Map property information
The railway company owns two properties that are up for sale. To market these rail-adjacent properties to prospective buyers, the real estate manager has prepared a spreadsheet containing information and important characteristics of the properties. In this section, you will import this spreadsheet and plot the properties on the map in ArcGIS Business Analyst. Once the properties and their characteristics are on the map, the real estate manager can use Business Analyst to generate marketing materials.
Create a project
Projects are the way Business Analyst organizes and groups together relevant content. For this project, you'll use site data prepared beforehand by the real estate manager. This data will be added to your project and stored in the project pane.
- 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 Rail Industry Real Estate 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. Before you continue, you'll set the data source. Business Analyst includes multiple country-specific data sources. In this tutorial, you're analyzing locations in the United States, so you'll set the data source to one that uses appropriate data.
- On the ribbon, confirm Data source is set to USA (Esri 2025) (or a more recent year if available).
Note:
If your data source is different, click the Data source drop-down button. In the list of data sources, click USA and, if necessary, select the most recent data source.
Add data
Next, you'll add property information to your project using a spreadsheet containing the properties' characteristics.
- Download Rail Owned Properties.zip.
- Unzip the data to a location of your choosing, such as your Documents folder.
The Rail Owned Properties folder contains three items: a Microsoft Excel file with information about the properties and two images.
- On the ribbon, click Add data and choose Import file.
The Import file pane appears.
- For Select a file to import, click Browse. Browse to the extracted Rail Owned Properties folder and double-click Rail Owned Properties.xlsx.
- Click Import.
Once the data loads, you're prompted to choose the type of data being imported: point locations or geographic boundaries. The properties are point locations.
- For Select the type of data being imported, confirm Point locations is selected. Click Next.
Next, you'll select the fields in the file that match the property locations on the map.
- Under And / or, ensure the Latitude and Longitude fields match the Latitude and Longitude columns.
- Click View data table.
The table pane appears. It shows information for two sites named Beaumont Hub and Santa Ana Depot and includes qualitative description, zoning information, utilities providers, and nearby features such as interstates.
- In the Import file pane, click Hide data table. Click Next.
The map zooms to Southern California. Points corresponding to the property locations are added to the map. In the Import file pane, you can choose how the points are styled. For now, you'll use the default style.
- In the Import file pane, click Next.
- For Save and name the new layer, choose Create and save sites for all points.
Sites are used for analysis. To analyze a site's demographics, it must encompass an area, not only a point. You have options for creating areas around your points. You'll create drive-time areas, which determine the area in which it is possible to drive from a location within a specified amount of time. Using drive-time areas will allow you to analyze the demographic information close to your sites.
- Click Drive time. For Time, type 10, 20, and 30 minutes.
Drive-time areas for each of these times will be created as a site. By using more than one time, you can compare the drive-time areas using the infographics you'll create later.
- For New layer name, type California Rail Owned Properties.
- Click Save.
The two properties are saved as sites. Each site has three drive-time areas.
On the map, red areas are 10-minute drive-time areas, green areas are 20-minute drive-time areas, and blue areas are 30-minute drive-time areas.
- In the Import file pane, click I'm done.
You have mapped information about two properties up for sale. You also created sites with 10-, 20-, and 30-minute drive-time areas for future analysis. Next, you'll use infographics to create a polished property flyer and develop marketing materials for each site.
Create infographics
With infographics, you'll create marketing materials for each site. These materials will include property flyers for the sites and demographic and labor force information to help market the properties to specific industries.
Create property flyers
Now that the properties for sale are on the map, you'll use the extra information included in the spreadsheet and demographic details included with Business Analyst to make property flyers.
- On the map, click the Santa Ana Depot site (the westernmost site) to open its pop-up. Click Add photo.
The site details pane appears. This pane shows information about the site, including its name, address, and other attributes in the file you uploaded.
- In the site details pane, click Add photo.
- Browse to the extracted Rail Owned Properties folder and double-click the Santa Ana Depot image file.
The image is uploaded and displayed in the site details pane.
- Close the Santa Ana Depot pop-up.
- On the map, click the Beaumont Hub site. In its pop-up, click Add photo.
- In the site details pane, click Add photo. Upload the Beaumont Hub image file from the Rail Owned Properties folder.
Now that both of your sites have photos associated with them, you'll create a property flyer for each.
- In the Beaumont Hub pop-up, click Infographics.
