Originally the stops are in a comma delimted txt file in the proper order with a numeric identifier at the front of the name. i.e. 123 Stop Name.
After importing and conversion to stops, the stops are then out of order. S&T orders them by some black magic method. I can then manually sort them in the route stop list but as the list is 100 or more stops long and there are many separate lists, this is cumbersome. After manually sorting, the route is saved as an est file.
If there was a utility to sort the stops in an est file by the stop name, that would work fine. Or if there was a way to keep S&T from re-ordering that would be fine too.
I've played with using
Mappoint and a 3rd party add in (both in free trial mode). Mappoint does the same thing that S&T does but the 3rd party add in can sort them back to the original order. Only problem is that Mappoint is much more expensive plus the cost of the 3rd party utility. And we have to have numerous copies for different people around the country so the cost is multiplied. Not sure if Mappont 2009 will have a different behavior or not.
Hope this explains our issue better. Thanks.