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CONGRATULATIONS!
In minutes, you have calculated driving directions, maps and
mileages for several routes. As you can see, PC Miler is fast and easy to use.
Now that you have completed the basic Guided Tour, continue
on to Import Your Own Custom Places and Change the Trip Parameters
to take a look at some additional features of PC Miler!
Change the Trip Parameters
NOTE: Do not change trip parameters the first time you
take the Guided Tour, EXCEPT WHEN PROMPTED. Changed parameters alter generated
routes and calculations, and may make the tour hard to follow. Parameters should
only be adjusted once you are familiar with the basic operations of PC Miler.
The routes that you generated in the Guided Tour were mostly
calculated using default trip parameters. However, you can choose from a variety
of criteria that will give your routes much more flexibility and efficiency.
Please take this opportunity to fully examine the options listed below. We 16
Take a Guided Tour Through PC Miler 22 suggest that you generate some sample
routes with modified parameters, so that you can see for yourself how these
changes will affect driving directions and calculations.
To change a trip’s parameters, first click on the Options
button in the route entry window. Then click on the appropriate tab (General
Options, Cost/Time, Vehicle Dimensions, or Road Speeds).
If your copy of PC Miler has the PC Miler Tolls and/or
PC Miler HazMat module(s) installed, two other tabs will be active: Tolls
and HazMat.
General Options:
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Assign your trip a name by typing it in the Route Name
field.
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Change the route type by selecting Practical or
Shortest. Either of these route types can be combined with Toll
Discouraged and\or National Network or 53' Trailer. (Note
that National Network and 53’ Trailer routes are mutually exclusive; you
must pick one or the other.)
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Activate routing between countries by checking Borders
Open, or keep routing within a country by deselecting it.
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As you have already seen in the Tour, clicking on Use
Custom Roads tells PC Miler to include avoid and favor preferences in
route calculations. (Open the Custom Roads Manager from the Tools menu to
view all the currently designated preferences.)
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Designate how the order of states appears in the
State/Country Distance report by selecting Alphabetical or Route.
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Change the distance calculations by selecting Miles
or Km.
Cost and Time:
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Under Stop Costs, change a trip leg from loaded to empty
by clicking the mouse on the check box next to Loaded.
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Assign costs per stop by typing an amount in the
$/Stop field, and designate stop time by typing stop duration in the
Hours/Stop field. If the stop is counted as on-duty, check the On-
Duty check box.
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Designate stop time by typing stop duration in the
Hours/Stop field.
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Specify the stop time by selecting On-Duty with
the mouse, and type in the number of driving hours allowed before a break is
required. (This facilitates drivers’ compliance with DOT Hours of Service
Regulations.)
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Type in the length of the break time in the for _____
hours field. (This facilitates drivers’ compliance with DOT Hours of
Service Regulations.)
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Add a Border Wait time for expected delays at
international borders.
Vehicle Dimensions:
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Enter vehicle dimensions to generate routing that
conforms to the requirements of a vehicle’s height, length, weight and
width.
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For PC Miler Tolls users, entering the number of axles
along with vehicle weight may increase the overall accuracy of toll cost
reporting.
Road Speeds:
Tolls:
HazMat:
Click OK in the Options dialog to save any changes you
make. Cancel will close the dialog without saving changes. To generate a
route with new parameters, click on the Run button in the route entry
window.
To change PC Miler’s defaults for these parameters,
select Default Options… from the Route menu.
Import Your Own Custom Places
NOTE: For a more detailed description of this process, see
“Importing Sets of Custom Places” in the PC Miler User’s Guide or on-line
Help.
Earlier in the Guided Tour, you learned how to create your
own custom places in PC Miler. Using the Import Custom Place Wizard, you can
also import custom places from a delimited text file or a Microsoft® Excel®
file. For importing, an Excel file must be saved in Excel Version 4 (or
earlier) format. If you have such a file available, let’s import a set of
custom places:
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Select Import Custom Places from the Tools menu.
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In the Open file dialog box that appears, select
the file that contains your custom place data. (Don’t forget to specify the
type of file you are importing in the Files of type field.)
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The Geocode File window will appear. Your data should
appear in the table at the bottom of the screen. If the first row of data is
comprised of column headings rather than custom place information, check off
First row contains column headings.
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If the data in your file was separated by a delimiter,
specify in the Delimiter area whether it was by Tab, Comma,
Semicolon, or Space.
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Now you will label each of the columns that contain data,
so that PC Miler can identify what type of information is there. With your
left mouse button, click on the heading labeled “Skip” above each data
column. Select the proper category for each column heading from the list
that appears. You must provide at least a Name column and a location (either
City and State, Lat\Long, or ZIP).
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Click on the Options button to open the Geocoding
Options window. Under Records to Process, choose “Selected”, and
enter “1 to 50” in the two fields beside it (its okay if you have fewer than
50 places in your file). Then click OK at the bottom of this window.
You will be returned to the Geocode File window.
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You have prepared your file for PC Miler to read and
compare with its own database, so click OK in the Geocode File
window. The Wizard will begin to process your data.
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As your custom place information is being processed, a
Results window is visible. This window displays the data matching as it
progresses. The statistics are updated in real-time. They tell you if your
custom places were matched with a location in the PC Miler database or not,
and if the matches were exact or inexact.
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When processing is finished, an expanded Results dialog
appears that tells you how many and which records were matched with the
database.
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Next to Add selected places to near the bottom of
the dialog, check both Custom Place Manager and Route Entry Window.
When both are selected, your custom places will be sent to the Custom Place
Manager, and will also be added to a route entry window as a set of stops on
a route.
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Click on the Options button to activate the Custom Place
Manager Options dialog box. Under Adding places to route entry window,
select Create a new window.
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To finish importing your custom places into PC Miler,
click Add. In this case, the custom places that will be imported will
be the ones marked as “Accepted” -- database matches, labeled with a “+”.
(This window also allows you to alter each data record, and change the
places to be added to PC Miler. But to keep this tour simple, we’ll only add
Accepted stops. See your PC Miler User’s Guide for more information.)
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The Custom Place Manager will appear with your imported
places now displayed as custom places. Click OK to accept the
additions.
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Now that you are done importing your custom places, click
OK in the Import Custom Places Wizard to close it. You will be
returned to the PC Miler desktop. Notice that you have added a new route
entry window, with your imported places listed as stops! If you like, you
can run a route.
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