FacilityLocations Moves Out of Public Beta with Big Enhancements to User Experience

Over the last 6 months we have been working hard to bring FacilityLocations out of public "beta" mode. In doing so we have ironed some initial developmental wrinkles and bugs in an effort to build an intuitive, fast and reliable experience for the user as they research locations for their expanding or re-locating business on FacilityLocations.

There is a long laundry list of bugs and enhancements that have been addressed over the last few months. A few key enhancements will strongly impact the user experience, enhancing the ability of a user to easily navigate maps and research potential locations...

• Map Speed: We have supercharged the map applications that are featured on regional landing pages and Select Site location profile pages. Maps now load much faster when a regional or Select Site location profile page is requested and, panning, zooming and navigating our maps has become a much more fluid and seamless experience.

• Demographic Reports Download Speed: One of the coolest features of FacilityLocations is the ability to generate radius demographic reports for Select Site locations using the map tools on each Site Site's profile page. But, no one wants to wait around for a long time while the reports generate. Because reports are generated on the fly based on a users exact focal point and radius distance request, and the behind-the-scenes process that goes on when a report is requested is quite complicated (requests and calculations are made between a few different background applications and servers), it has been challenge to create a tool that is powerful enough to give you a fast and accurate demographics report....But, we've got it working pretty darn good now. Reports are now fully and accurately generated in well under a minute (and in less then 20 seconds typically). Stay tuned for a future in-depth post explaining how the radius demographics tool works...

• Tab Filters on State/Province Page Maps: We have updated the filters on our state and province maps so that they can be easily minimized to enlarge the map area. The layout has been simplified so the user can intuitively turn data layers on and off and easily identify correlating map markers and data layers.

Old Layout

New Layout

New Layout (filters collapsed)

Our number one priority is to bring an easy-to-use yet powerful resource to our users. Stay tuned for upcoming blog post tutorials discussing how our users (business owners and executives) can best leverage FacilityLocations to research and find locations for your re-locating or expanding business. Meanwhile, please use the "feedback" tab positioned in the left margin of all FacilityLocations pages to offer suggestions or ask questions about FacilityLocations.