Visio and Mapping

[stallsolutions]

I'm not as tech savvy as most on here, but I needed some help/questions answered and Visio "Help" wasn't so much help... I hope this can get me closer to the answers I seek.

I'm looking for a program that can take data that's in an Excel file and put it into a map. In the perfect world, I would like to somehow take a blueprint type graphic and input it into Visio.

Example: vendors at a trade show

Take map of facility and either make it in Visio or input it somehow
Vendor A makes a reservation for the trade show and they're assigned booths 1, 2 and 3.
Take the reservation from a list in Excel and have it label booth 1, 2 and 3 with Vendor A.

Vendor B makes a reservation for booths 4, 5, 6 and 7.
Take that reservation from Excel and label in Visio booths 4, 5, 6 and 7 with Vendor B.

If that's not possible, is it possible to manually assign vendor spots? (This is actually for equine stalling at competitions but most aren't familiar with that so I used vendors as an example)

Thanks so much!

[Nikolay]

I had a chance to participate this year in a project that can import OpenStreetMap (https://www.openstreetmap.org/) map to Visio.
The OSM level of details differs from one area of the world to another, but in some regions it can be detailed to the extent of having every single booth, bench, and tree on the map.

Not exactly of production quality (yet?), but it should do the job of importing a fragment of OSM map in a Visio drawing. Check it out here:
https://github.com/Obsidian-pb/OSM2Visio

It can import OSM map with data (such as building numbers, etc)
Then you can prepare Excel file and with one column identifying those booths, and the other columns providing the data you want to associate with those (free/occupied, booth number, etc).
But maybe you don't care about the map correctness (i.e. you don't care if the booth size is 2m or 2.1m), but just about the logic?

I would say the easiest you hire a programmer to do some coding here.
Technically, the problem is definitely solvable. You can have an input of a map of booths and an Excel file, and then "control" the booths from Excel.

By "solvable" I mean the old anecdote about mathematician, physicist and chemist students in a dormitory.
So, there is a fire case in the dormitory at night. The chemist runs out, quickly creates lots of foam, the fire is gone, problem solved, he goes to sleep.
The next night, there is a fire again. The physicist runs out, quickly starts a counter-fire, the fire is gone, the guy goes to sleep.
Now again, the third night, a fire case, and the mathematician runs out.
He sees a box with sand and a shovel next to it, a fire hydrant, and fire extinguisher next to it.  Well, the problem is definitely solvable, he thinks. And goes to sleep