Get started with ArcGIS Business Analyst Web App
Create a project
To start, you'll create a project in Business Analyst Web App. Projects are collections of content, such as maps, data, and reports.
- Go to Business Analyst Web App.
- If you are not signed in, click Sign In. Sign in with your ArcGIS organizational account.
Note:
If you don't have an organizational account, see options for software access.
Your account must be licensed to use Business Analyst Web App. If you are the administrator of your organization, you can assign yourself a license. Otherwise, you'll need to contact your administrator for permission.
- If necessary, close the Welcome or What's new in Business Analyst window.
- On the ribbon, confirm the Home tab is selected.
- Click New project.
- In the Create project window, for Project name, type Possible Restaurant Locations and add your name or initials.
Note:
Two projects with the same name can't exist in the same ArcGIS organization. Adding your name or initials to the project name ensures it is unique.
- Click Create.
A message explains that the project is being created. When it finishes, a confirmation message appears.
- In the confirmation message, check Open new projects as soon as they are created and click OK.
Note:
Alternatively, you can open your project by closing the confirmation window and finding the project under the Projects tab on the Home page. Point to the project and click Open project to open it.
The project appears.
Note:
Depending on your organization's settings, the default extent and appearance of your project may differ from the example image.
Set the data source
Business Analyst includes multiple country-specific data sources. In this tutorial, you're analyzing locations in Canada, so you'll set the data source to one that uses Canadian data.
- On the ribbon, click the Data source button.
Note:
Your default data source may differ from the example image.
- In the menu, for Enter country or region, type Canada and press Enter.
- In the list of search results, click Canada.
The data source updates to a Canadian data source. The map extent changes to show Canada.
Note:
Some countries, such as the United States, have multiple data sources. For more information, see Demographic data sources. For countries with multiple data sources, you can choose from all available data sources by clicking the Click for data source selections button next to the country name in the data source menu.
Create sites
In this tutorial, you're deciding between two potential locations for the cafe you plan to open. You'll add these locations to your project as sites. Sites display locations on the map and can be used for analysis.
Note:
This workflow uses real-world data and makes reference to existing leased locations. The workflow is for tutorial purposes only and does not reflect any plans, inside knowledge, business relationships, or business recommendations.
- In the Enter an address or coordinates search bar, type 354 Elgin St Ottawa.
- Press Enter.
The map navigates to the address and adds a pin to mark its location.
- In the pin's pop-up, click Create site.
For the purposes of analysis, sites must be polygons covering an area, rather than points that cover only a specific spot. To make a site from a point, like the Elgin Street address, you can create rings, drive-time areas, or walk-time areas around it.
Rings are circles placed around the point at specified distances, while drive-time and walk-time areas use traffic and navigation data to determine the area where someone can drive or walk to a location within a specified time. The area you create for a site is the area you'll analyze later, so it's important to think about what's most relevant to your particular site when choosing.
You plan for your cafe to cater to workers during their breaks. It's likely most of your customers will come on foot rather than by car, especially because this location is near the relatively dense downtown, where parking can be limited. Based on these considerations, you'll create a 15-minute walk-time area to analyze.
- Click the Walk time tab. For Time, delete the 5 and 10 options and confirm 15 remains.
Note:
By default, walk-time areas assume a walking speed of 5 kilometers per hour.
- Click Apply.
A 15-minute walk-time area is added to the map around your site. The site is now saved to your project and can be used for analysis and reports.
Next, you'll add a site for the second area under consideration.
- In the search bar, clear the existing text. Type 560 Rideau St Ottawa and press Enter.
This location is northeast of the first, in a different part of the city.
- In the Rideau Street pin's pop-up, click Create site.
- Click the Walk time tab. For Time, delete the 5 and 10 options and confirm 15 remains.
- Click Apply.
The second site is created.
- Close the pop-ups for both sites. Pan and zoom the map so you can see both sites.
Tip:
Pan the map by clicking and dragging it. Zoom using your mouse scroll wheel.
Neither site's walk-time area overlaps with the other, so the customer base for each location is unique.
When you created the sites, they were also added to the project pane, which is open by default.
- In the project pane, expand My point locations.
You can hide each site on the map by unchecking it. By clicking the options (three dots) button for each site, you can access more options, including zooming to, renaming, or editing the site. It's good to be familiar with the project pane, as it helps you manage the data on the map.
