Excel or Access to MAP

[amberh]

Michael, If you want some help with the online for anyone in here on some features in Map give me a holler. Seeing my propsal for AU got turned down I can help out in here as needed.
Hello Murph,
I too am new to Map. I work in telecommunications. We have pole data in an excel file. I would like to create a block for poles and populate pole data attributes from the excel file (i.e. pole height, x,y,z coordinates, pole owner, pole attachments). This is not possible to do in Regular Autocad, but I am told it is possible to attach data from Excel in Map. If you could please elaborate or consider any site that may be of use for this delima, I would greatly appreciate it.
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Thanks in advance, Best Regards,
Amber H.

[MHultgren]

Amber,
I would post a question to the Lisp or VBA programming guilds concerning the interfacing with Excel to populate block attributes. There are some very savvy programmers out there that can do wonders with the COM in interfacing with MS Office. I have one routine that creates a Journal entry every time I open a drawing in ACAD, MAP or LDT. Helps with the timecards tremendously. Just a thought. It is usually easier for users to run a Lisp routine than to teach them how to create a query or even open a saved one and run it sometimes.

[mjfarrell]

Amber,

For ease of use, I would push that Excel data into Access or similar ODBC
database application, then create a link template using the unique ID of each pole number.
This will prevent you from needing a block with attributes, as the point symbol
for the pole could be a point or a circle as shown, and the text that you want to place as
attributes could simply be label text acquired via a query with alter properties set to
extract whatever data you want from the database to serve as labels for the poles in that
pole MAP that you might make with MAP.
We used a similar function for the City of Danville, Virginia earlier this year.
If you would like I think I might still have that data to send as an example for you to
play with.

[mjfarrell]

I would suggest the following procedure.
Either create an attribute or an object data field
for Pole number.
Then drag the data source into MAP workspace
to attach the database.
Then create the Link Template to point to that data source
and use the Pole Number filed as the Key Field.
Then select Generate Links, and use From Block
or from Object Data, ensure that you select the
verification option of DATA must exist, not the
No verification, or ADD data option.
You should then be able to select all of the Pole blocks
and for each a unique link to the database will be created.
This file will then become your source file from which to conduct your
queries, and or create node and link topologies to analyze your network.