The 2.6 release of ArcGIS Pro featured a variety of new tools and enhancements in the Business Analyst extension. These July 2020 updates cover a range of popular toolsets, allowing you to deepen your analyses and streamline your workflows. Whether you are assessing your current business practices or envisioning new opportunities, ArcGIS Business Analyst for ArcGIS Pro 2.6 brings markets, territories, and customers into clearer focus. Read on for a recap of the July 2020 Business Analyst for ArcGIS Pro updates.
Target Marketing enhancements
Both the Target Marketing wizard and the Target Marketing toolset offer enhanced experiences in Business Analyst for ArcGIS Pro 2.6. In the wizard, customer profiles can now include fields that measure volume—such as sales per customer, or sales per Tapestry segment. You can also associate customer layers with a specific target profile, define market areas using any polygon layer, and customize targets using Four Quadrant Analysis. The Target Marketing toolset includes eight new tools.
For more information about Target Marketing enhancements, check out the video Target Marketing Enhancements in ArcGIS Pro 2.6. To read the blog article about these enhancements, visit Target Marketing Enhancements in ArcGIS Business Analyst Pro.
New tool in the Trade Areas toolset: Remove Overlap
When creating or working with proximate trade areas, you will find that boundaries often overlap. Business Analyst for ArcGIS Pro 2.6 provides a resolution for this issue: the Remove Overlap tool. After generating trade areas based on thresholds rings or drive times, you can run Remove Overlap to create boundaries that assign each site its own discrete trade area. The shape of the area borders depends on the way you created the trade areas, and whether you selected the Grid or Thiessen method in the tool—these methods, respectively, create either natural or straight-line divisions between areas. The Grid and Thiessen methods, popular features in ArcMap, have been enhanced with new algorithms that improve accuracy.
For more information about the Remove Overlap tool, check out the video Use the Remove Overlap Geoprocessing Tool in ArcGIS Pro 2.6. To read the blog article about this new tool, visit Remove Overlap in ArcGIS Business Analyst Pro.
Territory Design improvements
The Territory Design experience has improved with Business Analyst for ArcGIS Pro 2.6. The Territory Level Settings dialog box (available in the Territory Design ribbon) makes it easier than ever to adjust settings and parameters in territories. You can also use a new tool, Generate Territory Report, to examine a territory solution or compare two territory solutions. In addition, the 2.6 release improves boundary mask capabilities and consistency when running the Territory Design tool multiple times. Territory Design consistency is particularly useful, as anyone who has presented or live-demoed their analyses can attest. Assigning your analysis a random number generator seed allows you to rerun your analysis multiple times and achieve the same result.
For more information about Territory Design, check out the video Territory Design Enhancements in ArcGIS Pro 2.6. To read the blog article about these improvements, visit Reporting and Enhancements for Territory Design.
Customer Derived Trade Area tool improvements
With Business Analyst for ArcGIS Pro 2.6, the parameter options for creating customer-derived trade areas have increased. You are familiar with the previous techniques available in the Customer Derived Trade Areas tool: simple, amoeba, detailed, and detailed with smoothing. Now you can also create trade areas based on customer-derived threshold rings or drive times. Your trade area boundaries expand until they reach a specific amount of customers or sales, generating rings or drive-time polygons for your analysis.
For more information about the Customer Derived Trade Areas tool, check out the video Using Generate Customer Derived Trade Area Methods in ArcGIS Pro. To read the blog article about these tool improvements, visit Customer Derived Trade Areas: Now with threshold methods.
New tool in the Trade Areas toolset: Assign Customers by Distance
The 2.6 release of Business Analyst for ArcGIS Pro provides greater opportunity to refine and customize trade areas. The new Assign Customers by Distance tool lets you associate individual customers with their closest store, increasing the granularity of your market analysis. You can assign customers to stores using different distance types, such as drive time or walk time, and even factor time of day and direction of travel in your model.
For more information about the Assign Customers by Distance tool, check out the video Assign Customers By Distance in ArcGIS Pro 2.6. To read the blog article about this new tool, visit Assign customers by distance in Business Analyst Pro.
Custom data and variable list improvements
Statistical data collections, also known as SDCX, are more advanced than ever in Business Analyst for ArcGIS Pro 2.6. SDCX are often part of custom data workflows, which can now incorporate standard Esri data variables as well as custom parameters using the SDCX Editor. Another improvement in this release is the ability to save variable lists. Variable lists allow you to create and save unique sets of demographic variables for frequent use in your analyses.
For more information about statistical data collections and variable lists, check out the video Custom Data Enhancements in Business Analyst Pro 2.6. To read the blog article about these enhancements, visit Variable lists and improvements to custom data workflows in Business Analyst Pro.
These new tools and capabilities in ArcGIS Business Analyst are just some of the latest features in ArcGIS Pro. These new features were designed with the Business Analyst user in mind, in hopes of aiding your workflows. To contact the Business Analyst team, please reach out via email: businessanalyst@esri.com.
Additional resources
- An overview of Business Analyst
- YouTube playlist for Business Analyst
- Business Analyst help and documentation pages
- Esri global data overview
- Esri U.S. data overview
- GeoNet Community
- LinkedIn user group
Banner image courtesy of NESA by Makers on Unsplash.
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