Create a color-coded map
Next, you'll create a color-coded map of important demographic information to help decide which location is better for your business. Color-coded maps visualize data using color. One of their advantages is that they can be used to map the relationship between two demographic variables.
Which demographic variables are most important to your business? Because you've already identified that you expect your customers to be mainly workers on break, you'll map total daytime population. Daytime population is the number of people in an area during the day, which includes people who commute into the area for work. You'll also map the average amount that people in the area spend on restaurant meals.
- On the ribbon, click Create maps and choose Color-coded maps.
The Color-coded maps pane appears. First, you'll choose the geography for your color-coded map. By default, the geography is all of Canada, but you're only interested in your sites.
- Expand Geography. For Area of interest, click Canada and choose Your sites.
- In the Add sites window, check the boxes for both sites. Click Apply.
The sites are added as the geography to be analyzed.
The other Geography parameter is the level of detail, which determines the geographic units that will be mapped. These units are typically political subdivisions (such as states or provinces) or census areas. The default level of detail for your analysis is set to dissemination areas. Dissemination areas are the smallest geographic area for which census data is published in Canada.
Note:
The available levels of detail depend on your data source. Using a different country's data source will enable levels of detail appropriate to that country.
Next, you'll add the data variables to the map.
- Under Variables, on the Popular tab, click Total Daytime Population.
The map updates. It shows dissemination areas within or touching your sites, color-coded based on total daytime population. Areas with higher daytime populations have darker colors. A Results pane also appears, showing a statistical breakdown of the mapped area.
You can explore the map to find the areas with the highest daytime population, or you can find them using the information in the Results pane.
- In the Results pane, in the Top 5 section, point to the bar with the highest daytime population.
Note:
Demographic data is updated frequently. Your results may differ from the example images.
On the map, the corresponding dissemination area is highlighted. It's located in the northern part of the Elgin Street site. Several other areas with high daytime population are nearby.
Tip:
Data that shows the total number of something, such as population, is best displayed with proportional (size-based) symbols, rather than color. You can update the map's style in the Style section of the Color-coded maps pane. Because you plan to map more variables, you won't change the style yet.
Next, you'll add another variable to map the average amount spent on restaurant meals in each area.
- In the Color-coded maps pane, under Variables, click Add variables.
The Data browser window appears. This window contains the thousands of variables for your data source, organized by category.
- Under Search, type Restaurant and press Enter.
A large number of relevant variables are returned. Many of these variables also have multiple calculation types available, such as count, percentage, average, or index.
It's necessary to choose the calculation type before choosing the variable. For your analysis, you'll look at average household spending on restaurant meals. You're choosing average instead of count because the count will be heavily influenced by total population (areas with more people usually spend more in total). You're already mapping population, so you don't want your second variable to overlap with it. Averages, on the other hand, aren't influenced by population.
- For 2024 Restaurant Meals (or a more recent year if available), click Average.
Note:
To learn more about a variable, point to the information button next to the variable's calculation types.
- Click the 2024 Restaurant Meals variable.
The map updates to display both variables on the map. A color-coded map with two variables is also called a bivariate map. Bivariate maps display the relationship between two variables and help show patterns in the data.
You'll change the map's style to better understand the relationship between the variables.
- In the Color-coded maps pane, under Style, click Color & Size and choose Relationship.
The map updates to use a grid color ramp. Each color represents a different relationship between the two variables. By default, the map uses a 4x4 color grid, which may be difficult to interpret due to the large number of different colors. You'll use a simpler color grid.
- Click Show style options.
- In the Style options pane, for Grid size, click 2x2.
Now, the map is color-coded using a total of four colors. You also have the option to change the grid colors.
- For Grid colors, choose the pink-purple-blue grid (the third option in the list).
- Close the Style options pane. In the Color-coded maps pane, scroll to the Legend section.
The legend explains what each color on the map means. Areas with both a high daytime population and high average restaurant meal spending are represented with a dark purple color, while areas with low daytime population and low restaurant spending are light blue. Darker blue areas have a low daytime population but high average spending on restaurants.
Tip:
To see more of the map, you can hide the Results pane by clicking the Collapse button in the upper right corner of the pane.
Based on the map, the only areas that have high values for both variables are in the Elgin Street site. The Elgin Street site also has more areas with high restaurant spending, even if those areas don't have high daytime population. So far, the Elgin Street site seems like the better location for your business.