A default infographic runs for the site. Depending on your organizational settings, your default infographic may vary. On the ribbon, the name of the current infographic template is displayed. You'll ensure the default template is set to Property Details.
- For Infographic, click the drop-down menu.
- Search for Property Details. Next to the Property Details template, click the Options button and chooseMake default.
The Property Details template is now your default infographic and is automatically generated. The infographic is populated by your site information (including the photo and information from the data table) and key demographic information about the area. This infographic shows statistics for the 10-minute drive time you calculated.
Note:
The data used to create infographics is updated periodically, so the values and charts in your infographic may differ from the example images.
- Explore the interactive elements of the infographic.
You can zoom and pan the map by moving the pointer over the map panel, page through and filter site details, and point to the elements for more information.
- Close the infographic.
Run comparison infographics
You can use infographics to compare sites side-by-side, which can be useful when marketing the qualities of two properties against each other or when pitching a property to a particular industry. First, you'll run a basic comparison between the two properties. Then, you'll run a few more comparison infographics to look at specific features of the properties.
- On the map, click the Santa Ana Depot site to open its pop-up. Click Infographics.
Your default infographic, Property Details, runs for the buffer area 10 minutes around the Santa Ana site.
- On the ribbon, click 10 minutes and choose Add sites to compare.
The Select Site window appears.
- Click the Currently on map tab. Choose the Beaumont Hub site.
- Click Apply.
The Beaumont Hub site is added to the infographic menu.
- On the ribbon, click 10 minutes to view the drop-down menu.
The two sites with their three buffers now appear in the menu.
- In the drop-down menu, turn on the Side by side comparison toggle button.
A side-by-side comparison infographic appears, showing site details for each of the buffers for both sites. The sites are arranged in six columns, displaying information and demographics for the 10-, 20-, and 30-minute buffer drive times for both sites.
The infographic summarizes some key information that will be useful to potential buyers and site users. Creating a benchmark allows you to compare differences in key variables.
- For the Santa Ana Depot site, next to the 10 minutes header, click the options button and choose Make benchmark.
The information in the Key Demographic Facts section is now listed with how each value compares to the benchmark.
The site will need a skilled workforce and large labor pool to draw from. Workers prefer short commutes to work, so well-paid job opportunities close to where they live will be attractive. Median household income provides a way to compare markets, calculate per-hour wages, and income expectations. There is a similarity in residential and daytime populations between the two sites within the 10-minute drive time, but significant differences at 20 minutes and beyond.
- Close the infographic.
You'll create another comparison infographic to examine the labor profile of the regions surrounding each property. Examining which job sectors are most popular in the area can help the real estate manager, and the potential buyer, understand which industries might want to develop this property. You'll run gallery infographics. First, you must enable them in the application preferences.
- On the ribbon, click the My preferences button.
- In the Preferences window, expand Reports and Infographics. Click Run infographics.
- Ensure Gallery infographics is checked.
- Click Save and close.
Next, you'll run the infographic for a site.
- On the map, in the Santa Ana Depot site pop-up, click Infographics.
- For Infographic, click the drop-down menu. Search for Civilian Labor and click Civilian Labor Force Profile.
The Civilian Labor Force Profile infographic runs for your site.
- On the infographic ribbon, click 10 minutes and choose Add sites to compare. Add the Beaumont Hub site.
- Click 10 minutes and turn on Side by side comparison.
Infographics for the drive-time areas of both sites are displayed.
The civilian labor force participation shows significant differences between the two sites. Within the 20-minute drive-time areas, Beaumont's blue-collar jobs represent a lower percentage of all occupation employment compared to Santa Ana. Service industry employment rates are similar. Labor force participation is lower for Beaumont within the 20-minute drive-time area, suggesting that there may be a pool of workers not in the labor force, which is confirmed by the unemployment rate differences.
Exploring the occupations in more detail using the job types charts, transportation workers are the sixth-largest segment in Beaumont compared to Santa Ana, while manufacturing is fourth in both markets. The infographics identify differences in worker experience, supply, and demand, which may also lead to differences in hourly wage expectations and worker availability between the two sites if the potential use is as a transportation hub or manufacturing site.
In this tutorial, you used Business Analyst to create infographics using site information from a spreadsheet. Using comparison analysis and benchmarks, you can explore and examine multiple possible use cases for the site, understand the pros and cons of each location, and gain more contextual knowledge about the labor pools and market characteristics that support the sites.
You can find more tutorials in the tutorial gallery.
