check which customers keep their reps and how much the workloads still differ. If keeping an area intact leaves one rep with too much work, record that tradeoff and decide how the team will handle it. Accepted exceptions should have a reason and an owner.
Account for rep locations
Use Respect Sales Rep Locations when rep bases should guide the build. This option uses a separate rep-location map and a naming column, and the territory count comes from the rep count. Check those locations and names before relying on the result.
The builder attempts to center territories on reps while balancing the selected metrics. Inspect the output to see how that worked. A rep near the center of a shape can still have trouble reaching a road or face long trips to accounts. Use the map to identify those trips for review, then check practical travel against the team's actual working pattern.
Generate and inspect the proposal
Select the territory count and click Continue. Where the rep-location option sets the count from the rep map, confirm that it represents the intended team. Enter a group name that identifies the proposal, then click Generate Territory.
The result includes territory boundaries, a metric distribution graph and boundary metrics. Read them together. The graph helps you compare the measures you selected, while the map shows where the accounts and boundaries fall.
Compare the proposal with the baseline using the same measures. Look at each territory's workload and opportunity, then inspect the accounts that moved. A better average can leave one difficult outlier, so review the individual books as well as the overall distribution.
Use the IDs in your comparison file to count how many accounts moved. Separate moves that improve the stated objective from moves that mainly follow the new geography. Check whether a large share of one rep's relationships has shifted even when the total number of moved accounts seems modest.
When you move territory lines, you can change how much work a rep has, how much new business they could bring in and how far they drive. Customers may also need to switch reps. Decide which of those changes the plan helps with and which still need a manager's attention. Keep the baseline, proposal name and review notes together as you correct the boundaries.
Correct boundaries and approve account handoffs
Click a territory or open its three-dot menu to edit it. Edit Territory supports drawing or drag and drop. Advanced Edit supports boundary selection. Choose the method that fits the correction and mark the area you want to move.
After selecting the area, click Save. Choose Reassign the drawn area between territories, then Done, to add it to one territory and remove it from the territories it overlaps. Add the drawn area to an existing territory preserves overlaps. Use the reassignment choice when the purpose is a transfer between exclusive areas.
For a boundary-based territory, use boundary selection when you need to move whole ZIP codes. Very detailed shapes may have too many points for vertex dragging, so choose a supported editing method rather than trying to adjust every point.
If you're working with manual boundary fill groups, open Boundary Tool, select the boundary set and fill option, and choose Load Boundaries. Under Set Manual Fill, select the boundaries using the offered method, click Start, make the selection and Save, then choose Add Boundaries to Existing Fill Group and Done. Adding boundaries to that group removes them from other fill groups. This changes the geographic grouping; keep the record assignment review alongside it.
Export all the records you need for the final check. Export Filtered Data follows grouping, filters and search restrictions, while Export Data Visible on Map follows the current viewport. Check which records the export includes so you don't miss accounts outside the view.
Build the approved handoff file by account ID. Show who owns the account now, who the plan assigns it to and who will take it after approval. Add the date of the change and the reason for any exception. Do not assume that changing a map boundary has updated your customer system's owner field. Confirm each accepted move in the system the team uses for assignments.
Ask the reps who will take the accounts to check their lists. Clear up blanks and any accounts with more than one owner. Keep the final territory group and the approved file under the same version name. The handoff is ready when the team can identify who takes each account and when the change takes effect.