Before you continue, you'll save the color-coded map as a layer so you can refer to it again later or change the variables being mapped.
- At the bottom of the Color-coded maps pane, click Save layer. In the Save layer window, change the layer name to Daytime Population and Restaurant Spending and click OK.
The layer is saved. You can access it in the project pane.
Tip:
To access the project pane, click the button on the ribbon with the name of your project (in this case, Possible Restaurant Locations).
Run an infographic
So far, you've mapped demographic information and data about spending habits in the area around each potential location. This data is useful, but there are more factors to consider. For instance, how many competitor businesses are in each area?
To answer that question, you'll run an infographic to learn more about the number of eating places in each site. Infographics show key information about an area in a visually appealing, easy-to-read way that can also be presented to others. Business Analyst comes with infographic templates on a variety of topics that can be run with minimal setup.
Note:
Infographics are only one way you can use Business Analyst to investigate business competitors in an area. For a more in-depth analysis that compares competitors in two areas, try the tutorial Identify retail gaps with void analysis. To map competitors more generally, try Use demographic data to study regional markets.
- On the map, click the Elgin Street pin.
The site's pop-up menu appears. This menu contains many options for working with sites.
- Click Infographics.
The infographic player appears, showing your project's default infographic template. The default template is likely the Key Facts template, which provides basic information about the population, such as the number of households and median household income. This information could be useful, but you'll change the template to one more specific to your business.
- On the ribbon, click the Infographic drop-down menu.
A list of available infographic templates appears.
- Click the Eating Places in Canada infographic.
Tip:
You can point to the preview button next to the infographic name to see a preview of the infographic before you run it. Point to the information button to learn more about the infographic's data sources.
The infographic runs. It provides an overview of the number of different types of restaurants in the area, as well as a breakdown of total and average food spending data for several types of meals.
Based on the infographic, the Elgin Street location would compete against 11 coffee shops. However, the daytime population (73,931) is significantly higher than the total population (29,230), indicating a large commuting workforce (your business's target demographic).
- Click the Next page button.
The second page of the infographic lists and maps the other eating places in the area.
Tip:
You can scroll through the full list of locations using the left and right arrows on either side of the list.
Next, you'll compare the Elgin Street site to the Rideau Street site using the same infographic.
- On the ribbon, next to Site, click the name of the site.
- In the Select Site window, click the Rideau Street site.
The infographic runs for the Rideau Street site. This location has less competition, with only three coffee shops. However, the daytime population (26,574) is less than the total population (27,496), indicating that people actually commute away from the area during the day. This pattern suggests the site would have significantly fewer commuter workers who would take coffee breaks during the day. There is also less spending on food in this site, including less spending on snacks and drinks, your cafe's primary focus.
Ultimately, it's likely that the Elgin Street location would be the better option for your new cafe than the Rideau Street site. Though it's true that there is more competition, there is also a much larger daytime population that is likely to go to your business. Your color-coded map also indicated more areas near the Elgin Street location with high average spending on meals, which the infographic supported.
Tip:
If you want to save these infographics to show others, on the ribbon, click the Export infographic button. You can export the infographic as a PDF, image, HTML document, or Microsoft Excel file.
- Click the Close button.
The infographic closes and you return to your map. It's not necessary to save your project in Business Analyst Web App; projects are saved automatically.
Tip:
If you want to share the results of your project, on the ribbon, click Share results. There are options to share your map and data as a PDF or image, web map, dashboard, or an ArcGIS StoryMaps story.
In this tutorial, you learned the basics of Business Analyst Web App. You created a project, set your data source, and added sites. Then, you compared the sites with a color-coded map and infographics. Your results indicate one of the two sites, the one on Elgin Street, would be a better choice to open your new cafe.
This tutorial covered only some of the basic analysis you can perform with Business Analyst. For your next steps, try some of the following tutorials:
- To learn more advanced suitability analysis for determining where to expand a business, try Expand a small business.
- To learn how to create a custom infographic with information tailored to your needs, try Use infographics to understand total addressable market.
- To learn how Business Analyst can be used for socioeconomic workflows, try Find suitable areas for new affordable housing.
- To learn about how you can use an AI assistant to improve your Business Analyst workflows, try Use an AI assistant to explore the pickleball market.
You can find more tutorials in the tutorial gallery.
